There are people who can go on very smoothly with those whose principles
and characters they despise and dislike. There are people who, provided
they live in _company_, are happy, and care but little of what the
company is composed. But our young hero certainly was not one of these
contented people. He was perhaps too much in the other extreme. He could
not, without overt words or looks of indignation, endure the presence
of those whose characters or principles he despised--he could not, even
without manifest symptoms of restlessness or ennui, submit long to live
with mere companions; he required to have friends; nor could he make
a friend from ordinary materials, however smooth the grain, or however
fine the polish they might take. Even when the gay world at Castle
Hermitage was new to him--amused and enchanted as he was at first with
that brilliant society, he could not have been content or happy
without his friends at Vicar’s Dale, to whom, once at least in the
four-and-twenty hours, he found it necessary to open his heart. We may
then judge how happy he now felt in returning to Annaly: after the
sort of moral constraint which he had endured in the company of Marcus
O’Shane, we may guess what an expansion of heart took place.
The family union and domestic happiness which he saw at Annaly,
certainly struck him at this time more forcibly, from the contrast
with what he had just seen at Castle Hermitage. The effect of contrast,
however, is but transient. It is powerful as a dramatic resource, but
in real life it is of no permanent consequence. There was here a charm
which operates with as great certainty, and with a power secure of
increasing instead of diminishing from habit--the charm of _domestic
politeness_, in the every day manners of this mother, son, and daughter,
towards each other, as well as towards their guests. Ormond saw and
felt it irresistibly. He saw the most delicate attentions combined with
entire sincerity, perfect ease, and constant respect; the result of
the early habits of good-breeding acting upon the feelings of genuine
affection. The external polish, which Ormond now admired, was very
different from that varnish which often is hastily applied to hide
imperfections. This polish was of the substance itself, to be obtained
only by long use; but, once acquired, lasting for ever: not only
beautiful, but serviceable, preserving from the injuries of time and
from the dangers of familiarity.
What influence the sister’s charms might have to increase Ormond’s
admiration of the brother, we shall not presume to determine; but
certainly he liked Sir Herbert Annaly better than any young man he had
ever seen. Sir Herbert was some years older than Ormond; he was in his
twenty-seventh year: but at this age he had done more good in life
than many men accomplish during their whole existence. Sir Herbert’s
principal estates were in another part of Ireland. Dr. Cambray had
visited them. The account he gave Ormond of what had been done there,
to improve the people and to make them happy; of the prosperous state
of the peasantry; their industry and independence; their grateful, not
servile, attachment to Sir Herbert Annaly and his mother; the veneration
in which the name of Annaly was held; all delighted the enthusiastic
Ormond.
The name of Annaly was growing wonderfully dear to him; and, all of a
sudden, the interest he felt in the details of a country gentleman’s
life was amazingly increased. At times, when the ladies were engaged,
he accompanied Sir Herbert in visiting his estate. Sir Herbert had
never till lately resided at Annaly, which had, within but a short time,
reverted to his possession, in consequence of the death of the person to
whom it had been let. He found much that wanted improvement in the land,
and more in the people.
This estate stretched along the sea-shore: the tenants whom he found
living near the coast were an idle, profligate, desperate set of people;
who, during the time of the late middle landlord, had been in the habit
of _making their rents_ by nefarious practices. The best of the set
were merely idle fishermen, whose habits of trusting to their
_luck_ incapacitated them from industry: the others were illicit
distillers--smugglers--and miscreants who lived by _waifs_ and
_strays_; in fact, by the pillage of vessels on the coast. The coast
was dangerous--there happened frequent shipwrecks; owing partly, as was
supposed, to the false lights hung out by these people, whose interest
it was that vessels should be wrecked. Shocked at these practices,
Sir Herbert Annaly had, from the moment he came into possession of the
estate, exerted himself to put a stop to them, and to punish, where he
could not reform the offenders. The people at first pleaded a sort of
_tenant’s right_, which they thought a landlord could scarcely resist.
They protested that they could not make _the rent_, if they were not
allowed to make it in their own way; and showed, beyond a doubt, that
Sir Herbert could not get half as much rent for his land in those parts,
if he looked too scrupulously into the means by which it was made. They
brought, in corroboration of their arguments or assertions, the example
and constant practice of “many as good a jantleman as any in Ireland,
who had his rent made up for him that ways, very ready and punctual.
There was his honour, Mr. Such-a-one, and so on; and there was Sir Ulick
O’Shane, sure! Oh! he was the man to live under--he was the man that
knew when to wink and when to blink; and if he shut his eyes _properly_,
sure his tenants filled his fist. Oh! Sir Ulick was the great man for
_favour and purtection_, none like him at all!--He is the good landlord,
that will fight the way clear for his own tenants through thick and
thin--none dare touch them. Oh! Sir Ulick’s the kind jantleman that
understands the law for the poor, and could bring them off at every
turn, and show them the way through the holes in an act of parliament,
asy as through a _riddle_!
“Oh, and if he could but afford to be half as good as his promises, Sir
Ulick O’Shane would be too good entirely!”
Now Sir Ulick O’Shane had purchased a tract of ground adjoining to Sir
Herbert’s, on this coast; and he had bought it on the speculation that
he could let it at a very high rent to these people, of whose _ways and
means_ of paying it he chose to remain in ignorance. All the tenants
whom Sir Herbert _banished_ from his estate flocked to Sir Ulick’s.
By the sacrifice of his own immediate interest, and by great personal
exertion, strict justice, and a generous and well secured system of
reward, Sir Herbert already had produced a considerable change for the
better in the morals and habits of the people. He was employing some of
his tenants on the coast, in building a lighthouse, for which he had
a grant from parliament; and he was endeavouring to establish a
manufacture of sail-cloth, for which there was sufficient demand. But
almost at every step of his progress, he was impeded by the effects
of the bad example of his neighbours on Sir Ulick’s estate; and by
the continual quarrels between the idle, discarded tenants, and their
industrious and now prosperous successors.
Whenever a vessel in distress was seen off the coast, there was a
constant struggle between the two parties who had opposite interests;
the one to save, the other to destroy. In this state of things, causes
of complaint perpetually occurred; and Ormond who was present, when the
accusers and the accused appealed to their landlord, sometimes as lord
of the manor, sometimes as magistrate, had frequent opportunities of
seeing both Sir Herbert’s principles and temper put to the test. He
liked to compare the different modes in which King Corny, his guardian,
and Sir Herbert Annaly managed these things. Sir Herbert governed
neither by threats, punishments, abuse, nor tyranny; nor yet did he
govern by promises nor bribery, _favour_ and _protection_, like Sir
Ulick. He neither cajoled nor bullied--neither held it as a principle,
as Marcus did, that the people must be kept down, or that the people
must be deceived. He treated them neither as slaves, subject to his
will; nor as dupes, or objects on which to exercise his wit or
his cunning. He treated them as reasonable beings, and as his
fellow-creatures, whom he wished to improve, that he might make them and
himself happy. He spoke sense to them; and he mixed that sense with
wit and humour, in the proportion necessary to make it palatable to an
Irishman.
In generosity there was a resemblance between the temper of Sir
Herbert and of Corny; but to Ormond’s surprise, and at first to his
disappointment, Sir Herbert valued justice more than generosity.
Ormond’s heart on this point was often with King Corny, when his head
was forced to be with Sir Herbert; but, by degrees, head and heart came
together. He became practically convinced that justice is the virtue
that works best for a constancy, and best serves every body’s interest
in time and in turn. Ormond now often said to himself, “Sir Herbert
Annaly is but a few years older than I am; by the time I am of his age,
why should not I become as useful, and make as many human beings happy
as he does?” In the meantime, the idea of marrying and settling in
Ireland became every day more agreeable to Ormond; and France and Italy,
which he had been so eager to visit, faded from his imagination. Sir
Herbert and Lady Annaly, who had understood from Dr. Cambray that Ormond
was going to commence his grand tour immediately, and who heard him
make a number of preparatory inquiries when he had been first at Annaly,
naturally turned the conversation often to the subject. They had looked
out maps and prints, and they had taken down from their shelves the
different books of travels, which might be most useful to him, with
guides, and post-road books, and all that could speed the parting guest.
But the guest had no mind to part--every thing, every body at Annaly, he
found so agreeable and so excellent.
It must be a great satisfaction to a young man who has a grain of sense,
and who feels that he is falling inevitably and desperately in love, to
see that all the lady’s family, as well as the object of his passion,
are exactly the people whom he should wish of all others to make
his friends for life. Here was every thing that could be desired,
suitability of age, of fortune, of character, of temper, of
tastes--every thing that could make a marriage happy, could Ormond
but win the heart of Florence Annaly. Was that heart disengaged?--He
resolved to inquire first from his dear friend, Dr. Cambray, who was
much in the confidence of this family, a great favourite with Florence,
and consequently dearer than ever to Ormond. He went directly to Vicar’s
Dale to see and consult him, and Ormond thought he was confiding a
profound secret to the doctor, when first he spoke to him of his passion
for Miss Annaly; but to his surprise, the doctor told him he had seen
it long ago, and his wife and daughters had all discovered it, even when
they were first with him at Annaly.
“Is it possible?--and what do you all think?”
“We think that you would be a perfectly happy man, if you could win Miss
Annaly; and we wish you success most sincerely. But--”
“_But_--Oh, my dear doctor, you alarm me beyond measure.”
“What! by wishing you success?”
“No, but by something in your look and manner, and by that terrible
_but_: you think that I shall never succeed--you think that her heart is
engaged. If that be the case, tell me so at once, and I will set off for
France to-morrow.”
“My good sir, you are always for desperate measures--you are in too
great a hurry to come to a conclusion, before you have the means of
forming a just conclusion. Remember, I tell you, this precipitate temper
will some time or other bring some great evil upon you.”
“I will be patient all my life afterwards, if you will only this instant
tell me whether she is engaged.”
“I do not know whether Miss Annaly’s heart be disengaged or not--I can
tell you only that she has had a number of brilliant offers, and that
she has refused them all.”
“That proves that she had not found one amongst them that she liked,”
said Ormond.
“Or that she liked some one better than all those whom she refused,”
said Dr. Cambray.
“That is true--that is possible--that is a dreadful possibility,” said
Ormond. “But do you think there is any probability of that?”
“There is, I am sorry to tell you, my dear Ormond, a probability against
you--but I can only state the facts in general. I can form no opinion,
for I have had no opportunity of judging--I have never seen the two
young people together. But there is a gentleman of great merit, of
suitable family and fortune, who is deeply in love with Miss Annaly, and
who I presume has not been refused, for I understand he is soon to be
here.”
“To be here!” cried Ormond: “a man of great merit!--I hope he is not an
agreeable man.”
“That’s a vain hope,” said Dr. Cambray; “he is a very agreeable man.”
“_Very_ agreeable!--What sort of person--grave or gay?--Like any body
that I ever saw?”
“Yes, like a person that you have seen, and a person for whom I believe
you have a regard--like his own father, your dear King Corny’s friend,
General Albemarle.”
“How extraordinary!--how unlucky!” said Ormond. “I would rather my rival
were any one else than the son of a man I am obliged to; and a most
dangerous rival he must be, if he have his father’s merit, and his
father’s manners. Oh! my dear Dr. Cambray, I am sure she likes him--and
yet she could not be so cheerful in his absence, if she were much in
love--I defy her; and it is impossible that he can be as much in love
with her as I am, else nothing could keep him from her.”
“Nothing but his duty, I suppose you mean?”
“Duty!--What duty?”
“Why, there really are duties in this world to be performed, though a
man in love is apt to forget it. Colonel Albemarle, being an officer,
cannot quit his regiment till he has obtained leave of absence.”
“I am heartily glad of it,” cried Ormond--“I will make the best use
of my time before he comes. But, my dear doctor, do you think Lady
Annaly--do you think Sir Herbert wish it to be?”
“I really cannot tell:--I know only that he is a particular friend of
Sir Herbert, and that I have heard Lady Annaly speak of him as being
a young man of excellent character and high honour, for whom she has a
great regard.”
Ormond sighed.
“Heaven forgive me that sigh!” said he: “I thought I never should be
brought so low as to sigh at bearing of any man’s excellent character
and high honour: but I certainly wish Colonel Albemarle had never been
born. Heaven preserve me from envy and jealousy!”
Our young hero had need to repeat this prayer the next morning at
breakfast, when Sir Herbert, on opening his letters, exclaimed, “My
friend, Colonel Albemarle--”
And Lady Annaly, in a tone of joy, “Colonel Albemarle!--I hope he will
soon be here.”
Sir Herbert proceeded: “Cannot obtain leave of absence yet--but lives
_in hopes_,” said Sir Herbert, reading the letter, and handing it to his
mother.
Ormond did not dare, did not think it honourable, to make use of
his eyes, though there now might have been a decisive moment for
observation. No sound reached his ear from Miss Annaly’s voice; but Lady
Annaly spoke freely and decidedly in praise of Colonel Albemarle. As she
read the letter, Sir Herbert, after asking Ormond three times whether he
was not acquainted with General Albemarle, obtained for answer, that he
“really did not know.” In truth, Ormond did not know any thing at that
moment. Sir Herbert, surprised, and imagining that Ormond had not yet
heard him, was going to repeat his question--but a look from his mother
stopped him. A sudden light struck Lady Annaly. Mothers are remarkably
quick-sighted upon these occasions. There was a silence of a few
minutes, which appeared to poor Ormond to be a silence that would never
be broken; it was broken by some slight observation which the brother
and sister made to each other upon a paragraph in the newspaper, which
they were reading together. Ormond took breath.
“She cannot love him, or she could not be thinking of a paragraph in the
newspaper at this moment.”
From this time forward Ormond was in a continual state of agitation,
reasoning, as the passions reason, as ill as possible, upon even
the slightest circumstances that occurred, from whence he might
draw favourable or unfavourable omens. He was resolved--and that was
prudent--not to speak of his own sentiments, till he was clear how
matters stood about Colonel Albemarle: he was determined not to expose
himself to the useless mortification of a refusal. While in this agony
of uncertainty, he went out one morning to take a solitary walk, that he
might reflect at leisure. Just as he was turning from the avenue to
the path that led to the wood, a car full of morning visitors appeared.
Ormond endeavoured to avoid them, but not before he had been seen. A
servant rode after him to beg to know “if he were Mr. Harry Ormond--if
he were, one of the ladies on the car, Mrs. M’Crule, sent her
compliments to him, and requested he would be so good as to let her
speak with him at the house, as she had a few words of consequence to
say.”
“Mrs. M’Crule!” Ormond did not immediately recollect that he had the
honour of knowing any such person, till the servant said, “Miss Black,
sir, that was--formerly at Castle Hermitage.”
His old enemy, Miss Black, he recollected well. He obeyed the lady’s
summons, and returned to the house.
Mrs. M’Crule had not altered in disposition, though her objects had been
changed by marriage. Having no longer Lady O’Shane’s quarrels with her
husband to talk about, she had become the pest of the village of Castle
Hermitage and of the neighbourhood--the Lady Bluemantle of the parish.
Had Miss Black remained in England, married or single, she would
only have been one of a numerous species too well known to need any
description; but transplanted to a new soil and a new situation, she
proved to be a variety of the old species, with peculiarly noxious
qualities, which it may be useful to describe, as a warning to the
unwary. It is unknown how much mischief the Lady Bluemantle class may do
in Ireland, where parties in religion and politics run high; and where
it often happens, that individuals of the different sects and parties
actually hate without knowing each other, watch without mixing with one
another, and consequently are prone reciprocally to believe any stories
or reports, however false or absurd, which tend to gratify their
antipathies. In this situation it is scarcely possible to get the
exact truth as to the words, actions, and intentions, of the nearest
neighbours, who happen to be of opposite parties or persuasions. What a
fine field is here for a mischief-maker! Mrs. M’Crule had in her parish
done her part; she had gone from rich to poor, from poor to rich, from
catholic to protestant, from churchman to dissenter, and from
dissenter to methodist, reporting every idle story, and repeating
every ill-natured thing that she heard said--things often more bitterly
expressed than thought, and always exaggerated or distorted in the
repetition. No two people in the parish could have continued on speaking
terms at the end of the year, but that, happily, there were in this
parish both a good clergyman and a good priest; and still more happily,
they both agreed in labouring for the good of their parishioners. Dr.
Cambray and Mr. M’Cormuck made it their business continually to follow
after Mrs. M’Crule, healing the wounds which she inflicted, and pouring
into the festering heart the balm of Christian charity: they were
beloved and revered by their parishioners; Mrs. M’Crule was soon
detected, and universally avoided. Enraged, she attacked, by turns, both
the clergyman and the priest; and when she could not separate them, she
found out that it was very wrong that they should agree. She discovered
that she was a much better protestant, and a much better Christian, than
Dr. Cambray, because she hated her catholic neighbours.
Dr. Cambray had taken pains to secure the co-operation of the catholic
clergyman, in all his attempts to improve the lower classes of the
people. His village school was open to catholics as well as protestants;
and Father M’Cormuck, having been assured that their religion would
not be tampered with, allowed and encouraged his flock to send their
children to the same seminary.
Mrs. M’Crule was, or affected to be, much alarmed and scandalized at
seeing catholic and protestant children mixing so much together; she
knew that opinions were divided among some families in the neighbourhood
upon the propriety of this _mixture_, and Mrs. M’Crule thought it a fine
opportunity of making herself of consequence, by stirring up the matter
into a party question. This bright idea had occurred to her just about
the time that Ormond brought over little Tommy from the Black Islands.
During Ormond’s absence upon his tour, Sheelah and Moriarty had
regularly sent the boy to the village school; exhorting him to mind his
_book_ and his _figures_, that he might surprise Mr. Ormond with his
_larning_ when he should come back. Tommy, with this excitation, and
being a quick, clever little fellow, soon got to the head of his class,
and kept there; and won all the school-prizes, and carried them home in
triumph to his grandame, and to his dear Moriarty, to be treasured up,
that he might show them to Mr. Ormond at his return home. Dr. Cambray
was pleased with the boy, and so was every body, except Mrs. M’Crule.
She often visited the school for the pleasure of finding fault; and she
_wondered_ to see this little Tommy, who was a catholic, carrying away
the prizes from all the others. She thought it her duty to inquire
farther about him; and as soon as she discovered that he came from the
Black Islands, that he lived with Moriarty, and that Mr. Ormond
was interested about him, she said she knew there was something
wrong--therefore, she set her face against the child, and against the
shameful partiality that _some people_ showed.
Dr. Cambray pursued his course without attending to her; and little
Tommy pursued his course, improving rapidly in his _larning_.
Now there was in that county an excellent charitable institution for the
education of children from seven to twelve years old; an apprentice
fee was given with the children when they left the school, and they
had several other advantages, which made parents of the lower classes
extremely desirous to get their sons into this establishment.
Before they could be admitted, it was necessary that they should have a
certificate from their parish minister and catholic clergyman, stating
that they could read and write, and that they were well-behaved
children. On a certain day, every year, a number of candidates were
presented. The certificates from the clergyman and priest of their
respective parishes were much attended to by the lady patronesses, and
by these the choice of the candidate to be admitted was usually decided.
Little Tommy had an excellent certificate both from Father M’Cormuck and
from Dr. Cambray. Sheelah and Moriarty were in great joy, and had
“all the hopes in life” for him; and Sheelah, who was very fond of
_surprises_, had cautioned Moriarty, and begged the doctor not to tell
Mr. Harry a word about it, _till all was fixed_, “for if the boy should
not have the luck to be chose at last, it would only be breaking his
little heart the worse, that Mr. Harry should know any thing at all
about it, sure.”
Meantime, Mrs. M’Crule was working against little Tommy with all her
might.
Some of the lady patronesses were of opinion, that it would be expedient
in future, to confine their bounty to the children of protestants only.
Mrs. M’Crule, who had been deputed by one of the absent ladies to act
for her, was amazingly busy, visiting all the patronesses, and talking,
and fearing, and “hoping to heaven!” and prophesying, canvassing, and
collecting opinions and votes, as for a matter of life and death. She
hinted that she knew that the greatest interest was making to get in
this year a catholic child, and there was no knowing, if this went on,
what the consequence might be. In short Ireland would be ruined, if
little Tommy should prove the successful candidate. Mrs. M’Crule did
not find it difficult to stir up the prejudices and passions of several
ladies, whose education and whose means of information might have
secured them from such contemptible influence.
Her present business at Annaly was to try what impression she could make
on Lady and Miss Annaly, who were both patronesses of the school. As to
Ormond, whom she never had liked, she was glad of this opportunity of
revenging herself upon his little protégé; and of making Mr. Ormond
sensible, that she was now a person of rather more consequence than she
had been, when he used formerly to defy her at Castle Hermitage. She
little thought that, while she was thus pursuing the dictates of her own
hate, she might serve the interests of Ormond’s love.