Lord Kilgobbin. Lever Charles James
us not have the embarrassment, or, if you like it, the pleasure of his company. I’ll give you a list of books to bring down, and my life be on it, but my course of study will surpass what you have been doing at Trinity. Is it agreed?’
‘Give me till to-morrow to think of it, Nina.’
‘That does not sound like a very warm acceptance; but be it so: till to-morrow.’
‘Here are some of Kate’s dogs,’ cried he angrily. ‘Down, Fan, down! I say. I’ll leave you now before she joins us. Mind, not a word of what I told you.’
And, without another word, he sprang over a low fence, and speedily disappeared in the copse beyond it.
‘Wasn’t that Dick I saw making his escape?’ cried Kate, as she came up.
‘Yes, we were taking a walk together, and he left me very abruptly.’
‘I wish I had not spoiled a tête-à-tête,’ said Kate merrily.
‘It is no great mischief: we can always renew it.’
‘Dear Nina,’ said the other caressingly, as she drew her arm around her – ‘dear, dear Nina, do not, do not, I beseech you.’
‘Don’t what, child? – you must not speak in riddles.’
‘Don’t make that poor boy in love with you. You yourself told me you could save him from it if you liked.’
‘And so I shall, Kate, if you don’t dictate or order me. Leave me quite to myself, and I shall be most merciful.’
CHAPTER XVIII
Had Mathew Kearney but read the second sheet of his correspondent’s letter, it is more than likely that Dick had not taken such a gloomy view of his condition. Mr. McKeown’s epistle continued in this fashion: ‘That ought to do for him, Mathew, or my name ain’t Tom McKeown. It is not that he is any worse or better than other young fellows of his own stamp, but he has the greatest scamp in Christendom for his daily associate. Atlee is deep in all the mischief that goes on in the National press. I believe he is a head-centre of the Fenians, and I know he has a correspondence with the French socialists, and that Rights-of-labour-knot of vagabonds who meet at Geneva. Your boy is not too wise to keep himself out of these scrapes, and he is just, by name and station, of consequence enough to make these fellows make up to and flatter him. Give him a sound fright, then, and when he is thoroughly alarmed about his failure, send him abroad for a short tour, let him go study at Halle or Heidelberg – anything, in short, that will take him away from Ireland, and break off his intimacy with this Atlee and his companions. While he is with you at Kilgobbin, don’t let him make acquaintance with those Radical fellows in the county towns. Keep him down, Mathew, keep him down; and if you find that you cannot do this, make him believe that you’ll be one day lords of Kilgobbin, and the more he has to lose the more reluctant he’ll be to risk it. If he’d take to farming, and marry some decent girl, even a little beneath him in life, it would save you all uneasiness; but he is just that thing now that brings all the misery on us in Ireland. He thinks he’s a gentleman because he can do nothing; and to save himself from the disgrace of incapacity, ‘he’d like to be a rebel.’
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