Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Are you sure it is not truth, Father?” said Corny.

  “And if it was, even, so much the worse, to be telling it in the chapel, and to his flock — very improper in a priest, very extraordinary conduct!”

  Father Jos worked himself up to a high pitch of indignation, and railed and smoked for some time, while O’Shane and Ormond joined in defending M’Cormuck, and his address to his flock — and even his dining with the new clergyman of the parish. Father Jos gave up and had his punch. The result of the — whole was, that Ormond proposed to pay his respects the next morning to Dr. Cambray.

  “Very proper,” said O’Shane: “do so — fit you should — you are of his people, and you are acquainted with the gentleman — and I’d have you go and show yourself safe to him, that we’ve made no tampering with you.”

  Father Jos could not say so much, therefore he said nothing.

  O’Shane continued, “A very exact church-goer at the little church there you’ve always been, at the other side of the lake — never hindered — make what compliment you will proper for me — say I’m too old and clumsy for morning visitings, and never go out of my islands. But still I can love my neighbour in or out of them, and hope, in the name of peace, to be on good terms. Sha’n’t be my fault if them tithes come across. Then I wish that bone of contention was from between the two churches. Meantime, I’m not snarling, if others is not craving: and I’d wish for the look of it, for your sake, Harry, that it should be all smooth; so say any thing you will for me to this Dr. Cambray, — though we are of a different faith, I should do any thing in rason.”

  “Rason! what’s that about rason?” said Father Jos: “I hope faith comes before rason.”

  “And after it, too, I hope, Father,” said Corny.

  Father Jos finished his punch, and went to sleep upon it.

  Ormond, next morning, paid his visit — Dr. Cambray was not at home; but Harry was charmed with the neatness of his house, and with the amiable and happy appearance of his family. He had never before seen Mrs. Cambray or her daughters, though he had met the doctor in Dublin. The circumstance which Harry had declined mentioning, when Corny questioned him about his acquaintance with Dr. Cambray, was very slight, though Father Jos had imagined it to be of mysterious importance. It had happened, that among the dissipated set of young men with whom Marcus O’Shane and Harry had passed that winter in Dublin, a party had one Sunday gone to hear the singing at the Asylum, and had behaved in a very unbecoming manner during the service. Dr. Cambray preached — he spoke to the young gentlemen afterwards with mild but becoming dignity. Harry Ormond instantly, sensible of his error, made proper apologies, and erred no farther. But Marcus O’Shane in particular, who was not accustomed to endure anything, much less any person, that crossed his humour, spoke of Dr. Cambray afterwards with vindictive bitterness, and with all his talents of mimicry endeavoured to make him ridiculous. Harry defended him with a warmth of ingenuous eloquence which did him honour; and with truth, courage, and candour, that did him still more, corrected some of Marcus’s mis-statements, declaring that they had all been much to blame. Lady Annaly and her daughter were present, and this was one of the circumstances to which her ladyship had alluded, when she said that some things had occurred that had prepossessed her with a favourable opinion of Ormond’s character. Dr. Cambray knew nothing of the attack or the defence till some time afterwards; and it was now so long ago, and Harry was so much altered since that time, that it was scarcely to be expected the doctor should recollect even his person. However, when Dr. Cambray came to the Black Islands to return his visit, he did immediately recognize Ormond, and seemed so much pleased with meeting him again, and so much interested about him, that Corny’s warm heart was immediately won. Independently of this, the doctor’s persuasive benevolent politeness could not have failed to operate, as it usually did, even on a first acquaintance, in pleasing and conciliating even those who were of opposite opinions.

  “There, now,” said Corny, when the doctor was gone, “there, now, is a sincere minister of the Gospel for you, and a polite gentleman into the bargain. Now that’s politeness that does not trouble me — that’s not for show — that’s for us, not himself, mark! — and conversation! Why that man has conversation for the prince and the peasant — the courtier and the anchorite. Did not he find plenty for me, and got more out of me than I thought was in me — and the same if I’d been a monk of La Trappe, he would have made me talk like a pie. Now there’s a man of the high world that the low world can like, very different from—”

  Poor Corny paused, checked himself, and then resumed—”Principles, religion, and all no hinderance! — liberal and sincere too! Well, I only wish — Father Jos, no offence — I only wish, for Dr. Cambray’s sake, and the Catholic church’s sake, I was, for one day, Archbishop of Canterbury, or Primate of all Ireland, or whatever else makes the bishops in your church, and I’d skip over dean and archdeacon, and all, and make that man — clean a bishop before night.”

  Harry smiled, and wished he had the power as well as the good-will.

  Father Jos said, “A man ought to be ashamed not to think of his own first.”

  “Now, Harry, don’t think I’d make a bishop lightly,” continued King Corny; “I would not — I’ve been a king too long for that; and though only a king of my own fashion, I know what’s fit for governing a country, observe me! — Cousin Ulick would make a job of a bishop, but I would not — nor I wouldn’t to please my fancy. Now don’t think I’d make that man a bishop just because he noticed and praised my gimcracks and inventions, and substitutes.”

  Father Jos smiled, and demurely abased his eye.

  “Oh! then you don’t know me as well as you think you do, father,” said O’Shane. “Nor what’s more, Harry, not his noting down the two regiments to make inquiry for friends for you, Harry, shouldn’t have bribed me to partiality — though I could have kissed his shoe-ties for it.”

  “Mercy on you!” said Father Jos: “this doctor has bewitched you.”

  “But did you mind, then,” persisted Corny, “the way he spoke of that cousin of mine, Sir Ulick, who he saw I did not like, and who has been, as you tell us, bitter against him, and even against his getting the living. Well, the way this Doctor Cambray spoke then pleased me — good morals without preaching — there’s do good to your enemies — the true Christian doctrine — and the hardest point. Oh! let Father Jos say what he will, there’s the man will be in heaven before many — heretic or no heretic, Harry!”

  Father Jos shrugged up his shoulders, and then fixing the glass in his spectacles, replied, “We shall see better when we come to the tithes.”

  “That’s true,” said Corny.

  He walked off to his workshop, and took down his fowling-piece to put the finishing stroke to his work for the next day, which was to be the first day of partridge-shooting: he looked forward with delight — anticipating the gratification he should have in going out shooting with Harry, and trying his new fowling-piece. “But I won’t go out to-morrow till the post has come in; for my mind couldn’t enjoy the sport till I was satisfied whether the answer could come about your commission, Harry: my mind misgives me — that is, my calculation tells me, that it will come to-morrow.”

  Good Corny’s calculations were just: the next morning the little post-boy brought answers to various letters which he had written about Ormond — one to Ormond from Sir Ulick O’Shane, repeating his approbation of his ward’s going into the army, approving of all the steps Cornelius had taken — especially of his intention of paying for the commission.

  “All’s well,” Cornelius said. The next letter was from Cornelius’s banker, saying that the five hundred pound was lodged, ready. “All well.” The army-agent wrote, “that he had commissions in two different regiments, waiting Mr. O’Shane’s choice and orders per return of post, to purchase in conformity.”—”That’s all well.” General Albemarle’s answer to Mr. O’Shane’s letter was most satisfactory: in terms that w
ere not merely officially polite, but kind, “he assured Mr. O’Shane that he should, as far as it was in his power, pay attention to the young gentleman, whom Mr. O’Shane had so strongly recommended to his care, and by whose appearance and manner the general said he had been prepossessed, when he saw him some months ago at Corny Castle. There was a commission vacant in his son’s regiment, which he recommended to Mr. Ormond.”

  “The very thing I could have wished for you, my dear boy — you shall go off the day after to-morrow — not a moment’s delay — I’ll answer the letters this minute.”

  But Harry reminded him that the post did not go out till the next day, and urged him not to lose this fine day — this first day of the season for partridge shooting.

  “Time enough for my business after we come home — the post does not go out till morning.”

  “That’s true: come off, then — let’s enjoy the fine day sent us; and my gun, too — I forgot; for I do believe, Harry, I love you better even than my gun,” said the warm-hearted Corny. “Call Ormond. Moriarty; let us have him with us — he’ll enjoy it beyond all: one of the last day’s shooting with his own Prince Harry! — but, poor fellow, we’ll not tell him that.”

  Moriarty and the dogs were summoned, and the fineness of the day, and the promise of good sport, put Moriarty in remarkably good spirits. By degrees King Corny’s own spirits rose, and he forgot that it was the last day with Prince Harry, and he enjoyed the sport. After various trials of his new fowling-piece, both the king and the prince agreed that it succeeded to admiration. But even in the midst of his pride in his success, and his joy in the sport, his superior fondness for Harry prevailed, and showed itself in little, almost delicate instances of kindness, which could hardly have been expected from his unpolished mind. As they crossed a bog, he stooped every now and then, and plucked different kinds of bog-plants and heaths.

  “Here, Harry,” said he, “mind these for Dr. Cambray. Remember yesterday his mentioning that a daughter of his was making a botanical collection, and there’s Sheelah can tell you all the Irish names and uses. Some I can note for you myself; and here, this minute — by great luck! the very thing he wanted! — the andromeda, I’ll swear to it: throw away all and keep this — carry it to her to-morrow — for I will have you make a friend of that Dr. Cambray; and no way so sure or fair to the father’s heart as by proper attention to the daughter — I know that by myself. Hush, now, till I have that partridge! — Whirr! — Shot him clean, my dear gun! — Was not that good, Harry?”

  Thus they continued their sport till late; and returning, loaded with game, had nearly reached the palace, when Corny, who had marked a covey, quitted Harry, and sent his dog to spring it, at a distance much greater than the usual reach of a common fowling-piece. Harry heard a shot, and a moment afterwards a violent shout of despair; — he knew the voice to be that of Moriarty, and running to the spot from whence it came, he found his friend, his benefactor, weltering in his blood. The fowling-piece, overloaded, had burst, and a large splinter of the barrel had fractured the skull, and had sunk into the brain. As Moriarty was trying to raise his head, O’Shane uttered some words, of which all that was intelligible was the name of Harry Ormond. His eye was fixed on Harry, but the meaning of the eye was gone. He squeezed Harry’s hand, and an instant afterwards O’Shane’s hand was powerless. The dearest, the only real friend Harry Ormond had upon earth was gone for ever!

  CHAPTER XVII.

  A boy passing by saw what had happened, and ran to the house, calling as he went to some workmen, who hastened to the place, where they heard the howling of the dogs. Ormond neither heard nor saw — till Moriarty said, “He must be carried home;” and some one approaching to lift the body, Ormond started up, pushed the man back, without uttering a syllable — made a sign to Moriarty, and between them they carried the body home. Sheelah and the women came out to meet them, wringing their hands, and uttering loud lamentations. Ormond, bearing his burden as if insensible of what he bore, walked onward, looking at no one, answering none, but forcing his way straight into the house, and on — till they came to O’Shane’s bedchamber, which was upon the ground-floor — there laid him on his bed. The women had followed, and all those who had gathered on the way rushed in to see and to bewail. Ormond looked up, and saw the people about the bed, and made a sign to Moriarty to keep them away, which he did, as well as he could. But they would not be kept back — Sheelah, especially, pressed forward, crying loudly, till Moriarty, with whom she was struggling, pointed to Harry. Struck with his fixed look, she submitted at once. “Best leave him!” said she. She put every body out of the room before her, and turning to Ormond, said, they would leave him “a little space of time till the priest should come, who was at a clergy dinner, but was sent for.”

  When Ormond was left alone he locked the door, and kneeling beside the dead, offered up prayers for the friend he had lost, and there remained some time in stillness and silence, till Sheelah knocked at the door, to let him know that the priest was come. Then retiring, he went to the other end of the house, to be out of the way. The room to which he went was that in which they had been reading the letters just before they went out that morning. There was the pen which Harry had taken from his hand, and the answer just begun.

  “Dear General, I hope my young friend, Harry Ormond—”

  That hand could write no more! — that warm heart was cold! The certainty was so astonishing, so stupifying, that Ormond, having never yet shed a tear, stood with his eyes fixed on the paper, he knew not how long, till he felt some one touch his hand. It was the child, little Tommy, of whom O’Shane was so fond, and who was so fond of him. The child, with his whistle in his hand, stood looking up at Harry, without speaking. Ormond gazed on him for a few instants, then snatched him in his arms, and burst into an agony of tears. Sheelah, who had let the child in, now came and carried him away. “God be thanked for them tears,” said she, “they will bring relief;” and so they did. The necessity for manly exertion — the sense of duty — pressed upon Ormond’s recovered reason. He began directly, and wrote all the letters that were necessary to his guardian and to Miss O’Faley, to communicate the dreadful intelligence to Dora. The letters were not finished till late in the evening. Sheelah came for them, and leaving the door and the outer door to the hall open, as she came in, Ormond saw the candles lighted, and smelt the smell of tobacco and whiskey, and heard the sound of many voices.

  “The wake, dear, which is beginning,” said she, hastening back to shut the doors, as she saw him shudder. “Bear with it, Master Harry,” said she: “hard for you! — but bear with us, dear; ’tis the custom of the country; and what else can we do but what the forefathers did? — how else for us to show respect, only as it would be expected, and has always been? — and great comfort to think we done our best for him that is gone, and comfort to know his wake will be talked of long hereafter, over the fires at night, of all the people that is there without — and that’s all we have for it now: so bear with it, dear.”

  This night, and for two succeeding nights, the doors of Corny Castle remained open for all who chose to come.

  Crowds, as many, and more, than the castle could hold, flocked to King Corny’s wake, for he was greatly beloved.

  There was, as Sheelah said, “plenty of cake, and wine, and tea, and tobacco, and snuff — every thing handsome as possible, and honourable to the deceased, who was always open-handed and open-hearted, and with open house too.”

  His praises, from time to time, were heard, and then the common business of the country was talked of — and jesting and laughter went on — and all night there were tea-drinkings for the women, and punch for the men. Sheelah, who inwardly grieved most, went about incessantly among the crowd, serving all, seeing that none, especially them who came from a distance, should be neglected — and that none should have to complain afterwards, “or to say that any thing at all was wanting or niggardly.” Mrs. Betty, Sheelah’s daughter, sat presiding at the tea-table, giv
ing the keys to her mother when wanted, but never forgetting to ask for them again. Little Tommy took his cake and hid himself under the table, close by his mother, Mrs. Betty; and could not be tempted out but by Sheelah, whom he followed, watching for her to go in to Mr. Harry: when the door opened, he held by her gown, and squeezed in under her arm — and when she brought Mr. Harry his meals, she would set the child up at the table with him for company — and to tempt him to take something.

  Ormond had once promised his deceased friend, that if he was in the country when he died, he would put him into his coffin. He kept his promise. The child hearing a noise, and knowing that Mr. Harry had gone into the room, could not be kept out; the crowd had left that room, and the child looked at the bed with the curtains looped up with black — and at the table at the foot of the bed, with the white cloth spread over it, and the seven candlesticks placed upon it. But the coffin fixed his attention, and he threw himself upon it, clinging to it, and crying bitterly upon King Corny, his dear King Corny, to come back to him.

  It was all Sheelah could do to drag him away: Ormond, who had always liked this boy, felt now more fond of him than ever, and resolved that he should never want a friend.

  “You are in the mind to attend the funeral, sir, I think you told me?” said Sheelah.

  “Certainly,” replied Ormond.

  “Excuse me, then,” said Sheelah, “if I mention — for you can’t know what to do without. There will be high mass, may be you know, in the chapel. And as it’s a great funeral, thirteen priests will be there, attending. And when the mass will be finished, it will be expected of you, as first of kin considered, to walk up first with your offering — whatsoever you think fit, for the priests — and to lay it down on the altar; and then each and all will follow, laying down their offerings, according as they can. I hope I’m not too bold or troublesome, sir.”

  Ormond thanked her for her kindness — and felt it was real kindness. He, consequently, did all that was expected from him handsomely. After the masses were over, the priests, who could not eat any thing before they said mass, had breakfast and dinner joined. Sheelah took care “the clergy was well served.” Then the priests — though it was not essential that all should go, did all, to Sheelah’s satisfaction, accompany the funeral the whole way, three long miles, to the burying-place of the O’Shanes; a remote old abbey-ground, marked only by some scattered trees, and a few sloping grave-stones. King Corny’s funeral was followed by an immense concourse of people, on’ horseback and on foot; men, women, and children: when they passed by the doors of cabins, a set of the women raised the funeral cry — not a savage howl, as is the custom in some parts of Ireland, but chanting a melancholy kind of lament, not without harmony, simple and pathetic. Ormond was convinced, that in spite of all the festivity at the wake, which had so disgusted him, the poor people mourned sincerely for the friend they had lost.