Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience. Lever Charles James
the other.
Up to this moment my father’s name had never been regularly introduced into the discussion. Regrets, it is true, were insinuated that he who could afford the shortest and most satisfactory explanations of everything should not condescend to give the public such information. It was deplored that one who so long enjoyed the confidence of the national party should feel himself bound to maintain a silence on questions which a few words would suffice to make intelligible. Gradually these regrets grew into remonstrances, and even threatened to become reproach. Anonymous letters, in the same spirit, were addressed to him in great numbers; but they all failed in their object, – for the best reason, that my father saw none of them. A feverish cold, attended with some return of an old gout attack, had confined him to bed for some weeks, so that he had never heard of the controversy; all the newspapers, filled as they were with it, having been cautiously withheld from him by the careful watchfulness of MacNaghten.
Such was the state of matters as my father, still weak from his attack, descended, for the first time, to the drawing-room. MacNaghten had persuaded my mother to accompany him on a short drive through the grounds, when my father, whom they had left in his room, thought he would make an effort to get downstairs, and surprise them on their return. He was seated at an open window that looked out upon a flower-garden, enjoying, with all an invalid’s relish, the balmy air of a summer’s day, and feeling as if he drank in health at every stir of the leaves by the light wind. His illness had not only greatly debilitated him, but had even induced a degree of indolent inaction very foreign to the active habit of his mind in health; and instead of experiencing his wonted curiosity to know what the world had been doing during his illness, he was actually happy in the thought of the perfect repose he was enjoying, undisturbed by a single care. The rattling of wheels on the ground at last gave token of some one coming, and a few moments after, my father heard the sound of voices in the hall. Resolved to deny himself to all strangers, he had risen to reach the bell, when the door opened, and Rutledge entered.
“Why, they told me you were in bed, Carew,” cried he, endeavoring by a half-jocular manner to conceal the shock my father’s wasted appearance imparted. “They said I could not possibly see you, so that I had to send up a few lines on my card to say how urgently I wished it, and meanwhile came in to await your answer.”
“They only said truly,” muttered my father. “I have crept down to-day for the first time, and I ‘m not quite sure that I have done prudently.”
“What has it been? – gout – rheumatic fever?”
“Neither; a bad cold neglected, and then an old ague on the back of it.”
“And of course the fellows have bled and blistered you, without mercy. My medical skill is borrowed from the stable: hot mashes and double body-clothes are generally enough for a common attack. But rich fellows like you cannot get off so cheaply. And madam – how is she?”
“Perfectly well, thank you. And how are all your friends?”
“As well as men can be who are worried and badgered every hour of the twenty-four. It ‘s no use in sending Englishmen here, they are never trusted! I don’t believe it’s possible to find an honester man, nor a truer friend to Ireland, than Portland; but his Saxon blood is quite enough to mar his utility and poison every effort he makes to be of service.”
“The children are paying off the scores of their fathers, Rutledge. The sentiment that has taken some centuries to mature, can scarcely be treated like a mere prejudice.”
“Very true; but what bad policy it is – as policy – to obstruct the flow of concessions, even coming from a suspected channel. It ‘s rather too hard to criticise them for doing the very things we ask them.”
“I have not looked into a newspaper these few weeks,” said my father, half wearied of the theme.
“So that you know nothing, then, of – ” He stopped short, for he just caught himself in time.
“I know nothing whatever of the events that have occurred in that interval; and – however inglorious the confession, Rutledge, I must make it – I ‘d almost as soon live over my attack again as hear them. Take it as a sick man’s peevishness or sound philosophy, as you may; but, in the jarring, squabbling world we live in, there ‘s nothing so good as to let bygones be bygones.”
“That’s taking for granted that anything is ever a ‘bygone,’ Walter; but, faith, my experience says that we are feeling, to the end of centuries, the results of the petty mischances that befell us in the beginning of them.”
My father sighed, but it was more in weariness than sorrow; and Rutledge said, —
“I came out to have a long chat with you, Walter, about various things; but I fear talking fatigues you.”
“It does fatigue me, – I’m not equal to it,” said my father, faintly.
“It’s unlucky too,” said the other, half peevishly, “one so seldom can catch you alone; and though MacNaghten is the best fellow in the world – ”
“You must still say nothing against him, at least in my hearing,” added my father, as if to finish the sentence for him.
“I was only going to observe that in all that regards politics – ”
“Pardon my interrupting you again,” broke in my father, “but Dan never pretended to know anything about them; nor is it likely that a fellow that felt the turf a contamination will try to cultivate his morals by the intrigues of party.”
Rutledge affected to laugh at the sneering remark, and after a moment resumed, —
“Do you know, then, it was precisely about that very subject of politics I came out to talk with you to-day. The Duke told me of the generous way you expressed yourself to him during his visit here, and that although not abating anything of your attachment to what you feel a national cause, you never would tie yourself hand and foot to party, but stand free to use your influence at the dictates of your own honest conviction. Now, although there is no very important question at issue, there are a number of petty, irritating topics kept continually before Parliament by the Irish party, which, without the slightest pretension to utility, are used as means of harassing and annoying the Government.”
“I never heard of this before, Rutledge; but I know well, if the measures you speak of have Grattan and Flood and Ponsonby, and others of the same stamp, to support them, they are neither frivolous nor contemptible; and if they be not advocated by the leaders of the Irish party, you can afford to treat them with better temper.”
“Be that as it may, Walter, the good men of the party do not side with these fellows. But I see all this worries you, so let ‘s forget it!” And so, taking a turn through the room, he stopped opposite a racing print, and said: “Poor old Gadfly, how she reminds me of old times! going along with her head low, and looking dead-beat when she was just coming to her work. That was the best mare ever you had, Carew!”
“And yet I lost heavily on her,” said my father, with a half sigh.
“Lost! Why the report goes that you gained above twenty thousand by her the last year she ran.”
“‘Common report,’ as Figaro says, ‘is a common liar;’ my losses were very nearly one-half more! It was a black year in my life. I began it badly in Ireland, and ended it worse abroad!”
The eager curiosity with which Rutledge listened, suddenly caught my father’s attention, and he stopped short, saying: “These are old stories now, and scarcely worth remembering. But here comes my wife; she ‘ll be glad to see you, and hear all the news of the capital, for she has been leading a stupid life of it these some weeks back.”
However uneasy my mother and MacNaghten might have been lest Rutledge should have alluded to the newspaper attacks, they were soon satisfied on that point, and the evening passed over pleasantly in discussing the sayings and doings of the Dublin world.
It was late when Rutledge rose to take his leave, and my father had so far rallied by the excitement of conversation that he already felt himself restored to health; and his last words to his guest at parting were, —
“I’ll