Chapter IV: The Election (1)

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN,” “THE ROMANCE OF A PORTMANTEAU,” ETC., ETC.

I was received at Clonacooney with an enthusiasm that sent the hot blood surging through my veins in prideful throbs. At the entrance to the village I was presented with an address by a splendid specimen of the Irish race in the person of Myles Moriarty, a man who had been “out” in forty-eight, who, on the part of the tenant-farmers of Clonacooney, tendered me welcome and assurances of both moral and physical support.

“The dark hour is passin’ from the ould country, sir, and yours be the hand to wipe the tear from the cheek of Erin,” were his concluding words.

I must have spoken to the point, for I was cheered to the echo, and my right hand almost wrung from the arm by repeated shakings.

In Father O’Dowd’s garden a small platform had been raised, composed of the kitchen table, the safety of which Biddy Finnegan watched over with tender regard.

Around the little grass-plat some hundred of the “boys” were gathered, who bared their heads in respectful reverence when the good priest ascended the dais.

It is chiefly in Ireland that one sees the visible link that binds priests and people. The Irish peasant never forgets that he is in the presence of the Lord’s anointed, and the respect for the clergyman upon the hillside or wayside is the same as though he were clad in his vestments and upon the altar.

Father O’Dowd introduced me in a speech that burned into the minds of his auditory. It was full of fiery eloquence, full of patriotism, full of Catholicity. In dealing with the question of Home Rule he said: “Over a country agitated by dissension and weakened by mistrust we have raised the banner of Home Rule. We raised it hesitatingly, unfurling it tremblingly to the breeze; but the hearts of the people have been moved by the two small words, and the soul of the nation has felt their power and their spell. These words have passed from man to man along the valley and along the hillside. Everywhere our despairing sons have turned to that banner with confidence and hope. Thus far we have borne it. Upon these young and stalwart shoulders,” placing his arm affectionately around me, “we shall now place it, to be borne unto victory. It is meet that the representative of a stainless race, of a race that upheld their creed when its avowal led to the scaffold and gibbet, should go forth from among us young in years, high in hope, ardent in the cause of creed and country. We shall hand our banner into his youthful hands, and with him this trust shall be considered sacred. He will defend it, if necessary, with his life. The cause of the church will be his; the cause of the country will be his.”

When it came to my turn to speak a mist seemed to gather before my eyes and my head began to swim.

“Courage!” whispered Father O’Dowd. “_Nos hæc novimus esse nihil._”

I plunged in _medias res_, floundering on, stumbling, staggering, repeating myself, till I felt all aflame, and as if my head were red-hot. Suddenly the idea smote me that I had Wynwood Melton to beat, and I became cool as ice. Yes, the transition was simply instantaneous, and with it came a flow of words such as have never welled from me since, save, perhaps, upon the day of the election.

I spoke for nearly an hour, and I subsequently recollected that I had discussed the entire political situation of Ireland, as I had done some years before in a debate at the Catholic University. Memory came gallantly to the rescue, and when I concluded Father O’Dowd cried enthusiastically:

“A born orator—_nascitur, non fit_. Now, boys,” addressing the tumultuous assemblage, “haven’t we got the right man, and won’t we put him in the right place?”

When I returned to Kilkenley I found that Mr. Melton had taken his departure.

“He is alive to the importance of an active canvass,” said Mr. Hawthorne, “and has repaired to the tents of his people. I am very sorry that the warning should come from me—a warning that may be of singular disservice to you.”

“I _feel_ that I shall win.”

“My dear young friend, I felt that I would win, and discredited the returns that threw me overboard when I contested Fromsey. Do not let your feelings mislead you. Work as if expecting defeat, and as if endeavoring to reduce the majority against you. I’m an old campaigner and know the ropes.”

My mother was all eagerness to know how I had progressed. When I told her that I had made two speeches, one of them of an hour’s duration, her delight was boundless.

“You were lost, dear child,” she cried. “Your talents are of a high order, and you have at last found a field for them.”

Harry Welstone had attended a meeting at Ballynashaughragawn, and had held forth in my behalf, like a regular brick that he was. All my jealousy disappeared upon the mention of Melton, and Harry was again my confidant in everything.

“I don’t think she cares much for that fellow, Fred.”

“I tell you that they understand each other.” And I writhed in the agony of the thought.

“I think her governor is nibbling for Melton as a son-in-law, but there is no ring of the true metal about the girl’s feelings—nothing that _I_ can detect; and I’m not utterly unobservant.”

I never felt that the gash in my heart was so deep until Miss Hawthorne referred to their leaving.

“Our time is up. We have overstayed our limit.”

“Surely you will not desert us until after the election,” said my mother. “You must celebrate his success, if success it is to be.”

“Oh! Miss Hawthorne is not interested in my success, mother,” I interposed.

She turned her violet eyes full upon me.

“Much more so than you give me credit for.”

“My non-success, you mean.”

“I do _not_ mean it.”

“It is quite right that you should,” I said bitterly. “_I_ have no claim upon your interest.”

“A very strong one, I assure you.”

“Melton’s the man,” assuming a savage gayety. “How jolly he will feel if he wins! how delighted to bear the news to his lady-love!”

“Does it not strike you, Mr. Ormonde, that your last observation is upon the borderland of—what shall I call it?”

“Truth,” I suggested.

She did not deign to reply to me, but, turning to my mother, expressed a fear that she should leave Kilkenley upon the following day.

“I will not hear of it,” said my mother stoutly.

There was one chance left, and that lay in inducing Mr. Hawthorne to stump the county with me. This scheme I confided to Harry, who highly approved of it. After dinner, when the ladies had returned to the drawing-room, Harry opened fire.

“Mr. Hawthorne, the people about here are exceedingly anxious to hear you speak. They have heard a good deal of your eloquence in Parliament, and have read some of your speeches.”

“I am not reported, sir. Those scoundrels in the press gallery ignore _me_ because I defy _them_. Would you believe it, gentlemen, my speech upon the removal of a custom-house officer upon a charge of disloyalty to the throne and constitution, and which occupied two hours and a half in its delivery—I went into the question of customs generally, into those of foreign countries, into the national debt, into our relations with Japan, into the contracts for constructing ironclads—in fact, I grasped a series of subjects of the highest importance to the country; and would you believe it, Mr. Speaker—I mean gentlemen—the _Times_, although I saw that the reporter—yes, gentlemen, I watched him with an eagle eye—was present and apparently engaged in reporting me—the _Times_, I say, had the audacity to publish that the honorable member for Doodleshire uttered some irrelevant observations which were inaudible in the reporters’ gallery; and yet this unprincipled scoundrel pockets his pay, and reports the flimsy orations of other honorable members not one tithe of so much national importance as mine.” And trembling with anger, Mr. Hawthorne gulped down three glasses of claret in rapid succession.

“The Irish people,” continued Harry, “are the most rhetorical and oratorical in the world, and prefer a good speech to any known amusement except a wake. News of your presence here has gone far and wide, and I may tell you fairly that it is incumbent upon you to let them hear you.”

“I—ahem!—would be very pleased to do so, did a suitable opportunity present itself,” said the M.P. with a pleased smile.

“The opportunity luckily does present itself. On Thursday next our host here must attend a meeting of his constituents at Bohernacallan, and, if you were to accompany him and address the people, I assure you it will be regarded as a very considerable favor by the hundreds who will be assembled.”

“On Thursday next I shall be on my way to London.”

“Not a bit of it,” I chimed in.

“There is nothing to be done in London now, Mr. Hawthorne,” said Harry.

“My arrangements are all made, and nothing, sir, nothing could induce me to break them. I am a man of iron, adamant in such matters.”

I looked blankly at Harry, but Master Harry was still hopeful, as indicated by a dexterous half-wink while the M.P. was tossing off another glass of claret.

“I may tell you as a matter of fact, Mr. Hawthorne, that you are expected at this meeting.”

“It is very flattering, Mr. Welstone, but the meeting must stand disappointed in so far as I am concerned. No, gentlemen; in the House or outside of it, once I lay down a plan of operations, I never diverge from it by the distance of a single hair.”

Again I looked blankly at Harry, and again I met with a half-wink.

“That’s very unfortunate, Mr. Hawthorne, but I suppose it cannot be helped.”

“It cannot indeed, sir.”

“And reporters coming down from Dublin, too,” said Harry, addressing me.

“What is that you say, Mr. Welstone?” demanded the member of Doodleshire with considerable earnestness.

“Oh! it’s not worth repeating.”

“I think I heard you mention something about reporters?”

“Oh! yes; the Dublin newspapers are sending down special reporters, and the London _Times’_ correspondent is a reporter on the _Daily Express_.”

“Ahem!” And Mr. Hawthorne gravely produced a memorandum-book, which he proceeded to scan with apparent interest.

Harry gave me the full wink now.

“Oh dear me—ahem!” exclaimed the M.P. “I find that I need not be in London quite so soon, and if it obliges you, my dear Ormonde, I shall be glad to strike a blow in your aid. Did you say the _Times’_ correspondent will be there? Not that it makes the _slightest_ difference to _me_; yet, belonging as I do to the great liberal party, and belonging as this election does to the great liberal party, I deem it a sacred duty to aid the great liberal party in so far as it lies in my power. Mr. Ormonde, rely upon _me_, sir.”

When later on I spoke with Harry on the question of deceiving my guest, especially as no reporters would be within fifty miles of us, “Don’t bother your head about it, Fred. Leave it all to me. I’ll get Tom Rafferty and the two O’Briens to come with big pencils and lots of paper, and tell them to write for their lives the whole time old Hawthorne is speaking. Everything is fair in love, war, and an election.”

* * * * *

The excitement in the county was intense as soon as the fact of my being in the field became known across its length and breadth. The De Ruthvens were furious, the head of the family, Mr. Beresford de Ruthven, honoring me with a personal visit, in order to ascertain whether I was in my senses or out of them.

“Am I to understand, Mr. Ormonde, that you are a candidate for the representation of this county?” he asked, after the usual ceremonial questions had been pushed aside.

“You are, Mr. De Ruthven.”

“That you have consented to be nominated by a rabble—to be—”

“I have been nominated by no rabble, Mr. De Ruthven.”

“You are the nominee of the priests.”

“I am, sir; but have a care how you speak of a Catholic clergyman in this house. You are not now at Ruthventown.” I was hot with anger.

“Do you want to break up the harmony that has existed for centuries in the county, Mr. Ormonde?”

“I want to see a liberal represent the county, and I am willing to give way to a better man.”

“Liberal! What liberality do you require? Do not the liberals have their share in everything?”

I had him now.

“How many liberals are there on the grand panel, Mr. De Ruthven?”

“Oh! I grant you that there has been mismanagement,” he hastily replied, “but we’ll see to that.”

“What liberality is it that leaves the roads approaching every Catholic church in a condition that would shame a backwoods clearing, while those near the meanest Protestant place of worship are cared for like the avenues in your own domain?”

“That shall be looked to.”

“Where is the liberality at the union boards, in the magistracy, in the county offices? Is there a single Catholic in any office whatever?”

“O Mr. Ormonde! I see you are primed and loaded, and must go off like a fifth-of-November cracker. Now, all I can say to you is this: that if you persist in this audacious attempt in breaking up the harmony of this great county, on your own head be the penalty; and let me add, sir, that when next you attend the assizes, do not be surprised if you are openly insulted.”

“And do not be surprised, Mr. De Ruthven, if the man who dares insult me is _openly_ horse-whipped.”

Mr. De Ruthven, very much disgusted at my papistical audacity, took his leave, warning me, even when in his carriage, that I was certain of defeat, and equally certain of being put in Coventry.

My attempt to wrest the seat from the conservative party was regarded with the same interest as Mr. A. M. Sullivan’s daring effort to snatch Louth from the Right Honorable Chichester Fortescue—an effort that was crowned with such signal success. The cabinet minister and ex-Irish secretary, who was regarded as Mr. Gladstone’s official representative in Ireland, was deemed invulnerable in Louth, having sat for it for twenty-seven years. The government laughed to scorn the idea of disturbing him, but Mr. Sullivan polled two to one, and was carried in by such a weighty majority as virtually to close the county for ever and a day, as the children’s story-books say.

In my county the conservatives laughed my attempt to scorn, pooh-poohing my pretensions and ridiculing my supporters. My opponent made Ruthventown his headquarters, and from Ruthventown came forth his address. From Ruthventown also was issued a manifesto, or imperial ukase rather, commanding the tenants to vote for the De Ruthven candidate, while from every conservative landlord appeared a notice couched in similar dictatorial terms. To these counter-proclamations were scattered broadcast by my various committees throughout the country, calling upon Catholics to support a Catholic, upon Irishmen to support Home Rule.

Father O’Dowd was indefatigable, leaving Sir Boyle Roche’s bird simply nowhere, as he would appear to be in half a dozen different places at one and the same time. He lived upon his little outside-car, and the dead hours of the night saw him dashing through lonely glens, winding up steep mountain-sides, speeding through sleeping villages, all for the purpose of bringing the old faith to the front, and of rescuing representation from the clutches of the Orange clique, who had held it so long, to the prejudice of Catholicity and the shame of Catholics.

“We’ll shake off the yoke now or never!” was his constant cry. “Down with the De Ruthven ascendency! We’ll take their heels off our necks. We have suffered and endured too long and too patiently. We have allowed a little clique to govern a nation at their own sweet will. It is time for the people to assert themselves, to come to the front, to share in their own government. The hour is at hand, and the men.”

The county was ablaze. Meetings were held in every village, and my name was handed from townland to townland as a talisman. The most despicable coercive measures were adopted by the conservative landlords toward their tenants with reference to their votes, threats of eviction, of rent-raising, of persecution being openly resorted to.

“Make no promises, boys. Keep yourselves unpledged,” was the constant cry of Father O’Dowd. “Recollect that you have consciences and a country.”

At one meeting, whilst I was engaged in speaking—even now I feel astonished at my eloquence of that time—I was interrupted by some of the De Ruthven faction, who endeavored to hiss and hoot me down.

“Boys,” yelled a voice in the crowd, “there’s iligant bathing in Missis Moriarty’s pond below; they say it’s Boyne wather.” And ere I could interpose or take any step towards cooling the feverish excitement of my supporters, the luckless Ruthvenites were ruthlessly swept towards the dam in question, where in all human probability they would have been half-drowned had not Father O’Dowd rushed to the rescue.

“Are you mad, boys? Don’t touch a hair of their heads.”

“We want for to larn them manners, yer riverince; shure there’s no great harm in that.”

“If one of these vagabonds is ill-treated by you, they’ll unseat Mr. Ormonde on petition. _You_ will not suffer, but Mr. Ormonde will. For Heaven’s sake, boys, don’t lay a finger on them.”

The announcement caused a general gloom.

“Never mind, boys,” shouted one of the crowd. “Shure if we can’t bate thim afore the election, we can knock sawdust out av thim whin it’s all over, an’ that’s a comfort anyhow.”

From every side promises of support came pouring in. The priests and people were working as one man, silently, swiftly, surely. The “hard word” had gone forth, and every parish was preparing its contingent. The hints and cajoleries of the other side were received in dignified silence—a silence which the ascendency party construed into assent. It was deemed utterly impossible that the tenantry could vote against the nominee of their landlords; and although these “slave-owners” received very significant warnings from their bailiffs, they could not and would not give heed to them.

My address was drawn up in a solemn committee composed of Father O’Dowd, Mr. Hawthorne, Mabel, my mother, and myself. I need not reproduce it here. It was Catholic and national, and when it went forth to the county it was received with universal enthusiasm. The opposite party stigmatized it as an “audacious document,” a “firebrand.” “Yes,” said the parish priest of Derrymaleena, “it is a firebrand, and one that lights the funeral pyre of the Orange party.”

I found Miss Hawthorne rewriting a copy of my address.

“I will save you the trouble, Miss Hawthorne,” I said bitterly, and Heaven knows my heart was at a dead ache, “and I will send a copy to Mr. Melton.”

She flushed, the hot blood mounting over her little ears. “You do me a cruel injustice, Mr. Ormonde,” she replied. “Read that!” contemptuously flinging me an open letter across the table.

“I do not wish to pry into Mr. Melton’s secrets.”

“That letter is _not_ from Mr. Melton. I never received one from him in my life, nor do I care to receive one; but since you will not read this letter, you shall hear its contents.”

She read as follows in a pained voice:

MY DEAR MRS. ORMONDE:

As the coming man is so busy, and is probably at the other side of
the county, I write to you to ask you to send me a copy of his
address as soon as ever you can. We are all alive here, and Victory
is within our grasp. Always yours,

PETER HEFFERNAN.

“Now, Mr. Ormonde, may I ask you if it was generous of you to—”

“Forgive me, Miss Hawthorne,” I exclaimed. “I—I do not know what I am doing, what I am saying. I am distracted—wretched.” I was silent. I dared go no further. The vision of Wynwood Melton cried check to the bounding thoughts that came surging from my heart.

“The evening of the 20th will find you in better form.”

I shook my head. The future was utterly dreary—one blank, sunless waste.

“You will win this election, Mr. Ormonde.”

I sighed deeply.

“A barren victory.”

“A barren victory!” she exclaimed with considerable animation. “Do you consider it a barren victory to beat the Carlton Club, the great conservative stronghold of England, whose every ukase is law—to beat the De Ruthven faction, who have held your beautiful county in subjection since the Pale?”

“A Dead-Sea apple. In winning this election I win your hatred.”

“_My_ hatred?” opening her lovely violet eyes in delicious wonder.

“Yes, Miss Hawthorne; if I am elected I shall have beaten the man you love.”

She flushed again—a shower of rose-petals.

“There is not a more miserable being on the face of this earth than I am this moment, Miss Hawthorne. Were I not pledged in honor to this election, I would stand aside and let Mr. Melton win _this_ stake, as he has won the higher stake—your heart.”

She was about to interrupt me, her lips tremulous, her hands in strong action.

“Hear me for one moment,” I cried, carried away in a rush of tumultuous feeling, every sense in a mad whirl. “I love you, Mabel—love you with a love that is more than love. I tried to hate you. In that vain attempt I resolved to bring sorrow to your heart, to glut my own desire for vengeance. It was jealous despair that led me into this conflict. It is possible I may not see you until the fight is over, perhaps never again; but, Mabel Hawthorne, my first, my last love, it may be sweet to you to know why this victory will be a barren one, why the hand that grasps the laurel will seize but dead ashes.” And without trusting myself even to glance at her, I rushed from the room, from the house, and was many miles on the road to Derrymaclury ere thoroughly aware of the fact.

* * * * *

I did not return to Kilkenley. I dreaded the fearful fascination of Mabel’s presence, and, now that I had declared my hopeless love, I did not care to meet her. It would be mean and shabby to hang about her, knowing she was never to be mine. It would be despicable, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, were I again to refer to Melton or the election. There was nothing for it but to remain at a distance. I recall the agonies of those few days with a shiver. The powerful excitement of the approaching contest was over-weighted by the dull gnawing at my heart. I was as one walking in a painful dream. In vain I plunged into the whirl of speech-making, canvassing, and all the absorbing surroundings of the election—truly in vain, for the one idea ever grimly tortured me, and the one hopeless thought ever perched raven-like in my gloom-laden mind.

“Take heart of grace, man,” Father O’Dowd would say. “We’ll beat them three to one.”

Could he minister to the disease that was eating away my very heart?

Harry Welstone came over.

“Why, there has been a sort of panic at Kilkenley on account of your abrupt departure, Fred. The last person who saw you in the flesh was Miss Hawthorne, and she is very reticent in the matter. I tried to pump her, and got quietly sat upon for my pains. She has disappeared, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has been playing the invisible princess. Your opponent called twice, and she refused to see him.”

“Is it Melton?” I cried, a wild joy surging around my heart.

“Yes; the great M.P. in embryo.”

“Wouldn’t see him?”

“Said she had a headache.”

“You jest, Harry.”

“Not a bit of it. Old Blunderbuss was as mad as a hatter, but missy stuck fast to her colors.”

“I wish to heaven you hadn’t told me this, Harry.”

“Why?”

“I do not know.”

And I did _not_ know, but so it was. There lay a disturbing element in this news that completely set me astray. Hope, that springs eternal in the human breast; hope, that seemed shut out from mine for ever, was timidly knocking at the portals demanding admittance; but I resolutely barred the portals, raising the drawbridge, and dropping the portcullis. And yet—

No. I would _not_ admit the impossible.

The nomination took place in the court-house at Ballyraken, the county town, which was literally packed with the country people, who had come in from the great harvest districts to hear the “speechifyin’.” The De Ruthven faction mustered very strongly, all the Protestant gentry arriving in their equipages, making “a brave and goodly show.” Mr. Wynwood Melton—who appeared in a faultlessly-fitting black frock-coat, with the last rose of summer in his button-hole, a hat that literally shone like jet, and pale lavender gloves—was proposed by Sir Robert Slugby de Ruthven, D.L., and seconded by Mr. Beresford de Ruthven, D.L.

Sir Robert, an aged, aristocratic-looking man, with a lordly voice and royal mien, after dilating, amidst fearful interruption, upon the misfortune that had fallen on the county in the ill-considered enterprise of this rash young man—meaning me—in his hopeless endeavor to disturb the harmony which had so long existed in the county, proceeded to say:

“I have a gentleman to propose to your consideration—a gentleman of birth, a gentleman of education, a gentleman of position, a gentleman of means, a gentleman—”

Here a voice, which I immediately recognized as that of Peter O’Brien, cried out in the crowd:

“Arrah, blur an’ ages, we’re tired av _gintlemin_; can’t ye stand _yerself_?”

This sally, which was greeted with a roar of laughter, completely upset the little speech which Sir Robert had prepared, and in a few mumbled words he proposed Mr. Wynwood Melton as a fit and proper person to represent the county in the Imperial Parliament.

Mr. Beresford de Ruthven was an able and popular speaker. He knew how, when, and where to touch the heart of the Irish peasant. His tact was admirable, while he possessed the rare qualification of being enabled to keep his audience in his hands as a juggler his golden balls.

We feared his speech. It was a rock ahead, and every word that fell from his lips was to be caught up and treasured, in order that our best men should reply to him. We knew it was nearly impossible to catch him tripping, and that he was one of those agile performers who spring smilingly to their feet even after an ugly fall.

“I wish this was over,” whispered Father O’Dowd. “_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._ He’ll butter the boys like parsnips, and promise them the moon.”

Mr. De Ruthven commenced his speech in a breathless silence. Oratory is always respected in Ireland, even in an opponent, although that opponent be a Protestant and an Orangeman. The speaker labored under the disadvantage of possessing but one hand, the other having been accidentally shot off by the bursting of a fowling-piece while Mr. De Ruthven was grouse-shooting in Scotland.

His speech was, unhappily for us, most felicitous. He seemed to suit himself to the occasion, and to make the occasion suit him. A faint murmur followed one or two of his well-directed points, which gradually swelled into open applause, until, to our dismay, we found he was carrying the audience with him.

Our party gazed significantly one at the other. We all perceived that the danger we had already anticipated was upon us in real earnest. At this moment I perceived Peter O’Brien elbowing himself to the front. A dead silence had fallen, one of those unaccountable stillnesses that occasionally come upon all assemblages, however large. Mr. De Ruthven was about to recommence, when Peter, putting his hands to his mouth, and in a voice that could be heard in the adjacent barony, shouted at the top of his lungs:

“_Where’s the hand that sthruck the priest?_”

To describe the effect of this query would be impossible. It was simply electrical. In one second the current, which had been flowing smoothly, became dammed, and instantly turned into another channel. In vain did Mr. De Ruthven endeavor to gain a hearing; in vain to disclaim the odious charge that had been indirectly preferred against him. It was useless. Every effort was met by a thousand cries of “Where’s the hand that sthruck the priest?” And in these few words the sun of his eloquence had set for ever. The high-sheriff almost burst a blood-vessel in his endeavor to obtain silence, until, finding the task a hopeless one, he advised Mr. De Ruthven to formally second the nomination and retire, which was accordingly done, and in dumb show.

When Melton presented himself he was received with laughter and jeers. The people had just warmed into that facetious good-humor that is so dangerous to a candidate for their suffrages. Opposition makes a martyr. Laughter causes a man to appear ridiculous.

“What’ll ye take for the posy?”

“Off wud yer gloves.”

“Will ye give us a pup out o’ that hat?”

“Is that coat ped for?”

“The raison it’s so new is that he wants to be able for to turn it, boys.”

“Spake up.”

“Give us a little Irish.”

“Sing the ‘Wearin’ av the Green.’”

“We’ll return ye—to England.”

“Go home to yer mother.”

“Cud ye say boo to a goose?”

“Och! we’ll vote for ye all together like Brown’s cows, an’ he had only wan.”

“Yer a fine man to send—out o’ the counthry.”

“Arrah, what brought ye here at all?”

“Ax for the price o’ the thrain for to take ye home, an’ mebbe ould Beresford wud give it to ye.”

Such were the greetings that interrupted Mr. Wynwood Melton during the delivery of a very brief speech, not one word of which even reached the reporters’ table. He seemed, however, perfectly unruffled, and continued bowing for a considerable time in response to the derisive cheering that followed upon his silence.

Father O’Dowd was received with a whirlwind of cheers, yells, and other manifestations of enthusiastic delight.

In proposing me he was very brief, alluding to the degrading position held by Catholics in a county where the large majority of the people were Catholics, and where everything that could be denied a Catholic was denied him. He was good enough to refer to the intrepidity with which my poor father had upheld the ancient faith, to his true-hearted patriotism, and wound up by declaring that this was the hour for the county to assert itself, both for conscience and country.

I read my speech in the _Weekly Courier_ on the following Saturday, and I _suppose_ I must have uttered it, but I have not the remotest conception of what I said. It read wonderfully well; and as Father O’Dowd told me I surpassed myself, I felt more or less elated at my success.

“If _she_ had been there to hear it!” was my sad, sickening thought.

_Læta dies aderat._ The eventful day arrived big with my fate and that of the county. I felt that I was but the mere instrument, and, if victory were to crown the effort, it would be due to the principle and not the man. We knew that in some districts we would be badly beaten, while in others the issue was somewhat doubtful; but as to the ultimate outcome we entertained not a shadow of a doubt. The people were panting for a chance, and they had got it now.

When I showed the voting-papers to Peter, telling him that a cross marked in pencil should go opposite the name of the candidate for whom the voter wished to vote, he anxiously demanded:

“An’ must the min that votes for the Englishman put in a crass, too?”

“Every man of them.”

“Och, thin, glory be to God! shure it’s a judgmint on thim Protestants for to have to make the sign av the blessed an’ holy crass at all, at all—curse of Crummle on thim!”

Fearing a disturbance, as party spirit ran so high and as my supporters were so excited, a strong detachment of the Sixtieth Rifles was marched into Ballyraken on the eve of the polling. The Protestant landlords had secured free quarters in the town for such of their tenantry as chose to inhabit them, while they themselves occupied the Club House and De Ruthven Arms in a most imposing and demonstrative manner.

I was walking down the main street, all alone, thinking not of the forthcoming ballot, but of Mabel, when I perceived my opponent lounging on the steps of the Club House. I should be compelled to pass the Club House or cross the street, and as I was a member of the club, although I never frequented it, I now resolved upon boldly entering the enemy’s camp.

I was passing Melton with a nod when he stepped forward and in a singularly insolent tone demanded a word with me. He was very white.

“I was at Kilkenley yesterday.”

“Indeed!” I said. His tone was too uncertain to admit of my making any comment upon his visit.

“I suppose Miss Hawthorne is acting under _your_ orders?” he hissed.

“I am at a loss to understand your meaning, sir,” I hotly replied.

“Not at home save to those whom you may be pleased to admit to your palatial residence,” he sneered.

“My residence is a very humble one, Mr. Melton, and when _you_ honored it with your person I hope you found it a hospitable one. Miss Hawthorne is mistress of her own movements, but let me tell you, sir, that she is my mother’s guest, and the guest of an Ormonde is sacred.”

“Very dramatic, but scarcely to the point.”

“I’ll come to any point you please.”

“When this election business is over I may have something to say to you,” his tone fairly exasperating.

I could stand it no longer.

“You white-livered cub, whatever you have to say, say it now!” I shouted, the blood rushing like molten lava through my veins.

“I don’t row in public.”

“Do you wish me to tell you what I think of you, in public, Mr. Melton?”

He smiled.

“Pah! you are not worth this stick, or I’d break it across your shoulders.” And I marched into the club, my heart bumping against my ribs from sheer excitement.

What could he mean? Miss Hawthorne refuse to see him at _my_ request? It was too absurd. Some lover’s quarrel. Was this cad her lover? Had her heart gone forth to such a man as this?

It was torture to think it.

Contrary to all expectations, the conduct of the people was orderly and peaceable. The dread of a petition had been seared into their very souls by Father O’Dowd and by the admirable organization that had charge of my interests. They came up to the booths silent, almost sullen. The landlords and bailiffs were all at their posts, uttering a last warning word as the tenants filed into the booths, addressing them cheerily as they emerged therefrom, in the hope of gleaning the much-coveted information as to the direction of the vote; but the responsibility of that day’s work appeared upon every face, and they entered the voting-places as though stepping into a church. Telegrams came pouring in all day from the outlying districts.

“Ballymaclish is all right—a majority of sixty; Derrymaclooney accounts for every man,” cried Father O’Dowd. “Bravo, my dear old parish! I knew I could trust my good, brave, pious children.”

Later on: “The De Ruthvens have carried Tubbercurry.”

“That’s because Father Nolan is on the broad of his back.”

“Ay, and because the Beresfords have stopped at nothing,” observed one of my committee. “If we want a petition we can pick it up in Tubbercurry. A telegram this morning says that there were money and whiskey going all the week.”

“How about Dharnadhulagh?”

“No returns yet.”

“Or Derrycunnihy?”

“Derrycunnihy is doubtful.”

“Not a bit of it.”

“I say it is.”

“I say it isn’t. Sure, Father James O’Neil has it in hands.”

“Oh! that will do. Put us down at forty at the very least.”

This sort of thing went on all day; but as the day wore on and the returns came in, we found at four o’clock that I had a majority, and at five that I had beaten Melton like a hack.

A wild flash of joy quivered through me. Frederic Fitzgerald Ormonde, M.P.! Visions of St. Stephen’s, of fierce debates over the crushing wrongs of expectant Erin, of glorious oratory, of splendid, supreme efforts, of magnificent rewards, honors—_Cui bono_?

_She_ would hate me for having beaten her lover in the race. But was he her lover? Had not her tell-tale blushes told me all? And yet I had given her no chance of reply. Perhaps—

As this idea smote me a nameless ecstasy vibrated through every fibre of my being, and I longed to get to Kilkenley, I knew not why.

It was excruciating to be compelled to wait and receive the congratulations of my friends and supporters. It was simply fearful to have to sit out a dinner which had been prepared in my honor, and to listen to the leaden speeches all harping upon the one theme.

Somehow or other the night passed onwards, and at about eleven o’clock I found myself free. I rode over to Kilkenley; it was a mad race, and how I contrived to avoid riding down some of my constituents is still a matter of mystery to me. It relieved my feverish spirits to give the reins to my horse, and we flew homewards, past villages, past homesteads, past inebriated revellers on low-backed cars, past bonfires which were lighted for miles along the route, past hedges, ditches—everything; nor did I draw rein until I drew up at the lodge, shouting the word “Gate!”

“Lord be merciful to us! but it’s the masther,” cried Mrs. O’Rourke, the lodge-keeper, as she tremblingly threw open the gate. “May I make so bould as to ax ye if ye bet the Englishman, sir?”

“Beat him to smithereens.”

“Glory be to God! I knew Father O’Dowd would settle it.”

There were lights all through the house. The great event had kept the household out of their beds. My mother fell upon my neck in a paroxysm of joy when I told her the news.

“Where is Mabel—I mean Miss Hawthorne, mother?” I stammered.

“She was here a moment ago. Is Mr. Hawthorne at Ballyraken?”

“Yes; I left him making a third speech.”

“You must be worn out, my child. I’ll make you some mulled port.”

Something told me that I should find Mabel in the adjoining room; and my instincts had not deceived me. She stood in the centre of the apartment, one hand resting upon a small table. When I found myself standing opposite to her I felt utterly, totally dumbfounded. I could only stare at her.

“I heard the news,” she said, casting down her violet eyes. Ah! that was _all_ she had to say.

“Will you forgive me?” I cried.

“Mr. Ormonde,” her hands working nervously, her glorious eyes still bent upon the table, her exquisitely-shaped head half averted, “I—I—that is—you have been under a most extraordinary misconception with reference to Mr. Melton. That gentleman is only a friend. As a matter of fact, I—I was so—so distressed at your ideas about him in connection with myself”—here she blushed red as a rose—“that I refused to see him when he came to visit here yesterday.”

“Then you are not in love with him?”

She raised her violet eyes, and her glance met mine as she uttered the, to me, ecstatic word, “No.”

“And not engaged to him?”

“No.”

I do not know what I said or what I did; but this I _do_ know: that when my mother entered the room with a tumbler of mulled port, she dropped the tumbler, uttering an exclamation of delight, and fell to kissing Mabel, exclaiming: “This is the one thing wanted to make me perfectly happy. My poor boy was breaking his heart about you.”

* * * * *

I was declared duly elected to serve the county in the United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland.

Mr. Hawthorne duly presented me to Mr. Speaker upon the occasion of my taking the oaths and my seat. My first nap in the House was during a speech from the member for Doodleshire, which was not treating the ethereal thunder of his mind with becoming respect, especially as he had just been good enough to give me his daughter in marriage. We were married at the pro-cathedral at Kensington, by Father O’Dowd.

Melton I never met.

Harry Welstone and I are closer friends than ever, as he is in the House, representing the borough of Bohernabury, and we are always “agin the government.”

We reside at Kilkenley, and Peter O’Brien is teaching my eldest boy to handle the ribbons.

“Musha, thin, whin I rowled out forninst ye in the dirt beyant at the railway station, it’s little I ever thought I’d see ye misthress av the ould anshint property, ma’am,” is his constant remark to the lady of the manor, while he is perpetually urging upon me the crying necessity for “takin’ a heat out av Drizzlyeye.”

“Bloody wars, Masther Fred, but you an’ ould Butt is too aisy wud him. Give him plinty av impudince, an’ as shure’s me name’s Pether O’Brien ye’ll have Home Rule while ye’d be axin’ the lind av a sack.”

THE END.

A SECTARIAN DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.

Our federal government, as a government, is absolutely forbidden by the Constitution to have anything whatever to do with religion; but the State Department has been for years and is now conducted as if it were an agency for a religious sectarian propaganda. The gentlemen whom it has sent to represent us at foreign courts have acted, in numberless instances and with few exceptions, as if they were the emissaries of Protestant or infidel missionary societies rather than as the ambassadors, ministers, and _chargés d’affaires_ of a government which professes no religion, but which nevertheless has among its citizens eight millions of Roman Catholics, more or less, whose rights and opinions it is bound at least to respect. Many of these gentlemen have seemed to believe that one of their principal duties, especially if accredited to a Catholic country, was to form intimate associations with conspirators and agitators; to espouse their cause; and to fill their despatches to Mr. Seward, Mr. Fish, and Mr. Evarts with absurd but pernicious misrepresentations concerning the relations of the church towards education, civil freedom, and material progress. It may be admitted that many of these agents have erred rather through ignorance than malice; not a few of them have received but a limited education; it is only lately that a knowledge of the French language has been deemed requisite for even an ambassador. Scores of our ministers and _chargés d’affaires_ have been sent abroad, remained for a few years, and returned, without acquiring more than a mere smattering of the language of the country to which they were accredited. Too frequently these misrepresentatives of ours fall into the hands of the agents of the secret sects which are plotting all over the world for the destruction of the church and the overthrow of Christian society, and receive from these sources the erroneous and pernicious views of affairs which they transmit to Washington. One of our diplomatists, returning from a long residence in the capital of a Catholic country, had for a fellow-traveller on the steamship an American Catholic.

“I envy you your residence in ——,” said this gentleman; “the intellectual society there is agreeable. Were you not well acquainted with Father —— and Mgr. ——?” naming two individuals of wide-spread celebrity.

“Oh! no,” replied the astute statesman, “not at all; I never met them. They are Papists, you know, and I never cared to waste my time with men who pray to idols, and pretend to believe that a piece of bread is God. Besides,” he added, with ingenuous simplicity, “my interpreter, a very shrewd fellow, told me all the priests in —— were bitter foes of our free republican institutions, and I thought it my duty to keep aloof from them.”

A perusal of the Red Books for the last two years inclines one to believe that many of our ministers to foreign countries derive their opinions and their information chiefly from their “interpreters.” The Hon. Mr. Scadder, rewarded for his eminent services to his party by being torn from his sorrowing constituents at Watertoast, and sent to represent us at the proud court of a papistical sovereign, may be at the mercy of any wag who chooses to humbug him with fantastical lies, or of any emissary from a Masonic sect who is instructed to fill his mind with misrepresentations; but Mr. Fish and Mr. Evarts are men of culture, and are supposed, at least, to be able to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw. It is of them that we chiefly complain. If the exigencies of party have made it impossible for them to select the best men for our diplomatic service, and if they have been obliged to put up with Mr. Scadder and his kind, it has at least been always in their power to cause our foreign agents to understand that it is no part of their duty to write despatches calumniating the Catholic Church, or to employ themselves in promoting the missionary enterprises of Protestant sects in Catholic countries. Had Mr. Fish and Mr. Evarts possessed a true idea of their own official duties, they never could have permitted one of their agents to write a second time such despatches as some of those contained in the Red Books before us. They would have administered to their Scadders, and Marshes, and Beales, and Partridges, and Bassetts a rebuke that would have opened the eyes of these public servants and taught them a useful lesson. Mr. Fish, we know, is a prominent and zealous member of the Protestant Episcopal Church; Mr. Evarts, we believe, is an adherent of the same sect. In their private capacity they have at least a legal right to do what they can to advance the interests of their own communion, and to expose and check the diabolical designs of the Man of Sin. But as Secretary of State at Washington Mr. Fish had not, and Mr. Evarts has not, any right to instruct, encourage, or even permit our agents abroad to calumniate the Catholic Church, to encourage conspiracies against her, or to spend their time, which belongs to the country, and the money with which the country supplies them, in promoting Anti-Catholic propagandism. Such a course is as bad a policy as it is un-American. We trust that the present Secretary of State will give this matter his immediate and careful attention; and the Senate and the House of Representatives would do well to look into it. Let him, as becomes his duty, inform the diplomatic agents of this republic that they are sent and paid to attend to the material and political interests of our country, and are expected to keep to themselves their religious opinions, whatever those opinions may be, in their correspondence with the Department of State. A proper sense of dignity on the part of the American who holds the office of the Secretary of State, and a decent respect for others, would not suffer that a diplomatic agent under his control should use his political position to insult the religious convictions of so large, important, and patriotic a portion of his fellow-citizens. Catholic citizens ask no favors as Catholics, and the time has gone by for them to accept silently from the hired agents of our common country insults to their religious faith. No one deprecates more than we do to see the tendency of the Catholic vote in this country given almost exclusively to one of its political parties. The only way in which to prevent this is by the opposite party putting an end to the display of bigotry and fanaticism against the Catholic Church.

The Department of the Interior, in its Indian Bureau, has repeatedly been guilty of gross violations of good faith and fair dealing towards the Catholic Church; but this has been due, probably, to the direct pressure put upon it by the various sects, whose cupidity was excited by the hope of reaping where Catholic priests had sown. But the foreign agents of the State Department often appear to have gone out of their way, in mere wantonness, to insult, irritate, and injure Catholic interests and feeling. Imagine the collector of the port of New York writing official despatches to the Secretary of the Treasury, informing him that, in the absence of anything better to do, he had been giving his mind to an investigation of Catholicism in this metropolis, and that he had arrived at the conclusion that much of the pauperism of the city was due to the facts that the entire Catholic population were in the habit of refusing to work on eight days of the year—days known in the superstitious jargon of the Papists as “days of obligation”—and that vast sums of money were exacted by the priests from their ignorant and degraded dupes, and sent over to Rome to support in idle luxury the pampered pope! It is probable that Secretary Sherman would administer to the collector a severe reprimand, and that this particular letter would not form part of the annual treasury report. But this is precisely the sort of news with which our minister to Hayti—Mr. Ebenezer Bassett—regales Mr. Evarts, so much to the apparent satisfaction of the latter that Mr. Bassett again and again returns to the subject and dwells upon it with unction. Or fancy Postmaster James sending a despatch to Mr. Key to cheer him with the happy intelligence that an unfrocked and disgraced Catholic priest had started a brand-new sect of his own in New York, and predicting that in a short time a majority of the Papists would desert their pastors and joyfully embrace the new gospel. But this is in substance the intelligence that such a man as Mr. Bancroft most delighted to send from Berlin. The collector of the port and the postmaster would be as much out of the line of their duty in the cases we have mentioned as Mr. Bassett and Mr. Bancroft have been. The duty of our foreign representatives is to promote the commercial, financial, and political interests of this republic at the courts to which they are accredited, and not to make themselves channels for the conveyance of idle, false, and scandalous gossip, much less to interfere in the domestic affairs of the countries to which they are sent, or allow themselves to be used as the tools of secret societies or of Methodist or any other missionary boards.