‘Nothing of the kind, sir. If you’ll just read these two letters. The one is mine, written on the morning I came here: here is my aunt’s. The first is not word for word as I sent it, but as well as I can remember. At all events, it will show how little I had provoked the answer. There, that’s the document that came along with my trunks, and I have never heard from her since.’
‘“Dear Nephew,”’ read out the old man, after patiently adjusting his spectacles—‘"O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn,”—And more’s the pity,’ added he; ‘for it would be a model house of entertainment. You’d say any one could have a sirloin of beef or a saddle of mutton; but where Miss Betty gets hers is quite beyond me. “Nor are the horses at public livery,”’ read he out. ‘I think I may say, if they were, that Kattoo won’t be hired out again to the young man that took her over the fences. “As you seem fond of warnings,”’ continued he, aloud—‘Ho, ho! that’s at you for coming over here to tell me about the search-warrant; and she tells you to mind your own business; and droll enough it is. We always fancy we’re saying an impertinence to a man when we tell him to attend to what concerns him most. It shows, at least, that we think meddling a luxury. And then she adds, “Kilgobbin is welcome to you,” and I can only say you are welcome to Kilgobbin—ay, and in her own words—“with such regularity and order as the meals succeed.”—“All the luggage belonging to you,” etc., and “I am, very respectfully, your Aunt.” By my conscience, there was no need to sign it! That was old Miss Betty all the world over!’ and he laughed till his eyes ran over, though the rueful face of young O’Shea was staring at him all the time. ‘Don’t look so gloomy, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney: ‘I have not so good a cook, nor, I’m sorry to say, so good a cellar, as at the Barn; but there are young faces, and young voices, and young laughter, and a light step on the stairs; and if I know anything, or rather, if I remember anything, these will warm a heart at your age better than ‘44 claret or the crustiest port that ever stained a decanter.’
‘I am turned out, sir—sent adrift on the world,’ said the young man despondently.
‘And it is not so bad a thing after all, take my word for it, boy. It’s a great advantage now and then to begin life as a vagabond. It takes a deal of snobbery out of a fellow to lie under a haystack, and there’s no better cure for pretension than a dinner of cold potatoes. Not that I say you need the treatment—far from it—but our distinguished friend Mr. Walpole wouldn’t be a bit the worse of such an alterative.’
‘If I am left without a shilling in the world?’
‘Then you must try what you can do on sixpence—the whole thing is how you begin. I used not to be able to eat my dinner when I did not see the fellow in a white tie standing before the sideboard, and the two flunkeys in plush and silk stockings at either side of the table; and when I perceived that the decanters had taken their departure, and that it was beer I was given to drink, I felt as if I had dined, and was ready to go out and have a smoke in the open air; but a little time, even without any patience, but just time, does it all.’
‘Time won’t teach a man to live upon nothing.’
‘It would be very hard for him if it did; let him begin by having few wants, and work hard to supply means for them.’
‘Work hard! why, sir, if I laboured from daylight to dark, I’d not earn the wages of the humblest peasant, and I’d not know how to live on it.’
‘Well, I have given you all the philosophy in my budget, and to tell you the truth, Gorman, except so far as coming down in the world in spite of myself, I know mighty little about the fine precepts I have been giving you; but this I know, you have a roof over your head here, and you’re heartily welcome to it; and who knows but your aunt may come to terms all the sooner, because she sees you here?’