CHAPTER XIX. A DAY OF EXCITEMENT
Great was the Knight's astonishment, and not less his satisfaction, as he entered the breakfast-room the morning after his dinner with the Secretary, to find Bagenal Daly there before him. They met with all the cordial warmth of men whose friendship had continued without interruption for nigh half a century; each well disposed to prize good faith and integrity at a time when so many lapsed from the path of honor and principle.
“Well, Darcy,” cried Daly, the first greetings over, “there is little hope left us; that rascally newspaper already proclaims the triumph,—a majority of twenty-eight.”
“They calculate on many more; you remember what old Hayes, of the Recruiting Staff, used to say: 'There was no getting fellows to enlist when the bounty was high; make it half-a-crown,' said he, 'and I 'll raise a battalion in a fortnight.'”
“Is Castlereagh adopting the policy?”
“Yes, and with infinite success! Some that held out for English Peerages are fain to take Irish Baronetcies, expectant Bishops put up with Deaneries, and an acquaintance of ours, that would take nothing below a separate command, is now satisfied to make his son a clerk in the War Office.”
“I 'm sorry for it,” said Daly, as he arose and paced the room backwards and forwards, “sincerely sorry. I had fostered the hope that if they succeeded in corrupting our gentry, they had polluted their own Peerage. I wish every fellow had been bought by an Earldom at least. I would like to think that this Judas Peerage might become a jest and a scoff among their order.”
“Have no such expectation, Bagenal,” said the Knight, reflectively; “their origin will be forgiven before the first generation dies out. To all purposes of worldly respect and esteem, they 'll be as high and mighty Lords as the best blood of all the Howards. The penalty will fall upon England in another form.”
“How? Where?”
“In the Lower House, politics will become a trade to live by, and the Irish party, with such an admirable market for grievances, will be a strong and compact body in Parliament, too numerous to be bought by anything save great concessions. Englishmen will never understand the truth of the condition of the country from these men, nor how little personal importance they possess at home. They will be regarded as the exponents of Irish opinion; they will browbeat, denounce, threaten, fawn, and flatter by turns; and Ireland, instead of being easier to govern, will be rendered ten times more difficult, by all the obscuring influences of falsehood and misrepresentation. But let us quit the theme. How have you left all at the Abbey?”