CHAPTER III.
But is it natural, is it possible, that this Sir Ulick O’Shane could so easily part with Harry Ormond, and thus “whistle him down the wind to prey at fortune?” For Harry Ormond, surely, if for any creature living, Sir Ulick O’Shane’s affection had shown itself disinterested and steady. When left a helpless infant, its mother dead, its father in India, he had taken the child from the nurse, who was too poor even to feed or clothe it as her own; and he had brought little Harry up at his castle with his own son—as his own son. He had been his darling—literally his spoiled child; nor had this fondness passed away with the prattling, playful graces of the child’s first years—it had grown with its growth. Harry became Sir Ulick’s favourite companion—hunting, shooting, carousing, as he had been his plaything during infancy. On no one occasion had Harry, violent and difficult to manage as he was to others, ever crossed Sir Ulick’s will, or in any way incurred his displeasure. And now, suddenly, without any cause, except the aversion of a wife, whose aversions seldom troubled him in any great degree, is it natural that he should give up Harry Ormond, and suffer him to sacrifice himself in vain for the preservation of a conjugal peace, which Sir Ulick ought to have known could not by such a sacrifice be preserved? Is it possible that Sir Ulick should do this? Is it in human nature?
Yes, in the nature of Sir Ulick O’Shane. Long use had brought him to this; though his affections, perhaps, were naturally warm, he had on many occasions in his life sacrificed them to his scheming imaginations. Necessity—the necessity of his affairs, the consequences of his extravagance—had brought him to this: the first sacrifices had not been made without painful struggles; but by degrees his mind had hardened, and his warmth of heart had cooled. When he said or swore in the most cordial manner that he “would do any thing in the world to serve a friend,” there was always a mental reservation of “any thing that does not hurt my own interest, or cross my schemes.”
And how could Harry Ormond hurt his interest, or cross his schemes? or how had Sir Ulick discovered this so suddenly? Miss Annaly’s turning pale was the first cause of Sir Ulick’s change of sentiments towards his young favourite. Afterwards, during the whole that passed, Sir Ulick had watched the impression made upon her—he had observed that it was not for Marcus O’Shane’s safety that she was anxious; and he thought she had betrayed a secret attachment, the commencement of an attachment he thought it, of which she was perhaps herself unconscious. Were such an attachment to be confirmed, it would disappoint Sir Ulick’s schemes: therefore, with the cool decision of a practised schemer, he determined directly to get rid of Ormond. He had no intention of parting with him for ever, but merely while the Annalys were at Castle Hermitage: till his scheme was brought to bear, he would leave Harry at the Black Islands, and he could, he thought, recal him from banishment, and force a reconciliation with Lady O’Shane, and reinstate him in favour, at pleasure.
But is it possible that Miss Annaly, such an amiable and elegant young lady as she is described to be, should feel any attachment, any predilection for such a young man as Ormond; ill-educated, unpolished, with a violent temper, which had brought him early into life into the dreadful situation in which he now stands? And at the moment when, covered with the blood of an innocent man, he stood before her, an object of disgust and horror; could any sentiment like love exist or arise in a well-principled mind?
Certainly not. Sir Ulick’s acquaintance with unprincipled women misled him completely in this instance, and deprived him of his usual power of discriminating character. Harry Ormond was uncommonly handsome; and though so young, had a finely-formed, manly, graceful figure; and his manner, whenever he spoke to women, was peculiarly prepossessing. These personal accomplishments, Sir Ulick thought, were quite sufficient to win any lady’s heart—but Florence Annaly was not to be won by such means: no feeling of love for Mr. Ormond had ever touched her heart, nor even crossed her imagination; none under such circumstances could have arisen in her innocent and well-regulated mind. Sudden terror, and confused apprehension of evil, made her grow very pale at the sight of his bloody apparition at the window of the ball-room. Bodily weakness, for she was not at this time in strong health, must be her apology, if she need any, for the faintness and loss of presence of mind, which Sir Ulick construed into proofs of tender anxiety for the personal fate of this young man. In the scene that followed, horror of his crime, pity for the agony of his remorse, was what she felt—what she strongly expressed to her mother, the moment she reached her apartment that night: nor did her mother, who knew her thoroughly, ever for an instant suspect that in her emotion, there was a mixture of any sentiments but those which she expressed. Both mother and daughter were extremely shocked. They were also struck with regret at the idea, that a young man, in whom they had seen many instances of a generous, good disposition, of natural qualities and talents, which might have made him a useful, amiable, and admirable member of society, should be, thus early, a victim to his own undisciplined passion. During the preceding winter they had occasionally seen something of Ormond in Dublin. In the midst of the dissipated life which he led, upon one or two occasions, of which we cannot now stop to give an account, he had shown that he was capable of being a very different character from that which he had been made by bad education, bad example, and profligate indulgence, or shameful neglect on the part of his guardian.
Immediately after Sir Ulick had left Ormond, the surgeon appeared, and a new train of emotions arose. He had no time to reflect on Sir Ulick’s conduct. He felt hurried on rapidly, like one in a terrible dream. He returned with the surgeon to the wounded man.
Moriarty had wakened, much refreshed from his sleep, and the surgeon confessed that his patient was infinitely better than he had expected to find him. Moriarty evidently exerted himself as much as he possibly could to appear better, that he might calm Ormond’s anxiety, who stood waiting, with looks that showed his implicit faith in the oracle, and feeling that his own fate depended upon the next words that should be uttered. Let no one scoff at his easy faith: at this time Ormond was very young, not yet nineteen, and had no experience, either of the probability, or of the fallacy of medical predictions. After looking very grave and very wise, and questioning and cross-questioning a proper time, the surgeon said it was impossible for him to pronounce any thing decidedly, till the patient should have passed another night; but that if the next night proved favourable, he might then venture to declare him out of immediate danger, and might then begin to hope that, with time and care, he would do well. With this opinion, guarded and dubious as it was, Ormond was delighted—his heart felt relieved of part of the heavy load by which it had been oppressed, and the surgeon was well feed from the purse which Sir Ulick had put into Ormond’s hands. Ormond’s next business was to send a gossoon with a letter to his friend the King of the Black Islands, to tell him all that had passed, and to request an asylum in his dominions. By the time he had finished and despatched his letter, it was eight o’clock in the morning; and he was afraid that before he could receive an answer, it might be too late in the day to carry a wounded man as far as the Black Islands: he therefore accepted the hospitable offer of the village school-mistress, to give him and his patient a lodging for that night. There was indeed no one in the place who would not have done as much for Master Harry. All were in astonishment and sorrow when they heard that he was going to leave the castle; and their hatred to Lady O’Shane would have known no bounds, had they learned that she was the cause of his banishment: but this he generously concealed, and forbade those of his followers or partisans, who had known any thing of what had passed, to repeat what they had heard. It was late in the day before Marcus rose; for he had to sleep off the effects of his last night’s intemperance. He was in great astonishment when he learned that Ormond was really going away; and “could scarcely believe,” as he said repeatedly, “that Harry was so mad, or such a fool. As to Moriarty, a few guineas would have settled the business, if no rout had been made about it. Sitting up all night with such a fellow, and being in such agonies about him—how absurd! What more could he have done, if he had shot a gentleman, or his best friend? But Harry Ormond was always in extremes.”
Marcus, though he had not a very clear recollection of the events of the preceding night, was conscious, however, that he had been much more to blame than Ormond had stated; he had a remembrance of having been very violent, and of having urged Ormond to chastise Moriarty. It was not the first time that Ormond had screened him from blame, by taking the whole upon himself. For this Marcus was grateful to a certain degree: he thought he was fond of Harry Ormond; but he had not for him the solid friendship that would stand the test of adversity, still less would it be capable of standing against any difference of party opinion. Marcus, though he appeared a mild, indolent youth, was violent where his prejudices were concerned. Instead of being governed by justice in his conduct towards his inferiors, he took strong dislikes, either upon false informations, or without sufficient examination of the facts: cringing and flattery easily won his favour; and, on the other hand, he resented any spirit of independence, or even the least contradiction, from an inferior. These defects in his temper appeared more and more in him every year. As he ceased to be a boy, and was called upon to act as a man, the consequences of his actions became of greater importance; but in acquiring more power, he did not acquire more reason, or greater command over himself. He was now provoked with Ormond for being so anxious about Moriarty Carroll, because he disliked the Carrolls, and especially Moriarty, for some slight cause not worth recording. He went to Ormond, and argued the matter with him, but in vain. Marcus resented this sturdiness, and they parted, displeased with each other. Though Marcus expressed in words much regret at his companion’s adhering to the resolution of quitting his father’s house, yet it might be doubted whether, at the end of the conference, these professions were entirely sincere, whatever they might have been at the beginning: he had not a large mind, and perhaps he was not sorry to get rid of a companion who had often rivalled him in his father’s favour, and who might rival him where it was still more his ambition to please. The coldness of Marcus’s manner at parting, and the little difficulty which he felt in the separation, gave exquisite pain to poor Ormond, who, though he was resolved to go, did wish to be regretted, especially by the companion, the friend of his childhood. The warmth of his guardian’s manner had happily deceived him; and to the recollection of this he recurred for comfort at this moment, when his heart ached, and he was almost exhausted with the succession of the painful, violently painful, feelings of the last four-and-twenty hours.
The gossoon who had been sent with the despatch to the King of the Black Islands did not return this day—disappointment upon disappointment. Moriarty, who had exerted himself too much, that he might appear better than he really was, suffered proportionably this night; and so did Ormond, who, never before having been with any person delirious from fever, was excessively alarmed. What he endured cannot be described: it was, however, happy for him that he was forced to bear it all—nothing less could have made a sufficient impression on his mind—nothing less could have been a sufficient warning to set a guard upon the violence of his temper.
In the morning the fever abated: about eight o’clock the patient sunk into a sound sleep; and Ormond, kneeling by his bedside, ardent in devotion as in all his sentiments, gave thanks to Heaven, prayed for Moriarty’s perfect recovery, and vowed with the strongest adjurations that if he might be spared for this offence, if he might be saved from the horror of being a murderer, no passion, no provocation should ever, during the whole future course of his life, tempt him to lift his hand against a fellow-creature.
As he rose from his knees, after making this prayer and this vow, he was surprised to see standing beside him Lady Annaly—she had made a sign to the sick man not to interrupt Ormond’s devotion by any exclamation at her entrance.
“Be not disturbed—let me not feel that I embarrass you, Mr. Ormond,” said she: “I came here not to intrude upon your privacy. Be not ashamed, young gentleman,” continued she, “that I should have witnessed feelings that do you honour, and that interest me in your future fate.”
“Interest Lady Annaly in my future fate!—Is it possible!” exclaimed Ormond: “Is it possible that one of whom I stood so much in awe—one whom I thought so much too good, ever to bestow a thought on—such a one as I am—as I was, even before this fatal—” (his voice failed).
“Not fatal, I hope—I trust,” said Lady Annaly: “this poor man’s looks at this moment assure me that he is likely to do well.”
“True for ye, my lady,” said Moriarty, “I’ll do my best, surely: I’d live through all, if possible, for his sake, let alone my mudther’s, or shister’s, or my own—‘twould be too bad, after; all the trouble he got these two nights, to be dying at last, I and hanting him, may be, whether I would or no—for as to prosecuting, that would never be any way, if I died twenty times over. I sint off that word to my mudthier and shister, with my curse if they’d do other—and only that they were at the fair, and did not get the word, or the news of my little accident, they’d have been here long ago; and the minute they come, I’ll swear ‘em not to prosecute, or harbour a thought of revenge again’ him, who had no malice again’ me, no more than a child. And at another’s bidding, more than his own, he drew the trigger, and the pistol went off unknownst, in a passion: so there’s the case for you, my lady.”
Lady Annaly, who was pleased with the poor fellow’s simplicity and generosity in this tragi-comic statement of the case, inquired if she could in any way afford him assistance.
“I thank your ladyship, but Mr. Harry lets me want for nothing.”
“Nor ever will, while I have a farthing I can call my own,” cried Ormond.
“But I hope, Mr. Ormond,” said Lady Annaly, smiling, “that when Moriarty—is not that his name?—regains his strength, to which he seems well inclined, you do not mean to make him miserable and good for nothing, by supporting him in idleness?”
“No, he sha’n’t, my lady—I would not let him be wasting his little substance on me. And did ye hear, my lady, how he is going to lave Castle Hermitage? Well, of all the surprises ever I got! It come upon me like a shot—my shot was nothing to it!”
It was necessary to insist upon Moriarty’s submitting to be silent and quiet; for not having the fear of the surgeon before his eyes, and having got over his first awe of the lady, he was becoming too full of oratory and action. Lady Annaly took Ormond out with her, that she might speak to him of his own affairs.
“You will not, I hope, Mr. Ormond, ascribe it to idle curiosity, but to a wish to be of service, if I inquire what your future plans in life may be?”
Ormond had never formed any, distinctly. “He was not fit for any profession, except, perhaps, the army—he was too old for the navy—he was at present going, he believed, to the house of an old friend, a relation of Sir Ulick, Mr. Cornelius O’Shane.”
“My son, Sir Herbert Annaly, has an estate in this neighbourhood, at which he has never yet resided, but we are going there when we leave Castle Hermitage. I shall hope to see you at Annaly, when you have determined on your plans; perhaps you may show us how we can assist in forwarding them.”
“Is it possible,” repeated Ormond, in unfeigned astonishment, “that your ladyship can be so very good, so condescending, to one who so little deserves it? But I will deserve it in future. If I get over this—interested in my future fate—Lady Annaly!”
“I knew your father many years ago,” said Lady Annaly; “and as his son, I might feel some interest for you; but I will tell you sincerely, that, on some occasions, when we met in Dublin, I perceived traits of goodness in you, which, on your own account, Mr. Ormond, have interested me in your fate. But fate is an unmeaning commonplace—worse than commonplace—word: it is a word that leads us to imagine that we are fated or doomed to certain fortunes or misfortunes in life. I have had a great deal of experience, and from all I have observed, it appears to me, that far the greatest part of our happiness or misery in life depends upon ourselves.”
Ormond stopped short, and listened with the eagerness of one of quick feeling and quick capacity, who seizes an idea that is new to him, and the truth and value of which he at once appreciates. For the first time in his life he heard good sense from the voice of benevolence—he anxiously desired that she should go on speaking, and stood in such an attitude of attentive deference as fully marked that wish.
But at this moment Lady O’Shane’s footman came up with a message from his lady; her ladyship sent to let Lady Annaly know that breakfast was ready. Repeating her good wishes to Ormond she bade him adieu, while he was too much overpowered with his sense of gratitude to return her thanks.
“Since there exists a being, and such a being, interested for me, I must be worth something—and I will make myself worth something more: I will begin from this moment, I am resolved, to improve; and who knows but in the end I may become every thing that is good? I don’t want to be great.”
Though this resolution was not steadily adhered to, though it was for a time counteracted by circumstances, it was never afterwards entirely forgotten. From this period, in consequence of the great and painful impression which had been suddenly made on his mind, and from a few words of sense and kindness spoken to him at a time when his heart was happily prepared to receive them, we may date the commencement of our hero’s reformation and improvement—hero, we say; but certainly never man had more faults than Ormond had to correct, or to be corrected, before he could come up to the received idea of any description of hero. Most heroes are born perfect—so at least their biographers, or rather their panegyrists, would have us believe. Our hero is far from this happy lot; the readers of his story are in no danger of being wearied, at first setting out, with the list of his merits and accomplishments; nor will they be awed or discouraged by the exhibition of virtue above the common standard of humanity—beyond the hope of imitation. On the contrary, most people will comfort and bless themselves with the reflection, that they never were quite so foolish, nor quite so bad, as Harry Ormond.
For the advantage of those who may wish to institute the comparison, his biographer, in writing the life of Ormond, deems it a point of honour to extenuate nothing; but to trace, with an impartial hand, not only every improvement and advance, but every deviation or retrograde movement.
CHAPTER IV.
Full of sudden zeal for his own improvement, Ormond sat down at the foot of a tree, determined to make a list of all his faults, and of all his good resolutions for the future. He took out his pencil, and began on the back of a letter the following resolutions, in a sad scrawling hand and incorrect style.
HARRY OSMOND’S GOOD RESOLUTIONS.
Resolved 1st.—That I will never drink more than (blank number of) glasses.
Resolved 2ndly.—That I will cure myself of being passionate.
Resolved 3rdly.—That I will never keep low company.
Resolved.—That I am too fond of flattery—women’s, especially, I like most. To cure myself of that.
Ormond. Here he was interrupted by the sight of a little gossoon, with a short stick tucked under his arm, who came pattering on bare-foot in a kind of pace indescribable to those who have never seen it—it was something as like walking or running as chanting is to speaking or singing.
“The answer I am from the Black Islands, Master Harry; and would have been back wid you afore nightfall yesterday, only he—King Corny—was at the fair of Frisky—could not write till this morning any way—but has his service to ye, Master Harry, will be in it for ye by half after two with a bed and blanket for Moriarty, he bid me say on account he forgot to put it in the note. In the Sally Cove the boat will be there abow in the big lough, forenent the spot where the fir dale was cut last seraph by them rogues.”
The despatch from the King of the Black Islands was then produced from the messenger’s bosom, and it ran as follows:
“Dear Harry. What the mischief has come over Cousin Ulick to be banishing you from Castle Hermitage? But since he conformed, he was never the same man, especially since his last mis-marriage. But no use moralizing—he was always too much of a courtier for me. Come you to me, my dear boy, who is no courtier, and you’ll be received and embraced with open arms—was I Briareus, the same way—Bring Moriarty Carroll (if that’s his name), the boy you shot, which has given you so much concern—for which I like you the better—and honour that boy, who, living or dying, forbade to prosecute. Don’t be surprised to see the roof the way it is:—since Tuesday I wedged it up bodily without stirring a stick:—you’ll see it from the boat, standing three foot high above the walls, waiting while I’m building up to it—to get attics—which I shall for next to nothing—by my own contrivance. Meantime, good dry lodging, as usual, for all friends at the palace. He shall be well tended for you by Sheelah Dunshaughlin, the mother of Betty, worth a hundred of her! and we’ll soon set him up again with the help of such a nurse, as well as ever, I’ll engage; for I’m a bit of a doctor, you know, as well as every thing else. But don’t let any other doctor, surgeon, or apothecary, be coming after him for your life—for none ever gets a permit to land, to my knowledge, on the Black Islands—to which I attribute, under Providence, to say nothing of my own skill in practice, the wonderful preservation of my people in health—that, and woodsorrell, and another secret or two not to be committed to paper in a hurry—all which I would not have written to you, but am in the gout since four this morning, held by the foot fast—else I’d not be writing, but would have gone every inch of the way for you myself in style, in lieu of sending, which is all I can now do, my six-oared boat, streamers flying, and piper playing like mad—for I would not have you be coming like a banished man, but in all glory, to Cornelius O’Shane, commonly called King Corny—but no king to you, only your hearty old friend.”
“Heaven bless Cornelius O’Shane!” said Harry Ormond to himself, as he finished this letter. “King or no king, the most warm-hearted man on earth, let the other be who he will.”
Then pressing this letter to his heart, he put it up carefully, and rising in haste, he dropped the list of his faults. That train of associations was completely broken, and for the present completely forgotten; nor was it likely to be soon renewed at the Black Islands, especially in the palace, where he was now going to take up his residence. Moriarty was laid on a bed; and was transported, with Ormond, in the six-oared boat, streamers flying, and piper playing, across the lake to the islands. Moriarty’s head ached terribly, but he nevertheless enjoyed the playing of the pipes in his ear, because of the air of triumph it gave Master Harry, to go away in this grandeur, in the face of the country. King Corny ordered the discharge of twelve guns on his landing, which popped one after another gloriously—the hospitable echoes, as Moriarty called them, repeating the sound. A horse, decked with ribands, waited on the shore, with King Corny’s compliments for Prince Harry, as the boy, who held the stirrup for Ormond to mount, said he was instructed to call him, and to proclaim him “Prince Harry” throughout the island, which he did by sound of horn, the whole way they proceeded to the palace—very much to the annoyance of the horse, but all for the greater glory of the prince, who managed his steed to the admiration of the shouting ragged multitude, and of his majesty, who sat in state in his gouty chair at the palace door. He had had himself rolled out to welcome the coming guest.
“By all that’s princely,” cried he, “then, that young Harry Ormond was intended for a prince, he sits ahorse so like myself; and that horse requires a master hand to manage him.”
Ormond alighted.
The gracious, cordial, fatherly welcome, with which he was received, delighted his heart.
“Welcome, prince, my adopted son, welcome to Corny castle—palace, I would have said, only for the constituted authorities of the post-office, that might take exceptions, and not be sending me my letters right. As I am neither bishop nor arch, I have, in their blind eyes or conceptions, no right—Lord help them!—to a temporal palace. Be that as it may, come you in with me, here into the big room—and see! there’s the bed in the corner for your first object, my boy—your wounded chap; and I’ll visit his wound, and fix it and him the first thing for ye, the minute he comes up.”
His majesty pointed to a bed in the corner of a large apartment, whose beautiful painted ceiling and cornice, and fine chimney-piece with caryatides of white marble, ill accorded with the heaps of oats and corn, the thrashing cloth and flail, which lay on the floor.
“It is intended for a drawing-room, understand,” said King Corny; “but till it is finished, I use it for a granary or a barn, when it would not be a barrack-room or hospital, which last is most useful at present.”
To this hospital Moriarty was carefully conveyed. Here, notwithstanding his gout, which affected only his feet, King Corny dressed Moriarty’s wound with exquisite tenderness and skill; for he had actually acquired knowledge and address in many arts, with which none could have suspected him to have been in the least acquainted.
Dinner was soon announced, which was served up with such a strange mixture of profusion and carelessness, as showed that the attendants, who were numerous and ill-caparisoned, were not much used to gala-days. The crowd, who had accompanied Moriarty into the house, were admitted into the dining-room, where they stood round the king, prince, and Father Jos the priest, as the courtiers, during the king’s supper at Versailles, surrounded the King of France. But these poor people were treated with more hospitality than were the courtiers of the French king; for as soon as the dishes were removed, their contents were generously distributed among the attendant multitude. The people blest both king and prince, “wishing them health and happiness long to reign over them;” and bowing suitably to his majesty the king, and to his reverence the priest, without standing upon the order of their going, departed.
“And now, Father Jos,” said the king to the priest, “say grace, and draw close, and let me see you do justice to my claret, or the whiskey punch if you prefer; and you, Prince Harry, we will set to it regally as long as you please.”
“Till tea-time,” thought young Harry. “Till supper-time,” thought Father Jos. “Till bed-time,” thought King Corny.
At tea-time young Harry, in pursuance of his resolution the first, rose, but he was seized instantly, and held down to his chair. The royal command was laid upon him “to sit still and be a good fellow.” Moreover the door was locked—so that there was no escape or retreat.
The next morning when he wakened with an aching head, he recollected with disgust the figure of Father Jos, and all the noisy mirth of the preceding night. Not without some self-contempt, he asked himself what had become of his resolution.
“The wounded boy was axing for you, Master Harry,” said the girl, who came in to open the shutters.
“How is he?” cried Harry, starting up.
“He is but soberly; [Footnote: But soberly—not very well, or in good spirits.] he got the night but middling; he concaits he could not sleep becaase he did not get a sight of your honour afore he’d settle—I tell him ‘tis the change of beds, which always hinders a body to sleep the first night.”
The sense of having totally forgotten the poor fellow—the contrast between this forgetfulness and the anxiety and contrition of the two preceding nights, actually surprised Ormond: he could hardly believe that he was one and the same person. Then came excuses to himself: “Gratitude—common civility—the peremptoriness of King Corny—his passionate temper, when opposed on this tender point—the locked door—and two to one: in short, there was an impossibility in the circumstances of doing otherwise than what he had done. But then the same impossibility—the same circumstances—might recur the next night, and the next, and so on: the peremptory temper of King Corny was not likely to alter, and the moral obligation of gratitude would continue the same; so that at nineteen was he to become, from complaisance, what his soul and body abhorred—an habitual drunkard? And what would become of Lady Annaly’s interest in his fate or his improvement?”
The two questions were not of equal importance, but our hero was at this time far from having any just proportion in his reasoning: it was well he reasoned at all. The argument as to the obligation of gratitude—the view he had taken of the never-ending nature of the evil, which must be the consequence of beginning with weak complaisance—above all, the feeling that he had so lost his reason as not only to forget Moriarty, but to have been again incapable of commanding his passions, if any thing had occurred to cross his temper, determined Ormond to make a firm resistance on the next occasion that should occur: it did occur the very next night. After a dinner given to his chief tenants and the genteel people of the islands—a dinner in honour and in introduction of his adopted son, King Corny gave a toast “to the Prince presumptive,” as he now styled him—a bumper toast. Soon afterwards he detected daylight in Harry’s glass, and cursing it properly, he insisted on flowing bowls and full glasses. “What! are you Prince presumptuous?” cried he, with a half angry and astonished look. “Would you resist and contradict your father and king at his own table after dinner? Down with the glass!”
Farther and steady resistance changed the jesting tone and half angry look of King Corny into sullen silence, and a black portentous brow of serious displeasure. After a decent time of sitting, the bottle passing him without farther importunity, Ormond rose—it was a hard struggle; for in the face of his benefactor he saw reproach and rage bursting from every feature: still he moved on towards the door. He heard the words “sneaking off sober!—let him sneak!”
Ormond had his hand on the lock of the door—it was a bad lock, and opened with difficulty.
“There’s gratitude for you! No heart, after all—I mistook him.”
Ormond turned back, and firmly standing and firmly speaking, he said, “You did not mistake me formerly, sir; but you mistake me now!—Sneaking!—Is there any man here, sober or drunk,” continued be, impetuously approaching the table, and looking round full in every face,—“is there any man here dares to say so but yourself?—You, you, my benefactor, my friend; you have said it—think it you did not—you could not, but say it you may—You may say what you will to Harry Ormond, bound to you as he is—bound hand and foot and heart I—Trample on him as you will—you may. No heart! Oblige me, gentlemen, some of you,” cried he, his anger rising and his eyes kindling as he spoke, “some of you gentlemen, if any of you think so, oblige me by saying so. No gratitude, sir!” turning from them, and addressing himself to the old man, who held an untasted glass of claret as he listened—“No gratitude! Have not I?—Try me, try me to the death—you have tried me to the quick of the heart, and I have borne it.”
He could bear it no longer: he threw himself into the vacant chair, flung out his arms on the table, and laying his face down upon them, wept aloud. Cornelius O’Shane pushed the wine away. “I’ve wronged the boy grievously,” said he; and forgetting the gout, he rose from his chair, hobbled to him, and leaning over him, “Harry, ‘tis I—look up, my own boy, and say you forgive me, or I’ll never forgive myself. That’s well,” continued he, as Harry looked up and gave him his hand; “that’s well!—you’ve taken the twinge out of my heart worse than the gout: not a drop of gall or malice in your nature, nor ever was, more than in the child unborn. But see, I’ll tell you what you’ll do now, Harry, to settle all things—and lest the fit should take me ever to be mad with you on this score again. You don’t choose to drink more than’s becoming?—Well, you’se right, and I’m wrong. ‘Twould be a burning shame of me to make of you what I have made of myself. We must do only as well as we can. But I will ensure you against the future; and before we take another glass—there’s the priest—and you, Tom Ferrally there, step you for my swearing book. Harry Ormond, you shall take an oath against drinking more glasses than you please evermore, and then you’re safe from me. But stay—you are a heretic. Phoo! what am I saying? ‘twas seeing the priest put that word heretic in my head—you’re not a catholic, I mean. But an oath’s an oath, taken before priest or parson—an oath, taken how you will, will operate. But stay, to make all easy, ‘tis I’ll take it.”
“Against drinking, you! King Corny!” said Father Jos, stopping his hand, “and in case of the gout in your stomach?”
“Against drinking! do you think I’d perjure myself? No! But against pressing him to it—I’ll take my oath I’ll never ask him to drink another glass more than he likes.”
The oath was taken, and King Corny concluded the ceremony by observing that, after all, there was no character he despised more than that of a sot. But every gentleman knew that there was a wide and material difference betwixt a gentleman who was fond of his bottle, and that unfortunate being, an habitual drunkard. For his own part, it was his established rule never to go to bed without a proper quantity of liquor under his belt; but he defied the universe to say he was ever known to be drunk.
At a court where such ingenious casuistry prevailed, it was happy for our hero that an unqualifying oath now protected his resolution.
CHAPTER V.
In the middle of the night our hero was wakened by a loud bellowing. It was only King Corny in a paroxysm of the gout. His majesty was naturally of a very impatient temper, and his maxims of philosophy encouraged him to the most unrestrained expression of his feelings—the maxims of his philosophy—for he had read, though in most desultory manner, and he had thought often deeply, and not seldom justly. The turns of his mind, and the questions he asked, were sometimes utterly unexpected. “Pray, now,” said he to Harry, who stood beside his bed, “now that I’ve a moment’s ease—did you ever hear of the Stoics that the bookmen talk of? and can you tell me what good any one of them ever got by making it a point to make no noise, when they’d be punished and racked with pains of body or mind? Why, I will tell you all they got—all they got was no pity: who would give them pity that did not require it? I could bleed to death in a bath, as well as the best of them, if I chose it; or chew a bullet if I set my teeth to it, with any man in a regiment—but where’s the use? nature knows best, and she says roar!” And he roared—for another twinge seized him.
Nature said sleep! several times this night to Harry, and to every body in the palace; but they did not sleep, they could not, while the roaring continued: so all had reason to rejoice, and Moriarty in particular, when his majesty’s paroxysm was past. Harry was in a sound sleep at twelve o’clock the next day, when he was summoned into the royal presence. He found King Corny sitting at ease in his bed, and that bed strewed over with a variety of roots and leaves, weeds and plants. An old woman was hovering over the fire, stirring something in a black kettle. “Simples these—of wonderful unknown power,” said King Corny to Harry, as he approached the bed; “and I’ll engage you don’t know the name even of the half of them.”
Harry confessed his ignorance.
“No shame for you—was you as wise as King Solomon himself, you might not know them, for he did not, nor couldn’t, he that had never set his foot a grousing on an Irish bog. Sheelah, come you over, and say what’s this?”
The old woman now came to assist at this bed of botany, and with spectacles slipping off, and pushed on her nose continually, peered over each green thing, and named in Irish “every herb that sips the dew.”
Sheelah was deeper in Irish lore than King Corny could pretend to be: but then he humbled her with the “black hellebore of the ancients,” and he had, in an unaccountable manner, affected her imagination by talking of “that famous howl of narcotic poisons, which that great man Socrates drank off.” Sheelah would interrupt herself in the middle of a sentence, and curtsy if she heard him pronounce the name of Socrates—and at the mention of the bowl, she would regularly sigh, and exclaim, “Lord save us!—But that was a wicked bowl.”
Then after a cast of her eyes up to heaven, and crossing herself on the forehead, she would take up her discourse at the word where she had left off.
King Corny set to work compounding plasters and embrocations, preparing all sorts of decoctions of roots and leaves, famous through the country. And while he directed and gesticulated from his bed, the old woman worked over the fire in obedience to his commands; sometimes, however, not with that “prompt and mute obedience,” which the great require.
It was fortunate for Moriarty that King Corny, not having the use of his nether limbs, could not attend even in his gouty chair to administer the medicines he had made, and to see them fairly swallowed. Sheelah, whose conscience was easy on this point, contented herself with giving him a strict charge to “take every bottle to the last drop.” All she insisted upon for her own part was, that she must tie the charm round his neck and arm. She would fain have removed the dressings of the wound to substitute plasters of her own, over which she had pronounced certain prayers or incantations; but Moriarty, who had seized and held fast one good principle of surgery, that the air must never be let into the wound, held mainly to this maxim, and all Sheelah could obtain was permission to clap on her charmed plaster over the dressing.
In due time, or, as King Corny triumphantly observed, in “a wonderful short period,” Moriarty got quite well, long before the king’s gout was cured, even with the assistance of the black hellebore of the ancients. King Corny was so well pleased with his patient for doing such credit to his medical skill, that he gave him and his family a cabin, and spot of land, in the islands—a cabin near the palace; and at Harry’s request made him his wood-ranger and his gamekeeper—the one a lucrative place, the other a sinecure.
Master Harry—Prince Harry—was now looked up to as a person all-powerful with the master; and petitions and requests to speak for them, to speak just one word, came pouring from all sides: but however enviable his situation as favourite and prince presumptive might appear to others, it was not in all respects comfortable to himself.
Formerly, when a boy, in his visits to the Black Islands, he used to have a little companion of whom he was fond—Dora—Corny’s daughter. Missing her much, he inquired from her father where she was gone, and when she was likely to return.
“She is gone off to the continent—to the continent of Ireland, that is; but not banished for any misdemeanour. You know,” said King Corny, “‘tis generally considered as a punishment in the Black Islands to be banished to Ireland. A threat of that kind, I find sufficient to bring the most refractory and ill-disposed of my subjects, if I had any of that description, to rason in the last resort; but to that ultimate law I have not recourse, except in extreme cases; I understand my business of king too well, to wear out either shame or fear; but you are no legislator yet, Prince Harry. So what was you asking me about Dora? She is only gone a trip to the continent, to her aunt’s, by the mother’s side, Miss O’Faley, that you never saw, to get the advantage of a dancing-master, which myself don’t think she wants—a natural carriage, with native graces, being, in my unsophisticated opinion, worth all the dancing-master’s positions, contortions, or drillings; but her aunt’s of a contrary opinion, and the women say it is essential. So let ‘em put Dora in the stocks, and punish her as they will, she’ll be the gladder to get free, and fly back from their continent to her own Black Islands, and to you and me—that is, to me—I ax your pardon, Harry Ormond; for you know, or I should tell you in time, she is engaged already to White Connal, of Glynn—from her birth. That engagement I made with the father over a bowl of punch—I promised—I’m afraid it was a foolish business—I promised if ever he, Old Connal, should have a son, and I should have a daughter, his son should marry my daughter. I promised, I say—I took my oath: and then Mrs. Connal that was, had, shortly after, not one son, but two—and twins they were: and I had—unluckily—ten years after, the daughter, which is Dora—and then as she could not marry both, the one twin was to be fixed on for her, and that was him they call White Connal—so there it was. Well, it was altogether a rash act! So you’ll consider her as a married woman, though she is but a child—it was a rash act, between you and I—for Connal’s not grown up a likely lad for the girl to fancy; but that’s neither here nor there: no, my word is passed—when half drunk, may be—but no matter—it must be kept sober—drunk or sober, a gentleman must keep his word—à fortiori a king—à fortiori King Corny. See! was there this minute no such thing as parchment, deed, stamp, signature, or seal in the wide world, when once Corny has squeezed a friend’s hand on a bargain, or a promise, ‘tis fast, was it ever so much against me—‘tis as strong to me as if I had squeezed all the lawyers’ wax in the creation upon it.”
Ormond admired the honourable sentiment; but was sorry there was any occasion for it—and he sighed; but it was a sigh of pity for Dora: not that he had ever seen White Connal, or known any thing of him—but White Connal did not sound well; and her father’s avowal, that it had been a rash engagement, did not seem to promise happiness to Dora in this marriage.
From the time he had been a boy, Harry Ormond had been in the habit of ferrying over to the Black Islands whenever Sir Ulick could spare him. The hunting and shooting, and the life of lawless freedom he led on the Islands, had been delightful. King Corny, who had the command not only of boats, and of guns, and of fishing-tackle, and of men, but of carpenters’ tools, and of smiths’ tools, and of a lathe, and of brass and ivory, and of all the things that the heart of boy could desire, had appeared to Harry, when he was a boy, the richest, the greatest, the happiest of men—the cleverest, too—the most ingenious: for King Corny had with his own hands made a violin and a rat-trap; and had made the best coat, and the best pair of shoes, and the best pair of boots, and the best hat; and had knit the best pair of stockings, and had made the best dunghill in his dominions; and had made a quarter of a yard of fine lace, and had painted a panorama. No wonder that King Corny had been looked up to, by the imagination of childhood, as “a personage high as human veneration could look.”
But now, although our hero was still but a boy in many respects, yet in consequence of his slight commerce with the world, he had formed some comparisons, and made some reflections. He had heard, accidentally, the conversation of a few people of common sense, besides the sly, witty, and satirical remarks of Sir Ulick, upon cousin Cornelius; and it had occurred to Harry to question the utility and real grandeur of some of those things, which had struck his childish imagination. For example, he began to doubt whether it were worthy of a king or a gentleman to be his own shoemaker, hatter, and tailor; whether it were not better managed in society, where these things are performed by different tradesmen: still the things were wonderful, considering who made them, and under what disadvantages they were made: but Harry having now seen and compared Corny’s violin with other violins, and having discovered that so much better could be had for money, with so much less trouble, his admiration had a little decreased. There were other points relative to external appearance, on which his eyes had been opened. In his boyish days, King Corny, going out to hunt with hounds and horn, followed with shouts by all who could ride, and all who could run, King Corny hallooing the dogs, and cheering the crowd, appeared to him the greatest, the happiest of mankind.
But he had since seen hunts in a very different style, and he could no longer admire the rabble rout.
Human creatures, especially young human creatures, are apt to swing suddenly from one extreme to the other, and utterly to despise that which they had extravagantly admired. From this propensity Ormond was in the present instance guarded by affection and gratitude. Through all the folly of his kingship, he saw that Cornelius O’Shane was not a person to be despised. He was indeed a man of great natural powers, both of body and mind—of inventive genius, energy, and perseverance, which might have attained the greatest objects; though from insufficient knowledge, and self-sufficient perversity, they had wasted themselves on absurd or trivial purposes.
There was a strong contrast between the characters of Sir Ulick and his cousin Cornelius O’Shane. They disliked and despised each other: differing as far in natural disposition as the subtle and the bold, their whole course through life, and the habits contracted during their progress, had widened the original difference.
The one living in the world, and mixing continually with men of all ranks and character, had, by bending easily, and being all things to all men, won his courtier-way onwards and upwards to the possession of a seat in parliament, and the prospect of a peerage.
The other, inhabiting a remote island, secluded from all men but those over whom he reigned, caring for no earthly consideration, and for no human opinion but his own, had for himself and by himself, hewed out his way to his own objects, and then rested, satisfied—
“Lord of himself, and all his (little) world his own.”