As to the sinfulness of tampering with a girl’s affections by what in slang is called ‘spooning,’ it was purely absurd to think of it. You might as well say that playing sixpenny whist made a man a gambler. And then, as to the spooning, it was partie égale, the lady was no worse off than the gentleman. If there were by any hazard—and this he was disposed to doubt—‘affections’ at stake, the man ‘stood to lose’ as much as the woman. But this was not the aspect in which the case presented itself, flirtation being, in his idea, to marriage what the preliminary canter is to the race—something to indicate the future, but so dimly and doubtfully as not to decide the hesitation of the waverer.
If, then, Walpole was never for a moment what mothers call serious in his attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi, he was not the less fond of her society; he frequented the places where she was likely to be met with, and paid her that degree of ‘court’ that only stopped short of being particular by his natural caution. There was the more need for the exercise of this quality at Rome, since there were many there who knew of his engagement with his cousin, Lady Maude, and who would not have hesitated to report on any breach of fidelity. Now, however, all these restraints were withdrawn. They were not in Italy, where London, by a change of venue, takes its ‘records’ to be tried in the dull days of winter. They were in Ireland, and in a remote spot of Ireland, where there were no gossips, no clubs, no afternoon-tea committees, to sit on reputations, and was it not pleasant now to see this nice girl again in perfect freedom? These were, loosely stated, the thoughts which occupied him as he went along, very little disposed to mind how often the puzzled driver halted to decide the road, or how frequently he retraced miles of distance. Men of the world, especially when young in life, and more realistic than they will be twenty years later, proud of the incredulity they can feel on the score of everything and everybody, are often fond of making themselves heroes to their own hearts of some little romance, which shall not cost them dearly to indulge in, and merely engage some loose-lying sympathies without in any way prejudicing their road in life. They accept of these sentimentalities as the vicar’s wife did the sheep in the picture, pleased to ‘have as many as the painter would put in for nothing.’
Now, Cecil Walpole never intended that this little Irish episode—and episode he determined it should be—should in any degree affect the serious fortunes of his life. He was engaged to his cousin, Lady Maude Bickerstaffe, and they would be married some day. Not that either was very impatient to exchange present comfort—and, on her side, affluence—for a marriage on small means, and no great prospects beyond that. They were not much in love. Walpole knew that the Lady Maude’s fortune was small, but the man who married her must ‘be taken care of,’ and by either side, for there were as many Tories as Whigs in the family, and Lady Maude knew that half-a-dozen years ago, she would certainly not have accepted Walpole; but that with every year her chances of a better parti were diminishing; and, worse than all this, each was well aware of the inducements by which the other was influenced. Nor did the knowledge in any way detract from their self-complacence or satisfaction with the match.
Lady Maude was to accompany her uncle to Ireland, and do the honours of his court, for he was a bachelor, and pleaded hard with his party on that score to be let off accepting the viceroyalty.
Lady Maude, however, had not yet arrived, and even if she had, how should she ever hear of an adventure in the Bog of Allen!
But was there to be an adventure? and, if so, what sort of adventure? Irishmen, Walpole had heard, had all the jealousy about their women that characterises savage races, and were ready to resent what, in civilised people, no one would dream of regarding as matter for umbrage. Well, then, it was only to be more cautious—more on one’s guard—besides the tact, too, which a knowledge of life should give—
‘Eh, what’s this? Why are you stopping here?’
This was addressed now to the driver, who had descended from his box, and was standing in advance of the horse.
‘Why don’t I drive on, is it?’ asked he, in a voice of despair. ‘Sure, there’s no road.’
‘And does it stop here?’ cried Walpole in horror, for he now perceived that the road really came to an abrupt ending in the midst of the bog.
‘Begorra, it’s just what it does. Ye see, your honour,’ added he, in a confidential tone, ‘it’s one of them tricks the English played us in the year of the famine. They got two millions of money to make roads in Ireland, but they were so afraid it would make us prosperous and richer than themselves, that they set about making roads that go nowhere. Sometimes to the top of a mountain, or down to the sea, where there was no harbour, and sometimes, like this one, into the heart of a bog.’
‘That was very spiteful and very mean, too,’ said Walpole.
‘Wasn’t it just mean, and nothing else! and it’s five miles we’ll have to go back now to the cross-roads. Begorra, your honour, it’s a good dhrink ye’ll have to give me for this day’s work.’
‘You forget, my friend, that but for your own confounded stupidity, I should have been at Kilgobbin Castle by this time.’
‘And ye’ll be there yet, with God’s help!’ said he, turning the horse’s head. ‘Bad luck to them for the road-making, and it’s a pity, after all, it goes nowhere, for it’s the nicest bit to travel in the whole country.’
‘Come now, jump up, old fellow, and make your beast step out. I don’t want to pass the night here.’
‘You wouldn’t have a dhrop of whisky with your honour?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Nor even brandy?’
‘No, not even brandy.’
‘Musha, I’m thinking you must be English,’ muttered he, half sulkily.
‘And if I were, is there any great harm in that?’
‘By coorse not; how could ye help it? I suppose we’d all of us be better if we could. Sit a bit more forward, your honour; the belly band does be lifting her, and as you’re doing nothing, just give her a welt of that stick in your hand, now and then, for I lost the lash off my whip, and I’ve nothing but this!’ And he displayed the short handle of what had once been a whip, with a thong of leather dangling at the end.
‘I must say I wasn’t aware that I was to have worked my passage,’ said Walpole, with something between drollery and irritation.
‘She doesn’t care for bating—stick her with the end of it. That’s the way. We’ll get on elegant now. I suppose you was never here before?’
‘No; and I think I can promise you I’ll not come again.’
‘I hope you will, then, and many a time too. This is the Bog of Allen you’re travelling now, and they tell there’s not the like of it in the three kingdoms.’
‘I trust there’s not!’
‘The English, they say, has no bogs. Nothing but coal.’
‘Quite true.’
‘Erin, ma bouchal you are! first gem of the say! that’s what Dan O’Connell always called you. Are you gettin’ tired with the stick?’
‘I’m tired of your wretched old beast, and your car, and yourself, too,’ said Walpole; ‘and if I were sure that was the castle yonder, I’d make my way straight to it on foot.’
‘And why wouldn’t you, if your honour liked it best? Why would ye be beholden to a car if you’d rather walk. Only mind the bog-holes: for there’s twenty feet of water in some of