Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 76

The Bishop, with whom my acquaintances.h.i.+p had never betrayed my secret, was to leave Ireland in a few days, and the Prince, to whom I told everything, with the kindness of a true friend promised that he would take the very same day for his own departure. The remainder we were to leave to fortune. Love-making left me little time for any other thoughts; but still as, for appearance' sake, I was obliged to pa.s.s some hours of every day apart from Donna Maria, I took the occasion of one of these forced absences to visit a scene which had never quitted my mind through all the changeful fortunes of my life,--the little spot where I was born. Rising one morning at break of day, I set out for Horseleap, to see once more, and for the last time, the humble home of my childhood. The distance was about sixteen miles; but as I rode slowly, my mind full of old memories and reflections, I did not reach the place till nigh noon. Alas! I should never have known the spot! There had been a season of famine and pestilence, and now the little village was almost tenantless. Many of the cabins were unroofed; in some, the blackened rafters bore tokens of fire. The one shop that used to supply the humble luxuries of the poor was closed, and I pa.s.sed on with a heavy heart towards the cross-roads where "Con's Acre" lay.

I had not gone far when my eye, straining to catch it, detected the roof of the cabin rising above the little thorn hedge that flanked the road. Ay, there was the old stone-quarry I used to play in, as a child, fancying that its granite sides were mountain precipices, and its little pools were lakes. There was the gate on which for hours long I have sat, gazing at the bleak expanse of moorland, and wondering if all the wide world beyond had nothing fairer or more beautiful than this.

"Who lives in that cabin yonder?" asked I, of a peasant on the road.

The man replied that it was "the minister;" adding his name, which, however, I could not catch. Long as I had been away from Ireland, I could not forget that this was the especial t.i.tle given to the Protestant clergyman of the parish, and I rode up to the door wondering how it chanced that he was reduced to a dwelling of such humble pretensions. An old woman came out as I drew up, and told me that the curate was from home, but would be back in less than an hour; requesting me to "put in my beast," and sit down in the parlor till he came.

I accepted the invitation, followed her into the cabin, which, although in a condition of neatness very different from what I remembered it of old, brought back all my boyish days in an instant. There was the fireside, where, with naked feet roasting before the blazing turf, I had sat and slept full many an hour, dreaming of adventures which were as nothing to those my real life had met with. There the corner where I used to sit throughout the night, copying those law papers my father would bring back with him from Kilbeggan. There stood the little bed where often I have sobbed myself to sleep, when, wearied and worn out, I was punished for some trifling omission, some slight and accidental mistake. I sat down, and covered my face with my hands, for a sense of my utter loneliness in the world came suddenly over me; I felt as if this poor hovel was my only real home, and that all my success in life was a mere pa.s.sing dream.

Meanwhile the old woman, with true native volubility, was explaining how the Bishop--"bad scran to him!--would n't let his riv'rence have pace and ease till he kem and lived in the parish, though there was n't a spot fit for a gentleman in the whole length and breadth of it! and signs on it," added she, "we had to put up with this little place here, they call Con's Acre, and it was all a ruin when we got it."

"And who owned this cabin before?" asked I.

"A villain they call Con Cregan, your honor,--the biggest thief ye ever heard of; he was paid for informin' agin the people, and whin the Government had done wid him, they transported him too!"

"Had he any children, this same Con?"

"He had a brat of a boy that was drowned at 'say,' they tell me; but I'd never believe it was that way that Con Cregan's son was to die!"

I need scarcely remark that I saw no inducement for prolonging this conversation, wherein all the facts quoted were already familiar, and all the speculations the reverse of flattery; and I was far more agreeably occupied in discussing the eggs and milk the old lady had placed before me, when the door opened, and the curate entered. A deep cavernous cough and a stooped figure announcing the signs of some serious chest disease, were all I had time to observe; when, with the politeness of a gentleman, he advanced toward me. The first sound of his voice was enough, and I cried out, "Lyndsay! my oldest and best friend,--don't you know me?"

"I am ashamed to say that I do not," said he, faltering, while he still held my hand, and gazed into my face.

"Not yet?" asked I again, smiling at the embarra.s.sment of his countenance.

"Not even yet," said he. "Tell me, I beseech you, where did we meet?"

"Come here," said I, leading him to the door, and pointing to the wide-stretching moor that lay before us; "it was there,--yonder, where you see that heavy cloud-shadow stealing along,--yonder we first met. Do you know me now?"

He started; his pale cheek grew paler, and he fell upon my neck in a burst of tears. Who shall ever know the source, or what the meaning?

They were not of joy, still less of sorrow,--they were the outbreak of a hundred emotions. Old memories of happy days, never to come back; boyish triumphs, successes, failures; moments of ecstasy--of bitter anguish; his own bleak, joyless existence, perhaps, contrasting with mine; and then at last the fell consciousness of the malady in which he was but lingering out life.

"And here are you, and here!" cried he, in a voice which his faltering accents made scarce intelligible; "who should say that we were to meet thus?" Then, as if his words had conveyed a meaning of which he was ashamed, he blushed deeply, and said, "And oh, my friend! how truly you told me that life had its path for each, if we but knew how to choose it."

I must not say how the hours were pa.s.sed, nor how it was nightfall ere either of us guessed it. Lyndsay insisted upon hearing every adventure that had befallen me, questioning me eagerly as I went, how each new feature of prosperity had "worked with me," and whether gold had yet hardened my heart, and taught me indifference to the poor.

I told him of my love, and with such rapturous delight that he even offered to aid me in my object, by marrying me to Donna Maria,--a piece of generous zeal, I am certain, that originated less in friends.h.i.+p than in the prospect of a proselyte,--the niece of a bishop, too! Poor fellow, he might make many converts, if he were thus easily satisfied.

The next day I drove Donna Maria out for an airing, and, while occupying her mind with various matters, contrived to prolong our excursion to Horseleap. "What a dreary spot you have chosen for our drive!" said she, looking around her.

"Do you see yonder little hut," said I, "where the smoke is rising?"

"Yes, that poor cabin yonder! You have not come to show me _that?_" said she, laughing.

"Even so, Maria," said I; "to show you that poor and humble hut, and to tell you that it was there I was born,--a peasant's son; that from that same lowly roof I wandered out upon the world friendless and hungry; that partly by energy, partly by a resolution to succeed, partly by the daring determination that would not admit a failure, I have become what I am,--t.i.tled, honored, wealthy, but still the son of a poor man. I could not have gone on deceiving you, even though this confession should separate us forever." I could not speak more, nor needed I. Her hand had already clasped mine as she murmured: "Yours more than ever."

"Now is the moment, then, to become so," said I, as I lifted her from the carriage and led her within the cabin.

The company were already waiting dinner ere we returned to the Castle.

"I have to make our excuses," said I to the hostess; "but we prolonged our drive to a considerable distance."

"Ah, we feared you might have taken the road by the lake, where there is no turning back," said she.

"Exactly, madam; that is what we did precisely, for we are married!"

Need I dwell upon the surprise and astonishment of this announcement?

The Bishop--fortunately it was in Spanish--uttered something very like an oath. The bride blushed--some of the ladies looked shocked--the men shook hands with me, and the Prince, saluting Donna Maria with a most hearty embrace, begged to say "that the lady would be very welcomely received in Paris, since it was the only drawback to my appointment as an amba.s.sador--that I was unmarried."

Here I have done,--not that my Confessions are exhausted, but that I fear my reader's patience may be; I may, however, add that this was not the only "Spanish marriage" in which I had a share,--that my career in greatness was not less eventful than my life in obscurity, and that I draw up at this stage, leaving it for the traveller to say if he should ever care hereafter to journey further with me.

THE END.