John Buford Kilpatrick

“ His lordship laughed, but with no aspect of enjoyment.
‘You’re an assuming old scoundrel, Peebles. My conscience? Gad!—my conscience, indeed!’
‘Ay, and your conscience says, “Make amends to your own begotten son, the bairn of the puir lass who died for your sake, and who loved ye, Lord Kilpatrick.”’
The old lord’s head sank upon his breast; his eyes were dim with a sudden moisture.
‘I loved her, Peebles—I loved her!’
‘And yet ye played that deil’s trick on her, with the aid o’ yon scoundrel Blake.’
‘How could I marry one so much my inferior?’ asked Kilpatrick tremulously. ”

“ Desmond recounted the interview.
‘He took it like mother’s milk, sir. Sure he knew he was in the wrong. He’s not a bad fellow, if you know how to humour him.’
Peebles coughed behind his hand a dubious note, and Kilpatrick, catching the old man’s eye, said with something of his former testiness:
‘Well, well, that will do—go and eat your dinner. Peebles, wait on Lady Dulcie.’
The two young people and the old servitor left the room together, and Kilpatrick, sinking back into the seat he had quitted, sat for some time plunged in silent thought. ”

“ There is nothing you can ask me I will not do, no burden that you can lay upon me that I will not gladly bear.’
‘I hope,’ said Desmond, after a short pause, ‘that you won’t think what I’m going to tell ye is a burden. Faith, ’tis hard to know where to begin! Supposing—mind, I only say supposing—supposing my mother were not dead at all, supposing she were alive, and came back here, would you make the same amends to her as you say you’ll make to me?’ ‘You—you torture me!’ cried Kilpatrick. ‘Why rake up these painful recollections? Why ask questions of this sort, when they can do no good? ”

“ Isn’t it time that you began to take life seriously, and to think of doing something?’
‘Faith, I suppose it is,’ said Desmond. ‘I’ve been trying for the last six months to find what kind o’ life I’m fit for. I’ll take to something by-and-by. As to why Lord Kilpatrick’s so good to me, you know just as much as I know myself, Lady Dulcie; Mr. Peebles, that knows more of his ways than anybody else, says ’tis to aise his conscience.’
‘To ease his conscience?’ the girl repeated. ”

“ Speak!’ cried Desmond—‘speak! I must know!’
‘She was named Moya Macartney,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘She was—she——’
‘She was not your wife?’ said the boy. ‘Then I am—I am what he called me!’
‘Convention!’ cried Kilpatrick—‘mere convention! I acknowledge you as my son. Who will dare to point at you? Take witness, all of you!’ he cried, rising from his seat, ‘Desmond Macartney is my son. Those who will receive him and treat him as such are welcome here. Those who will not, let them go their ways.’
‘Uncle!’ cried Dulcie, ‘God bless you! Desmond——’
‘Hush, Lady Dulcie!’ cried Desmond. ”

“ He’s bright and clever, and with that income, and a calling in his fingers, if he can’t make his way in the world, ’tis a pity.’
‘A profession!’ said Kilpatrick musingly. ‘I don’t know what the boy’s fit for, unless it’s for a soldier or a sailor.’
‘Bad pay and poor prospects,’ said Conseltine. ‘Why not the Church?’
His lordship went off into a sudden cackle of laughter.
‘The Church! Fancy Desmond a priest! Faith, ’twould be a pretty parish that he had charge of!’
‘The bar?’ suggested his brother. ”

“ Here she had struck up a friendship with young Desmond, who had for years been a sort of protégé of Lord Kilpatrick. Only in the wild west of Ireland are such intimacies common or even possible, but there, where the greater and the smaller gentry still meet on terms of free and easy equality, and where the vices of more civilized society are still unknown, they excite no comment.
Mr. Blake’s abrupt and angry departure from the Castle left anything but comfortable feelings in the breasts of one or two of his late convives. ”

“ Man alive!’ he continued, in answer to Kilpatrick’s stricken look, ‘do your duty—acknowledge your son before the world! If anything can get ye a free pass through the gates of heaven, it will be a deed like that!’
‘Gad!’ said Kilpatrick, ‘I’ve a mind to do it, if only to spite my brother Dick. Peebles, do you think I’m a fool? Do you think I don’t know Dick Conseltine? He’s looking forward to my funeral. He wants the estate for young spindleshanks, my nephew. ”

“ The boy took the gray head between his hands, and kissed his father on the forehead, wetting his face with his tears.
‘It is more than I deserve,’ said the old man. ‘I was a scoundrel, a villain! I broke your mother’s heart, Desmond, the sweetest, purest heart that ever beat. Ye can’t forgive me for that! Nothing can ever take that load from my heart, nothing, till I die and she asks God to pardon me.’
‘Father!’ said Desmond. ‘I have strange news for you. Are you well and strong enough to bear it?
‘Nothing can hurt me now,’ replied Kilpatrick. ”

“ Desmond, laddie,’ he continued, ‘my lord has sent me after you. Noo, noo, ye’ll just hear me deliver my message. He’s oot of his mind, almost, clean daft, and neither pancreatic emulsion nor leever pills will hae much power to help him through in this trouble, I’m thinking.’
‘Tell Lord Kilpatrick from me,’ said Desmond, when he could trust his voice, ‘that I’ve nothing more to say to him.’
‘Hoot, lad!’ said Peebles. ‘Blood’s thicker than water. Ye can’t shake off the ties of relationship in that fashion, and cast awa’ your father like an old glove. ”

“ I’ll send up Peebles to help you to undress.’
He went; and Kilpatrick, rising from his seat, began to pace the room from end to end among the gathering shadows.
‘What the devil makes Dick Conseltine so tender all of a sudden?’ he asked himself. ‘Dictate of nature and justice, indeed! He hates the boy like poison, that I’m sure of. I can see it in his eye, sly and smooth as he is, every time he looks at him; and so does that bull-headed young fool, his son. It’s natural, I suppose. Faith, then, one sees the hatred that money breeds—brother hating brother, father hating son, son father ”

“ What about his shame and anguish, his loss of respect and belief in all his kind, because you, the one man he loved and trusted most, turned to base metal in his sight? And ye are hardly treated! Gin ye had your deserts, Henry Conseltine, Lord Kilpatrick, ye’d be on the treadmill at this minute. There’s many an honester man than you that’s praying God this minute for bread and water to stay his carnal pangs, while ye sit here, full o’ meat, and puffed out wi’ idleness. ”

“ Think o’ Lady Dulcie, Desmond. Can ye ask her, the bonnie doo, to share sic a life as ye’d hae to live for years and years to come, before ye’ve made a name and position for yersel’? It looks easy at your age to conquer the world, but the fight’s a long and bitter one. And then, there’s the plain justice of the case. Let right be done. Your mother’s Lady Kilpatrick, and you’re Desmond Conseltine, my lord’s heir, and I’ll see them damn’d—the Lord forgive me for swearin’!—before I’ll let yon brace o’ murderin’ thieves prosper at your expense. No, no, Moya, my lass. ”

“ To see the bonny lad, that they denounced as a beggar and a bastard, established wi’ title and estates! To see Lady Dulcie Lady Kilpatrick and Desmond’s wife! Oh! if it’s no’ true there’ll be a braw end o’ one good Scot, for I’ll just gang neck and crop into Limbo for sheer vexation. Dawm it! that I should say so—it must be true! It shall be true, if I squeeze it oot o’ yon scoundrel Blake wi’ my ain old hands, and his worthless life along wi’ it! ”

“ Yuh can't carry a woman very far in your arms, the way they do on the stage; it looks better, but you wouldn't get far.
When we did get down into Kilpatrick's coulée, Glen roused up and walked the last few hundred yards, and we went up to the door and I knocked. Old Kilpatrick come to the door, and, so help me, he didn't know Glen from a hole in the ground, she was that black and draggled, and with my coat on. ”

“ I told her there was just the one thing for me to do, and that was ride to her dad's and get another horse and bring it to her. She didn't look none hilarious, but she said it seemed the only way—if it wouldn't be too much trouble! There's one fundamental principle in life that none uh these New Thoughters or science sharps are ever going to argue away, and that is, that nothing's too much trouble for a man when he's doing it for a woman—well, the woman. I'll bet Glen Kilpatrick was next to that great truth, too, the way her eyes laughed when she said it. ”

“ The typical Southerner, out of the observation and experience of his lifetime, would accept Burke’s thesis that universal equality may exist, but only as the equality of Christianity—moral equality, or, more precisely, equality in the ultimate judgment of God. He knows that “no other equality exists, or may be imagined to exist.” The South holds small enthusiasm for egalitarian doctrines based upon the infinite perfectibility of man. With John Adams, who would have made a splendid Southerner, we know that men are foolish; that men are not benevolent ”

“ Then I felt more normal—except in the region uh my heart—and I borrowed a horse from Kilpatrick and went and delivered that message to Blank Davis—only they'd moved twice, away from Big Birch, and I had a dickens of a time finding camp, and rode about a hundred and twenty-five miles.
I delivered it, all right—trust Little Willie for that!—and hiked back to the Rocking-R only about two days overdue. And that's where I got turned down. Ring had gone back—how he dodged the fire's a plumb mystery to me, but I told yuh Ring was half human—and the old man wanted explanations and then some. ”

“ It is a way of life that has to be experienced. Children mask their eyes and play at being blind. Even so, some of my Northern friends mask their eyes and play at being Southern; they try to imagine what it must be like to be white in the South, to be Negro in the South. Novelist John Griffin dyed his skin and spent three weeks or so pretending to be Negro, looking for incidents to confirm his prejudices. But a child always knows that he can take his hands from his eyes, and see, that he is not really blind ”

“ Of course, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to attack them instantly with one or more British machines, and as in this respect the British Flying Corps has established an individual ascendency, Sir John French proudly declares that "something in the direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained." ”

“ It is said of Sir John French that, on his own admission, he has "never done anything worth doing without having to screw himself up to it." There is no hint here of practical fear, which the hardened soldier, the fighting man, rarely experiences ”

“ I’ll send ye all ye can want by a sure hand. Kiss your son, and say good-bye to him for a day or twa. Trust to me!’
Desmond and his mother took each other again in their arms, and for a minute the deep silence of the night was broken only by the babble of the brook and the sound of their sobs and kisses. Then the old mill, which had been blazing furiously, though unheeded, fell in upon itself with a thunderous crash.
‘Lord save us!’ cried Peebles, ‘come awa’ if ye don’t want the countryside about us! It’s jest a wonder that naebody’s come already. Hoot! ”

“ She has suffered so long that anither day or twa will hardly matter much, I’m thinking. You must bide a wee, laddie. You must trust to Peebles. I’m just as anxious to see you and your mother get your rights as ye can be yersel’; but lookers-on see most of the game, and my lord’s head is cooler than yours is like to be.’
‘He is right, Desmond,’ said Moya. ‘We must think of—of your father, and then—’tis myself, too, that has need of time and need of prayer. If the news had come years back, I couldn’t have held myself back. I should have run to him at once. But now—’tis not of him I think ”

“ Added to all these mental qualifications, is that perfect physique, which makes Kilpatrick the model soldier. As an equestrian we have never seen his superior. He rides as though he had been made for a saddle. ”

“ Blake still!—and by that same token Moya Macartney is Lady Kilpatrick, and Desmond Macartney is Desmond Consel-tine, his lordship’s son and heir!’
The mention of the name of Conseltine electrified Blake. He clutched his whisky-muddled head in both hands, staring wildly before him.
‘My God!’ he cried suddenly, ‘is it dreamin’ that I am? No, by the Lord, ’tis no dream, sir! Get up, man, get up! ’Tis no time to be sittin’ here! ”

“ General Judson Kilpatrick, also a West Point graduate, was of slight build, wiry, apparently incapable of fatigue, and physically just the man for a cavalry leader. He was of a highly excitable and nervous temperament. Whenever we reached camp and every one else seemed to think that men and horses should have a rest, Kilpatrick was writing letters and asking for authority from his superiors to start out on a reconnoissance or a raid, or to give him a chance to get into a fight. ”

“ Luck’s like lightnin’. She never hits twice in the same place.”
Kilpatrick sank back in the gully and gave himself up to ruminating. He leaned on his elbows and pulled up little tufts of grass and weeds growing here and there. Lieutenant Clopton, looking across towards the poplar, suddenly reached for the sharp-shooter’s rifle, but Kilpatrick placed his hand on it jealously. ”