The Absentee Read Online Free PDF Page B

that, if it was necessary, he would willingly
give up half his allowance.
    'Not at all—not at all, my dear boy,' said his father; 'I would rather
cramp myself than that you should be cramped, a thousand times over.
But it is all my Lady Clonbrony's nonsense. If people would but, as they
ought, stay in their own country, live on their own estates, and kill
their own mutton, money need never be wanting.'
    For killing their own mutton, Lord Colambre did not see the
indispensable necessity; but he rejoiced to hear his father assert that
people should reside in their own country.
    'Ay,' cried Lord Clonbrony, to strengthen his assertion, as he always
thought it necessary to do, by quoting some other person's opinion. 'So
Sir Terence O'Fay always says, and that's the reason your mother can't
endure poor Terry. You don't know Terry? No, you have only seen him;
but, indeed, to see him is to know him; for he is the most off-hand,
good fellow in Europe.'
    'I don't pretend to know him yet,' said Lord Colambre. 'I am not so
presumptuous as to form my opinion at first sight.'
    'Oh, curse your modesty!' interrupted Lord Clonbrony; 'you mean, you
don't pretend to like him yet; but Terry will make you like him. I
defy you not. I'll introduce you to him—him to you, I mean—most
warn-hearted, generous dog upon earth—convivial—jovial—with wit and
humour enough, in his own way, to split you—split me if he has not. You
need not cast down your eyes, Colambre. What's your objection?'
    'I have made none, sir; but, if you urge me, I can only say that, if
he has all these good qualities, it is to be regretted that he does not
look and speak a little more like a gentleman.'
    'A gentleman! he is as much a gentleman as any of your formal prigs—not
the exact Cambridge cut, maybe. Curse your English education! 'Twas none
of my advice. I suppose you mean to take after your mother in the notion
that nothing can be good, or genteel, but what's English.'
    'Far from it, sir; I assure you, I am as warm a friend to Ireland as
your heart could wish. You will have no reason, in that respect at
least, nor, I hope, in any other, to curse my English education; and,
if my gratitude and affection can avail, you shall never regret the
kindness and liberality with which you have, I fear, distressed yourself
to afford me the means of becoming all that a British nobleman ought to
be.'
    'Gad! you distress me now!' said Lord Clonbrony, 'and I didn't expect
it, or I wouldn't make a fool of myself this way,' added he, ashamed of
his emotion, and whiffling it off. 'You have an Irish heart, that I see,
which no education can spoil. But you must like Terry. I'll give you
time, as he said to me, when first he taught me to like usquebaugh. Good
morning to you!'
    Whilst Lady Clonbrony, in consequence of her residence in London, had
become more of a fine lady, Lord Clonbrony, since he left Ireland,
had become less of a gentleman. Lady Clonbrony, born an Englishwoman,
disclaiming and disencumbering herself of all the Irish in town, had,
by giving splendid entertainments, at an enormous expense, made her way
into a certain set of fashionable company. But Lord Clonbrony, who was
somebody in Ireland, who was a great person in Dublin, found himself
nobody in England, a mere cipher in London, Looked down upon by the fine
people with whom his lady associated, and heartily weary of them,
he retreated from them altogether, and sought entertainment and
self-complacency in society beneath him—indeed, both in rank and
education, but in which he had the satisfaction of feeling himself the
first person in company. Of these associates, the first in talents, and
in jovial profligacy, was Sir Terence O'Fay—a man of low extraction,
who had been knighted by an Irish lord-lieutenant in some convivial
frolic. No one could tell a good story, or sing a good song better
than Sir Terence; he exaggerated his native brogue, and his natural
propensity to blunder, caring little whether the