Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 55

"Or, if he be a favourite, and have friends, it is a proof that he has extraordinary merit," said Sir Herbert.

"He is coming to us," said Florence, who had been excessively interested for the child, and whose eyes had followed him wherever he went: "Brother," whispered she, "will you let him pa.s.s you? he wants to say something to Mr. Ormond."

The boy brought to Ormond all the prizes which he had won since the time he first came to school: his grandame, Sheelah, had kept them safe in a little basket, which he now put into Ormond's hands, with honest pride and pleasure.

"I got 'em, and Granny said you'd like to see them, so she did--and here's what will please you--see my certificates--see, signed by the doctor himself's own hand, and Father M'Cormuck, that's his name, with his blessing by the same token he gave me."

Ormond looked with great satisfaction on Tommy's treasures, and Miss Annaly looked at them too with no small delight.

"Well, my boy, have you any thing more to say?" said Ormond to the child, who looked as if he was anxious to say something more.

"I have, sir; it's what I'd be glad to speak a word with you, Mr.

Harry."

"Speak it then--you are not afraid of this lady?" "Oh, no--that I am not," said the boy, with a very expressive smile and emphasis.

But as the child seemed to wish that no one else should hear, Ormond retired a step or two with him behind the crowd. Tommy would not let go Miss Annaly's hand, so she heard all that pa.s.sed.

"I am afeard I am too troublesome to you, sir," said the boy.

"To me--not the least," said Ormond: "speak on--say all you have in your mind."

"Why, then," said the child, "I _have_ something greatly on my mind, because I heard Granny talking to Moriarty about it last night, over the fire, and I in the bed. Then I know all about Mrs. M'Crule, and how, if I don't give out, and wouldn't give up about the grand school, on Sat.u.r.day, I should, may be, be bringing you, Mr. Harry, into great trouble: so that being the case, I'll give up entirely--and I'll go back to the Black Islands to-morrow," said Tommy, stoutly; yet swelling so in the chest that he could not say another word. He turned away.

As they were walking home together from the school, Moriarty said to Sheelah, "I'll engage, Sheelah, you did not see all that pa.s.sed the day."

"I'll engage I did, though," said Sheelah.

"Why, then, Sheelah, you've quick eyes still."

"Oh! I'm not so blind but what I could see _that_ with half an eye--ay, and saw how it was with them before you did, Moriarty. From the first minute they comed into the room together, said I to myself, 'there's a pair of angels well matched, if ever there was a pair on earth.' These things is all laid out above, unknownst to us, from the first minute we are born, _who_ we are to have in marriage," added Sheelah.

"No; not _fixed_ from the first minute we are born, Sheelah: it is _not_," said Moriarty.

"And how should you know, Moriarty," said Sheelah, "whether or not?"

"And why not as well as you, Sheelah, dear," replied Moriarty, "if you go to that?"

"Well, in the name of fortune, have it your own way," said Sheelah; "and how do you think it is then?"

"Why it is partly fixed for us," said Moriarty; "but the choice is still in us, always--"

"Oh! burn me if I understand that," said Sheelah.

"Then you are mighty hard of understanding this morning, Sheelah. See, now, with regard to Master Harry and Peggy Sheridan: it's my opinion, 'twas laid out from the first, that in case he did not do _that_ wrong about Peggy--_then_ see, Heaven had this lady, this angel, from that time forward in view for him, by way of _compensation_ for not doing the wrong he might have chose to do. Now, don't you think, Sheelah, that's the way it was?--be a rasonable woman."

The rasonable woman was puzzled and silent, Sheelah and Moriarty having got, without knowing it, to the dark depths of metaphysics. There was some danger of their knocking their heads against each other there, as wiser heads have done on similar occasions.

It was an auspicious circ.u.mstance for Ormond's love that Florence had now a daily object of thought and feeling in common with him. Mrs.

M'Crule's having piqued Florence was in Ormond's favour: it awakened her pride, and conquered her timidity; she ventured to trust her own motives. To be sure, the interest she felt for this child was uncommonly vivid; but she might safely avow this interest--it was in the cause of one who was innocent, and who had been oppressed.

As Mrs. M'Crule was so vindictively busy, going about, daily, among the lady patronesses, preparing for the great battle that was to be decided on the famous Sat.u.r.day, it was necessary that Lady and Miss Annaly should exert themselves at least to make the truth known to their friends, to take them to see Dr. Cambray's school, and to judge of the little candidate impartially. The day for decision came, and Florence felt an anxiety, an eagerness, which made her infinitely more amiable, and more interesting in Ormond's eyes. The election was decided in favour of humanity and justice. Florence was deputed to tell the decision to the successful little candidate, who was waiting, with his companions, to hear his fate. Radiant with benevolent pleasure, she went to announce the glad tidings.

"Oh! if she is not beautiful!" cried Sheelah, clasping her hands.

Ormond felt it so warmly, and his looks expressed his feelings so strongly, that Florence, suddenly abashed, could scarcely finish her speech.

If Mrs. M'Crule had been present, she might again have cried "Oh! ho!"

but she had retreated, too much discomfited, by the disappointments of hatred, to stay even to embarra.s.s the progress of love. Love had made of late rapid progress. Joining in the cause of justice and humanity, mixing with all the virtues, he had taken possession of the heart happily, safely--unconsciously at first, yet triumphantly at last. Where was Colonel Albemarle all this time? Ormond neither knew nor cared; he thought but little of him at this moment. However, said he to himself, Colonel Albemarle will be here in a few days--it is better for me to see how things are there, before I speak--I am sure Florence could not give me a decisive answer, till her brother has disentangled that business for her. Lady Annaly said as much to me the other day, if I understood her rightly--and I am sure this is the state of the case, from the pains Florence takes now to avoid giving me an opportunity of speaking to her alone, which I have been watching for so anxiously. So reasoned Ormond; but his reasonings, whether wise or foolish, were set at nought by unforeseen events.

CHAPTER XXV.

One evening Ormond walked with Sir Herbert Annaly to the sea-sh.o.r.e, to look at the lighthouse which was building. He was struck with all that had been done here in the course of a few months, and especially with the alteration in the appearance of the people. Their countenances had changed from the look of desponding idleness and cunning, to the air of busy, hopeful independence. He could not help congratulating Sir Herbert, and warmly expressing a wish that he might himself, in the whole course of his life, do half as much good as Sir Herbert had already effected. "You will do a great deal more," said Sir Herbert: "you will have a great deal more time. I must make the best of the little--probably the very little time I shall have: while I yet live, let me not live in vain."

"_Yet_ live," said Ormond; "I hope--I trust--you will live many years to be happy, and to make others so: your strength seems quite re-established--you have all the appearance of health."

Sir Herbert smiled, but shook his head.

"My dear Ormond, do not trust to outward appearances too much. Do not let my friends entirely deceive themselves. I _know_ that my life cannot be long--I wish, before I die, to do as much good as I can."

The manner in which these words were said, and the look with which they were accompanied, impressed Ormond at once with a conviction of the danger, fort.i.tude, and magnanimity of the person who spoke to him.

The hectic colour, the brilliant eye, the vividness of fancy, the superiority of intellectual powers, the warmth of the affections, and the amiable gentleness of the disposition of this young man, were, alas!

but so many fatal indications of his disease. The energy with which, with decreasing bodily and increasing mental strength, he pursued his daily occupations, and performed more than every duty of his station, the never-failing temper and spirits with which he sustained the hopes of many of his friends, were but so many additional causes of alarm to the too experienced mother. Florence, with less experience, and with a temper happily p.r.o.ne to hope, was more easily deceived. She could not believe that a being, whom she saw so full of life, could be immediately in danger of dying. Her brother had now but a very slight cough--he had, to all appearance, recovered from the accident by which they had been so much alarmed when they were in England. The physicians had p.r.o.nounced, that with care to avoid cold, and all violent exertion, he might do well and last long.

To fulfil the conditions was difficult; especially that which required him to refrain from any great exertion. Whenever he could be of service to his friends, or could do any good to his fellow-creatures, he spared neither mental nor bodily exertion. Under the influence of benevolent enthusiasm, he continually forgot the precarious tenure by which he held his life.

It was now the middle of winter, and one stormy night a vessel was wrecked on the coast near Annaly. The house was at such a distance from that part of the sh.o.r.e where the vessel struck, that Sir Herbert knew nothing of it till the next morning, when it was all over. No lives were lost. It was a small trading vessel, richly laden. Knowing the vile habits of some of the people who lived on the coast, Sir Herbert, the moment he heard that there was a wreck, went down to see that the property of the sufferers was protected from those depredators, who on such occasions were astonis.h.i.+ngly alert. Ormond accompanied him, and by their joint exertions much of the property was placed in safety under a military guard. Some had been seized and carried off before their arrival, but not by any of Sir Herbert's tenants. It became pretty clear that _the neighbours_ on Sir Ulick O'Shane's estate were the offenders.

They had grown bold from impunity, and from the belief that no _jantleman_ "would choose to interfere with them, on account of their landlord."

Sir Herbert's indignation rose. Ormond pledged himself that Sir Ulick O'Shane would never protect such wretches; and eager to a.s.sist public justice, to defend his guardian, and, above all, to calm Sir Herbert and prevent him from over-exerting himself, he insisted upon being allowed to go in his stead with the party of military who were to search the suspected houses. It was with some difficulty that he prevailed.

He parted with Sir Herbert; and, struck at the moment with his highly-raised colour, and the violent heat and state of excitation he was in, Ormond again urged him to remember his own health, and his mother and sister.

"I will--I do," said Sir Herbert; "but it is my duty to think of public justice before I think of myself."

The apprehension Ormond felt in quitting Sir Herbert recurred frequently as he rode on in silence; but he was called into action and it was dissipated. Ormond spent nearly three hours searching a number of wretched cabins from which the male inhabitants fled at the approach of the military, leaving the women and children to make what excuses and tell what lies they could. This the women and children executed with great readiness and ability, and in the most pity-moving tones imaginable.

The inside of an Irish cabin appears very different to those who come to claim hospitality and to those who come to detect offenders.

Ormond having never before entered a cabin with a search-warrant, constable, or with the military, he was "not _up_ to the thing"--as both the serjeant and constable remarked to each other. While he listened to the piteous story of a woman about a husband who had broken his leg from a ladder, _sarving_ the masons at Sir Herbert's lighthouse, and was _lying at_ the hospital, _not expected_, [Footnote: _Not expected_ to live.] the husband was lying all the time with both his legs safe and sound in a potato furrow within a few yards of the house. And _the child_ of another eloquent matron was running off with a pair of silver-mounted pistols taken from the wreck, which he was instructed to hide in a bog-hole, snug--the bog-water never rusting. In one hovel--for the houses of these wretches who lived by pillage, after all their ill-gotten gains, were no better than hovels--in one of them, in which, as the information stated, some valuable plunder was concealed, they found nothing but a poor woman groaning in bed, and two little children; one crying as if its heart would break, and the other sitting up behind the mother's bolster supporting her. After the soldiers had searched every place in vain, even the thatch of the house, the woman showing no concern all the while, but groaning on, seeming scarce able to answer Mr. Ormond's questions--the constable, an old hand, roughly bid her get up, that they might search the bed; this Ormond would not permit:--she lay still, thanking his honour faintly, and they quitted the house.

The goods which had been carried off were valuable, and were hid in the straw of the very bed on which the woman was lying.

As they were returning homewards after their fruitless search, when they had pa.s.sed the boundary of Sir Ulick's and had reached Sir Herbert's territory, they were overtaken by a man, who whispered something to the serjeant which made him halt, and burst out a laughing; the laugh ran through the whole serjeant's guard, and reached Ormond's ears; who, asking the cause of it, was told how the woman had cheated them, and how she was now risen from her bed, and was dividing the prize among the _lawful owners_, "share and share alike." These lawful owners, all risen out of the potato furrows, and returning from the bogs, were now a.s.sembled, holding their bed of justice. At the moment the serjeant's information came off, their captain, with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, was drinking, "To the health of Sir Ulick O'Shane, our worthy landlord--seldom comes a better. The same to his ward, Harry Ormond, Esq., and may his eyesight never be better nor worse."

Harry Ormond instantly turned his horse's head, much provoked at having been duped, and resolved that the plunderers should not now escape. By the advice of serjeants and constables, he dismounted, that no sound of horses' hoofs might give notice from a distance; though, indeed, on the sands of the sea-sh.o.r.e, no horses' tread, he thought, could be heard. He looked round for some one with whom he could leave his horse, but not a creature, except the men who were with him, was in sight.