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 he
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!