Balfour had a brief interview with the Viceroy before he started, and hurriedly informed him how events stood in Ireland. Nor was it without a sense of indignation that he saw how little his Excellency cared for the defeat of his party, and how much more eager he seemed to see his old friend Fossbrooke, and thank him for his conduct, than listen to the details of the critical questions of the hour.
"And this is his address, you say?" said Lord Wilmington, as he held a card in his hand. "I must send off to him at once."
"It's all Bentley's fault," said Balfour, full of the House and the debate. "If that fellow were drowning, and had only breath for it, he 'd move an amendment! And it's so provoking, now we had got so splendidly through our prosecutions, and were winning the Catholics round to us besides; not to say that I have at last managed to induce Lendrick to resign, and we have a Judgeship to bestow." In a few hurried words he recounted his negotiation with Sewell, placing in the Viceroy's hand the document of the resignation.
Lord Wilmington's thoughts were fully as much on his old friend Fossbrooke all this time as on questions of office, and not a little disconcerted the Secretary by muttering, "I hope the dear old fellow bears me no ill-will. I would not for worlds that he should think me unmindful of him."
And now they sat over their wine together, talking pleasantly of bygone times and old friends,--many lost to them by death, and some by distance.
"I take it," said Fossbrooke, after a pause, "that you are not sorry to get back to England."
Lord Wilmington smiled, but said nothing.
"You never could have cared much for the pomp and state of this office, and I suppose beyond these there is little in it."
"You have hit it exactly. There is nothing to be done here,--nothing. The shortness of the period that is given to any man to rule this country, and the insecurity of his tenure, even for that time, compel him to govern by a party; and the result is, we go on alternately pitting one faction against the other, till we end by marshalling the nation into two camps instead of massing them into one people. Then there is another difficulty. In Ireland the question is not so much what you do as by whom you do it. It is the men, not the measures, that are thought of. There is not an infringement on personal freedom I could not carry out, if you only let me employ for its enactment some popular demagogue. Give me a good patriot in Ireland, and I 'll engage to crush every liberty in the island."