CHAPTER IX.

    "He saw—and but that admiration
    Had been too active, too like passion,
    Or had he been to ton less true,
    Cupid had shot him through and through."

I have not thought it necessary to record every visit that I received from all my country neighbours; but I must now mention one, which led to important consequences; a visit from Sir Harry Ormsby, a very young dashing man of fortune, who, in expectation of the happy moment when he should be of age, resided with his mother, the dowager Lady Ormsby. Her ladyship had heard that there had been some disagreement between her agent, Mr. Hardcastle, and my people; but she took the earliest opportunity of expressing her wishes, that our families should be on an amicable footing.

Lady Ormsby was just come to the country, with a large party of her fashionable friends—some Irish, some English: Lord and Lady Kilrush; my Lady Kildangan, and her daughter the Lady Geraldine ———; the knowing widow O'Connor; the English dasher, Lady Hauton; the interesting Mrs. Norton, separated but not parted from her husband; the pleasant Miss Bland; the three Miss Ormsbys, better known by the name of the Swanlinbar Graces; two English aides-de-camp from the Castle, and a brace of brigadiers; besides other men of inferior note.

I perceived that Sir Harry Ormsby took it for granted that I must be acquainted with the pretensions of all these persons to celebrity; his talkativeness and my taciturnity favoured me so fortunately, that he never discovered the extent of my ignorance. He was obligingly impatient to make me personally acquainted "with those of whom I must have heard so much in England." Observing that Ormsby Villa was too far from Glenthorn Castle for a morning visit, he pressed me to waive ceremony, and to do Lady Ormsby and him the honour of spending a week with them, as soon as I could make it convenient. I accepted this invitation, partly from a slight emotion of curiosity, and partly from my habitual inability to resist any reiterated importunity.

Arrived at Ormsby Villa, and introduced to this crowd of people, I was at first disappointed by seeing nothing extraordinary. I expected that their manners would have been as strange to me as some of their names appeared: but whether it was from my want of the powers of discrimination, or from the real sameness of the objects, I could scarcely, in this fashionable flock, discern any individual marks of distinction. At first view, the married ladies appeared much the same as those of a similar class in England, whom I had been accustomed to see. The young ladies I thought, as usual, "best distinguished by black, brown, and fair:" but I had not yet seen Lady Geraldine ———; and a great part Of the conversation, the first day I was at Ormsby Villa, was filled with lamentations on the unfortunate tooth-ache, which prevented her ladyship from appearing. She was talked of so much, and as a person of such importance, and so essential to the amusement of society, that I could not help feeling a slight wish to see her. The next day at breakfast she did not appear; but, five minutes before dinner, her ladyship's humble companion whispered, "Now Lady Geraldine is coming, my lord." I was always rather displeased to be called upon to attend to any thing or any body, yet as Lady Geraldine entered, I gave one involuntary glance of curiosity. I saw a tall, finely-shaped woman, with the commanding air of a woman of rank; she moved well; not with feminine timidity, but with ease, promptitude, and decision. She had fine eyes and a fine complexion, yet no regularity of feature. The only thing that struck me as really extraordinary was her indifference when I was introduced to her. Every body had seemed extremely desirous that I should see her ladyship, and that her ladyship should see me; and I was rather surprised by her unconcerned air. This piqued me, and fixed my attention. She turned from me, and began to converse with others. Her voice was agreeable: she did not speak with the Irish accent; but, when I listened maliciously, I detected certain Hibernian inflections; nothing of the vulgar Irish idiom, but something that was more interrogative, more exclamatory, and perhaps more rhetorical, than the common language of English ladies, accompanied with much animation of countenance and demonstrative gesture. This appeared to me peculiar and unusual, but not affected. She was uncommonly eloquent, and yet, without action, her words were not sufficiently rapid to express her ideas. Her manner appeared foreign, yet it was not quite French. If I had been obliged to decide, I should, however, have pronounced it rather more French than English. To determine what it was, or whether I had ever seen any thing similar, I stood considering her ladyship with more attention than I had ever bestowed on any other woman. The words striking—fascinating—bewitching, occurred to me as I looked at her and heard her speak. I resolved to turn my eyes away, and shut my ears; for I was positively determined not to like her, I dreaded so much the idea of a second Hymen. I retreated to the farthest window, and looked out very soberly upon a dirty fish-pond. Dinner was announced. I observed Lady Kildangan manoeuvring to place me beside her daughter Geraldine, but Lady Geraldine counteracted this movement. I was again surprised and piqued. After yielding the envied position to one of the Swanlinbar Graces, I heard Lady Geraldine whisper to her next neighbour, "Baffled, mamma!"

It was strange to me to feel piqued by a young lady's not choosing to sit beside me. After dinner, I left the gentlemen as soon as possible, because the conversation wearied me. Lord Kilrush, the chief orator, was a courtier, and could talk of nothing but Dublin Castle, and my lord lieutenant's levees. The moment that I went to the ladies, I was seized upon by the officious Miss Bland: she could not speak of any thing but Lady Geraldine, who sat at so great a distance, and who was conversing with such animation herself, that she could not hear her prôneuse, Miss Bland, inform me, that "her friend, Lady Geraldine, was extremely clever; so clever, that many people were at first a little afraid of her; but that there was not the least occasion; for that, where she liked, nobody could be more affable and engaging." This judicious friend, a minute afterwards, told me, as a very great secret, that Lady Geraldine was an admirable mimic; that she could draw or speak caricatures; that she was also wonderfully happy in the invention of agnomens and cognomens, so applicable to the persons, that they could scarcely be forgotten or forgiven. I was a little anxious to know whether her ladyship would honour me with an agnomen. I could not learn this from Miss Bland, and I was too prudent to betray my curiosity: I afterwards heard it, however. Pairing me and Mr. M'Leod, whom she had seen together, her ladyship observed, that Sawney and Yawney were made for each other; and she sketched, in strong caricature, my relaxed elongation of limb, and his rigid rectangularity. A slight degree of fear of Lady Geraldine's powers kept my attention alert. In the course of the evening, Lady Kildangan summoned her daughter to the music-room, and asked me to come and hear an Irish song. I exerted myself so far as to follow immediately; but though summoned, Lady Geraldine did not obey. Miss Bland tuned the harp, and opened the music-books on the piano; but no Lady Geraldine appeared. Miss Bland was sent backwards and forwards with messages; but Lady Geraldine's ultimatum was, that she could not possibly sing, because she was afraid of the tooth-ache. God knows, her mouth had never been shut all the evening. "Well, but," said Lady Kildangan, "she can play for us, cannot she?" No; her ladyship was afraid of the cold in the music-room. "Do, my Lord Glenthorn, go and tell the dear capricious creature, that we are very warm here."

Very reluctantly I obeyed. The Lady Geraldine, with her circle round her, heard and answered me with the air of a princess.

"Do you the honour to play for you, my lord! Excuse me: I am no professor—I play so ill, that I make it a rule never to play but for my own amusement. If you wish for music, there is Miss Bland; she plays incomparably, and I dare say will think herself happy to oblige your lordship." I never felt so silly, or so much abashed, as at this instant. "This comes," thought I, "of acting out of character. What possessed me to exert myself to ask a lady to play? I, that have been tired to death of music! Why did I let myself be sent ambassador, when I had no interest in the embassy?"

To convince myself and others of my apathy, I threw myself on a sofa, and never stirred or spoke the remainder of the night. I presume I appeared fast asleep, else Lady Geraldine would not have said, within my hearing, "Mamma wants me to catch somebody, and to be caught by somebody; but that will not be; for, do you know, I think somebody is nobody."

I was offended as much as it was in my nature to be offended, and I began to meditate apologies for shortening my visit at Ormsby Villa: but, though I was shocked by the haughtiness of Lady Geraldine, and accused her, in my own mind, of want of delicacy and politeness, yet I could not now suspect her of being an accomplice with her mother in any matrimonial designs upon me. From the moment I was convinced of this, my conviction was, I suppose, visible to her ladyship's penetrating eyes, and from that instant she showed me that she could be polite and agreeable. Now, soothed to a state of ease and complacency, I might have sunk to indifference and ennui, but fresh singularities in this lady struck me, and kept my attention awake and fixed upon her character. If she had treated me with tolerable civility at first, I never should have thought about her. High-born and high-bred, she seemed to consider more what she thought of others than what others thought of her. Frank, candid, and affable, yet opinionated, insolent, and an egotist, her candour and affability appeared the effect of a naturally good temper, her insolence and egotism only those of a spoiled child. She seemed to talk of herself purely to oblige others, as the most interesting possible topic of conversation; for such it had always been to her fond mother, who idolized her ladyship as an only daughter, and the representative of an ancient house. Confident of her talents, conscious of her charms, and secure of her station, Lady Geraldine gave free scope to her high spirits, her fancy, and her turn for ridicule. She looked, spoke, and acted, like a person privileged to think, say, and do, what she pleased. Her raillery, like the raillery of princes, was without fear of retort. She was not ill-natured, yet careless to whom she gave offence, provided she produced amusement; and in this she seldom failed; for, in her conversation, there was much of the raciness of Irish wit, and the oddity of Irish humour. The singularity that struck me most about her ladyship was her indifference to flattery. She certainly preferred frolic. Miss Bland was her humble companion; Miss Tracey her butt. Her ladyship appeared to consider Miss Bland as a necessary appendage to her rank and person, like her dress or her shadow; and she seemed to think no more of the one than of the other. She suffered Miss Bland to follow her; but she would go in quest of n Miss Tracey. Miss Bland was allowed to speak; but her ladyship listened to Miss Tracey. Miss Bland seldom obtained an answer; but Miss Tracey never opened her lips without a repartee.

In describing Miss Tracey, Lady Geraldine said, "Poor simpleton! she cannot help imitating all she sees us do; yet, would you believe it, she really has starts of common sense, and some tolerable ideas of her own. Spoiled by bad company! In the language of the bird-fanciers, she has a few notes nightingale, and all the rest rubbish."

It was one of Lady Geraldine's delights to humour Miss Tracey's rage for imitating the fashions of fine people.

"Now you shall see Miss Tracey appear at the ball to-morrow, in every thing that I have sworn to her is fashionable. Nor have I cheated her in a single article: but the tout ensemble I leave to her better judgment; and you shall see her, I trust, a perfect monster, formed of every creature's best: Lady Kilrush's feathers, Mrs. Moore's wig, Mrs. O'Connor's gown, Mrs. Lighton's sleeves, and all the necklaces of all the Miss Ormsbys. She has no taste, no judgment; none at all, poor thing! but she can imitate as well as those Chinese painters, who, in their drawings, give you the flower of one plant stuck on the stalk of another, and garnished with the leaves of a third."

Miss Tracey's appearance the ensuing night justified all Lady Geraldine's predictions, and surpassed her ladyship's most sanguine hopes. Even I, albeit unused to the laughing mood, could not forbear smiling at the humour and ease with which her ladyship played off this girl's credulous vanity.

At breakfast the next morning, Lord Kilrush, in his grave manner (always too solemn by half for the occasion), declared, "that no man was more willing than himself to enter into a jest in proper time, and season, and measure, and so forth; but that it was really, positively, morally unjustifiable, in his apprehension, the making this poor girl so publicly ridiculous."

"My good lord," replied Lady Geraldine, "all the world are ridiculous some way or other: some in public, some in private. Now," continued she, with an appealing look to the whole company, "now, after all, what is there more extravagant in my Miss Tracey's delighting, at sixteen, in six yards of pink riband, than in your courtier sighing, at sixty, for three yards of blue riband? or what is there more ridiculous in her coming simpering into a ball-room, fancying herself the mirror of fashion, when she is a figure for a print-shop, than in the courtier rising solemnly in the House of Lords, believing himself an orator, and expecting to make a vast reputation, by picking up, in every debate, the very worst arguments that every body else let fall? There would be no living in this world, if we were all to see and expose one another's ridicules. My plan is much the best—to help my friends to expose themselves, and then they are infinitely obliged to me."

Satisfied with silencing all opposition, and seeing that the majority was with her, Lady Geraldine persisted in her course; and I was glad she was incorrigible, because her faults entertained me. As to love, I thought I was perfectly safe; because, though I admired her quickness and cleverness, yet I still, at times, perceived, or fancied I perceived, some want of polish, and elegance, and tact. She was not exactly cut out according to my English pattern of a woman of fashion; so I thought I might amuse myself without danger, as it was partly at her ladyship's expense. But about this time I was alarmed for myself by a slight twinge of jealousy. As I was standing lounging upon the steps at the hall-door, almost as ennuyé as usual, I saw a carriage at a distance, between the trees, driving up the approach; and, at the same instant, I heard Lady Geraldine's eager voice in the hall, "Oh! they are coming; he is coming; they are come. Run, Miss Bland, run, and give Lord Craiglethorpe my message before he gets out of the carriage—before any body sees him."

Afraid of hearing what I should not hear, I walked down the steps deliberately, and turned into a shrubbery-walk, to leave the coast clear. Out ran Miss Bland: and then it was that I felt the twinge—very slight, however. "Who is this Lord Craiglethorpe, with whom Lady Geraldine is on such favourable terms? I wonder what kind of looking man he is; and what could the message mean?—but, at all events, it cannot concern me; yet I am curious to see this Lord Craiglethorpe. I wonder any woman can like a man with so strange a name: but does she like him, after all?—Why do I plague myself about it?"

As I returned from my saunter, I was met by Miss Bland.

"A charming day, ma'am," said I, endeavouring to pass on.

"A charming day, my lord! But I must stop your lordship a moment. Oh, I am so out of breath—I went the wrong way——"

"The wrong way! Indeed! I am sorry. I am concerned you should have had so much trouble."

"No trouble in the world. Only I want to beg you'll keep our secret—my
Lady Geraldine's secret."

"Undoubtedly, madam—a man of honour—Lady Geraldine cannot doubt—her ladyship's secret is perfectly safe."

"But do you know it? You don't know it yet, my lord."

"Pardon me; I was on the steps just now. I thought you saw me."

"I did, my lord—but I don't understand——"

"Nor I, neither," interrupted I, half laughing; for I began to think I was mistaken in my suspicions; "pray explain yourself, my dear Miss Bland: I was very rude to be so quick in interrupting you."

Miss Bland then made me the confidant of a charming scheme of Lady
Geraldine's for quizzing Miss Tracey.

"She has never in her life seen Lord Craiglethorpe, who is an English lord travelling through Ireland," continued Miss Bland. "Now, you must know, that Miss Tracey is passionately fond of lords, let them be what they may. Now, Lord Craiglethorpe, this very morning, sent his groom with a note and excuse to Lady Ormsby, for not coming to us to-day; because, he said, he was bringing down in the chaise with him a surveyor, to survey his estate near here; and he could not possibly think of bringing the surveyor, who is a low man, to Ormsby Villa. But Lady Ormsby would take no apology, and wrote by the groom to beg that Lord Craiglethorpe would make no scruple of bringing the surveyor; for you know she is so polite and accommodating, and all that. Well, the note was scarcely gone, before Lady Geraldine thought of her charming scheme, and regretted, of all things, she had not put it into it."

"It into it!" repeated I to myself. "Ma'am," said I, looking a little bewildered.

"But," continued my clear narrator, "I promised to remedy all that, by running to meet the carriage, which was what I ran for when you saw me, my lord, in such a hurry."

I bowed—and was as wise as ever.

"So, my lord, you comprehend, that the surveyor, whose name, whose odious name, is Gabbitt, is to be my Lord Craiglethorpe, and my Lord Craiglethorpe is to be passed for Mr. Gabbitt upon Miss Tracey; and, you will see, Miss Tracey will admire Mr. Gabbitt prodigiously, and call him vastly genteel, when she thinks him a lord. Your lordship will keep our secret; and she is sure Lord Craiglethorpe will do any thing to oblige her, because he is a near connexion of hers. But, I assure you, it is not every body could get Lord Craiglethorpe to join in a joke; for he is very stiff, and cold, and high. Of course your lordship will know which is the real lord at first sight. He is a full head taller than Gabbitt."

Never was explanation finally more satisfactory: and whether the jest was really well contrived and executed, or whether I was put into a humour to think so, I cannot exactly determine; but, I confess, I was amused with the scenes that followed, though I felt that they were not quite justifiable even in jest.

The admiration of Miss Tracey for the false Craiglethorpe, as Lady Geraldine called Mr. Gabbitt; the awkwardness of Mr. Gabbitt with his title, and the awkwardness of Lord Craiglethorpe without it, were fine subjects of her ladyship's satirical humour.

In another point of view, Lord Craiglethorpe afforded her ladyship amusement; as an English traveller, full of English prejudices against Ireland and every thing Irish. Whenever Miss Tracey was out of the room, Lady Geraldine allowed Lord Craiglethorpe to be himself again; but he did not fare the better for this restoration to his honours. Lady Geraldine contrived to make him as ridiculous in his real as in his assumed character. Lord Craiglethorpe was, as Miss Bland had described him, very stiff, cold, and high. His manners were in the extreme of English reserve, and his ill-bred show of contempt for the Irish was sufficient provocation and justification of Lady Geraldine's ridicule. He was much in awe of his fair and witty cousin: she could easily put him out of countenance, for he was extremely bashful.

His lordship had that sort of bashfulness which makes a man surly and obstinate in his taciturnity; which makes him turn upon all who approach him, as if they were going to assault him; which makes him answer a question as if it were an injury, and repel a compliment as if it were an insult. Once, when he was out of the room, Lady Geraldine exclaimed, "That cousin Craiglethorpe of mine is scarcely an agreeable man: the awkwardness of mauvaise honte might be pitied and pardoned, even in a nobleman," continued her ladyship, "if it really proceeded from humility; but here, when I know it is connected with secret and inordinate arrogance, 'tis past all endurance. Even his ways of sitting and standing provoke me, they are so self-sufficient. Have you observed how he stands at the fire? Oh, the caricature of 'the English fire-side' outdone! Then, if he sits, we hope that change of posture may afford our eyes transient relief: but worse again; bolstered up, with his back against his chair, his hands in his pockets, and his legs thrown out, in defiance of all passengers and all decorum, there he sits, in magisterial silence, throwing a gloom upon all conversation. As the Frenchman said of the Englishman, for whom even his politeness could not find another compliment, 'Il faut avouer que ce monsieur a un grand talent pour le silence;' he holds his tongue, till the people actually believe that he has something to say; a mistake they could never fall into if he would but speak."

Some of the company attempted to interpose a word or two in favour of Lord Craiglethorpe's timidity, but the vivacious and merciless lady went on.

"I tell you, my good friends, it is not timidity—it is all pride. I would pardon his dulness, and even his ignorance; for one, as you say, might be the fault of his nature, and the other of his education: but his self-sufficiency is his own fault, and that I will not, and cannot pardon. Somebody says, that nature may make a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making. Now, my cousin—(as he is my cousin, I may say what I please of him)—my cousin Craiglethorpe is a solemn coxcomb, who thinks, because his vanity is not talkative and sociable, that it's not vanity. What a mistake! his silent superciliousness is to me more intolerable than the most garrulous egotism that ever laid itself open to my ridicule."

Miss Bland and Miss Ormsby both confessed that Lord Craiglethorpe was vastly too silent.

"For the honour of my country," continued Lady Geraldine, "I am determined to make this man talk, and he shall say all that I know he thinks of us poor Irish savages. If he would but speak, one could answer him: if he would find fault, one might defend: if he would laugh, one might perhaps laugh again: but here he comes to hospitable, open-hearted Ireland; eats as well as he can in his own country; drinks better than he can in his own country; sleeps as well as he can in his own country; accepts all our kindness without a word or a look of thanks, and seems the whole time to think, that, 'Born for his use, we live but to oblige him.' There he is at this instant: look at him, walking in the park, with his note-book in his hand, setting down our faults, and conning them by rote. We are even with him. I understand, Lady Kilrush, that my bright cousin Craiglethorpe means to write a book, a great book, upon Ireland."

Lady Kilrush replied, that she understood Lord Craiglethorpe had it in contemplation to publish a Tour through Ireland, or a View of Ireland, or something of that nature.

"He! with his means of acquiring information!" exclaimed Lady Geraldine. "Posting from one great man's house to another, what can he see or know of the manners of any rank of people but of the class of gentry, which in England and Ireland is much the same? As to the lower classes, I don't think he ever speaks to them; or, if he does, what good can it do him? for he can't understand their modes of expression, nor they his: if he inquire about a matter of fact, I defy him to get the truth out of them, if they don't wish to tell it; and, for some reason or other, they will, nine times in ten, not wish to tell it to an Englishman. There is not a man, woman, or child, in any cabin in Ireland, who would not have wit and 'cuteness enough to make my lard believe just what they please. So, after posting from Dublin to Cork, and from the Giants' Causeway to Killarney; after travelling east, west, north, and south, my wise cousin Craiglethorpe will know just as much of the lower Irish as the cockney who has never been out of London, and who has never, in all his born days, seen an Irishman but on the English stage; where the representations are usually as like the originals, as the Chinese pictures of lions, drawn from description, are to the real animal."

"Now! now! look at his lordship!" cried Miss Bland; "he has his note-book out again."

"Mercy on us!" said Miss Callwell, "how he is writing!"

"Yes, yes, write on, my good cousin Craiglethorpe," pursued Lady Geraldine, "and nil the little note-book, which will soon turn to a ponderous quarto. I shall have a copy, bound in morocco, no doubt, from the author, if I behave myself prettily; and I will earn it, by supplying valuable information. You shall see, my friends, how I'll deserve well of my country, if you'll only keep my counsel and your own countenances."

Presently Lord Craiglethorpe entered the room, walking very pompously, and putting his note-book up as he advanced.

"Oh, my dear lord, open the book again; I have a bull for you."

Lady Geraldine, after putting his lordship in good humour by this propitiatory offering of a bull, continued to supply him, either directly or indirectly, by some of her confederates, with the most absurd anecdotes, incredible facts, stale jests, and blunders, such as were never made by true-born Irishmen; all which my Lord Craiglethorpe took down with an industrious sobriety, at which the spectators could scarcely refrain from laughing. Sometimes he would pause, and exclaim, "A capital anecdote! a curious fact! May I give my authority? may I quote your ladyship?"

"Yes, if you'll pay me a compliment in the preface," whispered Lady Geraldine: "and now, dear cousin, do go up stairs and put it all in ink."

When she had despatched the noble author, her ladyship indulged her laughter. "But now," cried she, "only imagine a set of sober English readers studying my cousin Craiglethorpe's New View of Ireland, and swallowing all the nonsense it will contain!"

When Lord Kilrush remonstrated against the cruelty of letting the man publish such stuff, and represented it as a fraud upon the public, Lady Geraldine laughed still more, and exclaimed, "Surely you don't think I would use the public and my poor cousin so ill. No, I am doing him and the public the greatest possible service. Just when he is going to leave us, when the writing-box is packed, I will step up to him, and tell him the truth. I will show him what a farrago of nonsense he has collected as materials for his quarto; and convince him at once how utterly unfit he is to write a book, at least a book on Irish affairs. Won't this be deserving well of my country and of my cousin?"

Neither on this occasion, nor on any other, were the remonstrances of my Lord Kilrush of power to stop the course of this lady's flow of spirits and raillery.

Whilst she was going on in this manner with the real Lord Craiglethorpe, Miss Tracey was taking charming walks in the park with Mr. Gabbitt, and the young lady began to be seriously charmed with her false lord. This was carrying the jest farther, than Lady Geraldine had intended or foreseen; and her good-nature would probably have disposed her immediately to dissolve the enchantment, had she not been provoked by the interference of Lord Kilrush, and the affected sensibility of Miss Clementina Ormsby, who, to give me an exalted opinion of her delicacy, expostulated incessantly in favour of the deluded fair one. "But, my dear Lady Geraldine, I do assure you, it really hurts my feelings. This is going too far—when it comes to the heart. I can't laugh, I own—the poor girl's affections will be engaged—she is really falling in love with this odious surveyor."

"But now, my dear Clementina, I do assure you, it really hurts my feelings to hear you talk so childishly. 'When it comes to the heart!' 'affections engaged!' You talk of falling in love as if it were a terrible fall: for my part, I should pity a person much more for falling down stairs. Why, my dear, where is the mighty height from which Miss Tracey could fall? She does not live in the clouds, Clementina, as you do. No ladies live there now; for the best of all possible reasons, because there are no men there. So, my love, make haste and come down, before you are out of your teens, or you may chance to be left there till you are an angel or an old maid. Trust me, my dear, I, who have tried, tell you, there is no such thing as falling in love, now-a-days: you may slip, slide, or stumble; but to fall in love, I defy you."

I saw Lady Kildangan's eyes fix upon me as her daughter pronounced the last sentence.

"Geraldine, my dear, you do not know what you are talking about," said her ladyship. "Your time may come, Geraldine. Nobody should be too courageous. Cupid does not like to be defied."

Lady Kildangan walked away as she spoke, with a very well-satisfied air, leaving a party of us young people together. Lady Geraldine looked haughtily vexed. When in this mood, her wit gave no quarter; spared neither sex nor age.

"Every body says," whispered she, "that mamma is the most artful woman in the world; and I should believe it, only that every body says it: now, if it were true, nobody would know it."

Lady Geraldine's air of disdain towards me was resumed. I did not quite understand. Was it pride? was it coquetry? She certainly blushed deeply, and for the first time that I ever saw her blush, when her mother said, "Your time may come, Geraldine."

My week being now at an end, I resolved to take my leave. When I announced this resolution, I was assailed with the most pressing entreaties to stay a few days longer—one day longer. Lady Ormsby and Sir Harry said every thing that could be said upon the occasion: indeed, it seemed a matter of general interest to all, except to Lady Geraldine. She appeared wholly indifferent, and I was not even gratified by any apparent affectation of desiring my departure. Curiosity to see whether this would be sustained by her ladyship to the last, gave me resolution sufficient to resist the importunities of Sir Harry; and I departed, rejoicing that my indifference was equal to her ladyship's. As Tasso said of some fair one, whom he met at the carnival of Mantua, I ran some risk of falling in love. I had been so far roused from my habitual apathy that I actually made some reflections. As I returned home, I began to perceive that there was some difference between woman and woman, besides the distinctions of rank, fortune, and figure. I think I owe to Lady Geraldine my first relish for wit, and my first idea that a woman might be, if not a reasonable, at least a companionable animal. I compared her ladyship with the mere puppets and parrots of fashion, of whom I had been wearied; and I began to suspect that one might find, in a lady's "lively nonsense," a relief from ennui. These reflections, however, did not prevent me from sleeping the greatest part of the morning on my way home; nor did I dream of any thing that I can remember.

At the porter's lodge I saw Ellinor sitting at her spinning-wheel; and my thoughts took up my domestic affairs just where I had left them the preceding week.

CHAPTER X.

In vain I attempted to interest myself in my domestic affairs; the silence and solitude of my own castle appeared to me intolerably melancholy, after my return from Ormsby Villa. There was a blank in my existence during a week, in which I can remember nothing that I did, said, or thought, except what passed during one ride, which Mr. McLeod compelled my politeness to take with him. He came with the same face to see me, and the same set of ideas, as those he had before I went to Ormsby Villa. He began to talk of my schemes for improving my tenantry, and of my wish that he should explain his notions relative to the education of the poor of Ireland, which, he said, as I now seemed to be at leisure, he was ready to do as concisely as possible. As concisely as possible were the only words of his address that I heard with satisfaction; but of course I bowed, said I was much obliged, and I should be happy to have the advantage of Mr. M'Leod's opinions and sentiments. What these were I cannot recollect, for I settled myself in a reverie soon after his voice began to sound upon my ear; but I remember at last he wakened me, by proposing that I should ride with him to see a school-house and some cottages, which he had built on a little estate of his own in my neighbourhood: "for," said he, "'tis better, my lord, to show you what can be done with these people, than to talk of what might be effected."

"Very true," said I, agreeing readily; because I wanted to finish a conversation that wearied me, and to have a refreshing ride. It was a delightful evening; and when we came on M'Leod's estate, I really could not help being pleased and interested. In an unfavourable situation, with all nature, vegetable and animal, against him, he had actually created a paradise amid the wilds. There was nothing wonderful in any thing I saw around me; but there was such an air of neatness and comfort, order and activity, in the people and in their cottages, that I almost thought myself in England; and I could not forbear exclaiming,—"How could all this be brought about in Ireland!"

"Chiefly by not doing and not expecting too much at first," said M'Leod. "We took time, and had patience. We began by setting them the example of some very slight improvements, and then, lured on by the sight of success, they could make similar trials themselves. My wife and I went among them, and talked to them in their cottages, and took an interest in their concerns, and did not want to have every thing our own way; and when they saw that, they began to consider which way was best; so by degrees we led where we could not have driven; and raised in them, by little and little, a taste for conveniences and comforts. Then the business was done; for the moment the taste and ambition were excited; to work the people went to gratify them; and according as they exerted themselves, we helped them. Perhaps it was best for them and for us, that we were not rich; for we could not do too much at a time, and were never tempted to begin grand schemes that we could not finish. There," said McLeod, pointing to a cottage with a pretty porch covered with woodbine, and a neat garden, in which many children were busily at work, "that house and that garden were the means of doing all the rest; that is our school-house. We could not expect to do much with the old, whose habits were fixed; but we tried to give the young children better notions, and it was a long time before we could bring that to bear. Twenty-six years we have been at this work; and in that time if we have done any thing, it was by beginning with the children: a race of our own training has now grown up, and they go on in the way they were taught, and prosper to our hearts' content, and, what is better still, to their hearts' content."

McLeod, habitually grave and taciturn, seemed quite enlivened and talkative this day; but I verily believe that not the slightest ostentation or vanity inspired him, for I never before or since heard him talk or allude to his own good deeds: I am convinced his motive was to excite me to persevere in my benevolent projects, by showing what had been done by small means. He was so truly in earnest that he never perceived how tired I was; indeed he was so little in the habit of expecting sympathy or applause, that he never missed even the ordinary expressions of concurrent complaisance.

"Religion," continued he, "is the great difficulty in Ireland. We make no difference between Protestants and Catholics; we always have admitted both into our school. The priest comes on Saturday morning, and the parish minister on Saturday evening, to hear the children belonging to each church their catechisms, and to instruct them in the tenets of their faith. And as we keep to our word, and never attempt making proselytes, nor directly or indirectly interfere with their religious opinions, the priests are glad to let us instruct the catholic children in all other points, which they plainly see must advance their temporal interests."

Mr. McLeod invited me to go in and look at the school. "In a hedge or ditch school," said he, "which I once passed on this road, and in which I saw a crowd of idle children, I heard the schoolmaster cry out, 'Rehearse! rehearse! there's company going by; and instantly all the boys snatched up their books, and began gabbling as fast as ever they could, to give an idea to the passenger of their diligence in repeating their lessons. But here, my lord," continued M'Leod, "you will not see any exhibitions got up for company. I hate such tricks. Walk in, my lord, if you please."

I walked in; but am ashamed to say, that I observed only that every thing looked as if it had been used for many years, and yet not worn out; and the whole school appeared as if all were in their places, and occupied and intent upon their business: but this general recollection is all I have retained. The enthusiasm for improvement had subsided in my mind; and though I felt a transient pleasure in the present picture of the happiness of these poor people and their healthy children, yet, as I rode home, the images faded away like a dream. I resolved, indeed, at some future period, to surpass all that Mr. M'Leod had done, or all that with his narrow income he could ever accomplish; and to this resolution I was prompted by jealousy of this man, rather than by benevolence. Before I had arranged, even in imagination, my plans, young Ormsby came one morning, and pressed me to return with him to Ormsby Villa. I yielded to his solicitations and to my own wishes. When I arrived, the ladies were all at their toilettes, except Miss Bland, who was in the book-room with the gentlemen, ready to receive me with her perpetual smile. Wherever Miss Bland went, she was always l'amie de la maison, accustomed to share with the lady of the house the labour of entertaining her guests. This double of Lady Ormsby talked to me most courteously of all the nothings of the day, and informed me of the changes which had taken place in the ever-varying succession of company at Ormsby Villa. The two brigadiers and one of the aides-de-camp were gone; but Captain Andrews, another castle aide-de-camp, was come, and my Lord O'Toole had arrived. Then followed a by-conversation between Miss Bland and some of the gentlemen, about the joy and sorrow which his lordship's arrival would create in the hearts of two certain ladies; one of whom, as I gathered from the innuendoes, was Lady Hauton, and the other Lady O'Toole. As I knew nothing of Dublin intrigues and scandal, I was little attentive to all this. Miss Bland, persisting in entertaining me, proceeded to inform me, that my Lord O'Toole had brought down with him Mr. Cecil Devereux, who was a wit and a poet, very handsome and gallant, and one of the most fashionable young men in Dublin. I determined not to like him—I always hated a flourish of trumpets; whoever enters, announced in this parading manner, appears to disadvantage. Mr. Cecil Devereux entered just as the flourish ceased. He was not at all the sort of person I was prepared to see: though handsome, and with the air of a man used to good company, there was nothing of a coxcomb in his manner; on the contrary, there was such an appearance of carelessness about himself, and deference towards others, that, notwithstanding the injudicious praise that had been bestowed on him, and my consequent resolution to dislike him, I was pleased and familiar with him before I had been ten minutes in his company. Lord Kilrush introduced him to me, with great pomposity, as a gentleman of talents, for whom he and his brother O'Toole interested themselves much. This air of patronage, I saw, disgusted Mr. Devereux; and instead of suffering himself to be shown off, he turned the conversation from his own poems to general subjects. He asked me some questions about a curious cavern, or subterraneous way, near Glenthorn Castle, which stretched from the sea-shore to a considerable distance under the rock, and communicated with an old abbey near the castle. Mr. Devereux said that such subterraneous places had been formerly used in Ireland as granaries by the ancient inhabitants; but a gentleman of the neighbourhood who was present observed, that the caverns on this coast had, within his memory, been used as hiding-places by smugglers: on this hint Lord Kilrush began a prosing dissertation upon smugglers and contraband traders, and talked to me a prodigious deal about exports and imports, and bounties, and the balance of trade. Not one word he said did I comprehend, and I question whether his lordship understood the subjects upon which he spoke so dictatorially; but he thought he succeeded in giving me an opinion of his wisdom and information. His brother O'Toole appeared next: he did not look like a man of gallantry, as I had been taught to expect from the hints thrown out respecting Lady Hauton; his lordship's whole soul seemed devoted to ambition, and he talked so much of great men, and state affairs, and court intrigues, and honours and preferments, that I began to fancy I had been buried alive, because I knew little of these things. I was tired of hearing him, yet mortified that I could not speak exactly in the same manner, and with the same air of being the best possible authority. I began to wish that I also had some interest at court. The cares and troubles of the ambitious man, so utterly repugnant to the indolence of my disposition, vanished in this moment of infatuation from my view, and I thought only of the pleasures of power. Such is the infectious nature of ambition!

Mr. Devereux helped me to throw off this dangerous contagion, before it did me any injury. He happened to stay in the room with me a quarter of an hour after the other gentlemen went to dress. Though not often disposed to conversation with a stranger, yet I was won by this gentleman's easy address: he politely talked of the English fashionable world, with which he knew that I was well acquainted; I, with equal politeness, recurred to the Irish great world: we fastened together upon Lord O'Toole, who took us to Dublin Castle; and I began to express my regret that I had not yet been at the Irish court, and that I had not earlier in life made myself of political consequence.

"Ambition," said I, "might help to keep a man awake and alive; all common pleasures have long since ceased to interest me—they really cannot make me stir."

"My lord," said Mr. Devereux, "you would do better to sit or lie still all your life than to toil for such vain objects.

    'Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
    What hell it is in sueing long to bide;'

Your lordship may remember Spenser's description of that hell?"

"Not exactly," said I, unwilling to lower the good opinion this gentleman seemed to have taken for granted of my literature. He took Spenser's poems out of the book-case, and I actually rose from my seat to read the passage; for what trouble will not even the laziest of mortals take to preserve the esteem of one by whom he sees that he is over-valued. I read the following ten lines without yawning!

    "Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
    What hell it is in sueing long to bide;
    To lose good days, that might be better spent,
    To waste long nights in pensive discontent,
    To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
    To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow,
    To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
    To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs,
    To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
    To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."

"Very strong, indeed," said I, with a competent air, as if used to judge of poetry.

"And it comes with still greater force, when we consider by whom it was written. A man, you know, my lord, who had been secretary to a lord lieutenant."

I felt my nascent ambition die away within me. I acknowledged it was better to spend an easy life. My determination was confirmed at this instant by the appearance of Lady Geraldine. Ambition and love, it is said, are incompatible passions. Neither of them had yet possession of my heart; but love and Lady Geraldine had perhaps a better chance than ambition and Lord O'Toole. Lady Geraldine appeared in high spirits; and, though I was not a vain man, I could not help fancying that my return to Ormsby Villa contributed to her charming vivacity. This gratified me secretly and soberly, as much as it visibly delighted her mother. Miss Bland, to pay her court to Lady Kildangan, observed that Lady Geraldine was in uncommonly fine spirits this evening. Lady Geraldine threw back a haughty frown over her left shoulder: this was the only time I ever saw her notice, in any manner, any thing that fell from her obsequious friend. To avert the fair one's displeasure, I asked for Miss Tracey and Mr. Gabbitt.

"Mr. Gabbitt," said her ladyship, resuming her good-humour instantly; "Mr. Gabbitt is gone off the happiest man in Ireland, with the hopes of surveying my Lord O'Toole's estate; a good job, which I was bound in honour to obtain for him, as a reward for taking a good joke. After mocking him with the bare imagination of a feast, you know the Barmecide in the Arabian Tales gave poor Shakabac a substantial dinner, a full equivalent for the jest."

"And Miss Tracey." said I, "what did your ladyship do for her?"

"I persuaded her mamma that the sweet creature was falling into an atrophy. So she carried the forlorn damsel post haste to the Black Rock for the recovery of her health, or her heart. Clementina, my dear, no reproachful looks; in your secret soul do not you know, that I could not do a young lady a greater favour than to give her a plausible excuse for getting away from home?"

I was afraid that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her butt; however, I found that Miss Tracey's place was supplied by Captain Andrews, one of the Castle's aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O'Toole were good marks. High and mighty as these personages thought themselves, and respectfully, nay obsequiously, as they were treated by most others, to this lady their characters appeared only a good study; and to laugh at them seemed only a good practice.

"Perhaps, my lord," said she to me, "you do not yet know my Lord
O'Toole?"

"I have had the honour to be introduced to him."

"That's well; for he thinks that,

'Not to know him, argues yourself unknown.'

But as your lordship is a stranger in this country, you may be pardoned; and I will make you better acquainted with him. I suppose you know there are many Tooles in Ireland; some very ancient, respectable, and useful: this, however, is but a mere political tool, and the worst of all tools, a cat's paw. There's one thing to the credit of these brothers, they agree vastly well; for one delights in being always on the stage, and the other always behind the scenes. These brothers, with Captain Andrews—I hope they are none of them within hearing—form a charming trio, all admirable in their way. My Lord O'Toole is—artifice without art. My Lord Kilrush—importance without power. And Captain Andrews—pliability without ease. Poor Andrews! he's a defenceless animal—safe in impenetrable armour. Give him but time—as a man said, who once showed me a land-tortoise—give him but time to draw his head into his shell, and a broad-wheeled waggon may go over him without hurting him. Lord Glenthorn, did you ever observe Captain Andrews's mode of conversation?"

"No; I never heard him converse."

"Converse! nor I indeed; but you have heard him talk." "I have heard him say—Very true—and Of course."

"Lord Glenthorn is quite severe this evening," said Mrs. O'Connor.

"But though your lordship," continued Lady Geraldine, "may have observed Captain Andrews's wonderful economy of words, do you know whence it arises? Perhaps you think from his perception of his own want of understanding."

"Not from his perception of the want," said I.

"Again! again!" said Mrs. O'Connor, with an insulting tone of surprise;
"Lord Glenthorn's quite witty this evening."

Lady Geraldine looked as if she were fully sensible of the want of politeness in Mrs. O'Connor's mode of praising. "But, my lord," pursued she, "you wrong Captain Andrews, if you attribute his monosyllabic replies either to stupidity or timidity. You have not guessed the reason why he never gives on any subject more than half an opinion."

"It was in the diplomatic school he was taught that art," said
Mr. Devereux.

"You must know," pursued Lady Geraldine, "that Captain Andrews is only an aide-de-camp till a diplomatic situation can be found for him; and to do him justice, he has been so well trained in the diplomatic school, that he will not hazard an assertion on any subject; he is not certain of any thing, not even of his own identity."

"He assuredly wants," said Devereux, "the only proof of existence which
Descartes would admit—I think, therefore I am."

"He has such a holy horror of committing himself," continued Lady Geraldine, "that if you were to ask him if the sun rose this morning, he would answer, with his sweet smile—So I am told—or—So I am informed."

"Begging your ladyship's pardon," cried Mr. Devereux, "that is much too affirmative. In the pure diplomatic style, impersonal verbs must ever be used in preference to active or passive. So I am told, lays him open to the dangerous questions, Who told you? or, By whom were you informed? Then he is forced into the imprudence of giving up his authorities; whereas he is safe in the impersonality of So it is said, or So it is reported."

"How I should like to see a meeting between two perfectly finished diplomatists!" cried Lady Geraldine.

"That is demonstrably impossible," said Mr. Devereux; "for in certain political, as well as in certain geometrical lines, there is a continual effort to approach, without a possibility of meeting."

Lady Geraldine's raillery, like all other things, would, perhaps, soon have become tiresome to me; but that there was infinite variety in her humour. At first I had thought her merely superficial, and intent solely upon her own amusement; but I soon found that she had a taste for literature, beyond what could have been expected in one who lived so dissipated a life; a depth of reflection that seemed inconsistent with the rapidity with which she thought; and, above all, a degree of generous indignation against meanness and vice, which seemed incompatible with the selfish character of a fine lady, and which appeared quite incomprehensible to the imitating tribe of her fashionable companions.

I mentioned a Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton amongst the company of Ormsby Villa. These two English ladies, whom I had never met in any of the higher circles in London, who were persons of no consequence, and of no marked character in their own country, made, it seems, a prodigious sensation when they came over to Ireland, and turned the heads of half Dublin by the extravagance of their dress, the impertinence of their airs, and the audacity of their conduct. Fame flew before them to the remote parts of the country; and when they arrived at Ormsby Villa, all the country gentlemen and ladies were prepared to admire these celebrated fashionable belles. All worshipped them present, and abused them absent, except Lady Geraldine, who neither joined in the admiration nor inquired into the scandal. One morning Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton had each collected her votaries round her: one group begging patterns of dress from Lady Hauton, who stood up in the midst of them, to have everything she wore examined and envied; the other group sat on a sofa apart, listening to Mrs. Norton, who, sotto voce, was telling interesting anecdotes of an English crim. con., which then occupied the attention of the fashionable world. Mrs. Norton had letters from the best authorities in London, which she was entreated by her auditors to read to them. Mrs. Norton went to look for the letters, Lady Hauton to direct her woman to furnish some patterns of I know not what articles of dress; and, in the mean time, all the company joined in canvassing the merits and demerits of the dress and characters of the two ladies who had just left the room. Lady Geraldine, who had kept aloof, and who was examining some prints at the farther end of the room, at this instant laid down her book, and looked upon the whole party with an air of magnanimous disdain; then smiling, as in scorn, she advanced towards them, and, in a tone of irony, addressing one of the Swanlinbar graces, "My dear Theresa," said her ladyship, "you are absolutely ashamed, I see, of not being quite naked; and you, my good Bess, will, no doubt, very soon be equally scandalized, at the imputation of being a perfectly modest woman. Go on, my friends; go on, and prosper; beg and borrow all the patterns and precedents you can collect of the newest fashions of folly and vice. Make haste, make haste; they don't reach our remote island fast enough. We Irish might live in innocence half a century longer, if you didn't expedite the progress of profligacy; we might escape the plague that rages in neighbouring countries, if we didn't, without any quarantine, and with open arms, welcome every suspected stranger; if we didn't encourage the importation of whole bales of tainted fineries, that will spread the contagion from Dublin to Cork, and from Cork to Galway!"

"La!" said Miss Ormsby, "how severe your ladyship is; and all only for one's asking for a pattern!"

"But you know," pursued Mrs. O'Connor, "that Lady Geraldine is too proud to take pattern from any body."

"Too proud am I? Well, then, I'll be humble; I'll abase myself—shall I?

'Proud as I am, I'll put myself to school;'

and I'll do what the ladies Hauton and Norton shall advise, to heighten my charms and preserve my reputation. I must begin, must not I, Mrs. O'Connor, by learning not to blush? for I observed you were ashamed for me yesterday at dinner, when I blushed at something said by one of our fair missionaries. Then, to whatever lengths flirtations and gallantry may go between unmarried or married people, I must look on. I may shut my eyes, if I please, and look down; but not from shame—from affectation I may as often as I please, or to show my eyelashes. Memorandum—to practise this before Clementina Ormsby, my mirror of fashion. So far, so good, for my looks; but now for my language. I must reform my barbarous language, and learn from Mrs. Norton, with her pretty accommodating voice, to call an intrigue an arrangement, and a crim. con. an affair in Doctors' Commons, or that business before the Lords.

'We never mention Hell to ears polite.'

How virtuous we shall be when we have no name for vice! But stay, I must mind my lessons—I have more, much more to learn. From the dashing Lady Hauton I may learn, if my head be but strong, and my courage intrepid enough, 'to touch the brink of all we hate,' without tumbling headlong into the gulf; and from the interesting Mrs. Norton, as I hear it whispered amongst you ladies, I may learn how, with the assistance of a Humane-society, to save a half-drowned reputation. It is, I understand, the glory of one class of fashionable females, to seem worse than they are; and of another class the privilege, to be worse than they seem."

Here clamorous voices interrupted Lady Geraldine—some justifying, some attacking, Lady Hauton and Mrs. Norton.

"Oh! Lady Geraldine, I assure you, notwithstanding all that was said about General —— and Mrs. Norton, I am convinced there was nothing in it."

"And, my dear Lady Geraldine, though Lady Hauton does go great lengths in coquetting with a certain lord, you must see that there's nothing wrong; and that she means nothing, but to provoke his lady's jealousy. You know his lordship is not a man to fall in love with."

"So, because Lady Hauton's passion is hatred instead of love, and because her sole object is to give pain to a poor wife, and to make mischief in families, all her sins are to be forgiven! Now, if I were forced to forgive any ill-conducted female, I would rather excuse the woman who is hurried on by love than she who is instigated by hatred."

Miss Bland now began to support her ladyship's opinion, that "Lady Hauton was much the worst of the two;" and all the scandal that was in circulation was produced by the partisans of each of these ladies.

"No matter, no matter, which is the worst," cried Lady Geraldine; "don't let us waste our time in repeating or verifying scandalous stories of either of them. I have no enmity to these ladies; I only despise them, or rather, their follies and their faults. It is not the sinner, but the sin we should reprobate. Oh! my dear countrywomen," cried Lady Geraldine, with increasing animation of countenance and manner—"Oh! my dear countrywomen, let us never stoop to admire and imitate these second-hand airs and graces, follies and vices. Let us dare to be ourselves!"

My eyes were fixed upon her animated countenance, and, I believe, I continued gazing even after her voice ceased. Mrs. O'Connor pointed this out, and I was immediately embarrassed. Miss Bland accounted for my embarrassment by supposing, that what Lady Geraldine had said of English crim. cons, had affected me. From a look and a whisper among the ladies, I guessed this; but Lady Geraldine was too well-bred to suppose I could suspect her of ill-breeding and ill-nature, or that I could apply to myself what evidently was not intended to allude to my family misfortunes. By an openness of manner and sweetness of expression, which I cannot forget, she, in one single look, conveyed all this to me: and then resuming her conversation, "Pray, my lord," said she, "you who have lived so much in the great world in England, say, for you can, whether I am right or wrong in my suspicion, that these ladies, who have made such a noise in Ireland, have been little heard of in England?"

I confirmed her ladyship's opinion by my evidence. The faces of the company changed. Thus, in a few seconds, the empire of Lady Hauton and of Mrs. Norton seemed shaken to the foundation, and never recovered from this shock.

The warmth of Lady Geraldine's expressions, on this and many other occasions, wakened dormant feelings in my heart, and made me sensible that I had a soul, and that I was superior to the puppets with whom I had been classed.

One day Lady Kilrush, in her mixed mode, with partly the graces of a fine lady and partly the airs of a bel esprit, was talking of Mr. Devereux, whom she affected to patronise and produce.

"Here, Devereux!" cried she; "Cecil Devereux! What can you be thinking of? I am talking to you. Here's this epitaph of Francis the First upon Petrarch's Laura, that you showed me the other day: do you know, I dote upon it. I must have it translated: nobody can do it so well as you. I have not time; but I shall not sleep to-night if it is not done: and you are so quick: so sit down here, there's a dear man, and do it in your elegant way for me, whilst I go to my toilette. Perhaps you did not know that my name was Laura," said she, leaving the room with a very sentimental air.

"What will become of me!" cried Devereux. "Never was a harder task set by cruel patroness. I would rather 'turn a Persian tale for half-a-crown.' Read this, my lord, and tell me whether it will be easy to turn my Lady Kilrush into Petrarch's Laura."

"This sonnet, to be sure, is rather difficult to translate, or at least to modernize, as bespoke," said Lady Geraldine, after she had perused the sonnet;[82] "but I think, Mr. Devereux, you brought this difficulty upon yourself. How came you to show these lines to such an amateur, such a fetcher and carrier of bays as Lady Kilrush? You might have been certain that, had they been trash, with the name of Francis the First, and with your fashionable approbation, and something to say about Petrarch and Laura, my Lady Kilrush would talk for ever, et se pâmerait d'affectation."

"Mr. Devereux," said I, "has only to abide by the last lines, as a good and sufficient apology to Lady Kilrush for his silence:

    'Qui te pourra louer qu'en se taisant?
    Car la parole est toujours réprimée
    Quand le sujet surmonte le disant.'"

"There is no way to get out of my difficulties," said Mr. Devereux, with a very melancholy look; and with a deep sigh he sat down to attempt the translation of the poem. In a few minutes, however, he rose and left the room, declaring that he had the bad habit of not being able to do any thing in company.

Lady Geraldine now, with much energy of indignation, exclaimed against the pretensions of rich amateurs, and the mean and presumptuous manner in which some would-be great people affect to patronise genius.

"Oh! the baseness, the emptiness of such patronising ostentation!" cried she. "I am accused of being proud myself; but I hope—I believe—I am sure, that my pride is of another sort. Persons of any elevation or generosity of mind never have this species of pride; but it is your mean, second-rate folk, who imagine that people of talent are a sort of raree-show for their entertainment. At best, they consider men of genius only as artists formed for their use, who, if not in a situation to be paid with money, are yet to be easily recompensed by praise—by their praise—their praise! Heavens! what conceit! And these amateur-patrons really think themselves judges, and presume to advise and direct genius, and employ it to their petty purposes! Like that Pietro de Medici, who, at some of his entertainments, set Michael Angelo to make a statue of snow. My lord, did you ever happen to meet with Les Mémoires de Madame de Staël?"

"No: I did not know that they were published."

"You mistake me: I mean Madame de Staël of Louis the Fourteenth and the
Regent's time, Mademoiselle de Launay."

I had never heard of such a person, and I blushed for my ignorance.

"Nay, I met with them myself only yesterday," said Lady Geraldine: "I was struck with the character of the Duchess de la Ferté, in which this kind of proud patronising ignorance is admirably painted from the life. It is really worth your while, my lord, to look at it. There's the book on that little table; here is the passage. You see, this Duchess de la Ferté is showing off to a sister-duchess a poor girl of genius, like a puppet or an ape.

"'Allons, mademoiselle, parlez—Madame, vous allez voir comme elle parle—Elle vit que j'hésitois à répondre, et pensa qu'il falloit m'aider comme une chanteuse à qui l'on indique ce qu'on désire d'entendre—Parlez un peu de religion, mademoiselle, vous direz ensuite autre chose.'

"This speech, Mr. Devereux tells me, has become quite proverbial in Paris," continued Lady Geraldine; "and it is often quoted, when any one presumes in the Duchess de la Ferte's style."

"Ignorance, either in high or low life, is equally self-sufficient, I believe," said I, exerting myself to illustrate her ladyship's remarks. "A gentleman of my acquaintance lately went to buy some razors at Packwood's. Mrs. Packwood alone was visible. Upon the gentleman's complimenting her on the infinite variety of her husband's ingenious and poetical advertisements, she replied, 'La! sir, and do you think husband has time to write them there things his-self? Why, sir, we keeps a poet to do all that there work.'"

Though Lady Geraldine spoke only in general of amateur-patrons and of men of genius, yet I could not help fancying, from the warmth with which she expressed herself, and from her dwelling on the subject so long, that her feelings were peculiarly interested for some individual of this description. Thus I discovered that Lady Geraldine had a heart; and I suspected that her ladyship and Mr. Devereux had also made the same discovery. This suspicion was strengthened by a slight incident, which occurred the following evening.

Lady Geraldine and Cecil Devereux, as we were drinking coffee, were in a recessed window, while some of the company stood round them, amused by their animated conversation. They went on, repartee after repartee, as if inspired by each other's spirits.

"You two," said a little girl of six years old, who was playing in the window, "go on singing to one another like two nightingales; and this shall be your cage," added she, drawing the drapery of the window-curtains across the recessed window. "You shall live always together in this cage: will you, pretty birds?"

"No, no; some birds cannot live in a cage, my dear," cried Lady Geraldine, playfully struggling to get free, whilst the child held her prisoner.

"Mr. Devereux seems tolerably quiet and contented in his cage," said the shrewd Mrs. O'Connor.

"I can't get out! I can't get out!" cried Devereux, in the melancholy tone of the starling in the Sentimental Journey.

"What is all this?" said my Lady Kildangan, sailing up to us.

"Only two birds," the child began.

"Singing-birds," interrupted Lady Geraldine, catching the little girl up in her arms, and stopping her from saying more, by beginning to sing most charmingly.

Lady Kildangan returned to the sofa without comprehending one word of what had passed. For my part, I now felt almost certain of the justice of my suspicions: I was a little vexed, but not by any means in that despair into which a man heartily in love would have been thrown by such a discovery.

Well, thought I, it is well it is no worse: it was very lucky that I did not fall quite in love with this fair lady, since it seems that she has given her heart away. But am I certain of this? I was mistaken once. Let me examine more carefully.

Now I had a new motive to keep my attention awake.

CHAPTER XI.

To preserve the continuity of my story, and not to fatigue the reader with the journals of my comings and goings from Ormsby Villa to Glenthorn Castle, and from Glenthorn Castle to Ormsby Villa, I must here relate the observations I made, and the incidents that occurred, during various visits at Sir Harry Ormsby's in the course of the summer.

After the incident of the birds and cage, my sagacity was for some time at fault. I could not perceive any further signs of intelligence between the parties: on the contrary, all communication seemed abruptly to cease. As I was not well versed in such affairs, this quieted my suspicions, and I began to think that I had been entirely mistaken. Cecil Devereux spent his days shut up in his own apartment, immersed, as far as I could understand, in the study of the Persian language. He talked to me of nothing but his hopes of an appointment which Lord O'Toole had promised to procure for him in India. When he was not studying, he was botanizing or mineralogizing with O'Toole's chaplain. I did not envy him his new mode of life. Lady Geraldine took no notice of it. When they did meet, which happened as seldom as possible, there was an air of haughty displeasure on her part; on his, steady and apparently calm respect and self-satisfaction. Her spirits were exuberant, but variable; and, at times, evidently forced: his were not high, but even and certain. Towards me, her ladyship's manners were free from coquetry, yet politely gratifying, as she marked, by the sort of conversation she addressed to me, her opinion that I was superior in ability and capability to what she had at first thought me, and to what I had always thought myself.

Mr. Devereux, though with more effort, treated me with distinction, and showed a constant desire to cultivate my friendship. On every occasion he endeavoured to raise my opinion of myself: to give me ambition and courage to cultivate my mind. Once, when I was arguing in favour of natural genius, and saying that I thought no cultivation could make the abilities of one man equal to those of another, he, without seeming to perceive that I was apologizing at once for my own indolence and my intellectual inferiority, answered in general terms, "It is difficult to judge what are the natural powers of the mind, they appear so different in different circumstances. You can no more judge of a mind in ignorance than of a plant in darkness. A philosophical friend told me, that he once thought he had discovered a new and strange plant growing in a mine. It was common sage; but so degenerated and altered, that he could not know it: he planted it in the open air and in the light, and gradually it resumed its natural appearance and character."

Mr. Devereux excited, without fatiguing, my mind by his conversation; and I was not yet sufficiently in love to be seriously jealous. I was resolved, however, to sound him upon the subject of Lady Geraldine, I waited for a good opportunity: at length, as we were looking together over the prints of Bürger's Lenore, he led to the sort of conversation that I desired, by telling me an anecdote relative to the poet, which he had lately heard from a German baron.

Burger was charmed with a sonnet, which an unknown fair one addressed to him, in praise of his poetry; he replied in equal strains; and they went on flattering one another, till both believed themselves in love: without ever having met, they determined to marry: they at length met, and married: they quarrelled and parted: in other words, the gentleman was terribly disappointed in his unknown mistress; and she consoled herself by running away from him with another lover.

The imprudence of this poetic couple led us to reflections on love and marriage in general. Keeping far away from all allusion to Lady Geraldine, I rallied Mr. Devereux about the fair Clementina, who was evidently a romantic admirer of his.

"Who, except Cupid, would barter his liberty for a butterfly?" said he; "and Cupid was a child. Men now-a-days are grown too wise to enslave themselves for women. Love occupies a vast space in a woman's thoughts, but fills a small portion in a man's life. Women are told, that 'The great, th' important business of their life, is love;' but men know that they are born for something better than to sing mournful ditties to a mistress's eyebrow. As to marriage, what a serious, terrible thing! Some quaint old author says, that man is of too smooth and oily a nature to climb up to heaven, if, to make him less slippery, there be not added to his composition the vinegar of marriage. This may be; but I will keep as long as possible from the vinegar."

"Really, Devereux," said I, smiling, "you talk so like a cynic and an old bachelor, and you look so little like either, that it is quite ridiculous."

"A man must be ridiculous sometimes," said he, "and bear to be thought so. No man ever distinguished himself, who could not bear to be laughed at."

Mr. Devereux left the room singing,

    "No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove;
    Ambition, I said, will soon cure me of love."

I was uncertain what to think of all this. I inclined to believe that ambition was his ruling passion, notwithstanding the description of that Hell which he showed me in Spenser. His conduct to his patron-lords, by which a surer judgment of his character could be formed than by his professions, was not, however, that of a man merely intent upon rising in the world.

I remember once hearing Lord O'Toole attack a friend of this gentleman's, calling him, in a certain tone, a philosopher. Mr. Devereux replied, "that he could not consider that as a term of reproach; that where a false or pretended philosopher was meant, some other name should be used, equivalent to the Italian term of reproach, filosofastro."

Lord O'Toole would by no means admit of this Italianism: he would make no distinctions: he deemed philosophers altogether a race of beings dangerous and inimical to states.

"For states read statesmen," said Devereux, who persisted in the
vindication of his friend till Lord O'Toole grew pale with anger, while
Captain Andrews smiled with ineffable contempt at the political bévue:
Lady Geraldine glowed with generous indignation.

Afterwards, in speaking to me of Lord O'Toole, Devereux said, "His lordship's classification of men is as contracted as the savage's classification of animals: he divides mankind into two classes, knaves and fools; and when he meets with an honest man, he does not know what to make of him."

My esteem for Mr. Devereux was much increased by my daily observations upon his conduct: towards Lady Geraldine, I thought it particularly honourable: when her displeasure evidently merged in esteem, when her manners again became most winning and attractive, his continued uniformly the same; never passing the bounds of friendly respect, or swerving, in the slightest degree, from the line of conduct which he had laid down for himself. I thought I now understood him perfectly. That he liked Lady Geraldine I could scarcely doubt; but I saw that he refrained from aiming at the prize which he knew he ought not to obtain; that he perceived her ladyship's favourable disposition towards him, yet denied himself not only the gratification of his vanity, but the exquisite pleasure of conversing with her, lest he should stand in the way of her happier prospects. He frequently spoke to me of her ladyship in terms of the warmest approbation. He said, that all the world saw and admired her talents and beauty, but that he had had opportunities, as a relation, of studying her domestic life. "With all her vivacity, she has a heart formed for tenderness," said he; "a high sense of duty, the best security for a woman's conduct; and in generosity and magnanimity, I never found her superior in either sex. In short, I never saw any woman whose temper and disposition were more likely to make a man of sense and feeling supremely happy."

I could not forbear smiling, and asking Cecil Devereux how all this accorded with his late professions of hatred to marriage. "My professions were sincere," said he. "It would be misery to me to marry any inferior woman, and I am not in circumstances to marry as I could wish. I could not think of Lady Geraldine without a breach of trust, of which your lordship, I hope, cannot suspect me. Her mother places confidence in me. I am not only a relation, but treated as a friend of the family. I am not in love with Lady Geraldine. I admire, esteem, respect her ladyship; and I wish to see her united to a man, if such a man there be, who may deserve her. We understand one another now. Your lordship will have the goodness never more to speak to me on this subject." He spoke with much emotion, but with steadiness, and left me penetrated with feelings that were entirely new to me.

Much as I admired his conduct, I was yet undecided as to my own: my aversion to a second marriage was not yet conquered:—I was amused, I was captivated by Lady Geraldine; but I could not bring myself to think of making a distinct proposal. Captain Andrews himself was not more afraid of being committed than I was upon this tender subject. To gain time, I now thought it necessary to verify all the praises Mr. Devereux had bestowed on her ladyship. Magnanimity was a word that particularly struck my ear as extraordinary when applied to a female. However, by attending carefully to this lady, I thought I discovered what Mr. Devereux meant. Lady Geraldine was superior to manoeuvring little arts and petty stratagems to attract attention: she would not stoop, even to conquer. From gentlemen she seemed to expect attention as her right, as the right of her sex; not to beg or accept of it as a favour: if it were not paid, she deemed the gentleman degraded, not herself. Far from being mortified by any preference shown to other ladies, her countenance betrayed only a sarcastic sort of pity for the bad taste of the men, or an absolute indifference and look of haughty absence. I saw that she beheld with disdain the paltry competitions of the young ladies her companions: as her companions, indeed, she hardly seemed to consider them; she tolerated their foibles, forgave their envy, and never exerted any superiority, except to show her contempt of vice and meanness. To be in any degree excepted from the common herd; to be in any degree distinguished by a lady so proud, and with so many good reasons to be proud, was flattering to my self-love. She gave me no direct encouragement; but I never advanced far enough to require encouragement, much less to justify repulse. Sometimes I observed, or I fancied, that she treated me with more favour when Mr. Devereux was present than at other times; perhaps—for she was a woman, not an angel—to pique Devereux, and try if she could move him from the settled purpose of his soul. He bore it all with surprising constancy: his spirits, however, and his health, began visibly to decline.

"If I do not intrude too much on your valuable time, Mr. Devereux," said her ladyship to him one evening, in her most attractive manner, "may I beg you to read to us some of these beautiful poems of Sir William Jones?"

There was a seat beside her ladyship on the sofa: the book was held out by the finest arm in the world.

"Nay," said Lady Geraldine, "do not look so respectfully miserable; if you have any other engagements, you have only to say so: or if you cannot speak you may bow: a bow, you know, is an answer to every thing. And here is my Lord Glenthorn ready to supply your place: pray, do not let me detain you prisoner. You shall not a second time say, I can't get out."

Devereux made no further effort to escape, but took the book and his dangerous seat. He remained with us, contrary to his custom, the whole evening. Afterwards, as if he felt that some apology was necessary to me for the pleasure in which he had indulged himself, "Perhaps, my lord," said he, "another man in my situation, and with my feelings, would think it necessary to retreat, and prudent to secure his safety by flight; but flight is unworthy of him who can combat and conquer: the man who is sure of himself does not skulk away to avoid danger, but advances to meet it, armed secure in honesty."

This proud and rash security in his own courage, strength of mind, and integrity, was the only fault of Cecil Devereux. He never prayed not to be led into temptation, he thought himself so sure of avoiding evil. Unconscious of his danger, even though his disease was at its height, he now braved it most imprudently: he was certain that he should never pass the bounds of friendship; he had proved this to himself, and was satisfied: he told me that he could with indifference, nay, with pleasure, see Lady Geraldine mine. In the mean time, upon the same principle that he deemed flight inglorious, he was proud to expose himself to the full force of Love's artillery. He was with us now every day, and almost all day, and Lady Geraldine was more charming than ever. The week was fixed for her departure. Still I could not decide. I understood that her ladyship would pass the ensuing winter in Dublin, where she would probably meet with new adorers; and even if Mr. Devereux should not succeed, some adventurous knight might win and wear the prize. This was an alarming thought. It almost decided me to hazard the fatal declaration; but then I recollected that I might follow her ladyship to town the next winter, and that if the impression did not, as might be hoped, wear off during the intervening autumn, it would be time enough to commit myself when I should meet my fair one in Dublin. This was at last my fixed resolution. Respited from the agonies of doubt, I now waited very tranquilly for that moment to which most lovers look forward with horror, the moment of separation. I was sensible that I had accustomed myself to think about this lady so much, that I had gradually identified my existence with hers, and I thus found my spirit of animation much increased. I dreaded the departure of Lady Geraldine less than the return of ennui.

In this frame of mind I was walking one morning in the pleasure grounds with Lady Geraldine, when a slight accident made me act in direct contradiction to all my resolutions, and, I think, inconsistently with my character. But such is the nature of man! and I was doomed to make a fool of myself, even in the very temple of Minerva. Among the various ornamental buildings in the grounds at Ormsby Villa, there was a temple dedicated to this goddess, from which issued a troop of hoyden young ladies, headed by the widow O'Connor and Lady Kilrush, all calling to us to come and look at some charming discovery which they had just made in the temple of Minerva. Thither we proceeded, accompanied by the merry troop. We found in the temple only a poetical inscription of Lady Kilrush's, pompously engraved on a fine marble tablet. We read the lines with all the attention usually paid to a lady's poetry in the presence of the poetess. Lady Geraldine and I turned to pay some compliments on the performance, when we found that Lady Kilrush and all her companions were gone.

"Gone! all gone!" said Lady Geraldine; "and there they are, making their way very fast down to the temple of Folly! Lady Kilrush, you know, is so ba-a-ashful, she could not possibly stay to receive nos hommages. I love to laugh at affectation. Call them back, do, my lord, and you shall see the fair author go through all the evolutions of mock humility, and end by yielding quietly to the notion that she is the tenth Muse. But run, my lord, or they will be out of our reach."

I never was seen to run on any occasion; but to obey Lady Geraldine I walked as fast as I could to the door, and, to my surprise, found it fastened.

"Locked, I declare! Some of the witty tricks of the widow O'Connor, or the hoyden Miss Callwells!"

"How I hate hoydens!" cried Lady Geraldine: "but let us take patience; they will be back presently. If young ladies must perform practical jokes, because quizzing is the fashion, I wish they would devise something new. This locking-up is so stale a jest. To be sure it has lately to boast the authority of high rank in successful practice: but these bungling imitators never distinguish between cases the most dissimilar imaginable. Silly creatures! We have only to be wise and patient."

Her ladyship sat down to re-peruse the tablet. I never saw her look so beautiful.—The dignified composure of her manner charmed me; it was so unlike the paltry affectation of some of the fashionable ladies by whom I had been disgusted. I recollected the precedent to which she alluded. I recollected that the locking-up ended in matrimony; and as Lady Geraldine made some remarks upon the verses, I suppose my answers showed my absence of mind.

"Why so grave, my lord? why so absent? I assure you I do not suspect your lordship of having any hand in this vulgar manoeuvre. I acquit you honourably; therefore you need not stand any longer like a criminal."

What decided me at this instant I cannot positively tell: whether it was the awkwardness of my own situation, or the grace of her ladyship's manner: but all my prudential arrangements were forgotten, all my doubts vanished. Before I knew that the words passed my lips, I replied, "That her ladyship did me justice by such an acquittal; but that though I had no part in the contrivance, yet I felt irresistibly impelled to avail myself of the opportunity it afforded of declaring my real sentiments." I was at her ladyship's feet, and making very serious love, before I knew where I was. In what words my long-delayed declaration was made, I cannot recollect, but I well remember Lady Geraldine's answer.

"My lord, I assure you that you do not know what you are saying: you do not know what you are doing. This is all a mistake, as you will find half an hour hence. I will not be so cruelly vain as to suppose you serious."

"Not serious! no man ever was more serious."

"No, no—No, no, no."

I swore, of course, most fervently.

"Oh! rise, rise, I beseech you, my lord, and don't look so like a hero; though you have done an heroical action, I grant. How you ever brought yourself to it, I cannot imagine. But now, for your comfort, you are safe—Vous voilà quitte pour la peur! Do not, however, let this encourage you to venture again in the same foolish manner. I know but few, very few young ladies to whom Lord Glenthorn could offer himself with any chance or reasonable hope of being refused. So take warning: never again expect to meet with such another as my whimsical self."

"Never, never can I expect to meet with any thing resembling your charming self," cried I. This was a new text for a lover's rhapsody. It is not necessary, and might not be generally interesting to repeat all the ridiculous things I said, even if I could remember them.

Lady Geraldine listened to me, and then very calmly replied, "Granting you believe all that you are saying at this minute, which I must grant from common gratitude, and still more common vanity; nevertheless, permit me to assure you, my lord, that this is not love; it is only a fancy—only the nettle-rash, not the plague. You will not die this time. I will insure your life. So now jump out of the window as fast as you can, and unlock the door—you need not be afraid of breaking your neck—you know your life is insured. Come, take the lover's leap, and get rid of your passion at once."

I grew angry.

"Only a cloud," said Lady Geraldine—"it will blow over."

I became more passionate—I did not know the force of my own feelings, till they met with an obstacle; they suddenly rose to a surprising height.

"Now, my lord," cried Lady Geraldine with a tone and look of comic vexation, "this is really the most provoking thing imaginable; you have no idea how you distress me, nor of what exquisite pleasures you deprive me—all the pleasures of coquetry; legitimate pleasures, in certain circumstances, as I am instructed to think them by one of the first moral authorities. There is a case—I quote from memory, my lord; for my memory, like that of most other people, on subjects where I am deeply interested, is tolerably tenacious—there is a case, says the best of fathers, in his Legacy to the best of daughters—there is a case, where a woman may coquet justifiably to the utmost verge which her conscience will allow. It is where a gentleman purposely declines making his addresses, till such time as he thinks himself perfectly sure of her consent. Now, my lord, if you had had the goodness to do so, I might have made this delightful case my own; and what charming latitude I might have allowed my conscience! But now, alas! it is all over, and I must be as frank as you have been, under pain of forfeiting what I value more even than admiration—my own good opinion."

She paused, and was silent for a few moments; then suddenly changing her manner, she exclaimed, in a serious, energetic tone, "Yes, I must, I will be sincere; let it cost me what it may. I will be sincere. My lord, I never can be yours. My lord, you will believe me, even from the effort with which I speak:" her voice softened, and her face suffused with crimson, as she spoke. "I love another—my heart is no longer in my own possession; whether it will ever be in my power, consistently with my duty and his principles, to be united with the man of my choice, is doubtful—more than doubtful—but this is certain, that with such a prepossession, such a conviction in my mind, I never could nor ought to think of marrying any other person."

I pleaded, that however deserving of her preference the object of her favour might be, yet that if there were, as her own prudence seemed to suggest, obstacles, rendering the probability of her union with that person more than doubtful, it might be possible that her superior sense and strength of mind, joined to the persevering affection of another lover, who would spare no exertions to render himself worthy of her, might, perhaps, in time—

"No, no," said she, interrupting me; "do not deceive yourself. I will not deceive you. I give you no hopes that my sentiments may change. I know my own mind—it will not change. My attachment is founded on the firm basis of esteem; my affection has grown from the intimate knowledge of the principles and conduct of the man I love. No other man, let his merits be what they may, could have these advantages in my opinion. And when I say that the probability of our being united is more than doubtful, I do not mean to deny that I have distant hope that change of circumstances might render love and duty compatible. Without hope I know love cannot long exist. You see I do not talk romantic nonsense to you. All that you say of prudence, and time, and the effect of the attentions of another admirer, would be perfectly just and applicable, if my attachment were a fancy of yesterday—if it were a mere young lady's commonplace first love; but I am not a very young lady, nor is this, though a first love, commonplace. I do not, you see, in the usual style, tell you that the man I adore is an angel, and that no created form ever did, or ever can, resemble this angel in green and gold; but, on the contrary, do justice to your lordship's merit: and believing, as I do, that you are capable of a real love; still more, believing that such an attachment would rouse you to exertion, and bring to life and light a surprising number of good qualities; yet I should deceive you unpardonably, fatally for my own peace of mind, if not for yours, were I not frankly and decidedly to assure you, that I never could reward or return your affection. My attachment to—I trust entirely where I trust at all—my attachment to Mr. Devereux is for life."

"He deserves it—deserves it all," cried I, struggling for utterance; "that is as much as a rival can say."

"Not more than I expected from you, my lord."

"But your ladyship says there is a hope of duty and love being compatible. Would Lady Kildangan ever consent?"

She looked much disturbed.

"No, certainly; not unless—Lord O'Toole has promised—not that I depend on courtiers' promises—but Lord O'Toole is a relation of ours, and he has promised to obtain an appointment abroad, in India, for Mr. Devereux. If that were done, he might appear of more consequence in the eyes of the world. My mother might then, perhaps, be propitious. My lord, I give you the strongest proof of my esteem, by speaking with such openness. I have had the honour of your lordship's acquaintance only a few months; but without complimenting my own penetration, I may securely trust to the judgment of Mr. Devereux, and his example has taught me to feel confidence in your lordship. Your conduct now will, I trust, justify my good opinion, by your secrecy; and by desisting from useless pursuit you will entitle yourself to my esteem and gratitude. These, I presume, you will think worth securing."

My soul was so completely touched, that I could not articulate.

"Mr. Devereux is right—I see, my lord, that you have a soul that can be touched."

"Kissing hands, I protest!" exclaimed a shrill voice at the window. We turned, and saw Mrs. O'Connor and a group of tittering faces peeping in. "Kissing hands, after a good hour's tête-à-tête! Oh, pray, Lady Kildangan, make haste here," continued Mrs. O'Connor; "make haste, before Lady Geraldine's blushes are over."

"Were you ever detected in the crime of blushing, in your life, Mrs.
O'Connor?" said I.

"I never was found out locked up with so fine a gentleman," replied
Mrs. O'Connor.

"Then it hurts your conscience only to be found out, like all the rest of the vast family of the Surfaces," said Lady Geraldine, resuming her spirit.

"Found out!—Locked up!—bless me! bless me! What is all this?" cried Lady Kildangan, puffing up the hill. "For shame! young ladies; for shame!" continued her ladyship, with a decent suppression of her satisfaction, when she saw, or thought she saw, how matters stood. "Unlock the door, pray. Don't be vexed, my Geraldine. Fie! fie! Mrs. O'Connor. But quizzing is now so fashionable—nobody can be angry with any body. My Geraldine, consider we are all friends."

The door unlocked, and as we were going out, Lady Geraldine whispered to me—"For mercy's sake, my lord, don't break my poor mother's heart! Never let her know that a coronet has been within my grasp, and that I have not clutched it."

Lady Kildangan, who thought that all was now approaching that happy termination she so devoutly wished, was so full of her own happy presentiments, that it was impossible for me to undeceive her ladyship. Even when I announced before her, to Sir Harry Ormsby, that I was obliged to return home immediately, on particular business, she was, I am sure, persuaded that I was going to prepare matters for marriage-settlements. When I mounted my horse, Mr. Devereux pressed through a crowd assembled on the steps at the hall-door, and offered me his hand, with a look and manner that seemed to say—Have you sufficient generosity to be still my friend? "I know the value of your friendship, Mr. Devereux," said I, "and I hope to deserve it better every year that I live."

For the effort which it cost me to say this I was rewarded. Lady Geraldine, who had retired behind her companions, at this instant approached with an air of mingled grace and dignity, bowed her head, and gave me a smile of grateful approbation. This is the last image left on my mind, the last look of the charming Geraldine—I never saw her again.

After I got home I did not shave for two days, and scarcely ever spoke. I should have taken to my bed to avoid seeing any human creature; but I knew that if I declared myself ill, no power would keep my old nurse Ellinor from coming to moan over me; and I was not in a humour to listen to stories of the Irish Black Beard, or the ghost of King O'Donoghoe; nor could I, however troublesome, have repulsed the simplicity of her affection. Instead of going to bed, therefore, I continued to lie stretched upon a sofa, ruminating sweet and bitter thoughts, after giving absolute orders that I should not be disturbed on any account whatever. Whilst I was in this state of reverie, one of my servants—an odd Irish fellow, who, under pretence of being half-witted, took more liberties than his companions—bolted into my presence.

"Plase your lordship, I thought it my duty, in spite of 'em all below, to come up to advertise to your lordship of the news that's going through the country. That they are all upside down at Ormsby Villa, all mad entirely—fighting and setting off through the kingdom, every one their own way; and, they say, it's all on account of something that Miss Clemmy Ormsby told, that Lady Geraldine said about my Lord O'Toole's being no better than a cat's paw, or something that way, which made his lordship quite mad; and he said, in the presence of Captain Andrews, and my Lady Kildangan, and Lady Geraldine, and all that were in it, something that vexed Lady Geraldine, which made Mr. Cecil Devereux mad next; and he said something smart in reply, that Lord O'Toole could not digest, he said, which made his lordship madder than ever, and he discharged Mr. Devereux from his favour, and he is not to get that place that was vacant, the lord-lieutenancy of some place in the Indies that he was to have had; this made Lady Geraldine mad, and it was found out she was in love with Mr. Devereux, which made her mother mad, the maddest of all, they say, so that none can hold her, and she is crying night and day how her daughter might have had the first coronet in the kingdom, maning you, my lard, if it had not been that she prefarred a beggar-man, maning Mr. Cecil Devereux, who is as poor, they say, as a Connaughtman—and he's forbid to think of her, and she's forbid, under pain of bread and water, ever to set her eyes upon him the longest day ever she lives; so the horses and coaches are ordered, and they are all to be off with the first light for Dublin: and that's all, my lard; and all truth, not a word of lies I'm telling."

I was inclined not to credit a story so oddly told; but, upon inquiry, I found it true in its material points. My own words to Mr. Devereux, and the parting look of Lady Geraldine, were full in my recollection; I was determined, by an unexpected, exertion, to surprise both the lovers, and to secure for ever their esteem and gratitude. The appointment, which Mr. Devereux desired, was not yet given away; the fleet was to sail in a few days. I started up from my sofa—ordered my carriage instantly—shaved myself—sent a courier on before to have horses ready at every stage to carry me to Dublin—got there in the shortest time possible—found Lord O'Toole but just arrived. Though unused to diplomatic language and political negotiation, I knew pretty well on what they all hinge. I went directly to the point, and showed that it would be the interest of the party concerned to grant my request. By expressing a becoming desire that my boroughs, upon a question where a majority was required, should strengthen the hands of government, I obtained for my friend the favour he deserved. Before I quitted Lord O'Toole, his secretary, Captain Andrews, was instructed to write a letter, announcing to Mr. Devereux his appointment. A copy of the former letter of refusal now lay before me; it was in his lordship's purest diplomatic style—as follows:

"Private.

"Lord O'Toole is concerned to inform Mr. Devereux that he cannot feel himself justified in encouraging Mr. D., under the existing circumstances, to make any direct application relative to the last conversation his lordship had the honour to hold with Mr. Devereux."

"To Cecil Devereux, Esq. &c. Thursday ———"

The letter which I obtained, and of which I took possession, ran as follows:

"Private.

"Lord O'Toole is happy to have it in command to inform Mr. Devereux, that his lordship's representations on the subject of their last conversation have been thought sufficient, and that an official notification of the appointment to India, which Mr. D. desired, will meet the wishes of Mr. Devereux.

"Captain Andrews has the honour to add his congratulations."

"To Cecil Devereux, Esq. &c. Thursday ———"

Having despatched this business with a celerity that surprised all the parties concerned, and most myself, I called at the lodgings of Mr. Devereux, delivered the letter to his servant, and left town. I could not bear to see either Mr. Devereux or Lady Geraldine. I had the pleasure to hear, that the obtaining this appointment was followed by Lady Kildangan's consent to their marriage. Soon after my return to Glenthorn Castle, I received a letter of warm thanks from Devereux, and a polite postscript from Lady Geraldine, declaring that, though she felt much pleasure, she could feel no surprise in seeing her opinion of Lord Glenthorn justified; persuaded, as she and Mr. Devereux had always been, that only motive and opportunity were wanting to make his lordship's superior qualities known to the world, and, what was still more difficult, to himself. They left Ireland immediately afterwards in consequence of their appointment in India.

I was raised in my own estimation—I revelled a short time in my self-complacent reflections; but when nothing more remained to be done, or to be said—when the hurry of action, the novelty of generosity, the glow of enthusiasm, and the freshness of gratitude, were over, I felt that, though large motives could now invigorate my mind, I was still a prey to habitual indolence, and that I should relapse into my former state of apathy and disease.

CHAPTER XII.

I remember to have heard, in some epilogue to a tragedy, that the tide of pity and of love, whilst it overwhelms, fertilizes the soul. That it may deposit the seeds of future fertilization, I believe; but some time must elapse before they germinate: on the first retiring of the tide, the prospect is barren and desolate. I was absolutely inert, and almost imbecile for a considerable time, after the extraordinary stimulus, by which I had been actuated, was withdrawn. I was in this state of apathy when the rebellion broke out in Ireland; nor was I roused in the least by the first news of the disturbances. The intelligence, however, so much alarmed my English servants, that, with one accord, they left me; nothing could persuade them to remain longer in Ireland. The parting with my English gentleman affected my lethargic selfishness a little. His loss would have been grievous to such a helpless being as I was, had not his place been immediately supplied by that half-witted Irishman, Joe Kelly, who had ingratiated himself with me by a mixture of drollery and simplicity, and by suffering himself to be continually my laughing-stock; for, in imitation of Lady Geraldine, I thought it necessary to have a butt. I remember he first caught my notice by a strange answer to a very simple question. I asked, "What noise is that I hear?" "My lard," said he, "it is only the singing in my ears; I have had it these six months." Another time, when I reproached him for having told me a lie, he answered, "Why, now indeed, and plase your honour, my lard, I tell as few lies as possibly I can." This fellow, the son of a bricklayer, had originally been intended for a priest, and he went, as he told me, to the College of Maynooth to study his humanities; but, unluckily, the charms of some Irish Heloise came between him and the altar. He lived in a cabin of love, till he was weary of his smoke-dried Heloise, and then thought it convanient to turn sarving man, as he could play on the flute, and brush a coat remarkably well, which he larned at Maynooth, by brushing the coats of the superiors. Though he was willing to be laughed at, Joe Kelly could in his turn laugh; and he now ridiculed, without mercy, the pusillanimity of the English renegadoes, as he called the servants who had just left my service; He assured me that, to his knowledge, there was no manner of danger, excepted a man prefarred being afraid of his own shadow, which some did, rather than have nothing to talk of, or enter into resolutions about, with some of the spirited men in the chair.

Unwilling to be disturbed, I readily believed all that lulled me in my security. I would not be at the trouble of reading the public papers; and when they were read to me, I did not credit any paragraph that militated against my own opinion. Nothing could awaken me. I remember, one day, lying yawning on my sofa, repeating to Mr. M'Leod, who endeavoured to open my eyes to the situation of the country, "Pshaw, my dear sir; there is no danger, be assured—none at all—none at all. For mercy's sake! talk to me of something more diverting, if you would keep me awake; time enough to think of these things when they come nearer to us."

Evils that were not immediately near me had no power to affect my imagination. My tenantry had not yet been contaminated by the epidemic infection, which broke out soon after with such violence as to threaten the total destruction of all civil order. I had lived in England—I was unacquainted with the causes and the progress of the disease, and I had no notion of my danger; all I knew was, that some houses had been robbed of arms, and that there was a set of desperate wretches called defenders; but I was annoyed only by the rout that was now made about them. Having been used to the regular course of justice which prevailed in England, I was more shocked at the summary proceedings of my neighbours than alarmed at the symptoms of insurrection. Whilst my mind was in this mood, I was provoked by the conduct of some of the violent party, which wounded my personal pride, and infringed upon my imagined consequence. My foster-brother's forge was searched for pikes, his house ransacked, his bed and bellows, as possible hiding places, were cut open; by accident, or from private malice, he received a shot in his arm; and, though not the slightest cause of suspicion could be found against him, the party left him with a broken arm, and the consolation of not being sent to jail as a defender. Without making any allowance for the peculiar circumstances of the country, my indignation was excited in the extreme, by the injury done to my foster-brother; his sufferings, the tears of his mother, the taunts of Mr. (now Captain) Hardcastle, and the opposition made by his party, called forth all the faculties of my mind and body. The poor fellow, who was the subject of this contest, showed the best disposition imaginable: he was excessively grateful to me for interesting myself to get him justice; but as soon as he found that parties ran high against me, he earnestly dissuaded me from persisting.

"Let it drop, and plase your honour; my lord, let it drop, and don't be making of yourself inimies for the likes of me. Sure, what signifies my arm? and, before the next assizes, sha'n't I be as well as ever, arm and all?" continued he, trying to appear to move the arm without pain. "And there's the new bellows your honour has give me; it does my heart good to look at 'em, and it won't be long before I will be blowing them again as stout as ever; and so God bless your honour, my lord, and think no more about it—let it drop entirely, and don't be bringing yourself into trouble."

"Ay, don't be bringing yourself into trouble, dear," added Ellinor, who seemed half distracted between her feelings for her son and her fears for me; "it's a shame to think of the way they've treated Christy—but there's no help now, and it's best not to be making bad worse; and so, as Christy says, let the thing drop, jewel, and don't be bringing yourself into trouble; you don't know the natur of them people, dear—you are too innocent for them entirely, and myself does not know the mischief they might do yees."

"True for ye," pursued Christy; "I wouldn't for the best cow ever I see that your honour ever larnt a sentence about me or my arm; and it is not for such as we to be minding every little accident—so God lend you long life, and don't be plaguing yourself to death! Let it drop, and I'll sleep well the night, which I did not do the week, for thinking of all the trouble you got, and would get, God presarve ye!"

This generous fellow's eloquence produced an effect directly contrary to what was intended; both my feelings and my pride were now more warmly interested in his cause. I insisted upon his swearing examinations before Mr. M'Leod, who was a justice of the peace. Mr. M'Leod behaved with the utmost steadiness and impartiality; and in this trying moment, when "it was infamy to seem my friend," he defended my conduct calmly, but resolutely, in private and in public, and gave his unequivocal testimony, in few but decided words, in favour of my injured tenant. I should have respected Mr. M'Leod more, if I had not attributed this conduct to his desire of being returned for one of my boroughs at the approaching election. He endeavoured, with persevering goodness, to convince me of the reality of the danger in the country. My eyes were with much difficulty forced open so far as to perceive that it was necessary to take an active part in public affairs to vindicate my loyalty, and to do away the prejudices that were entertained against me; nor did my incredulity, as to the magnitude of the peril, prevent me from making exertions essential to the defence of my own character, if not to that of the nation. How few act from purely patriotic and rational motives! At all events I acted, and acted with energy; and certainly at this period of my life I felt no ennui. Party spirit is an effectual cure for ennui; and perhaps it is for this reason that so many are addicted to its intemperance. All my passions were roused, and my mind and body kept in continual activity. I was either galloping, or haranguing, or fearing, or hoping, or fighting; and so long as it was said that I could not sleep in my bed, I slept remarkably well, and never had so good an appetite as when I was in hourly danger of having nothing to eat. The rebels were up, and the rebels were down—and Lord Glenthorn's spirited conduct in the chair, and indefatigable exertions in the field, were the theme of daily eulogium amongst my convivial companions and immediate dependants. But, unfortunately, my sudden activity gained me no credit amongst the violent party of my neighbours, who persisted in their suspicions; and my reputation was now still more injured, by the alternate charge of being a trimmer or a traitor. Nay, I was further exposed to another danger, of which, from my ignorance of the country, I could not possibly be aware. The disaffected themselves, as I afterwards found, really believed, that, as I had not begun by persecuting the poor, I must be a favourer of the rebels; and all that I did to bring the guilty to justice, they thought was only to give a colour to the thing, till the proper moment should come for my declaring myself. Of this absurd and perverse mode of judging I had not the slightest conception; and I only laughed when it was hinted to me. My treating the matter so lightly confirmed suspicion on both sides. At this time all objects were so magnified and distorted by the mist of prejudice, that no inexperienced eye could judge of their real proportions. Neither party could believe the simple truth, that my tardiness to act arose from the habitual inertia of my mind and body.

Whilst prepossessions were thus strong, the time, the important time, in Ireland the most important season of the year, the assizes, arrived. My foster-brother's cause, or, as it was now generally called, Lord Glenthorn's cause, came on to be tried. I spared no expense, I spared no exertions; I fee'd the ablest counsel; and not content with leaving them to be instructed by my attorney, I explained the affair to them myself with indefatigable zeal. One of the lawyers, whom I had seen, or by whom I had been seen, in my former inert state of existence, at some watering-place in England, could not refrain from expressing his astonishment at my change of character; he could scarcely believe that I was the same Lord Glenthorn, of whose indolence and ennui he had formerly heard and seen so much.

Alas! all my activity, all my energy, on the present occasion, proved ineffectual. After a dreadful quantity of false swearing, the jury professed themselves satisfied; and, without retiring from the box, acquitted the persons who had assaulted my foster-brother. The mortification of this legal defeat was not all that I had to endure; the victorious party mobbed me, as I passed some time afterwards through a neighbouring town, where Captain Hardcastle and his friends had been carousing. I was hooted, and pelted, and narrowly escaped with my life—I who, but a few months ago, had imagined myself possessed of nearly despotic power: but opinions had changed; and on opinion almost all power is founded. No individual, unless he possess uncommon eloquence, joined to personal intrepidity, can withstand the combination of numbers, and the force of prejudice.

Such was the result of my first public exertions! Yet I was now happier and better satisfied with myself than I had ever been before. I was not only conscious of having acted in a manly and generous manner, but the alarms of the rebels, and of the French, and of the loyalists, and the parading, and the galloping, and the quarrelling, and the continual agitation in which I was kept, whilst my character and life were at stake, relieved me effectually from the intolerable burden of ennui.

CHAPTER XIII.

    "And, for the book of knowledge fair,
    Presented with an universal blank
    Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased."

Unfortunately for me, the rebellion in Ireland was soon quelled; the nightly scouring of our county ceased; the poor people returned to their duty and their homes; the occupation of upstart and ignorant associators ceased, and their consequence sunk at once. Things and persons settled to their natural level. The influence of men of property, and birth, and education, and character, once more prevailed. The spirit of party ceased to operate: my neighbours wakened, as if from a dream, and wondered at the strange injustice with which I had been treated. Those who had lately been my combined enemies were disunited, and each was eager to assure me that he had always been privately my friend, but that he was compelled to conceal his sentiments: each exculpated himself, and threw the blame on others: all apologized to me, and professed to be my most devoted humble servants. My popularity, my power, and my prosperity were now at their zenith, unfortunately for me; because my adversity had not lasted long enough to form and season my character. I had been driven to exertion by a mixture of pride and generosity; my understanding being uncultivated, I had acted from the virtuous impulse of the moment, but never from rational motive, which alone can be permanent in its operation. When the spur of the occasion pressed upon me no longer, I relapsed into my former inactivity. When the great interests and strong passions, by which I had been impelled to exertion, subsided, all other feelings, and all less objects, seemed stale, flat, and unprofitable. For the tranquillity which I was now left to enjoy I had no taste; it appeared to me a dead calm, most spiritless and melancholy.

I remember hearing, some years afterwards, a Frenchman, who had been in imminent danger of been guillotined by Robespierre, and who at last was one of those who arrested the tyrant, declare, that when the bustle and horror of the revolution were over, he could hardly keep himself awake; and that he thought it very insipid to live in quiet with his wife and family. He further summed up the catalogue of Robespierre's crimes, by exclaiming, "D'ailleurs c'étoit un grand philanthrope!" I am not conscious of any disposition to cruelty, and I heard this man's speech with disgust; yet upon a candid self-examination, I must confess, that I have felt, though from different causes, some degree of what he described. Perhaps ennui may have had a share in creating revolutions. A French author pronounces ennui to be "a moral indigestion, caused by a monotony of situations!"

I had no wife or family to make domestic life agreeable: nor was I inclined to a second marriage, my first had proved so unfortunate, and the recollection of my disappointment with Lady Geraldine was so recent. Even the love of power no longer acted upon me: my power was now undisputed. My jealousy and suspicions of my agent, Mr. M'Leod, were about this time completely conquered, by his behaviour at a general election. I perceived that he had no underhand design upon my boroughs; and that he never attempted or wished to interfere in my affairs, except at my particular desire. My confidence in him became absolute and unbounded; but this was really a misfortune to me, for it became the cause of my having still less to do. I gave up all business, and from all manner of trouble I was now free: yet I became more and more unhappy, and my nervous complaints returned. I was not aware that I was taking the very means to increase my own disease. The philosophical Dr. Cullen observes, that "whatever aversion to application of any kind may appear in hypochondriacs, there is nothing more pernicious to them than absolute idleness, or a vacancy from all earnest pursuit. It is owing to wealth admitting of indolence, and leading to the pursuit of transitory and unsatisfying amusements, or exhausting pleasures only, that the present times exhibit to us so many instances of hypochondriacism."

I fancied that change of air and change of place would do me good; and, as it was fine summer weather, I projected various parties of pleasure. The Giants' Causeway, and the Lake of Killarney, were the only things I had ever heard mentioned as worth seeing in Ireland. I suffered myself to be carried into the county of Antrim, and I saw the Giants' Causeway. From the description given by Dr. Hamilton of some of these wonders of nature, the reader may judge how much I ought to have been astonished and delighted.

In the bold promontory of Bengore, you behold, as you look up from the sea, a gigantic colonnade of basaltes, supporting a black mass of irregular rock, over which rises another range of pillars, "forming altogether a perpendicular height of one hundred and seventy feet, from the base of which the promontory, covered over with rock and grass, slopes down to the sea, for the space of two hundred feet more: making, in all, a mass of near four hundred feet in height, which, in the beauty and variety of its colouring, in elegance and novelty of arrangement, and in the extraordinary magnificence of its objects, cannot be rivalled."

Yet I was seized with a fit of yawning, as I sat in my pleasure-boat, to admire this sublime spectacle. I looked at my watch, observed that we should be late for dinner, and grew impatient to be rowed back to the place where we were to dine; not that I was hungry, but I wanted to be again set in motion. Neither science nor taste expanded my view; and I saw nothing worthy of my admiration, or capable of giving me pleasure. The watching a straw floating down the tide was the only amusement I recollect to have enjoyed upon this excursion.

I was assured, however, by Lady Ormsby, that I could not help being enchanted with the Lake of Killarney. The party was arranged by this lady, who, having the preceding summer seen me captivated by Lady Geraldine, and pitying my disappointment, had formed the obliging design of restoring my spirits, and marrying me to one of her near relatives. She calculated, that as I had been charmed by Lady Geraldine's vivacity, I must be enchanted with the fine spirits of Lady Jocunda Lawler. So far were the thoughts of marriage from my imagination, that I only was sorry to find a young lady smuggled into our party, because I was afraid she would be troublesome: but I resolved to be quite passive upon all occasions, where attentions to the fair sex are sometimes expected. My arm, or my hand, or my assistance, in any manner, I was determined not to offer: the lounging indifference which some fashionable young men affect towards ladies, I really felt; and, besides, nobody minds unmarried women! This fashion was most convenient to my indolence. In my state of torpor I was not, however, long left in peace. Lady Jocunda was a high-bred romp, who made it a rule to say and do whatever she pleased. In a hundred indirect ways I was called upon to admire her charming spirits: but the rattling voice, loud laughter, flippant wit, and hoyden gaiety, of Lady Jocunda, disgusted me beyond expression. A thousand times on my journey I wished myself quietly asleep in my own castle. Arrived at Killarney, such blowing of horns, such boating, such seeing of prospects, such prosing of guides, all telling us what to admire! Then such exclamations, and such clambering! I was walked and talked till I was half-dead. I wished the rocks, and the hanging-woods, and the glens, and the water-falls, and the arbutus, and the myrtles, and the upper and lower lakes, and the islands, and Mucruss, and Mucruss Abbey, and the purple mountain, and the eagle's nest, and the Grand Turk, and the lights and the shades, and the echoes, and, above all, the Lady Jocunda, fairly at the devil.

A nobleman in the neighbourhood had the politeness to invite us to see a stag-hunt upon the water. The account of this diversion, which I had met with in my Guide to the Lakes,[83] promised well. I consented to stay another day: that day I really was revived by this spectacle, for it was new. The sublime and the beautiful had no charms for me: novelty was the only power that could waken me from my lethargy; perhaps there was in this spectacle something more than novelty. The Romans had recourse to shows of wild beasts and gladiators to relieve their ennui. At all events, I was kept awake this whole morning, though I cannot say that I felt in such ecstasies as to be in any imminent danger of jumping out of the boat.

Of our journey back from Killarney I remember nothing, but my being discomfited by Lady Jocunda's practical jests and overpowering gaiety. When she addressed herself to me, my answers were as constrained and as concise as possible; and, as I was afterwards told, I seemed, at the close of my reply to each interrogative of her ladyship's, to answer with Odin's prophetess,

    "Now my weary lips I close;
    Leave me, leave me to repose."

This she never did till we parted; and, at that moment, I believe, my satisfaction appeared so visible, that Lady Ormsby gave up all hopes of me. Arrived at my own castle, I threw myself on my bed quite exhausted. I took three hours' additional sleep every day for a week, to recruit my strength, and rest my nerves, after all that I had been made to suffer by this young lady's prodigious animal spirits.

CHAPTER XIV.

I could now boast that I had travelled all over Ireland, from north to south; but, in fact, I had seen nothing of the country or of its inhabitants. In these commodious parties of pleasure, every thing had been provided to prevent the obstacles that roused my faculties. Accustomed by this time to the Hibernian tone, I fancied that I knew all that could be known of the Irish character; familiarized with the comic expressions of the lower class of people, they amused me no longer. On this journey, however, I recollect making one observation, and once laughing at what I thought a practical bull. We saw a number of labourers at work in a bog, on a very hot day, with a fire lighted close to them. When I afterwards mentioned, before Mr. M'Leod, this circumstance, which I had thought absurd, he informed me that the Irish labourers often light fires, that the smoke may drive away or destroy those myriads of tiny flies, called midges, by which they are often tormented so much, that without this remedy, they would, in hot and damp weather, be obliged to abandon their work. Had I been sufficiently active during my journey to pen a journal, I should certainly, without further inquiry, have noted down, that the Irish labourers always light fires in the hottest weather to cool themselves; and thus I should have added one more to the number of cursory travellers, who expose their own ignorance, whilst they attempt to ridicule local customs, of which they have not inquired the cause, or discovered the utility.

A foreigner, who has lately written Letters on England, has given a laughable instance of this promptitude of misapprehension. He says, he had heard much of the venality of the British parliament, but he had no idea of the degree to which it extended, till he actually was an eye-witness of the scene. The moment the minister entered the House, all the members ran about exclaiming, "Places! places!" which means, Give us places—give us places.

My heavy indolence fortunately preserved me from exposing myself, like these volatile tourists. I was at least secure from the danger of making mistakes in telling what I never saw.

As to the mode of living of the Irish, their domestic comforts or grievances, their habits and opinions, their increasing or decreasing ambition to better their condition, the proportion between the population and the quantity of land cultivated or capable of cultivation, the difference between the profits of the husbandman and the artificer, the relation between the nominal wages of labour and the actual command over the necessaries of life;—these were questions wholly foreign to my thoughts, and, at this period of my life, absolutely beyond the range of my understanding. I had travelled through my own country without making even a single remark upon the various degrees of industry and civilization visible in different parts of the kingdom. In fact, it never occurred to me that it became a British nobleman to have some notion of the general state of that empire, in the legislation of which he has a share; nor had I the slightest suspicion that political economy was a study requisite or suitable to my rank in life or situation in society. Satisfied with having seen all that is worth seeing in Ireland, the Giants' Causeway and the Lake of Killarney, I was now impatient to return to England. During the rebellion, I could not, with honour, desert my post; but now that tranquillity was apparently restored, I determined to quit a country of which my partial knowledge had in every respect been unfortunate. This resolution of mine to leave Ireland threw Ellinor into despair, and she used all her eloquence to dissuade me from the journey. I was quite surprised by the agony of grief into which she was thrown by the dread of my departure. I felt astonished that one human being could be so attached to another, and I really envied her sensibility. My new man, Joe Kelly, also displayed much reluctance at the thoughts of leaving his native country; and this sentiment inclined Ellinor to think more favourably of him, though she could not quite forgive him for being a Kelly of Ballymuddy.

"Troth," said she to him one day, in my presence, "none of them Kellys of Ballymuddy but what are a bad clan! Joey, is not there your own broder's uncle lying in the jail of ——— at this present time for the murder of a woman?"—"Well," replied Joe, "and if he was so unfortunate to be put up, which was not asy done neither, is it not better and more creditabler to lie in a jail for a murder than a robbery, I ask you?" This new scale of crimes surprised me; but Joe spoke what was the sense of many of his countrymen at that period.

By various petty attentions, this man contrived to persuade me of the sincerity of his attachment: chiefly by the art of appearing to be managed by me in all things, he insensibly obtained power over my pride; and, by saving me daily trouble, secured considerable influence over my indolence. More than any one whom I had ever seen, he had the knack of seeming half-witted—too simple to overreach, and yet sufficiently acute and droll to divert his master. I liked to have him about me, as uncultivated kings like to have their fools. One of our ancient monarchs is said to have given three parishes to his joculator; I gave only three farms to mine. I had a sort of mean pride in making my favourite an object of envy: besides, I fell into the common mistake of the inexperienced great, who fancy that attachment can be purchased, and that gratitude can be secured, by favours disproportioned to deserts. Joe Kelly, by sundry manoeuvres too minute for description, contrived to make me delay, from day to day, the preparations for my journey to England. From week to week it was put off till the autumn was far advanced. At length Kelly had nothing left to suggest, but that it would be best to wait for answers from my English steward to the letters that had been written to inquire whether every thing was ready for my reception. During this interval, I avoided every human creature (except Joe Kelly), and was in great danger of becoming a misanthrope from mere indolence. I did not hate my fellow-creatures, but I dreaded the trouble of talking to them. My only recreation, at this period, was sauntering out in the evening beside the sea-shore. It was my regular practice to sit down upon a certain large stone, at the foot of a rock, to watch the ebbing of the tide. There was something in the contemplation of the sea and of the tides which was fascinating to my mind. I could sit and look at the ocean whole hours together; for, without any exertion of my own, I beheld a grand operation of nature, accompanied with a sort of vast monotony of motion and sound, which lulled me into reverie.

Late one evening, as I was seated on my accustomed stone, my attention was slightly diverted from the sea by the sight of a man descending the crag above me, in rather a perilous manner. With one end of a rope coiled round his body, and the other fastened to a stake driven into the summit of the rock, he let himself half-way down the terrible height. One foot now rested on a projecting point, one hand held the rope, and hanging thus midway in the air, he seemed busy searching in the crevices of the rock, for the eggs of water-fowl. This dangerous trade I had seen frequently plied on this coast, so that I should scarcely have regarded the man if he had not turned, from time to time, as if to watch me. When he saw that he had fixed my eye, he threw down, as I thought, a white stone, which fell nearly at my feet. I stooped to examine it; the man waited till he saw it in my hands, then coiled himself swiftly up his rope to the summit of the rock, and disappeared. I found a paper tied round the stone, and on this paper, in a hand-writing that seemed to be feigned, were written these words:—

"Your life and caracter, one or t'other—say both, is in danger. Don't be walking here any more late in the evening, near them caves, nor don't go near the old abbey, any time—And don't be trusting to Joe Kelly any way—Lave the kingdom entirely; the wind sarves.

"So prays your true well-wisher.

"P.S. Lave the castle the morrow, and say nothing of this to Joe Kelly, or you'll repent when it's all over wid you."

I was startled a little by this letter at first, but in half an hour I relapsed into my apathy. Many gentlemen in the country had received anonymous letters: I had been tired of hearing of them during the rebellion. This, I thought, might be only a quiz, or a trick to hurry me out of the kingdom, contrived by some of those who desired my absence. In short, the labour of thinking about the matter fatigued me. I burned the letter as soon as I got home, and resolved not to puzzle or plague myself about it any more. My steward's answer came the next morning from England; Kelly made no difficulty, when I ordered him to be ready to set out in three days. This confirmed me in my opinion that the letter was malicious, or a jest. Mr. M'Leod came to take leave of me. I mentioned the circumstance to him slightly, and in general terms: he looked very serious, and said, "All these things are little in themselves, but are to be heeded, as marking the unsettled minds of the people—straws that show which way the wind blows. I apprehend we shall have a rough winter again, though we have had so still a summer. The people about us are too hush and too prudent—it is not their natures—there's something contriving among them: they don't break one another's heads at fairs as they used to do; they keep from whiskey; there must be some strong motive working this change upon them—good or bad, 'tis hard to say which. My lord, if we consider the condition of these poor people, and if we consider the causes—"

"Oh! for Heaven's sake, do not let us consider any more about it now; I am more than half asleep already," said I, yawning; "and our considering about it can do no good, to me at least; for you know I am going out of the kingdom; and when I am gone, M'Leod, you, in whom I have implicit confidence, must manage as you always used to do, you know, and as well as you can."

"True," said M'Leod, calmly, "that is what I shall do, indubitably; for that is my duty, and since your lordship has implicit confidence in me, my pleasure. I wish your lordship a good night and a good journey."

"I shall not set out in the morning; not till the day after to-morrow, I believe," said I; "for I feel consumedly tired to-night: they have plagued me about so many things to-day; so much business always before one can get away from a place; and then Joe Kelly has no head."

"Have a care he has not too much head, my lord, as your anonymous correspondent hints—he may be right there: I told you from the first I would not go security for Joe Kelly's honesty; and where there is not strict honesty, I conceive there ought not to be implicit confidence."

"Oh, hang it! as to honesty, they are none of them honest; I know that: but would you have me plague myself till I find a strictly honest servant? Joe's as honest as his neighbours, I dare say: the fellow diverts me, and is attached to me, and that's all I can expect. I must submit to be cheated, as all men of large fortunes are, more or less."

Mr. M'Leod listened with stubborn patience, and replied, that if I thought it necessary to submit to be cheated he could make no objection, except where it might come under his cognizance, and then he must take the liberty to remonstrate, or to give up his agency to some of the many, who could play better than he could the part of the dog in the fable, pretending to guard his master's meat.

The cold ungracious integrity of this man, even in my own cause, at once excited my spleen and commanded my respect. After shaking my leg, as I sat for two minutes in silence, I called after M'Leod, who moved towards the door, "Why, what can I do, Mr. M'Leod? What would you have me do? Now, don't give me one of your dry answers, but let me have your notions as a friend: you know, M'Leod, I cannot help having the most perfect confidence in you."

He bowed, but rather stiffly.

"I am proud to hear you cannot help that, my lord," said he. "As to a friend, I never considered myself upon that footing till now: but, as you at present honour me so far as to ask my counsel, I am free to give it. Part with Joe Kelly to-night; and whether you go or stay, you are safer without him. Joe's a rogue: he can do no good, and may do harm."

"Then," said I, "you are really frightened by this anonymous letter?"

"Cannot a man take prudent precautions without being frightened?" said M'Leod.

"But have you any particular reason to believe—in short to—to think, there can be any real danger for my life?"

"No particular reason, my lord; but the general reasons I have mentioned, the symptoms among the common people lead me to apprehend there may be fresh risings of the people soon; and you, as a man of fortune and rank, must be in danger. Captain Hardcastle says that he has had informations of seditious meetings; but, he being a prejudiced man, I don't trust altogether to what he says."

"Trust altogether to what he says!" exclaimed I; "no, surely; for my part, I do not trust a word he says; and his giving it as his opinion that the people are ill-inclined would decide me to believe the exact contrary."

"It would hardly be safe to judge that way either," said M'Leod; "for that method of judging by contraries might make another's folly the master of one's own sense."

"I don't comprehend you now. Safe way of judging or not, Captain Hardcastle's opinion shall never lead mine. When I asked for your advice, Mr. M'Leod, it was because I have a respect for your understanding; but I cannot defer to Captain Hardcastle's. I am now decided in my own opinion, that the people in this neighbourhood are perfectly well-disposed; and as to this anonymous letter, it is a mere trick, depend upon it, my good sir. I am surprised that a man of your capacity should be the dupe of such a thing; I should not be surprised if Hardcastle himself, or some of his people, wrote it."

"I should," said M'Leod, coolly.

"You should!" cried I, warmly. "Why so? And why do you pronounce so decidedly, my good friend? Have not I the same means of judging as you have? unless, indeed, you have some private reason with which I am unacquainted. Perhaps," cried I, starting half up from the sofa on which I lay, charmed with a bright idea, which had just struck me, "perhaps, M'Leod, you wrote the letter yourself for a jest. Did you?"

"That's a question, my lord," said M'Leod, growing suddenly red, and snatching up his hat with a quicker motion than I ever saw from him before, "that's a question, my lord, which I must take leave not to answer; a question, give me leave to add, my Lord Glenthorn," continued he, speaking in a broader Scotch accent than I had ever heard from him before, "which I should knock my equal doon for putting to me. A M'Leod, my lord, in jest or in earnest, would scorn to write to any man breathing that letter to which he would not put his name; and more, a M'Leod would scorn to write or to say that thing, to which he ought not to put his name. Your humble servant, my Lord Glenthorn," said he, and, making a hasty bow, departed.

I called after him, and even followed him to the head of the stairs, to explain and apologize; but in vain: I never saw him angry before.

"It's very weel, my lord, it's very weel; if you say you meant nothing offensive, it's very weel; but if you think fit, my lord, we will sleep upon it before we talk any more. I am a wee bit warmer than I could wish, and your lordship has the advantage of me, in being cool. A M'Leod is apt to grow warm, when he's touched on the point of honour; and there's no wisdom in talking when a man's not his own master."

"My good friend," said I, seizing his hand as he was buttoning up his coat, "I like you the better for this warmth; but I won't let you sleep upon your wrath: you must shake hands with me before that hall-door is opened to you."

"Then so I do, for there's no standing against this frankness; and, to be as frank with you, my lord, I was wrong myself to be so testy—I ask pardon, too. A M'Leod never thought it a disgrace to crave a pardon when he was wrong."

We shook hands, and parted better friends than ever. I spoke the exact truth when I said that I liked him the better for his warmth: his anger wakened me, and gave me something to think of, and some emotion for a few minutes. Joe Kelly presently afterwards came, with the simplest face imaginable, to inquire what I had determined about the journey.

"To put it off till the day after to-morrow," said I. "Light me to bed."

He obeyed; but observed, that "it was not his fault now if there was puttings-off; for his share, every thing was ready, and he was willing and ready to follow me, at a moment's warning, to the world's end, as he had a good right to do, let alone inclination; for, parting me, he could never be right in himself: and though loth to part his country, he had rather part that nor[84] me."

Then, without dwelling upon these expressions of attachment, he changed to a merry mood, and by his drolleries diverted me all the time I was going to bed, and at last fairly talked me asleep.

CHAPTER XV.

When the first grey light of morning began to make objects indistinctly visible, I thought I saw the door of my apartment open very softly. I was broad awake, and kept my eyes fixed upon it—it opened by very slow degrees; my head was so full of visions, that I expected a ghost to enter—but it was only Ellinor.

"Ellinor!" cried I; "is it you at this time in the morning?"

"Hush! hush!" said she, shutting the door with great precaution, and then coming on tiptoe close to my bedside; "for the love of God, speak softly, and make no stir to awake them that's asleep near and too near you. It's unknown to all that I come up; for may be, when them people are awake and about, I might not get the opportunity to speak, or they might guess I knew something by my looks."

Her looks were full of terror—I was all amazement and expectation. Before she would say a word more, she searched the closets carefully, and looked behind the tapestry, as if she apprehended that she might be overheard: satisfied that we were alone, she went on speaking, but still in a voice that, with my utmost strained attention, I could but just hear.

"As you hope to live and breathe," said she, "never go again after night-fall any time walking in that lone place by the sea-shore. It's a mercy you escaped as you did; but if you go again you'll never come back alive—for never would they get you to do what they want, and to be as wicked as themselves the wicked villains!"

"Who?" said I. "What wicked villains? I do not understand you; are you in your right senses?"

"That I am, and wish you was as much in yours; but it's time yet, by the blessing of God! What wicked villains am I talking of? Of three hundred that have sworn to make you their captain, or, in case you refuse, to have your life this night. What villains am I talking of? Of him, the wickedest of all, who is now living in the very house with you, that is now lying in the very next room to you."

"Joe Kelly?"

"That same. From the first minute I saw him in the castle, I should have hated him, but for his causing you for to put off the journey to England. I never could abide him; but that blinded me, or I am sure I would have found him out long ago."

"And what have you found out concerning him?"

"That he is (speaking very low) a united-man, and stirring up the rubbles again here; and they have their meetings at night in the great cave, where the smugglers used to hide formerly, under the big rock, opposite the old abbey—and there's a way up into the abbey, that you used to be so fond of walking to, dear."

"Good Heavens! can this be true?"

"True it is, and too true, dear."

"But how did you find all this out, Ellinor?"

"It was none of I found it, nor ever could any such things have come into my head—but it pleased God to make the discovery of all by one of the childer—my own grandson—the boy you gave the gun to, long and long ago, to shoot them rabbits. He was after a hare yesterday, and it took him a chase over that mountain, and down it went and took shelter in the cave, and in went the boy after it, and as he was groping about, he lights on an old great coat; and he brought it home with him, and was showing it, as I was boiling the potatoes for their dinner yesterday, to his father forenent me; and turning the pockets inside out, what should come up but the broken head of a pipe; then he sarches in the other pocket, and finds a paper written all over—I could not read it—thank God, I never could read none of them wicked things, nor could the boy—by very great luck he could not, being no scholar, or it would be all over the country before this."

"Well, well! but what was in the paper after all? Did any body read it?"

"Ay, did they—that is, Christy read it—none but Christy—but he would not tell us what was in it—but said it was no matter, and he'd not be wasting his time reading an old song—so we thought no more, and he sent the boy up to the castle with a bill for smith's work, as soon as we had eat the potatoes, and I thought no more about any thing's being going wrong, no more than a child; and in the evening Christy said he must go to the funeral of a neighbour, and should not be home till early in the morning, may be; and it's not two hours since he came home and wakened me, and told me where he had been, which was not to the funeral at all, but to the cave where the coat was found; and he put the coat and the broken head of the pike, and the papers all in the pockets, just as we found it, in the cave—and the paper was a list of the names of them rubbles that met there, and a letter telling how they would make Lord Glenthorn their captain, or have his life; this was what made Christy to try and find out more—so he hid hisself in a hole in the side of the cave, and built hisself up with rubbish, only just leaving a place for hisself to breathe—and there he stayed till nightfall; and then on till midnight, God help us! so sure enough, them villains all come filling fast into the cave. He had good courage, God bless him for it—but he always had—and there he heard and saw all—and this was how they were talking:—First, one began by saying, how they must not be delaying longer to show themselves; they must make a rising in the country—then named the numbers in other parts that would join, and that they would not be put down so asy as afore, for they would have good leaders—then some praised you greatly, and said they was sure you favoured them in your heart, by all the ill-will you got in the county the time of the last 'ruction. But, again, others said you was milk and water, and did not go far enough, and never would, and that it was not in you, and that you was a sleepy man, and not the true thing at all, and neither beef nor vael. Again, thim that were for you spoke and said you would show yourself soon—and the others made reply, and observed you must now spake out, or never spake more; you must either head 'em, or be tramped under foot along with the rest, so it did not signify talking, and Joey Kelly should not be fribbling any more about it; and it was a wonder, said they, he was not the night at the meeting. And what was this about your being going off for England—what would they do when you was gone with M'Leod the Scotchman, to come in over them again agent, who was another guess sort of man from you, and never slept at all, and would scent 'em out, and have his corps after 'em, and that once M'Leod was master, there would be no making any head again his head; so, not to be tiring you too much with all they said, backward and forward, one that was a captain, or something that way, took the word, and bid 'em all hold their peace, for they did not know what they was talking on, and said that Joey Kelly and he had settled it all, and that the going to England was put off by Joe, and all a sham, and that when you would be walking out to-morrow at nightfall, in those lone places by the sea-side or the abbey, he and Joe was to seize upon you, and when you would be coming back near the abbey, to have you down through the trap-door into the cave, and any way they would swear you to join and head them, and if you would not, out with you, and shove you into the sea, and no more about it, for it would be give out you drown' yourself in a fit of the melancholy lunacy, which none would question, and it would be proved too you made away wid yourself, by your hat and gloves lying on the bank—Lord save us! What are you laughing at in that, when it is truth every word, and Joe Kelly was to find the body, after a great search. Well, again, say you would swear and join them, and head them, and do whatever they pleased, still that would not save you in the end; for they would quarrel with you at the first turn, because you would not be ruled by them as captain, and then they would shoot or pike you (God save the mark, dear), and give the castle to Joe Kelly, and the plunder all among 'em entirely. So it was all laid out, and they are all to meet in the cave to-morrow evening—they will go along bearing a funeral, seemingly to the abbey-ground. And now you know the whole truth, and the Lord preserve you! And what will be done? My poor head has no more power to think for you no more than an infant's, and I'm all in a tremble ever since I heard it, and afraid to meet any one lest they should see all in my face. Oh, what will become of yees now—they will be the death of you, whatever you do!"

By the time she came to these last words, Ellinor's fears had so much overpowered her, that she cried and sobbed continually, repeating—"What will be done now! What will be done! They'll surely be the death of you, whatever you do." As to me, the urgency of the danger wakened my faculties: I rose instantly, wrote a note to Mr. M'Leod, desiring to see him immediately on particular business. Lest my note should by any accident be intercepted or opened, I couched it in the most general and guarded terms; and added a request, that he would bring his last settlement of accounts with him; so that it was natural to suppose my business with him was of a pecuniary nature. I gradually quieted poor Ellinor by my own appearance of composure: I assured her, that we should take our measures so as to prevent all mischief—thanked her for the timely warning she had given me—advised her to go home before she was observed, and charged her not to speak to any one this day of what had happened. I desired that as soon as she should see Mr. M'Leod coming through the gate, she would send Christy after him to the castle, to get his bill paid; so that I might then, without exciting suspicion, talk to him in private, and we might learn from his own lips the particulars of what he saw and heard in the cavern.

Ellinor returned home, promising to obey me exactly, especially as to my injunction of secrecy—to make sure of herself she said "she would go to bed straight, and have the rheumatism very bad all day; so as not to be in a way to talk to none who would call in." The note to M'Leod was despatched by one of my grooms, and I, returning to bed, was now left at full leisure to finish my morning's nap.

Joe Kelly presented himself at the usual hour in my room; I turned my head away from him, and, in a sleepy tone, muttered that I had passed a bad night, and should breakfast in my own apartment.

Some time afterwards Mr. M'Leod arrived, with an air of sturdy pride, and produced his accounts, of which I suffered him to talk, till the servant who waited upon us had left the room; I then explained the real cause of my sending for him so suddenly. I was rather vexed, that I could not produce in him, by my wonderful narrative, any visible signs of agitation or astonishment. He calmly observed—"We are lucky to have so many hours of daylight before us. The first thing we have to do is to keep the old woman from talking."

I answered for Ellinor.

"Then the next thing is for me, who am a magistrate, to take the examinations of her son, and see if he will swear to the same that he says."

Christy was summoned into our presence, and he came with his bill for smith's work done; so that the servants could have no suspicion of what was going forward. His examinations were taken and sworn to in a few minutes: his evidence was so clear and direct, that there was no possibility of doubting the truth. The only variation between his story and his mother's report to me was as to the numbers he had seen in the cavern—her fears had turned thirteen into three hundred.

Christy assured us that there were but thirteen at this meeting, but that they said there were three hundred ready to join them.

"You were a very bold fellow, Christy," said I, "to hazard yourself in the cave with these villains; if you had been found out in your hiding-place, they would have certainly murdered you."

"True for me." said Christy; "but a man must die some way, please your honour; and where's the way I could die better? Sure, I could not but remember how good you was to me that time I was shot, and all you suffered for it! It would have been bad indeed if I would stay quiet, and let 'em murder you after all. No, no, Christy O'Donoghoe would not do that—any way. I hope, if there's to be any fighting, your honour would not wrong me so much as not to give me a blunderbush, and let me fight a bit along wid de rest for yees."

"We are not come to that yet, my good fellow," said Mr. M'Leod, who went on methodically; "if you are precipitate, you will spoil all. Go home to your forge, and work as usual, and leave the rest to us; and I promise that you shall have your share, if there is any fighting."

Very reluctantly Christy obeyed. Mr. M'Leod then deliberately settled our plan of operations. I had a fishing-lodge at a little distance, and a pleasure-boat there: to this place M'Leod was to go, as if on a fishing-party with his nephew, a young man, who often went there to fish. They were to carry with them some yeomen in coloured clothes, as their attendants, and more were to come as their guests to dinner. At the lodge there was a small four-pounder, which had been frequently used in times of public rejoicing; a naval victory, announced in the papers of the day, afforded a plausible pretence for bringing it out. We were aware that the rebels would be upon the watch, and therefore took every precaution to prevent their suspecting that we had made any discovery. Our fishing-party was to let the mock-funeral pass them quietly, to ask some trifling questions, and to give money for pipes and tobacco. Towards evening the boat, with the four-pounder on board, was to come under shore, and at a signal given by me was to station itself opposite to the mouth of the cave.

At the same signal a trusty man on the watch was to give notice to a party hid in the abbey, to secure the trap-door above. The signal was to be my presenting a pistol to the captain of the rebels, who intended to meet and seize me on my return from my evening's walk. Mr. M'Leod at first objected to my hazarding a meeting with this man; but I insisted upon it, and I was not sorry to give a public proof of my loyalty, and my personal courage. As to Joe Kelly, I also undertook to secure him.

Mr. M'Leod left me, and went to conduct his fishing-party. As soon as he was gone, I sent for Joe Kelly to play on the flute to me. I guarded my looks and voice as well as I could, and he did not see or suspect any thing—he was too full of his own schemes. To disguise his own plots he affected great gaiety; and to divert me, alternately played on the flute, and told me good stories all the morning. I would not let him leave me the whole day. Towards evening I began to talk of my journey to England, proposed setting out the next morning, and sent Kelly to look for some things in what was called the strong closet—a closet with a stout door and iron-barred windows, out of which no mortal could make his escape. Whilst he was busy searching in a drawer, I shut the door upon him, locked it, and put the key into my pocket. As I left the castle, I said in a jesting tone to some of the servants who met me—"I have locked Joe Kelly up in the strong room; if he calls to you to let him out never mind him; he will not get out till I come home from my walk—I owe him this trick." The servants thought it was some jest, and I passed on with my loaded pistols in my pocket. I walked for some time by the sea-shore, without seeing any one. At last I espied our fishing-boat, just peering out, and then keeping close to the shore. I was afraid that the party would be impatient at not seeing my signal, and would come out to the mouth of the cave, and show themselves too soon. If Mr. M'Leod had not been their commander, this, as I afterwards learned, would have infallibly happened; but he was so punctual, cool, and peremptory, that he restrained the rest of the party, declaring that, if it were till midnight, he would wait till the signal agreed upon was given. At last I saw a man creeping out of the cave—I sat down upon my wonted stone, and yawned as naturally as I could; then began to describe figures in the sand with my stick, as I was wont to do, still watching the image of the man in the water as he approached. He was muffled up in a frieze great coat; he sauntered past, and went on to a turn in the road, as if looking for some one. I knew well for whom he was looking. As no Joe Kelly came to meet him, he returned in a few minutes towards me. I had my hand upon the pistol in my pocket.

"You are my Lard Glenthorn, I presume," said he.

"I am."

"Then you will come with me, if you plase, my lard," said he.

"Make no resistance, or I will shoot you instantly," cried I, presenting my pistol with one hand, and seizing him by the collar with the other. I dragged him (for I had force enough, now my energy was roused) to the spot appointed for my signal. The boat appeared opposite the mouth of the cave. Every thing answered my expectation.

"There," said I, pointing to the boat, "there are my armed friends; they have a four-pounder—the match is ready lighted—your plot is discovered. Go in to your confederates in that cave; tell them so. The trap-door is secured above; there is no escape for them: bid them surrender: if they attempt to rush out, the grape shot will pour upon them, and they are dead men."

I cannot say that my rebel captain showed himself as stout as I could have wished, for the honour of my victory. The surprise disconcerted him totally: I felt him tremble under my grasp. He obeyed my orders—went into the cave to bring his associates to submission. His parley with them, however, was not immediately successful: I suppose there were some braver fellows than he amongst them, whose counsel might be for open war. In the mean time our yeomen landed, and surrounded the cave on all sides, so that there was no possibility of escape for those within. At last they yielded themselves our prisoners. I am sorry I have no bloody battle for the entertainment of such of my readers as like horrors; but so it was, that they yielded without a drop of blood being spilled, or a shot fired. We let them out of their hiding-place one by one, searching each as he issued forth, to be secure that they had no concealed weapons. After they had given up the arms which were concealed in the cave, the next question was, what to do with our prisoners. As it was now late, and they could not all be examined and committed with due legal form to the county gaol, Mr. M'Leod advised that we should detain them in the place they had chosen for themselves till morning. Accordingly, in the cave we again stowed them, and left a guard at each entrance to secure them for the night. We returned to the castle. I stopped at the gate to tell Ellinor and Christy that I was safe. They were sitting up watching for the news. The moment Ellinor saw me, she clasped her hands in an ecstasy of joy, but could not speak. Christy was voluble in his congratulations; but, in the midst of his rejoicing, he could not help reproaching me with forgetting to give him the blunderbush, and to let him have a bit of the fighting. "Upon my honour," said I, "there was none, or you should have been there."

"Oh, don't be plaguing and gathering round him now," said Ellinor: "sure he is tired, and look how hot—no wonder—let him get home and to bed: I'll run and warm it with the pan myself, and not be trusting them."

She would not be persuaded that I did not desire to have my bed warmed, but, by some short cut, got in before us. On entering the castle-hall, I found her, with the warming-pan in her hand, held back by the inquisitive servants, who were all questioning her about the news, of which she was the first, and not very intelligible enunciator.

I called for bread and water for my prisoner in the strong-room, and then I heard various exclamations of wonder.

"Ay, it is all true! it is no jest! Joe is at the bottom of all. I never liked Joe Kelly—I always knew Joe was not the right thing—and I always said so; and I, and I, and I. And it was but last week I was saying so: and it was but yesterday I said so and so."

I passed through the gossiping crowd with bread and water for my culprit. McLeod instantly saw and followed me.

"I will make bold to come with you," said he; "a pent rat's a dangerous animal."—I thanked him, and acquiesced; but there was no need for the precaution. When we opened the door, we found the conscience or terror-struck wretch upon his knees, and in the most abject terms he implored for mercy. From the windows of the room, which looked into the castle-yard, he had heard enough to guess all that had happened. I could not bear to look at him. After I had set down his food, he clung to my knees, crying and whining in a most unmanly manner. McLeod, with indignation, loosened him from me, threw him back, and locked the door.

"Cowardice and treachery," said he, "usually go together."

"And courage and sincerity," said I. "And now we'll go to supper, my good friends. I hope you are all as hungry as I am."

I never did eat any meal with so much appetite.

"Tis a pity, my lord," said McLeod, "but that there was a conspiracy against you every day of your life, it seems to do you so much good."

CHAPTER XVI.

"What new wonders? What new misfortunes, Ellinor?" said I, as Ellinor, with a face of consternation, appeared again in the morning in my room, just as I was going down to breakfast: "what new misfortunes, Ellinor?"

"Oh! the worst that could befall me!" cried she, wringing her hands; "the worst, the very worst!—to be the death of my own child!" said she, with inexpressible horror. "Oh! save him! save him! for the love of heaven, dear, save him! If you don't save him, 'tis I shall be his death."

She was in such agony, that she could not explain herself farther for some minutes.

"It was I gave the information against them all to you. But how could I ever have thought Owen was one of them? My son, my own son, the unfortunate cratur; I never thought but what he was with the militia far away. And how could it ever come into my head that Owen could have any hand in a thing of the kind?"

"But I did not see him last night," interrupted I.

"Oh! he was there! One of his own friends, one of the military that went with you, saw him among the prisoners, and came just now to tell me of it. That Owen should be guilty of the like!—Oh! what could have come over him! He must have been out of his rason. And against you to be plotting! That's what I never will believe, if even I'd hear it from himself. But he's among them that were taken last night. And will I live to see him go to gaol?—and will I live to see—No, I'd rather die first, a thousand and a thousand times over. Oh! for mercy's sake!" said she, dropping on her knees at my feet, "have pity on me, and don't let the blood of my own child be upon me in my old days."

"What would you have me do, Ellinor?" said I, much moved by her distress.

"There is but one thing to do," said she. "Let him off: sure a word from you would be enough for the soldiers that are over them on guard. And Mr. McLeod has not yet seen him; and if he was just let escape, there would be no more about it; and I'd I engage he shall fly the country, the unfortunate cratur! and never trouble you more. This is all I ask: and sure, dear, you can't refuse it to your own Ellinor; your old nurse, that carried ye in her arms, and fed ye with her milk, and watched over ye many's the long night, and loved ye; ay, none ever loved, or could love ye so well."

"I am sensible of it; I am grateful," interrupted I; "but what you ask of me, Ellinor, is impossible—I cannot let him escape; but I will do my utmost."

"Troth, nothing will save him, if you would not say the word for him now. Ah! why cannot you let him off, then?"

"I should lose my honour; I should lose my character. You know that I have been accused of favouring the rebels already—you saw the consequences of my protecting your other son, though he was innocent and injured, and bore an excellent character."

"Christy; ay, true: but poor Owen, unlucky as he is, and misguided, has a better claim upon you."

"How can that be? Is not the other my foster-brother, in the first place?"

"True for him."

"And had not I proofs of his generous conduct and attachment to me?"

"Owen is naturally fonder of you by a great deal," interrupted she;
"I'll answer for that."

"What! when he has just been detected in conspiring against my life?"

"That's what I'll never believe," cried Ellinor, vehemently: "that he might be drawn in, may be, when out of his rason—he was always a wild boy—to be a united-man, and to hope to get you for his captain, might be the case, and bad enough that; but, jewel, you'll find he did never conspire against you: I'd lay down my life upon that."

She threw herself again at my feet, and clung to my knees.

"As you hope for mercy yourself in this world, or the world to come, show some now, and do not be so hard-hearted as to be the death of both mother and son."

Her supplicating looks and gestures, her words, her tears, moved me so much, that I was on the point of yielding; but recollecting what was due to justice and to my own character, with an effort of what I thought virtuous resolution, I repeated, "It is impossible: my good Ellinor, urge me no farther: ask any thing else, and it shall be granted, but this is impossible."

As I spoke, I endeavoured to raise her from the ground; but with the sudden force of angry despair, she resisted.

"No, you shall not raise me," cried she. "Here let me lie, and break my heart with your cruelty! 'Tis a judgment upon me—it's a judgment, and it's fit I should feel it as I do. But you shall feel too, in spite of your hard heart. Yes, your heart is harder than the marble: you want the natural touch, you do; for your mother has knelt at your feet, and you have denied her prayer."

"My mother!"

"And what was her prayer?—to save the life of your brother."

"My brother! Good heavens! what do I hear?"

"You hear the truth: you hear that I am your lawful mother. Yes, you are my son. You have forced that secret from me, which I thought to have carried with me to my grave. And now you know all: and now you know how wicked I have been, and it was all for you; for you that refused me the only thing ever I asked, and that, too, in my greatest distress, when my heart was just breaking: and all this time too, there's Christy—poor good Christy; he that I've wronged, and robbed of his rightful inheritance, has been as a son, a dutiful good son to me, and never did he deny me any thing I could ask; but in you I have found no touch of tenderness. Then it's fit I should tell you again, and again, and again, that he who is now slaving at the forge, to give me the earnings of his labour; he that lives, and has lived all his days, upon potatoes and salt, and is content; he who has the face and the hands so disguised with the smoke and the black, that yourself asked him t'other day did he ever wash his face since he was born—I tell ye, he it is who should live in this castle, and sleep on that soft bed, and be lord of all here—he is the true and real Lord Glenthorn, and to the wide world I'll make it known. Ay, be pale and tremble, do; it's your turn now: I've touched you now: but it's too late. In the face of day I shall confess the wrong I've done; and I shall call upon you to give back to him all that by right is his own."

Ellinor stopped short, for one of my servants at this instant came into the room.

"My lord, Mr. McLeod desires me to let you know the guard has brought up the prisoners, and he is going to commit them to gaol, and would be glad to know if you choose to see them first, my lord."

Stupified by all I had just heard, I could only reply, that I would come presently. Ellinor rushed past the servant,—"Are they come?" cried she. "Where will I get a sight of them?" I stayed for a few minutes alone, to decide upon what I ought to say and do. A multitude of ideas, more than had ever come in my mind in a twelvemonth, passed through it in these few minutes.

As I was slowly descending the great staircase, Ellinor came running, as fast as she could run, to the foot of the stairs, exclaiming, "It's a mistake! it's all a mistake, and I was a fool to believe them that brought me the word. Sure Ody's not there at all! nor ever was in it. I've seen them all, face to face; and my son's not one of them, nor ever was: and I was a fool from beginning to end—and I beg your pardon entirely," whispered she, coming close to my ear: "I was out of my reason at the thought of that boy's being to suffer, and I, his mother, the cause of it. Forgive all I said in my passion, my own best jewel: you was always good and tender to me, and be the same still, dear. I'll never say a word more about it to any one living: the secret shall die with me. Sure, when my conscience has borne it so long, it may strive and bear it a little longer for your sake: and it can't be long I have to live, so that will make all easy. Hark! they are asking for you. Do you go your ways into the great parlour, to Mr. McLeod, and think no more of any thing at all but joy. My son's not one of them! I must go to the forge, and tell Christy the good news."

Ellinor departed, quite satisfied with herself, with me, and with all the world. She took it for granted that she left me in the same state of mind, and that I should obey her injunctions, and think of nothing but joy. Of what happened in the great parlour, and of the examinations of the prisoners, I have but a confused recollection. I remember that Mr. McLeod seemed rather surprised by my indifference to what concerned me so nearly; and that he was obliged to do all the business himself. The men were, I believe, all committed to gaol, and Joe Kelly turned king's evidence; but as to any further particulars, I know no more than if I had been in a dream. The discovery which Ellinor had just made to me engrossed all my powers of attention.

CHAPTER XVII.

"Le vrai n'est pas toujours vraisemblable," says an acute observer of human affairs. The romance of real life certainly goes beyond all other romances; and there are facts which few writers would dare to put into a book, as there are skies which few painters would venture to put into a picture.

When I had leisure to reflect, I considered, that as yet I had no proof of the truth of Ellinor's strange story, except her own assertions. I sent for her again, to examine her more particularly. I was aware that, if I alarmed her, I should so confuse her imagination, that I should never obtain the truth; therefore I composed myself, and assumed my usual external appearance of nonchalance. I received her lolling upon my sofa, as usual, and I questioned her merely as if to gratify an idle curiosity.

"Troth, dear," said she, "I'll tell you the whole story how it was, to make your mind asy, which, God knows, mine never was, from that minute it first came into my head, till this very time being. You mind the time you got the cut in your head—no, not you, jewel; but the little lord that was then, Christy there below that is.—Well, the cut was a terrible cut as ever you seen, got by a fall on the fender from the nurse's arms, that was drunk, three days after he was born."

"I remember to have heard my father talk of some accident of this sort, which happened to me when I was an infant."

"Ay, sure enough it did, and that was what first put him in the notion of taking the little lord out of the hands of the Dublin nurse-tenders, and them that were about my Lady Glenthom, and did not know how to manage her, which was the cause of her death: and he said he'd have his own way about his son and heir any way, and have him nursed by a wholesome woman in a cabin, and brought up hardy, as he, and the old lord, and all the family, were before him. So with that he sends for me, and he puts the young lord, God bless him, into my arms himself, and a donny thing he was that same time to look at, for he was but just out of the surgeon's hands, the head just healed and scarred over like; and my lord said there should be no more doctors never about him. So I took him, that is, Christy, and you, to a house at the sea, for the salt water, and showed him every justice; and my lord often came to see him whilst he was in the country; but then he was off, after a time, to Dublin, and I was in a lone place, where nobody came, and the child was very sick with me, and you was all the time as fine and thriving a child as ever you see; and I thought, to be sure, one night, that he would die wid me. He was very bad, very bad indeed; and I was sitting up in bed, rocking him backwards and forwards this ways: I thought with myself, what a pity it was, the young lord should die, and he an only son and heir, and the estate to go out of the family the Lord knows where; and then the grief the father would be in: and then I thought how happy he would be if he had such a fine babby as you, dear; and you was a fine babby to be sure: and then I thought how happy it would be for you, if you was in the place of the little lord: and then it came into my head, just like a shot, where would be the harm to change you? for I thought the real lord would surely die; and then, what a gain it would be to all, if it was never known, and if the dead child was carried to the grave, since it must go, as only poor Ellinor O'Donoghoe's, and no more about it. Well, if it was a wicked thought, it was the devil himself put it in my head, to be sure; for, only for him, I should never have had the sense to think of such a thing, for I was always innocent like, and not worldly given. But so it was, the devil put it in my head, and made me do it, and showed me how, and all in a minute. So, I mind, your eyes and hair were both of the very same colour, dear; and as to the rest, there's no telling how those young things alter in a few months, and my lord would not be down from Dublin in a hurry, so I settled it all right; and as there was no likelihood at all the real lord would live, that quieted my conscience; for I argued, it was better the father should have any sort of child at all than none. So, when my lord came down, I carried him the child to see, that is you, jewel. He praised me greatly for all the care I had taken of his boy; and said, how finely you was come on! and I never see a father in greater joy; and it would have been a sin, I thought, to tell him the truth, after he took the change that was put upon him so well, and it made him so happy like. Well, I was afeard of my life he'd pull off the cap to search for the scar, so I would not let your head be touched any way, dear, saying it was tinder and soft still with the fall, and you'd cry if the cap was stirred; and so I made it out indeed, very well; for, God forgive me, I twitched the string under your chin, dear, and made you cry like mad, when they would come to touch you. So there was no more about it, and I had you home to myself, and, all in good time, the hair grew, and fine thick hair it was, God bless you; and so there was no more about it, and I got into no trouble at all, for it all fell out just as I had laid it out, except that the real little young lord did not die as I thought; and it was a wonder but he did, for you never saw none so near death, and backwards and forwards, what turns of sickness he took with me for months upon months, and year after year, so that none could think, no more than me, there was any likelihood at all of rearing him to man's estate. So that kept me easier in my mind concerning what I'd done; for as I kept saying to myself, better the family should have an heir to the estate, suppose not the right, than none at all; and if the father, nor nobody, never found it out, there was he and all the family made happy for life, and my child made a lord of, and none the wiser or the worse. Well, so I down-argued my conscience; and any way I took to little Christy, as he was now to be called—and I loved him, all as one as if he was my own—not that he was ever as well-looking as Ody, or any of the childer I had, but I never made any differ betwixt him and any of my own—he can't say as I did, any how, and he has no reason to complain of my being an unnat'ral mother to him, and being my foster-child I had a right to love him as I did, and I never wronged him in any way, except in the one article of changing him at nurse, which he being an infant, and never knowing, wa" never a bit the worse for, nor never will, now. So all's right^ dear, and make your mind asy, jewel; there's the whole truth of the story, for you."

"But it is a very strange story, Ellinor, after all, and—and I have only your word for it, and may be you are only taking advantage of my regard for you to make me believe you."

"What is it, plase your honour?" said she, stepping forward, as if she did not hear or understand me.

"I say, Ellinor, that after all I have no proof of the truth of this story, except your word."

"And is not that enough? and where's the use of having more? but if it will make you asy, sure I can give you proof—sure need you go farther than the scar on his head? If he was shaved to-morrow, I'd engage you'd see it fast enough. But sure, can't you put your hand up to your head this minute, and feel there never was no scar there, nor if all the hair you have, God save the mark, was shaved this minute, never a bit of a scar would be to be seen: but proof is it you want?—why, there's the surgeon that dressed the cut in the child's head, before he ever came to me; sure he's the man that can't forget it, and that will tell all: so to make your mind asy, see him, dear; but for your life don't let him see your head to feel it, for he'd miss the scar, and might suspect something by your going to question him."

"Where does he live?" interrupted I.

"Not above twelve miles off."

"Is he alive?"

"Ay, if he been't dead since Candlemas."

At first I thought of writing to this man; but afterwards, being afraid of committing myself by writing, I went to him: he had long before this time left off business, and had retired to enjoy his fortune in the decline of life. He was a whimsical sort of character; he had some remains of his former taste for anatomy, and was a collector of curiosities. I found him just returned from a lake which he had been dragging for a moose-deer's horns, to complete the skeleton of a moose-deer, which he had mounted in his hall. I introduced myself, desiring to see his museum, and mentioned to him the thigh-bone of a giant found in ray neighbourhood; then by favour of this bone I introduced the able cure that he had made of a cut in my head, when I was a child.

"A cut in your head, sir? Yes, my lord, I recollect perfectly well, it was a very ugly cut, especially in an infant's head; but I am glad to find you feel no bad effects from it. Have you any cicatrice on the place?—Eleven feet high, did you say? and is the giant's skeleton in your neighbourhood?"

I humoured his fancy, and by degrees he gave me all the information I wanted without in the least suspecting my secret motives. He described the length, breadth, and depth, of the wound to me; showed me just where it was on the head, and observed that it must have left an indelible mark, but that my fine hair covered it. When he seemed disposed to search for it, I defended myself with the giant's thigh-bone, and warded off his attacks most successfully. To satisfy myself upon this point, I affected to think that he had not been paid: he said he had been amply paid, and he showed me his books to prove it. I examined the dates, and found that they agreed with Ellinor's precisely. On my return home, the first thing I did was to make Christy a present of a new wig, which I was certain would induce him to shave his head; for the lower Irish agree with the beaux and belles of London and Paris, in preferring wigs to their own hair. Ellinor told me, that I might safely let his head be shaved, because to her certain knowledge, he had scars of so many cuts which he had received at fairs upon his skull, that there would appear nothing particular in one more or less. As soon as the head was shaved, and the wig was worn, I took an opportunity one day of stopping at the forge to have one of my horse's shoes changed; and whilst this was doing, I took notice of his new wig, and how well it fitted him. As I expected, he took it off to show it me better, and to pay his own compliments to it.

"Sure enough, you are a very fine wig," said he, apostrophising it as he held it up on the end of his hammer; "and God bless him that give it me, and it fits me as if it was nailed to my head."

"You seem to have had a good many nails in your head already, Christy," said I, "if one may judge by all these scars."

"Oh yes, please your honour, my lord," said he, "there's no harm in them neither; they are scratches got when I was no wiser than I should be, at fairs, fighting with the boys of Shrawd-na-scoob."

Whilst he fought his battles o'er again, I had leisure to study his head; and I traced precisely all the boundary lines. The situation, size, and figure of the cicatrice, which the surgeon and Ellinor had described to me, were so visible and exact, that no doubt could remain in my mind of Christy's being the real son of the late Lord and Lady Glenthorn. This conviction was still more impressed upon my mind a few days afterwards. I recollected having seen a file of family pictures in a lumber-room in the castle; and I rummaged them out to see if I could discover amongst them any likeness to Christy: I found one; the picture of my grandfather,—I should say, of his grandfather, to which Christy bore a striking resemblance, when I saw him with his face washed, and in his Sunday clothes.

My mind being now perfectly satisfied of the truth of Ellinor's story, I was next to consider how I ought to act. To be or not to be Lord Glenthorn, or, in other words, to be or not to be a villain, was now the question. I could not dissemble to my conscience this plain state of the case, that I had no right to keep possession of that which I knew to be another's lawful property; yet, educated as I had been, and accustomed to the long enjoyment of those luxuries, which become necessaries to the wealthy; habituated to attendance as I had been; and, even amongst the dissipated and idle, notorious for extravagance the most unbounded and indolence the most inveterate; how was I at once to change my habits, to abdicate my rank and power, to encounter the evils of poverty? I was not compelled to make such sacrifices; for though Ellinor's transient passion had prompted her to threaten me with a public discovery, yet I knew that she would as soon cut off her own right hand as execute her threats. Her affection for me, and her pride in my consequence, were so strong, that I knew I might securely rely upon her secrecy. The horrid idea of being the cause of the death of one of her own children had for a moment sufficient power to balance her love for me; yet there was but little probability that any similar trial should occur, nor had I reason to apprehend that the reproaches of her conscience should induce her to make a voluntary discovery; for all her ideas of virtue depended on the principle of fidelity to the objects of her affection, and no scrupulous notions of justice disturbed her understanding or alarmed her self-complacency. Conscious that she would willingly sacrifice all she had in the world for any body she loved, and scarcely comprehending that any one could be selfish, she, in a confused way, applied the maxim of "Do as you would be done by," and was as generous of the property of others as of her own. At the worst, if a law-suit commenced against me, I knew that possession was nine points of the law. I also knew that Ellinor's health was declining, and that the secret would die with her. Unlawful possession of the wealth I enjoyed could not, however, satisfy my own mind; and, after a severe conflict between my love of ease and my sense of right—between my tastes and my principles—I determined to act honestly and honourably, and to relinquish what I could no longer maintain without committing injustice, and feeling remorse. I was, perhaps, the more ready to do rightly because I felt that I was not compelled to it. The moment when I made this virtuous decision was the happiest I had at that time ever felt: my mind seemed suddenly relieved from an oppressive weight; my whole frame glowed with new life; and the consciousness of courageous integrity elevated me so much in my own opinion, that titles, and rank, and fortune, appeared as nothing in my estimation. I rang my bell eagerly, and ordered that Christy O'Donoghoe should be immediately sent for. The servant went instantly; but it seemed to me an immoderately long time before Christy arrived. I walked up and down the room impatiently, and at last threw myself at full length upon the sofa: the servant returned.

"The smith is below in the hall, my lord."

"Show him up."—He was shown up into the ante-chamber.

"The smith is at the door, my lord."

"Show him in, cannot you? What detains him?"

"My brogues, my lord! I'd be afraid to come in with 'em on the carpet." Saying this, Christy came in, stepping fearfully, astonished to find himself in a splendid drawing-room.

"Were you never in this room before, Christy?" said I.

"Never, my lord, plase your honour, barring the day I mended the bolt."

"It is a fine room, is not it, Christy?"

"Troth, it is the finest ever I see, sure enough."

"How should you like to have such a room of your own, Christy?"

"Is it I, plase your honour?" replied he, laughing; "what should I do with the like?"

"How should you feel if you were master of this great castle?"

"It's a poor figure I should make, to be sure," said he, turning his head over his shoulder towards the door, and resting upon the lock: "I'd rather be at the forge by a great dale."

"Are you sure of that, Christy? Should not you like to be able to live without working any more, and to have horses and servants of your own?"

"What would I do with them, plase your honour, I that have never been used to them? sure they'd all laugh at me, and I'd not be the better o' that, no more than of having nothing to do; I that have been always used to the work, what should I do all the day without it? But sure, my lord," continued he, changing his voice to a more serious tone, "the horse that I shod yesterday for your honour did not go lame, did he?"

"The horse is very well shod, I believe; I have not ridden him since: I know nothing of the matter."

"Because I was thinking, may be, it was that made your honour send for me up in the hurry—I was afeard I'd find your honour mad with me; and I'd be very sorry to disoblige you, my lord; and I'm glad to see your honour looking so well after all the trouble you've been put to by them rubbles, the villains, to be consarting against you under-ground. But, thanks be to God, you have 'em all in gaol now. I thought my mother would have died of the fright she took, when the report came that Ody was one of them. I told her there could not be no truth in it at all, but she would not mind me: it would be a strange unnatural thing, indeed, of any belonging to her to be plotting against your honour. I knew Ody could not be in it, and be a brother of mine; and that's what I kept saying all the time but she never heeded me: for, your honour knows, when the women are frighted, and have taken a thing into their heads, you can't asy get it out again."

"Very true: but to return to what I was saying, should not you like to change places with me, if you could?"

"Your honour, my lord, is a very happy jantleman, and a very good jantleman, there's no doubt, and there's few but would be proud to be like you in any thing at all."

"Thank you for that compliment. But now, in plain English, as to yourself, would you like to be in my place—to change places with me?"

"In your honour's place—I! I would not, my lord; and that's the truth, now," said he, decidedly. "I would not: no offence—your honour bid me to speak the truth; for I've all I want in the world, a good mother, and a good wife, and good childer, and a reasonable good little cabin, and my little pratees, and the grazing of the cow, and work enough always, and not called on to slave, and I get my health, thank God for all; and what more could I have if I should be made a lord to-morrow? Sure, my good woman would never make a lady; and what should I do with her? I'd be grieved to see her the laughing-stock of high and low, besides being the same myself, and my boy after me. That would never answer for me; so I am not like them that would overturn all to get uppermost; I never had any hand, art, or part, in a thing of the kind; I always thought and knew I was best as I am; not but what, if I was to change with any, it is with you, my lord, I would be proud to change; because if I was to be a jantleman at all, I'd wish to be of a ra-al good ould family born."

"You are then what you wish to be?" said I.

"Och!" said he, laughing and scratching his head, "your honour's jesting me about them kings of Ireland, that they say the O'Donoghoes was once: but that's what I never think on, that's all idle talk for the like of me, for sure that's a long time ago, and what use going back to it? One might as well be going back to Adam, that was the father of all, but which makes no differ now."

"But you do not understand me," interrupted I; "I am not going back to the kings of Ireland: I mean to tell you, that you were born a gentleman—nay, I am perfectly serious; listen to me."

"I do, plase your honour, though it is mocking me, I know you are; I would be sorry not to take a joke as well as another."

"This is no joke; I repeat that I am serious. You are not only a gentleman, but a nobleman: to you this castle and this great estate belongs, and to you they shall be surrendered."

He stood astonished; and, his eyes opening wide, showed a great circle of white in his black face.

"Eh!" cried he, drawing that long breath, which astonishment had suppressed. "But how can this be?"

"Your mother can explain better than I can: your mother, did I say? she is not your mother; Lady Glenthorn was your mother."

"I can't understand it at all—I can't understand it at all. I'll lave it all to your honour," said he, making a motion with his hands, as if to throw from him the trouble of comprehending it.

"Did you never hear of such a thing as a child's being changed at nurse?"

"I did, plase your honour; but my mother would never do the like, I'll answer for her, any way; and them that said any thing of the kind, belied her; and don't be believing them, my lord."

"But Ellinor was the person who told me this secret."

"Was she so? Oh, she must have been draaming; she was always too good a mother to me to have sarved me so. But," added he, struggling to clear his intellects, "you say it's not my mother she is; but whose mother is she then? Can it be that she is yours? 'tis not possible to think such a great lord was the son of such as her, to look at you both: and was you the son of my father Johnny O'Donoghoe? How is that again?"

He rubbed his forehead; and I could scarcely forbear laughing at his odd perplexity, though the subject was of such serious importance. When he clearly understood the case, and thoroughly believed the truth, he did not seem elated by this sudden change of fortune; he really thought more of me than of himself.

"Well, I'll tell you what you will do then," continued he, after a pause of deep reflection; "say nothing to nobody, but just keep asy on, even as we are. Don't let there be any surrendering at all, and I'll speak to my mother, that is, Ellinor O'Donoghoe, and settle it so; and let it be so settled, in the name of God, and no more about it: and none need never be the wiser; 'tis so best for all. A good day to your honour, and I'll go shoe the mare."

"Stay," said I; "you may hereafter repent of this sudden determination. I insist upon your taking four-and-twenty hours—no, that would be too little—take a month to consider of it coolly, and then let me know your final determination."

"Oh! plase your honour, I will say the same then as now. It would be a poor thing indeed of me, after all you done for me and mine, to be putting you to more trouble. It would be a poor thing of me to forget how you liked to have lost your life all along with me at the time of the 'ruction. No, I'll not take the fortin from you, any how."

"Put gratitude to me out of the question," said I. "Far be it from me to take advantage of your affectionate temper. I do not consider you as under any obligations to me; nor will I be paid for doing justice."

"Sure enough, your honour desarved to be born a gentleman," said
Christy.

"At least I have been bred a gentleman," said I. "Let me see you again this day month, and not till then."

"You shall not—that is, you shall, plase your honour: but for fear any one would suspect any thing, I'd best go shoe the mare, any way."