CHAPTER XVII. SCANNING THE POLITICAL HORIZON.
Confound their politics!
—National Anthem.
Linton was very far from indulging that dreamy inactivity of which he spoke. Plans and schemes of various kinds occupied his thoughts too intently to admit of slumber. Indeed, his theory was, that, if a man could not dream of some happy mode of advancing his fortune, sleep was a fearful inroad upon his worldly career.
He at once hastened home to read his letters and newspapers, and so important did their intelligence seem, that he only delayed to change his dress and eat a hurried breakfast, when he repaired to the Castle, where a few minutes previously the secretary, Mr. Downie Meek, had arrived from his lodge in the Park.
“Safe once more, Meek,” said he, entering the official chamber, where, immersed in printed returns, petitions, and remonstrances, sat the busy secretary.
“Ah, Linton! you are the bien venu. We are to have another heat for the race, though I own it scarcely looks promising.”
“Particularly as you are going to carry weight,” said Linton, laughing. “It's true, I suppose, that the Irish party have joined you?”
“There was no help for it,” said the secretary, with a despondent gesture of the eyebrows; “we had no alternative save accepting the greasy voices, or go out. Some deemed the former the better course, but others remembered the story of the Brahmin, who engaged to teach the ass to speak in ten years, or else forfeit his own head.”
“And perfectly right,” interrupted Linton. “The Brahmin had only three chances in his favor. Now, your king may die too, and you have any number of asses to be got rid of.”
“Let us be serious, Tom. What are our prospects at a general election? Are the landed gentry growing afraid of the O'Gorman party, or are they still hanging back, resentful of Peel's desertion?”
“They are very conservative,—that is, they want to keep their properties and pay the least possible taxation. Be cautious, however, and you have them all your own. The Irish party being now with you, begin by some marked favor to the Protestant Church. Hear me out. This will alarm the Romanists, and cause a kind of split amongst them. Such as have, or expect to have place, will stand by you; the others will show fight. You have then an opportunity of proclaiming yourselves a strong Protestant Cabinet, and the ultras, who hate Peel, will at least affect to believe you. While the country is thus agitated, go to the elections. Your friends, amid so many unsettled opinions, cannot be expected to take pledges, or, better still, they cannot accept any, subject to various contingencies never to arise.”
“I am sorely afraid of this splitting up the forces,” said Meek, doubtfully.
“It's your true game, depend upon it,” said Linton. “These Irish allies are unwieldy—when numerous. I remember once calling on Tom Scott, the trainer, one day, and while we went through the stables I could not help remarking the fine family of boys he had. 'Yes, sir,' said Tom, modestly, 'they 're good-looking chaps, and smart ones. God Almighty keep 'em little, sir!'”
“Ah, very true,” sighed Meek; “God Almighty keep 'em little!”
“Then,” resumed Linton, “you have never played out that golden game of Irish legislation, which consists in enacting a law, and always ruling against it. Decide for the education system, but promote the men who oppose it. Condemn the public conduct of certain parties, and then let them figure as baronets, or lieutenants of counties, in the next 'Gazette,' and, to crown all, seek out every now and then some red-hot supporter of Government, and degrade him from the bench of magistrates for maladministration! This, which in England would seem rather chaotic legislation, will to Irish intelligence smack like even-handed justice.”
“We have a bad press,” said Meek, peevishly.
“No matter, it has the less influence. Believe me, it will be an evil day for you Downing Street gentlemen when Ireland possesses a really able and independent press,—when, avoiding topics of mere irritating tendency, men address themselves to the actual wants of the country, exemplifying, as they disclose them, the inaptitude and folly of English legislation. Don't wait for that day, Meek. In all likelihood it is distant enough, but in any case don't hasten its coming by your prayers.”
“You mustn't broach these doctrines out of doors, Tom,” said Meek, in a soft, caressing tone; “there is a horrid cant getting up just now against English rule, and in favor of native manufactures.”
“Which be they, Meek? I never heard of them. Maynooth is the only factory I know of in the land, and a brisk trade it has, home and colonial.”
“You know as well as any man the benefits we have conferred on this country.”
“Yes, it demands no great tax on memory to repeat them. You found a starving peasantry of a couple of millions, and, being unable or incompetent to aid them, you ruined the gentry to keep them company. You saw a mangy, miserable dog with famine in his flank and death in his eye, and, answering his appeal to your compassion, you cut an inch off his tail and told him to eat it.”
“You are too bad, Tom—a great deal too bad. What are you looking for?”
“Nothing at present,” was the cool reply.
“What in prospective, then?”
“I should like to be the Secretary for Ireland, Meek, whenever they shelve you among the other unredeemed pledges in that pawn-office, the Board of Trade.”
Meek affected a laugh, but not over successfully, while to turn the conversation, he said, “A propos to your friend Cashel, I have not been able to show him any attentions, so occupied have I been with one thing and another. Let us make a dinner for him.”
“No, no, he does n't care for such things. Come and Join his house-warming on the Shannon; that will be far better.”
“I mean it, but I should like also to see him here. He knows the Kilgoffs, doesn't he?”
“Slightly. By the way, what are you going to do with my Lord? He wants, like Sancho, to be governor of an island.”
“What an old bore! without brains, fortune, or influence.”
“He has a very pretty wife, Meek. Don't you think the Foreign Office would recognize that claim?”
“So they send him out of this, I am content. But to return to what we were talking about. Shall we say Friday? or will Saturday suit you? and we'll make up a small party.”
“I fear not. I mean to leave the town by the end of the week.”
“Not for any time?”
“A few days only, and then I shall be at your orders. Meanwhile, leave Cashel to himself; he has got some suspicions—Heaven knows whence or how—that his borough influence makes him a very important card just now; therefore don't notice him, starve him out, and you 'll have him come forth with a white flag one of these days. I know him well, and the chances are that, if he were to attribute any of your civilities to the score of your calculation respecting his political influence, he would at once become your most determined opponent.”
“But his borough—”
“Let him represent it himself, Meek, and it's the next best thing to disfranchisement.”
“He would not be likely to accept any advice from us?” asked Meek, half timidly.
“To a certainty he would not, although proffered in your own most insinuating manner. Come, Meek, no nonsense; you must look out for a seat for your protégé Clare Jones, elsewhere; though I tell you frankly he is not worth the trouble.”
“I declare you are all wrong, Linton—quite wrong; I was thinking whether from motives of delicacy you would not like to press your own claim, which we might, with so much propriety.”
“Thanks,” said Linton; while a sly twinkle of his eye showed that he did not care to disguise the spirit of mistrust with which he heard the speech. “Thanks; you are too generous, and I am too modest, so let us not think more of the matter.”
“What is Cashel's real fortune?” said Meek, not sorry to turn the conversation into a less dangerous channel; “one hears so many absurd and extravagant reports, it is hard to know what to believe.”
“Kennyfeck calls it fourteen thousand a year above all charges and cost of collection.”
“And your own opinion?”
Linton shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and said, “There or thereabouts. I fancy that his ready money has been greatly overrated. But why do you ask? Your people wouldn't give him a peerage, would they?”
“Not now, of course,” said Meek, hesitating.
“Nor at any time, I trust,” said Linton, authoritatively. “The man does not know how to behave as a plain country gentleman; why increase his embarrassments by making him a Lord? Besides, you should take care in these new creations who are your peeresses, or one of these days you 'll have old Kennyfeck fancying that he is a noble himself.”
“There is no danger to be apprehended in that quarter?” asked Meek, with some trepidation of manner.
“Yes, but there is, though, and very considerable, too. He has been living in the house with those girls,—clever and shrewd girls, too. He is more at his ease there than elsewhere. They listen patiently to his tiresome prairie stories, and are indulgent to all his little 'escapades'—as a 'ranchero;' in a word, he is a hero there, and never leaves the threshold without losing some of the charms of the illusion.”
“And you saw all this?”
“Yes.”
“And suffered it?”
“Yes. What would you have me do? Had there been only one girl in the case—I might have married her. But it is only in botany, or the bay of that name, that the English permit polygamy.”
“I am very sorry to hear this,” said Meek, gravely.
“I am very sorry to have it to tell, Meek,” said the other.
“He might marry so well!” muttered Meek, half in soliloquy.
“To be sure he might; and in good hands—I mean in those of a man who sees his way in life—cut a very fair figure, too. But it won't do to appear in London with a second or third rate woman, whose only recommendation is the prettiness that has fascinated 'Castle balls' in Dublin.”
“Let us talk over this again, Linton,” said Meek, arranging his papers, and affecting to be busied.
“With all my heart; indeed, it was a subject I intended to speak to you about. I have a little theory thereanent myself.”
“Have you, indeed?” said Meek, looking up with animation.
“Yes, but it needs your counsel—perhaps something more, I should say—but another time—good-bye, goodbye.” And without waiting to say or hear more, Linton lounged out of the room, leaving the secretary, thoughtful and serious, behind him.