"I like the notion immensely. How would our friends take it, for that is the point?"

"It would be popular with every one, for it will suit your people, who know and like to mix with every set in society, and at the same time gratify your 'exclusives,' who can form their own little coteries with all the jealous selection they love. Besides, it avoids another and a great difficulty. Had you received in ordinary fashion, you must have asked some lady friend to have done the honors for you. This would have been a matter of the greatest embarra.s.sment. The Kennyf.e.c.ks have not rank enough; old Lady Janet would have frightened every one away; Mrs.

White would have filled the house with her own 'blues,' and banished every one else; and as for Lady Kilgoff, who, besides being a very pretty woman and well-mannered, has an exceedingly fascinating way with strangers, 'my Lord' is so jealous, so absurdly, madly jealous, that she dare not ask after the success of a shooting-party without his suspecting an allegorical allusion to Cupid and his shafts."

"Well, then, let us resolve to receive 'en Mathews;' and now, when shall we name the day?"

"Let us wait till the result of the division be known in Parliament. A change of ministers is hinted at, and if it were to occur, you'll have every one hastening away to his county for the new election; by Sat.u.r.day we shall learn everything, and that will be time enough."

"In any case, I had better set off and see what can be done to put the house in a fit state to receive them."

"Leave all that to me. I 'll take Popham, the architect, down with me, and you need never trouble your head about the matter. It's quite clear people who accept an invitation like the present must put up with a hundred small penalties on convenience. The liberty of such a house always repays whatever is wanting on the score of ceremonial and order, and your fine guests, who would perhaps give themselves airs towards the Kennyf.e.c.ks and their set if meeting them elsewhere, will here affect, at least, a tone of good-natured equality, just as in revolutionary times people shake hands with their hairdresser."

"But how to amuse or even occupy them! that is a great puzzle to me."

"Leave them perfectly to their own devices. In fun there should be always free-trade. Protection ruins it. But all this is Egyptian to you, so go to bed and sleep soundly, and leave the cares of state to me.

"On me the glory or disgrace, The pride of triumph or the shame of fall."

"Then I 'll think no more of the matter," said Cashel; "and so good-by."

"Now for a twenty-four hours' sleep," said Linton, "and then once more to roll the stone of life, which, by the way, gives the lie to the old adage, for unquestionably it does 'gather moss' as we grow older."

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, pet.i.tions, 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 a.s.s 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 a.s.ses 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. G.o.d Almighty keep 'em little, sir!'"

"Ah, very true," sighed Meek; "G.o.d 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 inapt.i.tude 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 compa.s.sion, 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 p.a.w.n-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 Sat.u.r.day 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?"