On recurring to the letter, he found that she had mentioned a present of books which she intended for him: a set of books which belonged to her son, Sir Herbert Annaly, and of which she found they had duplicates in their library. She had ordered the box containing them to be sent to Annaly, and had desired her agent there to forward it; but in case any delay should occur, she begged Mr. Ormond would take the trouble to inquire for them himself. This whole affair about the books had escaped Ormond's memory: he felt himself blush all over when he read the letter again; and sent off a messenger immediately to the agent at Annaly, who had kept the box till it was inquired for. It was too heavy for the boy to carry, and he returned, saying that two men would not carry it, nor four—a slight exaggeration! A car was sent for it, and at last Harry obtained possession of the books. It was an excellent collection of what may be called the English and French classics: the French books were, at this time, quite useless to him, for he could not read French. Lady Annaly, however, sent these books on purpose to induce him to learn a language, which, if he should go into the army, as he seemed inclined to do, would be particularly useful to him. Lady Annaly observed that Mr. Ormond, wherever he might be in Ireland, would probably find even the priest of the parish a person who could assist him sufficiently in learning French; as most of the Irish parish priests were, at that time, educated at St. Omer's or Louvain.

Father Jos had been at St. Omer's, and Harry resolved to attack him with a French grammar and dictionary; but the French that Father Jos had learnt at St. Omer's was merely from ear—he could not bear the sight of a French grammar. Harry was obliged to work on by himself. He again put off writing to thank Lady Annaly, till he could tell her that he had obeyed her commands; and that he could read at least a page of Gil Blas. Before this was accomplished, he learnt from the agent that Lady Annaly was in great affliction about her son, who had broken a blood-vessel. He could not think of intruding upon her at such a time—and, in short, he put it off till it seemed too late to write at all.

Among the English books was one in many volumes, which did not seize his attention forcibly, like Tom Jones, at once, but which won upon him by degrees, drew him on against his will, and against his taste. He hated moralizing and reflections; and there was here an abundance both of reflections and morality; these he skipped over, however, and went on. The hero and the heroine too were of a stiff fashion, which did not suit his taste; yet still there was something in the book that, in spite of the terrible array of good people, captivated his attention. The heroine's perpetual egotism disgusted him—she was always too good and too full of herself—and she wrote dreadfully long letters. The hero's dress and manner were too splendid, too formal, for every day use: at first he detested Sir Charles Grandison, who was so different from the friends he loved in real life, or the heroes he had admired in books; just as in old portraits, we are at first struck with the costume, but soon, if the picture be really by a master hand, our attention is fixed on the expression of the features and the life of the figure.

Sensible as Ormond was of the power of humour and ridicule, he was still more susceptible, as all noble natures are, of sympathy with elevated sentiments and with generous character. The character of Sir Charles Grandison, in spite of his ceremonious bowing on the hand, touched the nobler feelings of our young hero's mind, inspired him with virtuous emulation, and made him ambitious to be a gentleman in the best and highest sense of the word: in short, it completely counteracted in his mind the effects of his late study. All the generous feelings which were so congenial to his own nature, and which he had seen combined in Tom Jones, as if necessarily, with the habits of an adventurer, a spendthrift, and a rake, he now saw united with high moral and religious principles, in the character of a man of virtue, as well as a man of honour; a man of cultivated Understanding, and accomplished manners. In Sir Charles Grandison's history, he read that of a gentleman, who, fulfilling every duty of his station in society, eminently useful, respected and beloved, as brother, friend, master of a family, guardian, and head of a large estate, was admired by his own sex, and, what struck Ormond far more forcibly, was loved, passionately loved, by women—not by the low and profligate, but by the highest and most accomplished of the sex. Indeed, to him it appeared no fiction, while he was reading it; his imagination was so full of Clementina, and the whole Porretta family, that he saw them in his sleeping and waking dreams. The deep pathos so affected him, that he could scarcely recall his mind to the low concerns of life. Once, when King Corny called him to go out shooting—he found him with red eyes. Harry was ashamed to tell him the cause, lest he should laugh at him. But Corny was susceptible of the same kind of enthusiasm himself; and though he had, as he said, never been regularly what is called a reading man, yet the books he had read left ineffaceable traces in his memory. Fictions, if they touched him at all, struck him with all the force of reality; and he never spoke of the characters as in a book, but as if they had lived and acted. Harry was glad to find that here again, as in most things, they sympathized, and suited each other.

But Corny, if ready to give sympathy, was likewise imperious in requiring it; and Harry was often obliged to make sudden transitions from his own thoughts and employments, to those of his friend. These transitions, however difficult and provoking at the time, were useful discipline to his mind, giving him that versatility, in which persons of powerful imagination, accustomed to live in retirement, and to command their own time and occupations, are often most deficient. At this period, when our young hero was suddenly seized with a voracious appetite for books, it was trying to his patience to be frequently interrupted.

"Come, come—Harry Bookworm you are growing!—no good!—come out!" cried King Corny. "Lay down whatever you have in your hand, and come off this minute, till I show you a badger at bay, with half-a-dozen dogs."

"Yes, sir—this minute—be kind enough to wait one minute."

"It has been hiding and skulking this week from me—we have got it out of its snug hole at last. I bid them keep the dogs off till you came. Don't be waiting any longer. Come off, Harry, come! Phoo! phoo! That book will keep cold, and what is it? Oh! the last volume of Sir Charles—not worth troubling your eyes with. The badger is worth a hundred of it—not a pin's worth in that volume but worked stools and chairs, and China jugs and mugs. Oh! throw it from you. Come away."

Another time, at the very death of Clarissa, King Corny would have Harry out to see a Solan goose.

"Oh! let Clarissa die another time; come now, you that never saw a Solan goose—it looks for all the world as if it wore spectacles; Moriarty says so."

Harry was carried off to see the goose in spectacles, and was pressed into the service of King Corny for many hours afterwards, to assist in searching for its eggs. One of the Black Islands was a bare, high, pointed, desert rock, in which the sea-fowl built; and here, in the highest point of rock, this Solan goose had deposited some of her eggs, instead of leaving them in nests on the ground, as she usually does. The more dangerous it was to obtain the eggs, which the bird had hidden in this pinnacle of the rock, the more eager Corny was to have them; and he, and Ormond, and Moriarty, were at this perilous work for hours. King Corny directing and bawling, and Moriarty and Ormond with pole, net, and polehook, swinging and leaping from one ledge of rock to another, clambering, clinging, sliding, pushing, and pulling each other alternately, from hold to hold, with frightful precipices beneath them. As soon as Ormond had warmed to the business, he was delighted with the dangerous pursuit; but suddenly, just as he had laid his hand on the egg, and that King Corny shouted in triumph, Harry, leaping back across the cleft in the rock, missed his footing and fell, and must have been dashed to pieces, but for a sort of projecting landing-place, on which he was caught, where he lay for some minutes stunned. The terror of poor Corny was such that he could neither move nor look up, till Moriarty called out to him, that Master Harry was safe all to a sprained ankle. The fall, and the sprain, would not have been deemed worthy of a place in these memoirs of our hero but from their consequences—the consequences not on his body but on his mind. He could not for some weeks afterwards stir out, or take any bodily exercise; confined to the house, and forced to sit still, he was glad to read, during these long hours, to amuse himself. When he had read all the novels in the collection, which were very few, he went on to other books. Even those, which were not mere works of amusement, he found more entertaining than netting, fishing-nets, or playing backgammon with Father Jos, who was always cross when he did not win. Kind-hearted King Corny, considering always that Harry's sprain was incurred in his service, would have sat with him all day long; but this Harry would not suffer, for he knew that it was the greatest punishment to Corny to stay within doors a whole day. When Corny in the evening returned from his various out-of-doors occupations and amusements, Harry was glad to talk to him of what he had been reading, and to hear his odd summary reflections.

"Well, Harry, my boy, now I've told you how it has been with me all day, let's hear how you have been getting on with your bookmen:—has it been a good day with you to-day?—were you with Shakspeare—worth all the rest— all the world in him?"

Corny was no respecter of authorities in hooks; a great name went for nothing with him—it did not awe his understanding in the slightest degree.

If it were poetry, "did it touch the heart, or inflame the imagination?" If it were history, "was it true?" If it were philosophy, "was it sound reasoning?" These were the questions he asked. "No cramming any thing down his throat," he said. This daring temper of mind, though it sometimes led him wrong, was advantageous to his young friend. It wakened Ormond's powers, and prevented his taking upon trust the assertions, or the reputations, even of great writers.

The spring was now returning, and Dora was to return with spring. He looked forward to her return as to a new era in his existence: then he should live in better company, he should see something better than he had seen of late —be something better. His chief, his best occupations during this winter, had been riding, leaping, and breaking in horses: he had broken in a beautiful mare for Dora. Dora, when a child, was very fond of riding, and constantly rode out with her father. At the time when Harry Ormond's head was full of Tom Jones, Dora had always been his idea of Sophy Western, though nothing else that he could recollect in her person, mind, or manner, bore any resemblance to Sophia: and now that Tom Jones had been driven out of his head by Sir Charles Grandison; now that his taste for women was a little raised by the pictures which Richardson had left in his imagination, Dora, with equal facility, turned into his new idea of a heroine—not his heroine, for she was engaged to White Connal—merely a heroine in the abstract. Ormond had been warned that he was to consider Dora as a married woman—well, so he would, of course. She was to be Mrs. Connal—so much the better:—he should be quite at ease with her, and she should teach him French, and drawing, and dancing, and improve his manners. He was conscious that his manners had, since his coming to the Black Islands, rusticated sadly, and lost the little polish they had acquired at Castle Hermitage, and during one famous winter in Dublin. His language and dialect, he was afraid, had become somewhat vulgar; but Dora, who had been refined by her residence with her aunt, and by her dancing-master, would polish him, and set all to rights, in the most agreeable manner possible. In the course of these his speculations on his rapid improvements, and his reflections on the perfectibility of man's nature under the tuition of woman, some idea of its fallibility did cross his imagination or his memory; but then he blamed, most unjustly, his imagination for the suggestion. The danger would prove, as he would have it, to be imaginary. What danger could there be, when he knew, as he began and ended by saying to himself, that he was to consider Dora as a married woman—Mrs. Connal?

Dora's aunt, an aunt by the mother's side, a maiden aunt, who had never before been at the Black Islands, and whom Ormond had never seen, was to accompany Dora on her return to Corny Castle: our young hero had settled it in his head that this aunt must be something like Aunt Ellenor in Sir Charles Grandison; a stiff-backed, prim, precise, old-fashioned looking aunt. Never was man's astonishment more visible in his countenance than was that of Harry Ormond on the first sight of Dora's aunt. His surprise was so great as to preclude the sight of Dora herself.

There was nothing surprising in the lady, but there was, indeed, an extraordinary difference between our hero's preconceived notion, and the real person whom he now beheld. Mademoiselle—as Miss O'Faley was called, in honour of her French parentage and education, and in commemoration of her having at different periods spent above half her life in France, looking for an estate that could never he found—Mademoiselle was dressed in all the peculiarities of the French dress of that day; she was of that indefinable age, which the French describe by the happy phrase of "une femme d'un certain age," and which Miss O'Faley happily translated, "a woman of no particular age." Yet though of no particular age in the eye of politeness, to the vulgar eye she looked like what people, who knew no better, might call an elderly woman; but she was as alert and lively as a girl of fifteen: a little wrinkled, but withal in fine preservation. She wore abundance of rouge, obviously—still more obviously took superabundance of snuff—and without any obvious motive, continued to play unremittingly a pair of large black French eyes, in a manner impracticable to a mere Englishwoman, and which almost tempted the spectator to beg she would let them rest. Mademoiselle, or Miss O'Faley, was in fact half French and half Irish—born in France, she was the daughter of an officer of the Irish brigade, and of a French lady of good family. In her gestures, tones, and language, there was a striking mixture or rapid succession of French and Irish. When she spoke French, which she spoke well, and with a true Parisian accent, her voice, gestures, air, and ideas, were all French; and she looked and moved a well-born, well-bred woman: the moment she attempted to speak English, which she spoke with an inveterate brogue, her ideas, manner, air, voice, and gestures were Irish; she looked and moved a vulgar Irishwoman.

"What do you see so wonderful in Aunt O'Faley?" said Dora.

"Nothing—only—"

The sentence was never finished, and the young lady was satisfied; for she perceived that the course of his thoughts was interrupted, and all idea of her aunt effaced, the moment he turned his eyes upon herself. Dora, no longer a child and his playfellow, but grown and formed, was, and looked as if she expected to be treated as, a woman. She was exceedingly pretty, not regularly handsome, but with most brilliant eyes—there was besides a childishness in her face, and in her slight figure, which disarmed all criticism on her beauty, and which contrasted strikingly, yet as our hero thought agreeably, with her womanish airs and manner. Nothing but her external appearance could be seen this first evening—she was tired and went to bed early.

Ormond longed to see more of her, on whom so much of his happiness was to depend.



CHAPTER IX.

This was the first time Mdlle. O'Faley had ever been at Corny Castle. Hospitality, as well as gratitude, determined the King of the Black Islands to pay her honour due.

"Now Harry Ormond," said he, "I have made one capital good resolution. Here is my sister-in-law, Mdlle. O'Faley, coming to reside with me here, and has conquered her antipathy to solitude, and the Black Islands, and all from natural love and affection for my daughter Dora; for which I have a respect for her, notwithstanding all her eternal jabbering about politesse, and all her manifold absurdities, and infinite female vanities, of which she has a double proportion, being half French. But so was my wife, that I loved to distraction—for a wise man may do a foolish thing. Well, on all those accounts, I shall never contradict or gainsay this Mademoiselle—in all things, I shall make it my principle to give her her swing and her fling. But now observe me, Harry, I have no eye to her money—let her leave that to Dora or the cats, whichever pleases her—I am not looking to, nor squinting at, her succession. I am a great hunter, but not legacy-hunter— that is a kind of hunting I despise—and I wish every hunter of that kind may be thrown out, or thrown off, and may never be in at the death!"

Corny's tirade against legacy-hunters was highly approved of by Ormond, but as to the rest, he knew nothing about Miss O'Faley's fortune. He was now to learn that a rich relation of hers, a merchant in Dublin, whom living she had despised, because he was "neither noble, nor comme il faut," dying had lately left her a considerable sum of money: so that after having been many years in straitened circumstances, she was now quite at her ease. She had a carriage, and horses, and servants; she could indulge her taste for dress, and make a figure in a country place.

The Black Islands were, to be sure, of all places, the most unpromising for her purpose, and the first sight of Corny Castle was enough to throw her into despair.

As soon as breakfast was over, she begged her brother-in-law would show her the whole of the chateau from the top to the bottom.

With all the pleasure in life, he said, he would attend her from the attics to the cellar, and show her all the additions, improvements, and contrivances, he had made, and all he intended to make, if Heaven should lend him life to complete every thing, or any thing—there was nothing finished.

"Nor ever will be," said Dora, looking from her father to her aunt with a sort of ironical smile.

"Why, what has he been doing all this life?" said mademoiselle.

"Making a shift," said Dora: "I will show you dozens of them as we go over this house. He calls them substitutes—I call them make-shifts."

Ormond followed as they went over the house; and though he was sometimes amused by the smart remarks which Dora made behind backs as they went on, yet he thought she laughed too scornfully at her father's oddities, and he was often in pain for his good friend Corny.

His majesty was both proud and ashamed of his palace: proud of the various instances it exhibited of his taste, originality, and daring; ashamed of the deficiencies and want of comfort and finish.

His ready wit had excuses, reasons, or remedies, for all Mademoiselle's objections. Every alteration she proposed, he promised to get executed, and he promised impossibilities with the best faith imaginable.

"As the Frenchman answered to the Queen of France," said Corny, "if it is possible, it shall be done; and if it is impossible, it must be done."

Mademoiselle, who had expected to find her brother-in-law, as she owned, a little more difficult to manage, a little savage, and a little restive, was quite delighted with his politeness; but presuming on his complaisance, she went too far. In the course of a week, she made so many innovations, that Corny, seeing the labour and ingenuity of his life in danger of being at once destroyed, made a sudden stand.

"This is Corny Castle, Mademoiselle," said he, "and you are making it Castle Topsy-Turvy, which must not be. Stop this work; for I'll have no more architectural innovations done here—but by my own orders. Paper and paint, and furnish and finish, you may, if you will—I give you a carte- blanche; but I won't have another wall touched, or chimney pulled down: so far shalt thou go, but no farther, Mdlle. O'Faley." Mademoiselle was forced to submit, and to confine her brilliant imagination to papering, painting, and glazing.

Even in the course of these operations, King Corny became so impatient, that she was forced to get them finished surreptitiously, while he was out of the way in the mornings.

She made out who resided at every place within possible reach of morning or dinner visit: every house on the opposite banks of the lake was soon known to her, and she was current in every house. The boat was constantly rowing backwards and forwards over the lake; cars waiting or driving on the banks: in short, this summer all was gaiety at the Black Islands. Miss O'Faley was said to be a great acquisition in the neighbourhood: she was so gay, so sociable, so communicative; and she certainly, above all, knew so much of the world; she was continually receiving letters, and news, and patterns, from Dublin, and the Black Rock, and Paris. Each of which places, and all standing nearly upon the same level, made a great figure in her conversation, and in the imagination of the half or quarter gentry, with whom she consorted in this remote place. Every thing is great or small by comparison, and she was a great person in this little world. It had been the report of the country, that her niece was promised to the eldest son of Mr. Connal of Glynn; but the aunt seemed so averse to the match, and expressed this so openly, that some people began to think it would be broken off; others, who knew Cornelius O'Shane's steadiness to his word of honour, were convinced that Miss O'Faley would never shake King Corny, and that Dora would assuredly be Mrs. Connal. All agreed that it was a foolish promise—that he might do better for his daughter. Miss O'Shane, with her father's fortune and her aunt's, would be a great prize; besides, she was thought quite a beauty, and remarkable elegant.

Dora was just the thing to be the belle and coquette of the Black Islands; the alternate scorn and familiarity with which she treated her admirers, and the interest and curiosity she excited, by sometimes taking delightful pains to attract, and then capriciously repelling, succeeded, as Miss O'Faley observed, admirably. Harry Ormond accompanied her and her aunt on all their parties of pleasure: Miss O'Faley would never venture in the boat or across the lake without him. He was absolutely essential to their parties: he was useful in the boat; he was useful to drive the car—Miss O'Faley would not trust any body else to drive her; he was an ornament to the ball—Miss O'Faley dubbed him her beau: she undertook to polish him, and to teach him to speak French—she was astonished by the quickness with which he acquired the language, and caught the true Parisian pronunciation. She often reiterated to her niece, and to others, who repeated it to Ormond, "that it was the greatest of pities he had but three hundred a year upon earth; but that, even with that pittance, she would prefer him for a nephew to another with his thousands. Mr. Ormond was well-born, and he had some politesse; and a winter at Paris would make him quite another person, quite a charming young man. He would have great success, she could answer for it, in certain circles and salons that she could name, only it might turn his head too much." So far she said, and more she thought.

It was a million of pities that such a woman as herself, and such a girl as Dora, and such a young man as Mr. Ormond might be made, should be buried all their days in the Black Islands. Mdlle. O'Faley's heart still turned to Paris: in Paris she was determined to live—there was no living, what you call living, any where else—elsewhere people only vegetate, as somebody said. Miss O'Faley, nevertheless, was excessively fond of her niece; and how to make the love for her niece and the love for Paris coincide, was the question. She long had formed a scheme of carrying her dear niece to Paris, and marrying her there to some M. le Baron or M. le Marquis; but Dora's father would not hear of her living any where but in Ireland, or marrying any one but an Irishman. Miss O'Faley had lived long enough in Ireland to know that the usual method, in all disputes, is to split the difference: therefore she decided that her niece should marry some Irishman who would take her to Paris, and reside with her there, at least a great part of his time—the latter part of the bargain to be kept a secret from the father till the marriage should be accomplished. Harry Ormond appeared to be the very man for this purpose: he seemed to hang loosely upon the world—no family connexions seemed to have any rights over him; he had no profession —but a very small fortune. Miss O'Faley's fortune might be very convenient, and Dora's person very agreeable to him; and it was scarcely to be doubted that he would easily be persuaded to quit the Black Islands, and the British Islands, for Dora's sake. The petit menage was already quite arranged in Mdlle. O'Faley's head—even the wedding-dresses had floated in her fancy. "As to the promise given to White Connal," as she said to herself, "it would be a mercy to save her niece from such a man; for she had seen him lately, when he had called upon her in Dublin, and he was a vulgar person: his hair looked as if it had not been cut these hundred years, and he wore—any thing but what he should wear; therefore it would be a favour to her brother-in-law, for whom she had in reality a serious regard,—it would be doing him the greatest imaginable benefit, to save him from the shame of either keeping or breaking his ridiculous and savage promise." Her plan was therefore to prevent the possibility of his keeping it, by marrying her niece privately to Ormond before White Connal should return in October. When the thing was done, and could not be undone, Cornelius O'Shane, she was persuaded, would be very glad of it, for Harry Ormond was his particular favourite: he had called him his son—son-in-law was almost the same thing. Thus arguing with happy female casuistry, Mademoiselle went on with the prosecution of her plan. To the French spirit of intrigue and gallantry she joined Irish acuteness, and Irish varieties of odd resource, with the art of laying suspicion asleep by the appearance of an imprudent, blundering good nature; add to all this a degree of confidence, that could not have been acquired by any means but one. Thus accomplished, "rarely did she manage matters." By the very boldness and openness of her railing against the intended bridegroom, she convinced her brother-in-law that she meant nothing more than talk. Besides, through all her changing varieties of objections, there was one point on which she never varied—she never objected to going to Dublin, in September, to buy the wedding-clothes for Dora. This seemed to Cornelius O'Shane perfect proof, that she had no serious intention to break off or defer the match. As to the rest, he was glad to see his own Harry such a favourite: he deserved to be a favourite with every body, Cornelius thought. The young people were continually together. "So much the better," he would say: "all was above-board, and there could be no harm going forward, and no danger in life." All was above-board on Harry Ormond's part; he knew nothing of Miss O'Faley's designs, nor did he as yet feel that there was for him much danger. He was not thinking as a lover of Dora in particular, but he felt a new and extraordinary desire to please in general. On every fair occasion, he liked to show how well he could ride; how well he could dance; how gallant and agreeable he could be: his whole attention was now turned to the cultivation of his personal accomplishments. He succeeded: he danced, he rode to admiration—his glories of horsemanship, and sportsmanship, the birds that he shot, and the fish that he caught, and the leaps that he took, are to this hour recorded in the tradition of the inhabitants of the Black Islands. At that time, his feats of personal activity and address made him the theme of every tongue, the delight of every eye, the admiration of every woman, and the envy of every man: not only with the damsels of Peggy Sheridan's class was he the favourite, but with all the young ladies, the belles of the half gentry, who filled the ball-rooms; and who made the most distinguished figure in the riding, boating, walking, tea-drinking parties. To all, or any of these belles, he devoted his attention rather than to Dora, for he was upon honour; and very honourable he was, and very prudent, moreover, he thought himself. He was, at present, quite content with general admiration: there was, or there seemed, at this time, more danger for his head than his heart—more danger that his head should be turned with the foolish attentions paid him by many silly girls, than that he should be a dupe to a passion for any one of them: there was imminent danger of his becoming a mere dancing, driving, country coxcomb.



CHAPTER X.

One day when Harry Ormond was out shooting with Moriarty Carroll, Moriarty abruptly began with, "Why then, 'tis what I am thinking, Master Harry, that King Corny don't know as much of that White Connal as I do." "What do you know of Mr. Connal?" said Harry, loading his piece. "I didn't know you had ever seen him." "Oh! but I did, and no great sight to see. Unlike the father, old Connal, of Glynn, who is the gentleman to the last, every inch, even with the coat dropping off his back; and the son, with the best coat in Christendom, has not the look of a gentleman at-all—at-all—nor hasn't it in him, inside no more than outside." "You may be mistaken there, as you have never been withinside of him, Moriarty," said Ormond. "Oh! faith, and if I have not been withinside of him, I have heard enough from them that seen him turned inside out, hot and cold. Sure I went down there last summer, to his country, to see a shister of my own that's married in it; and lives just by Connal's Town, as the man calls that sheep farm of his." "Well, let the gentleman call his own place what he will—" "Oh! he may call it what he plases for me—I know what the country calls him; and lest your honour should not ax me, I'll tell you: they call him White Connal the negre!—Think of him that would stand browbating the butcher an hour, to bate down the farthing a pound in the price of the worst bits of the mate, which he'd bespake always for the servants; or stand, he would—I've seen him with my own eyes—higgling with the poor child with the apron round the neck, that was sent to sell him the eggs—" "Hush! Moriarty," said Ormond, who did not wish to hear any farther particulars of Mr. Connal's domestic economy: and he silenced Moriarty, by pointing to a bird. But the bird flew away, and Moriarty returned to his point. "I wouldn't be telling the like of any jantleman, but to show the nature of him. The minute after he had screwed the halfpenny out of the child, he'd throw down, may be, fifty guineas in gould, for the horse he'd fancy for his own riding: not that he rides better than the sack going to the mill, nor so well; but that he might have it to show, and say he was better mounted than any man at the fair: and the same he'd throw away more guineas than I could tell, at the head of a short-horned bull, or a long-horned bull, or some kind of a bull from England, may be, just becaase he'd think nobody else had one of the breed in all Ireland but himself." "A very good thing, at least, for the country, to improve the breed of cattle." "The country!—'Tis little the man thinks of the country that never thought of any thing but himself, since his mother sucked him." "Suckled him, you mean," said Harry. "No matter—I'm no spaker—but I know that man's character nevertheless: he is rich; but a very bad character the poor gives him up and down." "Perhaps, because he is rich." "Not at all; the poor loves the rich that helps with the kind heart. Don't we all love King Corny to the blacking of his shoes? —Oh! there's the difference!—who could like the man that's always talking of the craturs, and yet, to save the life of the poorest cratur that's forced to live under him, wouldn't forbear to drive, and pound, and process, for the little con acre, the potatoe ridge, the cow's grass, or the trifle for the woman's peck of flax, was she dying, and sell the woman's last blanket?—White Connal is a hard man, and takes all to the uttermost farthing the law allows." "Well, even so, I suppose the law does not allow him more than his due," said Ormond. "Oh! begging your pardon, Master Harry," said Moriarty, "that's becaase you are not a lawyer." "And are you?" said Harry.

"Only as we all are through the country. And now I'll only just tell you, Master Harry, how this White Connal sarved my shister's husband, who was an under-tenant to him:—see, the case was this—" "Oh! don't tell me a long case, for pity's sake. I am no lawyer—I shall not understand a word of it." "But then, sir, through the whole consarning White Connal, what I'm thinking of, Master Harry," said Moriarty, "is, I'm grieving that a daughter of our dear King Corny, and such a pretty likely girl as Miss Dora—" "Say no more, Moriarty, for there's a partridge." "Oh! is it so with you?" thought Moriarty—"that's just what I wanted to know—and I'll keep your secret: I don't forget Peggy Sheridan—and his goodness."

Moriarty said not a word more about White Connal, or Miss Dora; and he and Harry shot a great many birds this day.

It is astonishing how quickly, and how justly, the lower class of people in Ireland discover and appreciate the characters of their superiors, especially of the class just above them in rank.

Ormond hoped that Moriarty had been prejudiced in his account of White Connal, and that private feelings had induced him to exaggerate. Harry was persuaded of this, because Cornelius O'Shane had spoken to him of Connal, and had never represented him to be a hard man. In fact, O'Shane did not know him. White Connal had a property in a distant county, where he resided, and only came from time to time to see his father. O'Shane had then wondered to see the son grown so unlike the father; and he attributed the difference to White Connal's having turned grazier. The having derogated from the dignity of an idle gentleman, and having turned grazier was his chief fault in King Corny's eyes: so that the only point in Connal's character and conduct, for which he deserved esteem, was that for which his intended father-in-law despised him. Connal had early been taught by his father's example, who was an idle, decayed, good gentleman, of the old Irish stock, that genealogies and old maps of estates in other people's possessions, do not gain quite so much respect in this world as solid wealth. The son was determined, therefore, to get money; but in his horror of his father's indolence and poverty, he ran into a contrary extreme—he became not only industrious, but rapacious.

In going lately to Dublin to settle with a sales master, he had called on Dora at her aunt's in Dublin, and he had been "greatly struck," as he said, "with Miss O'Shane; she was as fine a girl as any in Ireland—turn out who they could against her; all her points good. But, better than beauty, she would be no contemptible fortune: with her aunt's assistance, she would cut up well; she was certain of all her father's Black Islands—fine improvable land, if well managed."

These considerations had their full effect. Connal, knowing that the young lady was his destined bride, had begun by taking the matter coolly, and resolving to wait for the properest time to wed; yet the sight of Dora's charms had so wrought upon him, that he was now impatient to conclude the marriage immediately. Directly after seeing Dora in Dublin, he had gone home and "put things in order and in train to bear his absence," while he should pay a visit to the Black Islands. Business, which must always be considered before pleasure, had detained him at home longer than he had foreseen: but now certain rumours he heard of gay doings in the Black Islands, and a letter from his father, advising him not to delay longer paying his respects at Corny Castle, determined him to set out. He wrote to Mr. O'Shane to announce his intention, and begged to have the answer directed to his father's at Glynn.

One morning as Miss O'Faley, Mr. O'Shane, and Ormond, were at breakfast, Dora, who was usually late, not having yet appeared, Miss O'Faley saw a little boy running across the fields towards the house. "That boy runs as if he was bringing news," said she.

"So he has a right to do," said Corny: "if I don't mistake that's the post; that is, it is not the post, but a little special of my own—a messenger I sent off to catch post."

"To do what?" said Mademoiselle.

"Why, to catch post," said Corny. "I bid him gallop off for the life and put across (lake understood) to the next post town, which is Ballynaslugger, and to put in the letters that were too late here at that office there; and to bring back whatever he found, with no delay—but gallop off for the bare life."

This was an operation which the boy performed, whenever requisite, at the imminent hazard of his neck every time, to say nothing of his chance of drowning.

"Well, Catch-post, my little rascal," said King Corny, "what have you for us the day?"

"I got nothing at all, only a wetting for myself, plase your honour, and one bit of a note for your honour, which I have here for you as dry as the bone in my breast."

He produced the bit of a note, which, King Corny's hands being at that time too full of the eggs and the kettle to receive graciously, was laid down on the corner of the table, from which it fell, and Miss O'Faley picking it up, and holding it by one corner, exclaimed, "Is this what you call dry as a bone, in this country? And mighty clean, too—faugh! When will this entire nation leave off chewing tobacco, I wonder! This is what you style clean, too, in this country?"

"Why, then," said the boy, looking close at the letter, "I thought it was clane enough when I got it—and give it—but 'tis not so clane now, sure enough; this corner—whatever come over it—would it be the snuff, my lady?"

The mark of Miss O'Faley's thumb was so visible, and the snuff so palpable, and the effort to brush it from the wet paper so disastrous, that Miss O'Faley let the matter rest where it was. King Corny put silver into the boy's hand, bidding him not be too much of a rogue; the boy, smiling furtively, twitched the hair on his forehead, bobbed his head in sign of thanks, and drawing, not shutting, the door after him, disappeared.

"As sure as I'm Cornelius O'Shane, this is White Connal in propria persona," said he, opening the note.

"Mon Dieu! Bon Dieu! Ah, Dieu!" cried Mdlle. O'Faley.

"Hush! Whisht!" cried the father—"here's Dora coming." Dora came in. "Any letter for me?" "Ay, darling, one for you."

"Oh, give it me! I'm always in a desperate hurry for my letters: where is it?"

"No—you need not hold out your pretty hand; the letter is for you, but not to you," said King Corny; "and now you know—ay, now you guess—my quick little blusher, who 'tis from."

"I guess? not I, indeed—not worth my guessing," cried Dora, throwing herself sideways into a chair. "My tea, if you please, aunt." Then, taking the cup, without adverting to Harry, who handed it to her, she began stirring the tea, as if it and all things shared her scorn.

"Ma chere! mon chat!" said Mdlle. O'Faley, "you are quite right to spare yourself the trouble of guessing; for I give it you in two, I give it you in four, I give it you in eight, and you would never guess right. Figure to yourself only, that a man, who has the audacity to call himself a lover of Miss O'Shane's, could fold, could seal, could direct a letter in such a manner as this, which you here behold."

Dora, who during this speech had sat fishing for sugar in her tea-cup, raised her long eyelashes, and shot a scornful glance at the letter; but intercepting a crossing look of Ormond's, the expression of her countenance suddenly changed, and with perfect composure she observed, "A man may fold a letter badly, and be nevertheless a very good man."

"That nobody can possibly contradict," said her father; "and on all occasions 'tis a comfort to be able to say what no one can contradict."

"No well-bred person will never contradict nothing," said Miss O'Faley. "But, without contradicting you, my child." resumed Miss O'Faley, "I maintain the impossibility of his being a gentleman who folds a letter so."

"But if folding a letter is all a man wants of being a gentleman," said Dora, "it might be learnt, I should think; it might be taught—"

"If you were the teacher, Dora, it might, surely," said her father.

"But Heaven, I trust, will arrange that better," said mademoiselle.

"Whatever Heaven arranges must be best," said Dora.

"Heaven and your father, if you please, Dora," said her father: "put that and that together, like a dutiful daughter, as you must be."

"Must!" said Dora, angrily.

"That offensive must slipped out by mistake, darling; I meant only being you, you must be all that's dutiful and good."

"Oh!" said Dora, "that's another view of the subject."

"You have a very imperfect view of the subject, yet," said her father; "for you have both been so taken up with the manner, that you have never thought of inquiring into the matter of this letter."

"And what is the matter?" said Miss O'Faley.

"Form!" continued the father, addressing himself to his daughter; "form, I acknowledge, is one thing, and a great thing in a daughter's eyes."

Dora blushed. "But in a father's eyes substance is apt to be more."

Dora raised her cup and saucer together to her lips at this instant, so that the substance of the saucer completely hid her face from her father.

"But," said Miss O'Faley, "you have not told us yet what the man says."

"He says he will be here whenever we please."

"That's never," said Miss O'Faley: "never, I'd give for answer, if my pleasure is to be consulted."

"Luckily, there's another person's pleasure to be consulted here," said the father, keeping his eyes fixed upon his daughter.

"Another cup of tea, aunt, if you please."

"Then the sooner the better, I say," continued her father; "for when a disagreeable thing is to be done—that is, when a thing that's not quite agreeable to a young lady, such as marriage—" Dora took the cup of tea from her aunt's hand, Harry not interfering—"I say," persisted her father, "the sooner it's done and over, the better."

Dora saw that Ormond's eyes were fixed upon her: she suddenly tasted, and suddenly started back from her scalding tea; Harry involuntarily uttered some exclamation of pity; she turned, and seeing his eyes still fixed upon her, said, "Very rude, sir, to stare at any one so."

"I only thought you had scalded yourself."

"Then you only thought wrong."

"At any rate, there's no great occasion to be angry with me, Dora."

"And who is angry, pray, Mr. Ormond? What put it in your head that I was doing you the honour to be angry with you?"

"The cream! the cream!" cried Miss O'Faley.

A sudden motion, we must not say an angry motion of Dora's elbow, had at this moment overset the cream ewer; but Harry set it up again, before its contents poured on her new riding-habit.

"Thank you," said she, "thank you; but," added she, changing the places of the cream ewer and cups and saucers before her, "I'd rather manage my own affairs my own way, if you'd let me, Mr. Ormond—if you'd leave me—I can take care of myself my own way."

"I beg your pardon for saving your habit from destruction, for that is the only cause of offence that I am conscious of having given. But I leave you to your own way, as I am ordered," said he, rising from the breakfast table.

"Sparring! sparring again, you two!" said Dora's father: "but, Dora, I wonder whether you and White Connal were sparring that way when you met."

"Time enough for that, sir, after marriage," said Dora.

Our hero, who had stood leaning on the back of his chair, fearing that he had been too abrupt in what he had said, cast a lingering look at Dora, as her father spoke about White Connal, and as she replied; but there was something so unfeminine, so unamiable, so decided and bold, he thought, in the tone of her voice, as she pronounced the word marriage, that he then, without reluctance, and with a feeling of disgust, quitted the room, and left her "to manage her own affairs, and to take her own way."



CHAPTER XI.

Our young hero, hero-like, took a solitary walk to indulge his feelings; and as he rambled, he railed to his heart's content against Dora.

"Here all my plans of happiness and improvement are again overturned: Dora cannot improve me, can give me no motive for making myself any thing better than what I am. Polish my manners! no, when she has such rude, odious manners herself; much changed for the worse—a hundred times more agreeable when she was a child. Lost to me she is every way—no longer my playfellow —no chance of her being my friend. Her good father hoped she would be a sister to me—very sorry I should be to have such a sister: then I am to consider her as a married woman—pretty wife she will make! I am convinced she cares no more for that man she is going to marry than I do—marrying merely to be married, to manage her own affairs, and have her own way—so childish!—or marrying merely to get an establishment—so base! How women, and such young creatures, can bring themselves to make these venal matches—I protest Peggy Sheridan's worth a hundred of such. Moriarty may think himself a happy fellow—Suzy—Jenny, any body—only with dress and manner a little different—is full as good in reality. I question whether they'd give themselves, without liking, to any White Connal in their own rank, at the first offer, for a few sheep, or a cow, or to have their own way."

Such was the summing up of the topics of invective, which, during a two hours' walk, had come round and round continually in Ormond's indignant fancy. He went plucking off the hawthorn blossoms in his path, till at one desperate tug, that he gave to a branch which crossed his way, he opened to a bank that sloped down to the lake. At a little distance below him he saw old Sheelah sitting under a tree rocking herself backwards and forwards; while Dora stood motionless opposite to her, with her hand covering her eyes, and her head drooping. They neither of them saw Ormond, and he walked on pursuing his own path; it led close behind the hedge to the place where they were, so close, that the sounds "Willastrew! Willastrew!" from Old Sheelah, in her funereal tone, reached his ear, and then the words, "Oh, my heart's darling! so young to be a sacrifice—But what next did he say?"

Ormond's curiosity was strongly excited; but he was too honourable to listen or to equivocate with conscience: so to warn them that some one was within hearing, he began to whistle clear and strong. Both the old woman and the young lady started.

"Murder!" cried Sheelah, "it's Harry Ormond. Oh! did he overhear any thing —or all, think ye?"

"Not I," answered Ormond, leaping over the hedge directly, and standing firm before them: "I overheard nothing—I heard only your last words, Sheelah—you spoke so loud I could not help it. They are as safe with me as with yourself—but don't speak so loud another time, if you are talking secrets; and whatever you do, never suspect me of listening—I am incapable of that, or any other baseness."

So saying, he turned his back, and was preparing to vault over the hedge again, when he heard Dora, in a soft low voice, say, "I never suspected you, Harry, of that, or any other baseness."

"Thank you, Dora," said he, turning with some emotion, "thank you, Dora, for this first, this only kind word you've said to me since you came home."

Looking at her earnestly, as he approached nearer, he saw the traces of tears, and an air of dejection in her countenance, which turned all his anger to pity and tenderness in an instant. With a soothing tone be said, "Forgive my unseasonable reproach—I was wrong—I see you are not as much to blame as I thought you were."

"To blame!" cried Dora. "And pray how—and why—and for what did you think me to blame, sir?"

The impossibility of explanation, the impropriety of what he had said flashed suddenly on his mind; and in a few moments a rapid succession of ideas followed. "Was Dora to blame for obeying her father, for being ready to marry the man to whom her father had destined—promised her hand; and was he, Harry Ormond, the adopted child, the trusted friend of the family, to suggest to the daughter the idea of rebelling against her father's will, or disputing the propriety of his choice?"

Ormond's imagination took a rapid flight on Dora's side of the question, and he finished with the conviction that she was "a sacrifice, a martyr, and a miracle of perfection!" "Blame you, Dora!" cried he, "blame you! No— I admire, I esteem, I respect you. Did I say that I blamed you? I did not know what I said, or what I meant."

"And are you sure you know any better what you say or what you mean, now?" said Dora.

The altered look and tone of tartness in which this question was asked produced as sudden a change in Harry's conviction. He hesitatingly answered, "I am—"

"He is," said Sheelah, confidently.

"I did not ask your opinion, Sheelah: I can judge for myself," said Dora. "Your words tell me one thing, sir, and your looks another," said she, turning to Ormond; "which am I to believe, pray?"

"Oh! believe the young man any way, sure," said Sheelah; "silence speaks best for him."

"Best against him, in my opinion," said Dora.

"Dora, will you hear me?" Ormond began.

"No, sir, I will not," interrupted Dora. "What's the use of hearing or listening to a man who does not, by the confession of his own eyes, and his own tongue, know two minutes together what he means, or mean two minutes together the same thing? A woman might as well listen to a fool or a madman!"

"Too harsh, too severe, Dora," said he.

"Too true, too sincere, perhaps you mean."

"Since I am allowed, Dora, to speak to you as a brother—"

"Who allowed you, sir?" interrupted Dora.

"Your father, Dora."

"My father cannot, shall not! Nobody but nature can make any man my brother—nobody but myself shall allow any man to call himself my brother."

"I am sorry I presumed so far, Miss O'Shane—I was only going to offer one word of advice."

"I want no advice—I will take none from you, sir."

"You shall have none, madam, henceforward, from Harry Ormond."

"'Tis well, sir. Come away, Sheelah."

"Oh! wait, dear—Och! I am too old," said Sheelah, groaning as she rose slowly. "I'm too slow entirely for these quick passions."

"Passions!" cried Dora, growing scarlet and pale in an instant: "what do you mean by passions, Sheelah?"

"I mean changes," said Sheelah, "changes, dear. I am ready now—where's my stick? Thank you, Master Harry. Only I say I can't change my quarters and march so quick as you, dear."

"Well, well, lean on me," said Dora impatiently.

"Don't hurry, poor Sheelah—no necessity to hurry away from me," said Ormond, who had stood for a few moments like one transfixed. "'Tis for me to go—and I will go as fast and as far as you please, Dora, away from you and for ever."

"For ever!" said Dora: "what do you mean?"

"Away from the Black Islands? he can't mean that," said Sheelah.

"Why not?—Did not I leave Castle Hermitage at a moment's warning?"

"Warning! Nonsense!" cried Dora: "lean on him, Sheelah—he has frightened you; lean on him, can't you?—sure he's better than your stick. Warning!— where did you find that pretty word? Is Harry Ormond then turned footman?"

"Harry Ormond!—and a minute ago she would not let me—Miss O'Shane, I shall not forget myself again—amuse yourself with being as capricious as you please, but not at my expense; little as you think of me, I am not to be made your butt or your dupe: therefore, I must seriously beg, at once, that I may know whether you wish me to stay or to go."

"To stay, to be sure, when my father invites you. Would you expose me to his displeasure? you know he can't bear to be contradicted; and you know that he asked you to stay and live here."

"But without exposing you to any displeasure, I can," replied Ormond, "contrive—"

"Contrive nothing at all—do leave me to contrive for myself. I don't mean to say leave me—you take up one's words so quickly, and are so passionate, Mr. Ormond."

"If you would have me understand you, Dora, explain how you wish me to live with you."

"Lord bless me! what a fuss the man makes about living with one—one would think it was the most difficult thing in the world. Can't you live on like any body else? There's my aunt in the hedge-row walk, all alone—I must go and take care of her: I leave you to take care of Sheelah—you know you were always very good-natured when we were children."

Dora went off quick as lightning, and what to make of her, Ormond did not well know. Was it mere childishness, or affectation, or coquetry? No; the real tears, and real expression of look and word forbade each of these suppositions. One other cause for her conduct might have been suggested by a vain man. Harry Ormond was not a vain man; but a little fluttering delight was just beginning to play round his head, when Sheelah, leaning heavily on his arm as they ascended the bank, reminding him of her existence—"My poor old Sheelah!" said he, "are you not tired?"

"Not now, thanks to your arm, Master Harry, dear, that was always good to me—not now—I am not a whit tired; now I see all right again between my childer—and happy I was, these five minutes past, watching you smiling to yourself; and I don't doubt but all the world will smile on ye yet. If it was my world, it should. But I can only wish you my best wish, which I did long ago—may you live to wonder at your own good luck!"

Ormond looked as if he was going to ask some question that interested him much, but it ended by wondering what o'clock it was. Sheelah wondered at him for thinking what the hour was, when she was talking of Miss Dora. After a silence, which brought them to the chicken-yard door, where Sheelah was "to quit his arm," she leaned heavily again,

"The marriage—that they are all talking of in the kitchen, and every where through the country—Miss Dora's marriage with White Connal, is reprieved for the season. She axed time till she'd be seventeen—very rasonable. So it's to be in October—if we all live till those days—in the same mind. Lord, he knows—I know nothing at all about it; but I thank you kindly, Master Harry, and wish you well, any way. Did you ever happen to see the bridegroom that is to be?"

"Never."

Harry longed to hear what she longed to say; but he did not deem it prudent, he did not think it honourable, to let her enter on this topic. The prudential consideration might have been conquered by curiosity; but the honourable repugnance to obtaining second-hand information, and encouraging improper confidence, prevailed. He deposited Sheelah safe on her stone bench at the chicken-yard door, and, much against her will, he left her before she had told or hinted to him all she did know—and all she did not know.

The flattering delight that played about our young hero's head had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. Of this he was sensible. It should never come near his heart—of that he was determined; he would exactly follow the letter and spirit of his benefactor's commands —he would always consider Dora as a married woman; but the prospect of there being some temptation, and some struggle, was infinitely agreeable to our young hero—it would give him something to do, something to think of, something to feel.

It was much in favour of his resolution, that Dora really was not at all the kind of woman he had pictured to himself, either as amiable or charming: she was not in the least like his last patterns of heroines, or any of his approved imaginations of the beau ideal. But she was an exceedingly pretty girl; she was the only very pretty and tolerably accomplished girl immediately near him. A dangerous propinquity!



CHAPTER XII.

White Connal and his father—we name the son first, because his superior wealth inverting the order of nature, gave him, in his own opinion, the precedency on all occasions—White Connal and his father arrived at Corny Castle. King Corny rejoiced to see his old friend, the elder Connal; but through all the efforts that his majesty made to be more than civil to the son, the degenerate grazier, his future son-in-law, it was plain that he was only keeping his promise, and receiving such a guest as he ought to be received.

Mademoiselle decided that old Connal, the father, was quite a gentleman, for he handed her about, and in his way had some politeness towards the sex; but as for the son, her abhorrence must have burst forth in plain English, if it had not exhaled itself safely in French, in every exclamation of contempt which the language could afford. She called him bete! and grand bete! by turns, butor! ane! and grand butor!— nigaud! and grand nigaud!—pronounced him to be "Un homme qui ne dit rien—d'ailleurs un homme qui n'a pas l'air comme il faut—un homme, enfin, qui n'est pas presentable—meme en fait de mari."

Dora looked unutterable things; but this was not unusual with her. Her scornful airs, and short answers, were not more decidedly rude to White Connal than to others; indeed she was rather more civil to him than to Ormond. There was nothing in her manner of keeping Connal at a distance, beyond what he, who had not much practice or skill in the language of female coquetry, might construe into maiden coyness to the acknowledged husband lover.

It seemed as if she had some secret hope, or fear, or reason, for not coming to open war: in short, as usual, she was odd, if not unintelligible. White Connal did not disturb himself at all to follow her doublings: his pleasure was not in the chase—he was sure the game was his own.

Be bold, but not too bold, White Connal!—be negligent, but not too negligent, of the destined bride. 'Tis bad, as you say, to be spoiling a wife before marriage; but what if she should never be your wife? thought some.

That was a contingency that never had occurred to White Connal. Had he not horses, and saddles, and bridles, and bits, finer than had ever been seen before in the Black Islands? And had he not thousands of sheep, and hundreds of oxen? And had he not the finest pistols, and the most famous fowling-pieces? And had he not thousands in paper, and thousands in gold; and if he lived, would he not have tens of thousands more? And had he not brought with him a plan of Connal's-town, the name by which he dignified a snug slated lodge he had upon one of his farms—an elevation of the house to be built, and of the offices that had been built?

He had so. But it happened one day, when Connal was going to ride out with Dora, that just as he mounted, her veil fluttering before his horse's eyes, startled the animal; and the awkward rider being unable to manage him, King Corny begged Harry Ormond to change horses with him, that Mr. Connal might go quietly beside Dora, "who was a bit of a coward."

Imprudent father! Harry obeyed—and the difference between the riders and the gentlemen was but too apparent. For what avails it that you have the finest horse, if another ride him better? What avails it that you have the finest saddle, if another become it better? What use to you your Wogden pistols, if another hit the mark you miss? What avails the finest fowling- piece to the worst sportsman? The thousands upon thousands to him who says but little, and says that little ill? What avail that the offices at Connal's town be finished, dog-kennel and all? or what boots it that the plan and elevation of Connal's-town be unrolled, and submitted to the fair one's inspection and remarks, if the fair disdain to inspect, and if she remark only that a cottage and love are more to her taste? White Connal put none of these questions to himself—he went on his own way. Faint heart never won fair lady. Then no doubt he was in a way to win, for his heart never quailed, his colour never changed when he saw his fair one's furtive smiles, or heard her aunt's open praises of the youth, by whom riding, dancing, shooting, speaking, or silent, he was always eclipsed. Connal of Connal's-town despised Harry Ormond of no-town—viewed him with scornful, but not with jealous eyes: idle jealousies were far from Connal's thoughts —he was intent upon the noble recreation of cock-fighting. Cock-fighting had been the taste of his boyish days, before he became a money-making man; and at every interval of business, at each intermission of the passion of avarice, when he had leisure to think of amusement, this his first idea of pleasure recurred. Since he came to Corny Castle, he had at sundry times expressed to his father his "hope in Heaven, that before they would leave the Black Islands, they should get some good fun, cock-fighting; for it was a poor case for a man that is not used to it, to be tied to a woman's apron-strings, twirling his thumbs all the mornings, for form's sake."

There was a strolling kind of gentleman in the Islands, a Mr. O'Tara, who was a famous cock-fighter. O'Tara came one day to dine at Corny Castle. The kindred souls found each other out, and an animated discourse across the table commenced concerning cocks. After dinner, as the bottle went round, the rival cock-fighters, warmed to enthusiasm in praise of their birds. Each relating wonders, they finished by proposing a match, laying bets and despatching messengers and hampers for their favourites. The cocks arrived, and were put in separate houses, under the care of separate feeders.

Moriarty Carroll, who was curious, and something of a sportsman, had a mind to have a peep at the cocks. Opening the door of one of the buildings hastily, he disturbed the cock, who taking fright, flew about the barn with such violence, as to tear off several of his feathers, and very much to deface his appearance. Unfortunately, at this instant, White Connal and Mr. O'Tara came by, and finding what had happened, abused Moriarty with all the vulgar eloquence which anger could supply. Ormond, who had been with Moriarty, but who had no share in the disaster, endeavoured to mitigate the fury of White Connal and apologized to Mr. O'Tara: O'Tara was satisfied!— shook hands with Ormond, and went off. But White Connal's anger lasted longer: for many reasons he disliked Ormond; and thinking from Harry's gentleness, that he might venture to insult him, returned to the charge, and becoming high and brutal in his tone, said that "Mr. Ormond had committed an ungentlemanlike action, which it was easier to apologize for than to defend." Harry took fire, and instantly was much more ready than his opponent wished to give any other satisfaction that Mr. Connal desired. Well, "Name his hour—his place." "To-morrow morning, six o'clock, in the east meadow, out of reach and sight of all," Ormond said; or he was ready at that instant, if Mr. Connal pleased: he hated, he said, to bear malice— he could not sleep upon it.

Moriarty now stepping up privately, besought Mr. Connal's "honour, for Heaven and earth's sake, to recollect, if he did not know it, what a desperate good shot Mr. Harry notoriously was always."

"What, you rascal! are you here still?" cried White Connal: "Hold your peace! How dare you speak between gentlemen?"

Moriarty begged pardon and departed. The hint he had given, however, operated immediately upon White Connal.

"This scattered-brained young Ormond," said he to himself, "desires nothing better than to fight. Very natural—he has nothing to lose in the world but his bare life: neither money, nor landed property as I have to quit, in leaving the world—unequal odds. Not worth my while to stand his shot, for the feather of a cock," concluded Connal, as he pulled to pieces one of the feathers, which had been the original cause of all the mischief.

Thus cooled, and suddenly become reasonable, he lowered his tone, declaring that he did not mean to say any thing in short that could give offence, nothing but what it was natural for any man in the heat of passion to say, and it was enough to put a man in a passion at first sight to see his favourite bird disfigured. If he had said any thing too strong, he hoped Mr. Ormond would excuse it.

Ormond knew what the heat of passion was, and was willing to make all proper allowances. White Connal made more than proper apologies; and Ormond rejoiced that the business was ended. But White Connal, conscious that he had first bullied, then quailed, and that if the story were repeated, it would tell to his disadvantage, made it his anxious request that he would say nothing to Cornelius O'Shane of what had passed between them, lest it should offend Cornelius, who he knew was so fond of Mr. Ormond. Harry eased the gentleman's mind, by promising that he would never say a word about the matter. Mr. Connal was not content till this promise was solemnly repeated. Even this, though it seemed quite to satisfy him at the time, did not afterwards relieve Connal from the uneasy consciousness he felt in Ormond's company. He could bear it only the remainder of this day. The next morning he left the Black Islands, having received letters of business, he said, which required his immediate presence at Connal's-town. Many at Corny Castle seemed willing to dispense with his further stay, but King Corny, true to his word and his character, took leave of him as his son-in-law, and only, as far as hospitality required, was ready to "speed the parting guest." At parting, White Connal drew his future father-in-law aside, and gave him a hint, that he had better look sharp after that youth he was fostering.

"Harry Ormond, do you mean?" said O'Shane.

"I do," said Connal: "but, Mr. O'Shane, don't go to mistake me, I am not jealous of the man—not capable—of such a fellow as that—a wild scatterbrains, who is not worth a sixpence scarce—I have too good an opinion of Miss Dora. But if I was in your place, her father, just for the look of the thing in the whole country, I should not like it: not that I mind what people say a potato skin; but still, if I was her father, I'd as soon have the devil an inmate and intimate in my house, nuzzling in my daughter's ear behind backs."

Cornelius O'Shane stoutly stood by his young friend.

He never saw Harry Ormond muzzling—behind backs, especially—did not believe any such thing: all Harry said and did was always above-board, and before faces, any way. "In short," said Cornelius, "I will answer for Harry Ormond's honour with my own honour. After that, 'twould be useless to add with my life, if required—that of course; and this ought to satisfy any son-in-law, who was a gentleman—none such could glance or mean to reflect on Dora."

Connal, perceiving he had overshot himself, made protestations of his innocence of the remotest intention of glancing at, or reflecting upon, or imagining any thing but what was perfectly angelic and proper in Miss Dora —Miss O'Shane.

"Then that was all as it should be," Mr. O'Shane said, "so far: but another point he would not concede to mortal man, was he fifty times his son-in-law promised, that was, his own right to have who he pleased and willed to have, at his own castle, his inmate and his intimate."

"No doubt—to be sure," Connal said: "he did not mean—he only meant—he could not mean—in short, he meant nothing at all, only just to put Mr. O'Shane on his guard—that was all he meant."

"Phoo!" said Cornelius O'Shane; but checking the expression of his contempt for the man, he made an abrupt transition to Connal's horse, which had just come to the door.

"That's a handsome horse! certainly you are well mounted, Mr. Connal."

O'Shane's elision of contempt was beyond Mr. Connal's understanding or feeling.

"Well mounted! certainly I am that, and ever will be, while I can so well afford it," said Connal, mounting his horse; and identifying himself with the animal, he sat proudly, then bowing to the ladies, who were standing at an open window, "Good day to ye, ladies, till October, when I hope—"

But his horse, who did not seem quite satisfied of his identity with the man, would not permit him to say more, and off he went—half his hopes dispersed in empty air.

"I know I wish," said Cornelius O'Shane to himself, as he stood on the steps, looking after the man and horse, "I wish that that unlucky bowl of punch had remained for ever unmixed, at the bottom of which I found this son-in-law for my poor daughter, my innocent Dora, then unborn; but she must make the best of him for me and herself, since the fates and my word, irrevocable as the Styx, have bound me to him, the purse-proud grazier and mean man—not a remnant of a gentleman! as the father was. Oh, my poor Dora!"

As King Corny heaved a heartfelt sigh, very difficult to force from his anti-sentimental bosom, Harry Ormond, with a plate of meat in his hand, whistling to his dog to follow him, ran down the steps.

"Leave feeding that dog, and come here to me, Harry," said O'Shane, "and answer me truly such questions as I shall ask."

"Truly—if I answer at all," said Harry.

"Answer you must, when I ask you: every man, every gentleman, must answer in all honour for what he does."

"Certainly, answer for what he does," said Harry.

"For!—Phoo! Come, none of your tricks upon prepositions to gain time—I never knew you do the like—you'll give me a worse opinion. I'm no schoolmaster, nor you a grammarian, I hope, to be equivocating on monosyllables."

"Equivocate! I never equivocated, sir," said Harry.

"Don't begin now, then," said Cornelius: "I've enough to put me out of humour already—so answer straight, like yourself. What's this you've done to get the ill-will of White Connal, that's just gone?"

Surprised and embarrassed, Ormond answered, "I trust I have not his ill-will, sir."

"You have, sir," said O'Shane.

"Is it possible?" cried Harry, "when we shook hands—You must have misunderstood, or have been misinformed. How do you know, my dear sir?"

"I know it from the man's own lips, see! I can give you a straight answer at once. Now answer me, was there any quarrel between you? and what cause of offence did you give?"

"Excuse me, sir—those are questions which I cannot answer."

"Your blush, young man, answers me enough, and too much. Mark me, I thought I could answer for your honour with my own, and I did so."

"Thank you, sir, and you shall never have reason—"

"Don't interrupt me, young man. What reason can I have to judge of the future, but from the past? I am not an idiot to be bothered with fair words."

"Oh! sir, can you suspect?"

"I suspect nothing, Harry Ormond: I am, I thank my God, above suspicion. Listen to me. You know—whether I ever told it you before or not, I can't remember—but whether or not, you know as well as if you were withinside of me—that in my heart's core there's not a man alive I should have preferred for my son-in-law to the man I once thought Harry Ormond, without a penny—"

"Once thought!"

"Interrupt me again, and I'll lave you, sir. In confidence between ourselves, thinking as once I did, that I might depend on your friendship and discretion, equally with your honour, I confessed, I repented a rash promise, and let you see my regret deep enough that my son-in-law will never be what Dora deserves—I said, or let you see as much, no matter which; I am no equivocator, nor do I now unsay or retract a word. You have my secret; but remember when first I had the folly to tell it you, same time I warned you—I warned you, Harry, like the moth from the candle—I warned you in vain. In another tone I warn you now, young man, for the last time—I tell you my promise to me is sacred—she is as good as married to White Connal—fairly tied up neck and heels—and so am I, to all intents and purposes; and if I thought it were possible you could consider her, or make her by any means consider herself, in any other light, I will tell you what I would do—I would shoot myself; for one of us must fall, and I wouldn't choose it should be you, Harry. That's all."

"Oh! hear me, sir," cried Harry, seizing his arm as he turned away, "kill me if you will, but hear me—I give you my word you are from beginning to end mistaken. I cannot tell you the whole—but this much believe, Dora was not the cause of quarrel."

"Then there was a quarrel. Oh, for shame! for shame!—you are not used to falsehood enough yet—you can't carry it through—why did you attempt it with me?"

"Sir, though I can't tell you the truth, the foolish truth, I tell you no falsehood. Dora's name, a thought of Dora, never came in question between Mr. Connal and me, upon my honour."

"Your honour!" repeated Cornelius, with a severe look—severe more in its sorrow than its anger. "O Harry Ormond! what signifies whether the name was mentioned? You know she was the thing—the cause of offence. Stop! I charge you—equivocate no more. If a lie's beneath a gentleman, an equivocation is doubly beneath a man."



CHAPTER XIII.

Harry Ormond thought it hard to bear unmerited reproach and suspicion; found it painful to endure the altered eye of his once kind and always generous, and to him always dear, friend and benefactor. But Ormond had given a solemn promise to White Connal never to mention any thing that had passed between them to O'Shane; and he could not therefore explain these circumstances of the quarrel. Conscious that he was doing right, he kept his promise to the person he hated and despised, at the hazard, at the certainty, of displeasing the man he most loved in the world; and to whom he was the most obliged. While his heart yearned with tenderness towards his adopted father, he endured the reproach of ingratitude; and while he knew he had acted perfectly honourably, he suffered under the suspicion of equivocation and breach of confidence: he bore it all; and in reward he had the conviction of his own firmness, and an experience, upon trial, of his adherence to his word of honour. The trial may seem but trivial, the promise but weak: still it was a great trial to him, and he thought the promise as sacred as if it had been about an affair of state.

It happened some days after the conversation had passed between him and O'Shane, that Cornelius met O'Tara, the gentleman who had laid the bets about the cock-fight with Connal; and chancing to ask him what had prevented the intended battle, O'Tara told all he knew of the adventure. Being a good-natured and good-humoured man, he stated the matter as playfully as possible—acknowledged that they had all been foolish and angry; but that Harry Ormond and Moriarty had at last pacified them by proper apologies. Of what had passed afterwards, of the bullying, and the challenge, and the submission, O'Tara knew nothing; but King Corny having once been put on the right scent, soon made it all out. He sent for Moriarty, and cross-questioning him, heard the whole; for Moriarty had not been sworn to secrecy, and had very good ears. When he had been turned out of the stable, he had retreated only to the harness-room, and had heard all that had passed. King Corny was delighted with Harry's spirit—and now he was Prince Harry again, and the generous, warm-hearted Cornelius went, in impatience, to seek him out, and to beg his pardon for his suspicions. He embraced him, called him son, and dear son—said he had now found out, no thanks to him, Connal's cause of complaint, and it had nothing to do with Dora.—"But why could not you say so, man?"

He had said so repeatedly.

"Well, so I suppose it is to be made out clearly to be all my fault, that was in a passion, and could not hear, understand, or believe. Well, be it so; if I was unjust, I'll make it up to you, for I'll never believe my own ears, or eyes, against you, Harry, while I live, depend upon it:—if I heard you asking her to marry you, I would believe my ears brought me the words wrong; if I saw you even leading her into the church instead of the chapel, and the priest himself warning me of it, I'd say and think, Father Jos, 'tis a mistake—a vision—or a defect of vision. In short, I love and trust you as my own soul, Harry Ormond, for I did you injustice."

This full return of kindness and confidence, besides the present delight it gave him, left a permanent and beneficial impression upon our young hero's mind. The admiration he felt for O'Shane's generous conduct, and the self-approbation he enjoyed in consequence of his own honourable firmness, had a great effect in strengthening and forming his character: it also rendered him immediately more careful in his whole behaviour towards Miss O'Shane. He was prudent till both aunt and niece felt indignant astonishment. There was some young lady with whom Harry had danced and walked, and of whom he had, without any design, spoken as a pleasing gentle girl. Dora recollected this praise, and joining it with his present distant behaviour toward herself, she was piqued and jealous; and then she became, what probably she would never otherwise have been, quite decided in her partiality for Harry Ormond. The proofs of this were soon so manifest, that many thought, and Miss O'Faley in particular, that Harry was grown stupid, blind, and deaf. He was net stupid, blind, or deaf—he had felt the full power of Dora's personal charms, and his vanity had been flattered by the preference which Dora showed for him. Where vanity is the ruling passion, young men are easily flattered into being in love with any pretty, perhaps with any ugly girl, who is, or who affects to be, in love with them. But Harry Ormond had more tenderness of heart than vanity: against the suggestions of his vanity he had struggled successfully; but now his heart had a hard trial. Dora's spirits were failing, her cheek growing pale, her tone of voice was quite softened; sighs would sometimes break forth—persuasive sighs!—Dora was no longer the scornful lady in rude health, but the interesting invalid—the victim going to be sacrificed. Dora's aunt talked of the necessity of advice for her niece's health. Great stress was laid on air and exercise, and exercise on horseback. Dora rode every day on the horse Harry Ormond broke in for her, the only horse she could now ride; and Harry understood its ways, and managed it so much better than any body else; and Dora was grown a coward, so that it was quite necessary he should ride or walk beside her. Harry Ormond's tenderness of heart increased his idea of the danger. Her personal charms became infinitely more attractive to him; her defects of temper and character were forgotten and lost in his sense of pity and gratitude; and the struggle of his feelings was now violent.

One morning our young hero rose early, for he could no longer sleep, and he walked out, or, more properly, he rambled, or he strolled, or streamed out, and he took his way—no, his steps were irresistibly led—to his accustomed haunt by the water side, under the hawthorn bank, and there he walked and picked daisies, and threw stones into the lake, and he loitered on, still thinking of Dora and death, and of the circles in the water, and again of the victim and of the sacrifice, when suddenly he was roused from his reverie by a shrill whistle, that seemed to come from the wood above, and an instant afterwards he heard some one shouting, "Harry Ormond!—Harry Ormond!"

"Here!" answered Harry; and as the shouts were repeated he recognized the voice of O'Tara, who now came, whip in hand, followed by his dogs, running down the bank to him.

"Oh! Harry Ormond, I've brought great news with me for all at Corny Castle; but the ladies are not out of their nests, and King Corny's Lord knows how far off. Not a soul or body to be had but yourself here, by good luck, and you shall have the first of the news, and the telling of it."

"Thank you," said Ormond; "and what is the news?"

"First and foremost," said O'Tara, "you know birds of a feather flock together. White Connal, though, except for the cock-fighting, I never relished him, was mighty fond of me, and invited me down to Connal's-town, where I've been with him this week—you know that much, I conclude."

Harry owned he did not.

O'Tara wondered how he could help knowing it. "But so it was; we had a great cock-fight, and White Connal, who knew none of my secrets in the feeding line, was bet out and out, and angry enough he was; and then I offered to change birds with him, and beat him with his own Ginger by my superiority o' feeding, which he scoffed at, but lookup the bet."

Ormond sighed with impatience in vain—he was forced to submit, and to go through the whole detail of the cock-fight. "The end of it was, that White Connal was worsted by his own bird, and then mad angry was he. So, then," continued O'Tara, "to get the triumph again on his side, one way or another, was the thing. I had the advantage of him in dogs, too, for he kept no hounds—you know he is close, and hounds lead to a gentlemanlike expense; but very fine horses he had, I'll acknowledge, and, Harry Ormond, you can't but remember that one which he could not manage the day he was out riding here with Miss Dora, and you changed with him."

"I remember it well," said Ormond.

"Ay, and he has got reason to remember it now, sure enough."

"Has he had a fall?" said Ormond, stopping.

"Walk on, can't ye—keep up, and I'll tell you all regular."

"There is King Corny!" exclaimed Ormond, who just then saw him come in view.

"Come on, then," cried O'Tara, leaping over a ditch that was between them, and running up to King Corny. "Great news for you, King Corny, I've brought—your son-in-law elect, White Connal, is off."

"Off—how?"

"Out of the world clean! Poor fellow, broke his neck with that horse he could never manage—on Sunday last. I left him for dead Sunday night—found him dead Monday morning—came off straight with the news to you."

"Dead!" repeated Corny and Harry, looking at one another. "Heaven forbid!" said Corny, "that I should—"

"Heaven forbid!" repeated Harry; "but—"

"But good morning to you both, then," said O'Tara: "shake hands either way, and I'll condole or congratulate to-morrow as the case may be, with more particulars if required."

O'Tara ran off, saying he would be back again soon; but he had great business to do. "I told the father last night."

"I am no hypocrite," said Corny. "Rest to the dead and all their faults! White Connal is out of my poor Dora's way, and I am free from my accursed promise!" Then clasping his hands, "Praised be Heaven for that!—Heaven is too good to me!—Oh, my child! how unworthy White Connal of her!—Thank Heaven on my knees, with my whole heart, thank Heaven that I am not forced to the sacrifice!—My child, my darling Dora, she is free!—Harry Ormond, my dear boy, I'm free," cried O'Shane, embracing Harry with all the warmth of paternal affection.

Ormond returned that embrace with equal warmth, and with a strong sense of gratitude: but was his joy equal to O'Shane's? What were his feelings at this moment? They were in such confusion, such contradiction, he could scarcely tell. Before he heard of White Connal's death, at the time when he was throwing pebbles into the lake, he desired nothing so much as to be able to save Dora from being sacrificed to that odious marriage; he thought, that if he were not bound in honour to his benefactor, he should instantly make that offer of his hand and heart to Dora, which would at once restore her to health, and happiness, and fulfil the wishes of her kind, generous father. But now, when all obstacles seemed to vanish—when his rival was no more—when his benefactor declared his joy at being freed from his promise—when he was embraced as O'Shane's son, he did not feel joy: he was surprised to find it; but he could not. Now that he could marry Dora, now that her father expected that he should, he was not clear that he wished it himself. Quick as obstacles vanished, objections recurred: faults which he had formerly seen so strongly, which of late compassion had veiled from his view, reappeared; the softness of manner, the improvement of temper, caused by love, might be transient as passion. Then her coquetry— her frivolity. She was not that superior kind of woman which his imagination had painted, or which his judgment could approve of in a wife. How was he to explain this confusion of feeling to Corny? Leaning on his arm, he walked on towards the house. He saw Corny, smiling at his own meditations, was settling the match, and anticipating the joy to all he loved. Harry sighed, and was painfully silent.

"Shoot across like an arrow to the house," cried Corny, turning suddenly to him, and giving him a kind push—"shoot off, Harry, and bring Dora to meet me like lightning, and the poor aunt, too—'twould be cruel else! But what stops you, son of my heart?"

"Stay!" cried Corny, a sudden thought striking him, which accounted for Harry Ormond's hesitation; "Stop, Harry! You are right, and I am a fool. There is Black Connal, the twin-brother—oh, mercy!—against us still. May be Old Connal will keep me to it still—as he couldn't, no more than I could, foresee that when I promised Dora that was not then born, it would be twins—and as I said son, and surely I meant the son that would be born then—and twins is all as one as one, they say. Promise fettering still! Bad off as ever, may be," said Cornelius. His whole countenance and voice changed; he sat down on a fallen tree, and rested his hands on his knees. "What shall we do now, Harry, with Black Connal?"

"He may be a very different man from White Connal—in every respect," said Ormond.

O'Shane looked up for a moment, and then interpreting his own way, exclaimed, "That's right, Harry—that thought is like yourself, and the very thought I had myself. We must make no declarations till we have cleared the point of honour. Not the most beautiful angel that ever took woman's beautiful form—and that's the greatest temptation man can meet— could tempt my Harry Ormond from the straight path of honour!"

Harry Ormond stood at this moment abashed by praise which he did not quite deserve. "Indeed, sir," said he, "you give me too much credit." "I cannot give you too much credit; you are an honourable young man, and I understand you through and through."

That was more than Harry himself did. Corny went on talking to himself aloud, "Black Connal is abroad these great many years, ever since he was a boy—never saw him since a child that high—an officer he is in the Irish brigade now—black eyes and hair; that was why they called him Black Connal—Captain Connal now; and I heard the father say he was come to England, and there was some report of his going to be married, if I don't mistake," cried Corny, turning again to Harry, pleasure rekindling in his eye. "If that should be! there's hope for us still; but I see you are right not to yield to the hope till we are clear. My first step, in honour, no doubt, must be across the lake this minute to the father—Connal of Glynn; but the boat is on the other side. The horn is, with my fishing-tackle, Harry, down yonder—run, for you can run—horn the boat, or if the horn be not there, sign to the boat with your handkerchief—bring it up here, and I will put across before ten minutes shall be over—my horse I will have down to the water's edge by the time you have got the boat up—when an honourable tough job is to be done, the sooner the better."

The horse was brought to the water's edge, the boat came across, Corny and his horse were in; and Corny, with his own hands on the oar, pushed away from land: then calling to Harry, he bid him wait on the shore by such an hour, and he should have the first news.

"Rest on your oars, you, while I speak to Prince Harry.

"That you may know all, Harry, sooner than I can tell you, if all be safe, or as we wish it, see, I'll hoist my neckcloth, white, to the top of this oar; if not, the black flag, or none at all, shall tell you. Say nothing till then—God bless you, boy!" Harry was glad that he had these orders, for he knew that as soon as Mademoiselle should be up, and hear of O'Tara's early visit, with the message he said he had left at the house that he brought great news, Mademoiselle would soon sally forth to learn what that news might be. In this conjecture Ormond was not mistaken. He soon heard her voice "Mon-Dieu!-ing" at the top of the bank: he ducked—he dived—he darted through nettles and brambles, and escaped. Seen or unseen he escaped, nor stopped his flight even when out of reach of the danger. As to trusting himself to meet Dora's eyes, "'twas what he dared not."

He hid, and wandered up and down, till near dinner-time. At last, O'Shane's boat was seen returning—but no white flag! The boat rowed nearer and nearer, and reached the spot where Harry stood motionless.

"Ay, my poor boy, I knew I'd find you so," said O'Shane, as he got ashore. "There's my hand, you have my heart—I wish I had another hand to give you —but it's all over with us, I fear. Oh! my poor Dora!—and here she is coming down the bank, and the aunt!—Oh, Dora! you have reason to hate me!"

"To hate you, sir? Impossible!" said Ormond, squeezing his hand strongly, as he felt.

"Impossible!—true—for her to hate, who is all love and loveliness!— impossible too for you, Harry Ormond, who is all goodness!"

"Bon Dieu!" cried Mademoiselle, who was now within exclamation distance. "What a course we have had after you, gentlemen! Ladies looking for gentlemen!—C'est inoui!—What is it all? for I am dying with curiosity."