Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Father, are you gone? are you going?” cried Gerald, “I want to consult you. Will you not help me with your judgment?”

  “You know my opinion of the horse, my dear Gerald,” said his father; “as to the rest, I must leave you to yourself. — The money is ready for you.”

  As he spoke he took Cecilia by the hand to lead her away, but she looked as if she had a great mind to see more of Garry Owen.

  “Pray, papa, let me stay,” said Cecilia, “with mamma; mamma will walk up and down.”

  Her father let go her hand and walked away.

  “May be Miss Cecilia could ride this pony too?” said the groom respectfully to Gerald.

  “To be sure,” said the horse-dealer; “put her up, and you’ll see how considerate Garry Owen will walk with the young lady.”

  Cecilia, mounted on Garry Owen, was led twice round the back lawn, Gerald delighting in her delight.

  “And the young lady is a great soldier too,” said the horse-dealer.

  “I did not feel the least bit afraid,” said she, as she jumped down, and patting Garry Owen now with fearless loud resounding pat, she pronounced him the gentlest of dear little creatures, and “oh how glad I am,” continued she, “that you are to belong to brother Gerald; many, many, many a pleasant ride I shall have upon you, Garry Owen — shall not I, Gerald?”

  Gerald smiled; “I cannot resist this,” thought he, “I must have Garry Owen.”

  “The only thing I don’t like about him is his name, Gerald; I wish, when you have him, you would call him by some prettier name than Garry Owen — call him Fairy, Good Fairy.”

  “Or talking of fairies and fairy horses, if you had a mind to an odd Irish name, Miss Cecilia,” said the gamekeeper, “you might call him Boliaunbuie, which is the Irish name for the yellow rag weed that they call ‘the fairies’ horses,’ because the fairies ride on them time immemorial.”

  While the gamekeeper was making out some fitness in this conceit, which struck his own fancy, but nobody else’s, perhaps, the housekeeper came out to give to her mistress some message, in which the name of the snow-woman (a name which had been adopted below stairs as well as above) was often repeated.

  “What! do you say that she is going to-morrow?” inquired Gerald.

  “No, sir, but the day after she has fixed, and will come up here to take leave and thank all the family to-morrow. A grateful creature, ma’am, and not encroaching she is, as ever breathed, not expecting and expecting, like the rest, or too many of them. I’ve promised to buy from her some of the little worsted mittens and gloves she has been knitting, to put a few pence in her poor pocket.”

  This speech brought back all Gerald’s thoughts from Garry Owen to the poor woman. He turned his back on the pony, took Cecilia aside, abruptly opened the matter to her, and asked if she could be contented if he should give up Garry Owen.

  It was a sudden change. “Oh, could there be no other way?”

  “None.”

  “Well, dear Gerald, do it then; oh never mind me! I am only sorry for your not having the beautiful pony; but then it will be so good of you — yes — yes — do it, Gerald, do it.”

  The generous eagerness with which Cecilia urged him acted directly against her purpose, for he felt particularly sorry to give up what would be such a pleasure to her. With uncertain steps and slow he walked back again to those who waited his decision, and who stood wondering what he could be deliberating about. His speech, as well as his walk, betrayed signs of his inward agitation. It would not bear reporting; the honourable gentleman was scarcely audible — but those round Garry Owen gathered from what reached their ears that, “in short he did not know — he was not quite sure — he was not determined — or he was determined not to purchase Garry Owen, unless he should change his mind.”

  The auditors looked upon one another in unfeigned astonishment; and for half a minute silence ensued. The master of the horse then said in a low voice, in Irish, to the saddler, “What can be the cause? The father said he had the money for him.”

  The saddler, in a low voice, gnawing a bit of a leather strap, without turning head or eyes as he spoke, replied, “It’s the housekeeper — something she put into his ear was the cause of the change.”

  “Just as your honour plaases, Master Gerald, Sir,” said the horse-dealer, stroking Garry’s nose, “which ever way you think proper, Master Gerald,” said he, in a tone in which real anger struggled and struggled in vain with habitual servility and professional art, all care for his moneyed interest forgotten in his sense of the insult which he conceived aimed at his horse; he continued, as he turned to depart, “I thank my stars then Garry Owen and I can defy the world, and all the slanderers, backbiters, and whisperers in it, whomsoever they be, man, woman, or child.”

  Cecilia looked half frightened, Gerald wholly bewildered.

  “I don’t understand you,” said he.

  “Why, then, master, I ax your pardon. But I think it is asy understanding me. Its plain some person or persons have whispered through another, perhaps” — glancing towards the spot where Gerald’s mother was sitting drawing the group—”something, myself can’t guess what, against me or Garry Owen — a sounder horse never stepped nor breathed, I could take my affidavit, but I will not demean myself, I should not be suspected, I don’t deserve it from your honour; so I only wish, Master Gerald, you may find a better horse for yourself, if you can get one in all Ireland, let alone England.”

  He turned Garry Owen to lead him down the hill as he spoke. Gerald, feeling for the man, and pleased with his feeling for the reputation of his horse and for his own suspected honour, now stood in his way to stop him, and assured him that nothing had been said to him by any human being to the disadvantage of Garry Owen or of himself.

  But prepossessed with the belief, as is but too common in Ireland, and often too just, that some one had been belying him, the indignant horse-dealer went on in the same tone, but, seeming afraid of failing in respect to young master, he addressed his appeal to the groom.

  “Just-put-the-case-the-case-was-your-own!” Nine words which he uttered with such volubility that they sounded like one, and that one some magical adjuration. “Just-put-the-case-the-case-was-your-own, would not ye have some feeling? Then, if by the blessing of luck I had been born a gentleman, and a great young gentleman, like Master Gerald, why, in his place, I’d give up an informer as soon and sooner than look at him, who-some-dever he was, or who-some-dever she was, for it was a she I’m confident, from a hint I got from a frind.”

  “Tut, tut, man!” interposed the saddler, “Now, Dan Conolly, you’re out o’rason entirely, and you are not listening to Master Gerald.”

  “Then I am listening to his honour — only I know it is only to screen the housekeeper, who is a favourite, and was never my frind, the young gentleman spakes — and I’m jealous of that.”

  This was more incomprehensible than all the rest to Cecilia and Gerald. While they looked at each other in amazement, a few words were whispered in Irish by the cunning saddler to the enraged horse-dealer, which brought him to reason, or to whatever portion of reason he ever had.

  The words were—”I must have mistaken, may be he’ll come round again, and be for the horse.”

  “Why then, Master Gerald, sir, I crave your pardon,” said the horse-dealer in a penitent tone, “if I forgot myself and was too free, then I was too hot and out of rason; I’m sensible I’m subject to it. When a gentleman, especially one of this family that I’ve such a respect for, and then above all, when your honour, Master Gerald, would turn to suspect me — as I suspected you was suspecting me of going to tell you a lie, or misleading of you any way, about a horse of all things. But I mistook your honour — I crave your honour’s pardon, Master Gerald.”

  Gerald willingly granted his pardon, and liked him better for his warmth.

  “About Garry Owen, above all, I had no occasion to be puffing him off,” continued the master of the horse, turning to him proudly. �
��Then the truth is, it was only to oblige you, Master Gerald, and his honour your father, who was always my frind, as I ought to remember and do — it was only on that account, and my promise, that I brought Garry here the day, to make you the first offer at the price I first said; I won’t be talking ungenteel, it does not become me; but I’d only wish your honour to know, without my mentioning it, that I could get more from many another.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Gerald; “that relieves me from one difficulty — about you, Conolly.”

  “Oh, make no difficulty in life, my dear young gentleman, on account of me. If you have made up your mind to be off, and to give up Garry Owen, dear sir, it’s done and done,” said the knowing and polite horse-dealer; “and ’tis I in this case will be obligated to you, for I have two honourable chaps in my eye this minute, both eager as ever you see to snap him up before I’d get home, or well out o’ the great gate below; and to whichsomdever of the two I’d give the preference, he would come down on the spot with whatsomdever I’d name, ready money, and five guineas luck-penny to boot.”

  “Very well, then,” said Gerald, “you had better —— .” But the words stuck in his throat.

  “Is it Jonah Crommie, the rich grazier’s son, that’s one of your chaps, Dan Conolly?” asked the saddler.

  The horse-dealer nodded.

  “Murder, man!” cried the saddler, “would you let him have Garry Owen? The likes of him — the squireen! the spalpeen! the mushroom! That puts me in mind of the miller, his father, riding formerly betwix’ two big sacks to the market, himself the biggest sack — Faugh! his son to be master of Garry Owen!”

  “They ought not to look so high, them graziers and middlemen, I admit,” said the horse-dealer; “the half gentleman might be content to be half mounted — but when there’s the money.”

  “Best not for him to be laying it out on Garry Owen,” said the saddler, “for even suppose Garry would not throw him and break his neck at the first going off, I’ll tell you what would happen, Jonah Crommie would ruin Garry Owen’s mouth for him in a week, and make him no better than a garron. Did any body ever see Jonah Crommie riding a horse? It’s this way he does it,” lugging at the bridle with the hand, and the two legs out. “It is with three stirrups he rides.”

  All joined in the laugh, groom, coachman, helper, gossoon, and all. Garry Owen’s master then protested Jonah Crommie should never ride him. But the other offer for Garry was “unexceptionable — undeniable.”

  “It is from Sir Essex Bligh, the member. Sir Essex wants an extraordinary fine pony for his eldest son and heir, young Sir Harry that will be; and he rides like an angel too! and what’s more, like a gentleman as he is too. Accordingly, Monday morning, next hunt day, the young baronet that will be is to be introduced to the hunt, and could not be better than on Garry Owen here.”

  The whole hunt, in full spirit, was before Gerald’s eyes, and young Sir Harry on “Garry Owen in glory.” But Gerald’s was not a mean mind, to be governed by the base motives of jealousy and envy. Those who tried these incentives did not know him. He now decidedly stepped forward, and, patting the horse, said, “Good bye, Garry Owen, since I cannot have you, I am glad you will have a gentleman for your master, who will use you well and do you justice. Farewell for ever, Garry Owen.” He put something satisfactory into the horse-dealer’s hand, adding, “I am sorry I have given you so much trouble. I don’t want the saddle.”

  Then, turning suddenly away, Garry Owen was led off; and Gerald and Cecilia hastened to their mother, who, in much surprise, inquired what had happened.

  “You will be better pleased, mamma, than if Gerald had a hundred Garry Owens,” cried Cecilia.

  At that moment their father threw open his study window and looked out, well pleased indeed, as he saw how the affair had ended. He came out and shook Gerald by the hand with affectionate pleasure and paternal pride.—”Safe out of the hands of your flatterers, my boy, welcome to your friends! I am glad, my dear son, to see that you have self-command sufficient to adhere to a generous intention, and to do the good which you purpose.”

  Gerald’s father put a purse containing the promised price of Garry Owen into his hand, and offered to assist him in any way he might desire in executing his plan for the snow-woman. After some happy consultations it was settled, that it would be best, instead of building a new house for her, which could not be immediately ready, to rent one that was already finished, dry, and furnished, and in which they could set her up in a little shop in the village. Whatever was wanting to carry this plan into execution, Gerald’s father and mother supplied. They advised that Gerald should give only a part of the sum he had intended, and lend the other part to the poor woman, to be returned by small payments at fixed periods, so that it would make a fund that might be again lent and repaid, “and thus be continually useful to her, or to some one else in distress.”

  “Gerald,” said his father, “you may hereafter have the disposal of a considerable property, therefore I am glad, even in these your boyish days, to have any opportunity of turning your mind to consider how you can be most useful to your tenantry. I doubt not, from your generous disposition, that you will be kind to them; but I feel particular satisfaction in seeing that you early begin to practise that self-denial which is in all situations essential to real generosity.”

  THE SPANISH WIDOW AND HER CHILDREN.

  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

  Antonia and Juan were the children of a poor Spanish widow named Paula Sevilla, who lived in a small cabin in one of those secluded valleys which are to be found in the mountainous districts of Spain.

  The produce of the chestnut trees that shaded their lonely dwelling, the vegetables and esculent roots that were cultivated in their small plot of garden ground, with the milk of two or three goats, formed the whole subsistence of Paula and her fatherless children: but contentment, which softens the hardest lot, shed its blessings over their cottage, and the widow and her children never broke bread without having first lifted up their hands, in silent gratitude, to Him whose bounty provideth food for his creatures, from the children of men, down to the humblest insect that crawleth in the dust.

  Pedro Sevilla, the husband of Paula, had followed the humble and peaceable life of a shepherd and herdsman, till that disastrous period when the lawless ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte caused Spain to become the seat of warfare, — making many a happy home desolate, many a wife a widow, and many a mother childless.

  While feeding his flocks on a distant part of the mountain, Pedro was summoned to join the troop which had been raised in the defence of his country; nor was he allowed the melancholy satisfaction of bidding farewell to his wife and children, but was instantly marched away to the distant camp.

  The flock returned bleating to the fold that night without their shepherd, and Paula beheld her husband no more; — he fell, defending one of the secret passes of his native mountains, overpowered by numbers.

  Antonia and Juan wept with their mother, or strove to comfort her with hopes that it might yet be possible that their father would return; but Paula had seen and talked with those who had looked on the dead face of her husband, and she felt that she was indeed a widow, and her children fatherless. But hers was a common case; every hamlet contained widows that mourned for the beloved partners who had fallen in the war, and Paula submitted herself humbly to the chastening hand of affliction, and said, “it is the will of the Lord.”

  Antonia and Juan were kind and dutiful children to their mother, and were so fondly attached to each other, that their chief happiness appeared to consist in being near one another, to render acts of kindness, by which they might give proofs of their mutual affection.

  Together they tended the little flock; all that the rapacity of the enemy had left them. There was no crag so steep but Juan would climb it, if Antonia but cast a wistful look at the mountain flowers that hung upon its brow. The clustering hazel-nuts or mountain berries he s
ought for to fill her little rush basket. If the goats strayed, it was Juan who hastened to recall them, while Antonia rested on the grass, or seated on some mossy stone beside the little rill that flowed rippling over its rocky bed, dancing and sparkling in the sun-beams, pursued her knitting or plied her needle with industrious zeal.

  As these children resembled each other in features, so they appeared to be alike in mind; they loved the same pursuits, the same flowers, the same walks — to sing the same songs, and to listen to the same tales; and the countenance of Paula would brighten into smiles of maternal affection, as her ear caught the sound of their sweet joyous voices in the valley, chanting snatches of the old Moorish ballads which she had been accustomed to sing to them in happier days. Sometimes she turned her wheel at the cottage door, as they stood before her, their little hands fondly linked together, listening with alternate tears and smiles to her songs or tales of other times.

  About this time the inhabitants of the neighbouring hamlets were greatly distressed by the frequent incursions of the French, who were stationed among the passes of the adjacent mountains, from whose heights they made frequent descents to plunder the cottages of the peasantry, seizing the corn and food which had been preserved from their previous depredations; nor were there wanting instances of those who cruelly put to the sword, or levelled the dwellings of such of the starving peasantry as endeavoured to protect their little substance from their lawless and rapacious oppressors.

  These acts of cruelty rendered the very name of a Frenchman hateful to the ears of a Spaniard; and those who would have shown mercy to the merciless invaders of their country would have been regarded by their indignant brethren as traitors and enemies to Spain.

  There is no hatred so terrible as national hatred, which is regardless of the universal love and forbearance that Christian should exercise towards Christian: it makes men forget, that in the midst of judgment it is good to remember mercy.