"What riches give us, let us then inquire—
Meat fire, and clothes—What more?—Meat, clothes, and fire."
The philosophy we learn from books makes but a faint impression upon the mind, in comparison with that which we are taught by our own experience; and we sometimes feel surprised to find that what we have been taught as maxims of morality prove true in real life. After having had, for many years, the fullest opportunities of judging of the value of riches, when I reflected upon my past life, I perceived that their power of conferring happiness is limited, nearly as the philosophic poet describes; that all the changes and modifications of luxury must, in the sum of actual physical enjoyment, be reduced to a few elementary pleasures, of which the industrious poor can obtain their share: a small share, perhaps; but then it is enjoyed with a zest that makes it equal in value perhaps to the largest portion offered to the sated palate of ennui. These truths are as old as the world; but they appeared quite new to me, when I discovered them by my own experience.
During the month which I had allowed to my foster-brother for reflection, I had leisure to philosophize, and my understanding made a rapid progress. I foresaw the probability of Christy's deciding to become Earl of Glenthorn; notwithstanding that his good sense had so clearly demonstrated to him in theory, that, with his education and habits, he must be happier working in his forge than he could be as lord of Glenthorn Castle. I was not dismayed by the idea of losing my wealth and rank; I was pleased with myself for my honest conduct, and conscious of a degree of pleasure from my own approbation, superior to what my riches had ever procured.
The day appointed for Christy's final determination arrived. I knew by the first motion of his shoulder as he came into the room, what his decision would be.
"Well, Christy," said I, "you will be Earl of Glenthorn, I perceive. You are glad now that I did not take you at your word, and that I gave you a month's time for consideration."
"Your honour was always considerate; but if I'd wish now to be changing my mind," said he, hesitating, and shifting from leg to leg, "it is not upon my own account, any way, but upon my son Johnny's."
"My good friend," said I, "no apology is necessary. I should be very unjust if I were offended by your decision, and very mean if, after the declarations I have made, I could, for an instant, hesitate to restore to you that property which it is your right and your choice to reclaim."
Christy made a low bow, and seemed much at a loss what he was to say next.
"I hope," continued I, "that you will be as happy when you are Earl of
Glenthorn, as you have been as Christy O'Donoghoe."
"May be not, plase your honour; but I trust my childer will be happy after me; and it's them and my wife I'm thinking of, as in duty bound. But it is hard your honour should be astray for want of the fortin you've been bred to; and this weighs with me greatly on the other side. If your honour could live on here, and share with us—But I see your honour's displeased at my naming that. It was my wife thought o' that; I knew it could not do. But then, what I think is, that your honour should name what you would be pleased to keep to live upon: for, to be sure, you have a right to live as a gentleman, that have always lived as one, as every body knows, and none better than I. Would your honour be so kind, then, as just to put down on a bit of paper what you'd wish to keep; and that same, whatever it is, none shall touch but yourself; and I would not own a child for mine that would begrudge it you. I'll step down and wait below while your honour writes what you plase."
The generosity of this man touched me to the heart. I accepted from him three hundred a year; and requested that the annuity I allowed to the unfortunate Lady Glenthorn might be continued; that the house which I had built for Ellinor, and the land belonging to it, might be secured to her rent-free for life; and that all my debts should be paid. I recommended Mr. M'Leod in the strongest manner, as an agent whose abilities and integrity would be to him an invaluable treasure.
Christy, when I gave him the paper on which I had stated these requests, took a pen instantly, and would have signed his name without reading it; but to this I absolutely objected.
"Well, then," said he, "I'll take it home, and read it over, and take time, as you desire, to consider. There's no danger of my changing my mind about this: I hope your honour can't think there is."
The next day, on returning it to me, he observed, that it was making very little of him to put down only such a trifle; and he pressed me to make the hundreds thousands:—this I refused.
"But I hope your honour won't object to what I am going to propose. Is not there a house in London? and is not there another in England, in the country? and, sure, I and mine can't live there and here and every where at once: if you'd just condescend to occupy one of them, you'd do me a great pleasure, and a great sarvice too; for every thing would be right, instead of going wrong, as it might under an agent, and me at a distance, that does not know well how to manage such great estates. I hope you'll not refuse me that, if it's only to show me I don't lose your honour's good-will."
The offer was made with so much earnestness, and even delicacy, that I could not abruptly refuse it at the moment, though one of these magnificent houses could be of no use tome with an income of 300_l_. per annum.
"As to the annuity," continued Christy, "that shall be paid as punctual as the day: Mr. M'Leod will pay it; and he shall have it all settled right, and put upon a stamp, by the lawyers, in case any thing should happen me. Then, as to Ellinor, sure, she is my mother, for I never can think of her any other way; and, except in that single article of changing me at nurse, was always the best of mothers to me. And even that same trick she played me, though very wicked, to be sure, was very nat'ral—ay, very nat'ral—to prefar her own flesh and blood if she could: and no one could be more sorry for the wrong she did me than she is now: there she is crying at home, ready to break her heart: but as I tell her, there's no use in repenting a thing when once it is done; and as I forgive her, none can ever bring it up against her: and as to the house and farm, she shall surely have that, and shall never want for any thing. So I hope your honour's mind will be asy on that matter; and whatever else you recollect to wish, that shall be done, if in my power."
It is with pleasure that I recollect and record all these instances of goodness of heart in poor Christy, which, notwithstanding the odd mixture of absurdity and sense in his language and ideas, will, I make no doubt, please my readers, though they cannot affect them as much as they affected me. I now prepared for my departure from Glenthorn Castle, never more to return. To spare me from unnecessary mortification, Christy had the wonderful self-command to keep the secret faithfully, so that none of the people in the neighbourhood, nor even my servants, had the slightest idea of the truth. Having long talked of returning to England, the preparations for my journey excited no surprise. Every thing went on as usual, except that Christy, instead of being at the forge, was almost every day at the whiskey-shop.
I thought it proper to speak openly of my affairs to Mr. M'Leod: he was the only person who could make out a correct list of my debts. Besides, I wished to recommend him as agent to the future earl, to whom an honest and able agent would be peculiarly necessary, ignorant, as he was, both of the world and of business; and surrounded, as he must probably be, on his accession to his estate, by a herd of vulgar and designing flatterers.
Albeit not easily moved to surprise, Mr. M'Leod really did, for an instant, look astonished, when I informed him that Christy O'Donoghoe was Earl of Glenthorn. But I must resolve not to stop to describe the astonishment that each individual showed upon this occasion, else I shall never have finished my story.
It was settled that Mr. M'Leod should continue agent; and, for his credit, I must observe that, after he was made acquainted with my loss of rank and fortune, he treated me with infinitely more respect and regard than he had ever shown me whilst he considered me only as his employer. Our accounts were soon settled; and when this was done, and they were all regularly signed, Mr. M'Leod came up to me, and, in a low voice of great emotion, said, "I am not a man of professions; but when I say I am a man's friend, I hope I shall ever be found to be so, as far as can be in my power: and I cannot but esteem and admire the man who has acted so nobly as you have done."
M'Leod wrung my hand as he spoke, and the tears stood in his eyes. I knew that the feeling must indeed be strong, which could extort from him even these few words of praise, and this simple profession of regard; but I did not know, till long afterwards, the full warmth of his affections and energy of his friendship. The very next day, unfortunately for me, he was obliged to go to Scotland, to his mother, who was dying: and at this time I saw no more of him.
In due legal form I now made a surrender of all claim upon the hereditary property of the Earl of Glenthorn, and every thing was in readiness for my journey. During this time poor Ellinor never appeared at the castle. I went to see her, to comfort her about my going away; but she was silent, and seemingly sullen, and would not be comforted.
"I've enough to grieve me," said she: "I know what will be the end of all; I see it as plain as if you'd told me. There's no hiding nothing from a mother: no, there's no use in striving to comfort me." Every method which I tried to console her seemed to grieve her more.
The day before that which was fixed for my departure, I sent to desire to see her. This request I had repeatedly made; but she had, from day to day, excused herself, saying that she was unwell, and that she would be up on the morrow. At last she came; and though but a few days had elapsed since I had seen her, she was so changed in her appearance, that I was shocked the moment I beheld her countenance.
"You don't look well, Ellinor," said I: "sit down."
"No matter whether I sit or stand," said she, calmly; "I'm not long for this world: I won't live long after you are gone, that's one comfort."
Her eyes were fixed and tearless; and there was a dead unnatural tranquillity in her manner.
"They are making a wonderful great noise nailing up the boxes, and I seen them cording the trunks as I came through the hall. I asked them, could I be of any use: but they said I could be of none, and that's true; for, when I put my hand to the cord, to pull it, I had no more strength than an infant. It was seven-and-twenty years last Midsummer-day since I first had you an infant in my arms. I was strong enough then, and you—was a sweet babby. Had I seen that time all that would come to pass this day! But that's over now. I have done a wicked thing; but I'll send for Father Murphy, and get absolution before I die."
She sighed deeply, then went on speaking more quickly.
"But I can do nothing until you go. What time will you go in the morning, dear? It's better go early. Is it in the coach you'll go? I see it in the yard. But I thought you must leave the coach, with all the rest, to the rightful heir. But my head's not clear about it all, I believe—and no matter."
Her ideas rambled from one subject to another in an unconnected manner. I endeavoured in vain to recall her understanding by speaking of her own immediate interests; of the house that was secured to her for life; and of the promise that had been made me, that she should never want for any thing, and that she should be treated with all possible kindness. She seemed to listen to me; but showed that she did not comprehend what I said, by her answers; and, at every pause I made, she repeated the same question—
"What time will you go in the morning, dear?"
At last I touched her feelings, and she recovered her intellect, when I suddenly asked, if she would accompany me to England the next morning.
"Ay, that I will," cried she, "go with you through the wide world."
She burst into tears, and wept bitterly for some time.
"Ah! now I feel right again," said she; "this is what I wanted; but could not cry this many a day—never since the word came to me that you was going, and all was lost."
I assured her that I now expected to be happier than I had ever been.
"Oh!" cried she: "and have you never been happy all this time? What a folly it was for me, then, to do so wicked a thing! and all my comfort was, the thinking you was happy, dear. And what will become of you now? And is it on foot you'll go?"
Her thoughts rambled again.
"Whatever way I go, you shall go with me," said I. "You are my mother; and now that your son has done what he knows to be honest and just, he will prosper in the world, and will be truly happy; and so may you be happy, now that you have nothing more to conceal."
She shook her head.
"It's too late," said she, "quite too late. I often told Christy I would die before you left this place, dear; and so I will, you will see. God bless you! God bless you! and pray to him to forgive me! None that could know what I've gone through would ever do the like; no, not for their own child, was he even such as you, and that would be hard to find. God bless you, dear; I shall never see you more! The hand of death is upon me—God for ever bless you, dear!"
She died that night; and I lost in her the only human being who had ever shown me warm, disinterested affection. Her death delayed for a few days my departure from Glenthorn Castle. I stayed to see her laid in the grave. Her funeral was followed by crowds of people: by many, from the general habit of attending funerals; by many, who wished to pay their court to me, in showing respect to the memory of my nurse.
When the prayers over the dead were ended, and the grave closed, just as the crowd were about to disperse, I stood up on a monument belonging to the Glenthorn family; and the moment it was observed that I wished to address the multitude, the moving waves were stilled, and there was a dead silence. Every eye was fixed upon me with eager expectation. It was the first time in my life that I had ever spoken before numbers; but as I was certain that I had something to say, and quite indifferent about the manner, words came without difficulty. Amazement appeared in every face when I declared myself to be the son of the poor woman whom we had just interred. And when I pointed to the real Earl of Glenthorn, and when I declared that I relinquished to him his hereditary title and lawful property, my auditors looked alternately at me and at my foster-brother, seeming to think it impossible that a man, with face and hands so black as Christy's usually were known to be, could become an earl.
When I concluded my narrative, and paused, the silence still continued; all seemed held in mute astonishment.
"And now, my good friends," continued I, "let me bid you farewell; probably you will never see or hear of me more; but, whether he be rich or poor, or high or low-born, every honest man must wish to leave behind him a fair character. Therefore, when I am gone, and, as it were, dead to you, speak of me, not as of an impostor, who long assumed a name and enjoyed a fortune that was not his own; but remember that I was bred to believe myself heir to a great estate, and that, after having lived till the age of seven-and-twenty, in every kind of luxury, I voluntarily gave up the fortune I enjoyed, the moment I discovered that it was not justly mine."
"That you did, indeed," interrupted Christy; "and of that I am ready to bear witness for you in this world and in the next. God bless and prosper you wherever you go! and sure enough he will, for he cannot do other than prosper one that deserves it so well. I never should have known a sentence of the secret," continued he, addressing his neighbours, "if it had not been for his generosity to tell it me; and even had I found it out by any maracle, where would have been the gain of that to me? for you know he could, had he been so inclined, have kept me out of all by the law—ay, baffled me on till my heart was sick, and till my little substance was wasted, and my bones rotten in the ground; but, God's blessing be upon him! he's an honest man, and done that which many a lord in his place would not have done; but a good conscience is a kingdom in itself, and that he cannot but have, wherever he goes—and all which grieves me is that he is going away from us. If he'd be prevailed with by me, he'd stay where he is, and we'd share and share alike; but he's too proud for that—and no wonder—he has a right to be proud; for no matter who was his mother, he'll live and die a gentleman, every inch of him. Any man, you see, may be made a lord; but a gentleman, a man must make himself. And yourselves can witness, has not he reigned over us like a gentleman, and a raal gentleman; and shown mercy to the poor, and done justice to all, as well as to me? and did not he take me by the hand when I was persecuted, and none else in the wide world to befrind me; and did not he stand up for me against the tyrants that had the sway then; ay, and did not he put himself to trouble, day and night, go riding here and there, and spaking and writing for me? Well, as they say, he loves his ease, and that's the worse can be said of him; he took all this pains for a poor man, and had like to have lost his life by it. And now, wherever he is and whatever, can I help loving and praying for him? or could you? And since you will go," added he, turning to me with tears in his eyes, "take with you the blessings of the poor, which, they say, carry a man straight to heaven, if any thing can."
The surrounding crowd joined with one voice in applauding this speech: "It is he that has said what we all think," cried they, following me with acclamations to the castle. When they saw the chaise at the door which was to carry me away, their acclamations suddenly ceased—"But is he going?—But can't he stay?—And is he going this minute? troth it's a pity, and a great pity!"
Again and again these honest people insisted upon taking leave of me, and I could not force myself away without difficulty. They walked on beside my carriage, Christy at their head; and in this species of triumph, melancholy indeed, but grateful to my heart, I quitted Glenthorn Castle, passed through that park which was no longer mine, and at the verge of the county shook hands for the last time with these affectionate and generous people. I then bid my postilion drive on fast; and I never looked back, never once cast a lingering look at all I left behind. I felt proud of having executed my purpose, and conscious I had not the insignificant, inefficient character that had formerly disgraced me. As to the future, I had not distinctly arranged my plans, nor was my mind during the remainder of the day sufficiently tranquil for reflection. I felt like one in a dream, and could scarcely persuade myself of the reality of the events, that had succeeded each other with such astonishing rapidity. At night I stopped at an inn where I was not known; and having no attendants or equipage to command respect from hostlers, waiters, and inn-keepers, I was made immediately sensible of the reality, at least of the change in my fortune; but I was not mortified—I felt only as if I were travelling incognito. And I contrived to go to bed without a valet-de-chambre, and slept soundly, for I had earned a sound sleep by exertion both of body and mind.
In the morning I awoke with a confused notion that something extraordinary had happened; but it was a good while before I recollected myself sufficiently to be perfectly sensible of the absolute and irrevocable change in my circumstances. An inn may not appear the best possible place for meditation, especially if the moralizer's bedchamber be next the yard where carriages roll, and hostlers swear perpetually; yet so situated, I, this morning as I lay awake in my bed, thought so abstractedly and attentively, that I heard neither wheels nor hostlers. I reviewed the whole of my past life; I regretted bitterly my extravagance, my dissipation, my waste of time; I considered how small a share of enjoyment my wealth had procured, either for myself or others; how little advantage I had derived from my education, and from all my opportunities of acquiring knowledge. It had been in my power to associate with persons of the highest talents, and of the best information, in the British dominions; yet I had devoted my youth to loungers, and gamesters, and epicures, and knew that scarcely a trace of my existence remained in the minds of those selfish beings, who once called themselves my friends. I wished that I could live my life over again; and I felt that, were it in my power, I should live in a manner very different from that in which I had fooled away existence. In the midst of my self-reproaches, however, I had some consolation in the idea that I had never been guilty of any base or dishonourable action. I recollected, with satisfaction, my behaviour to Lady Glenthorn, when I discovered her misconduct; I recollected that I had always shown gratitude to poor Ellinor for her kindness; I recollected with pleasure, that when trusted with power I had not used it tyrannically. My exertions in favour of my foster-brother, when he was oppressed, I remembered with much satisfaction; and the steadiness with which I behaved, when a conspiracy was formed against my life, gave me confidence in my own courage; and, after having sacrificed my vast possessions to a sense of justice, no mortal could doubt my integrity: so that upon the whole, notwithstanding my past follies, I had a tolerably good opinion of myself, or rather good hopes for the future. I was certain, that there was more in me than the world had seen; and I was ambitious of proving that I had some personal merit, independently of the adventitious circumstances of rank and fortune. But how was I to distinguish myself?
Just as I came to this difficult question, the chambermaid interrupted my reverie, by warning me in a shrill voice, that it was very late, and that she had called me above two hours before.
"Where's my man! send up my man. Oh! I beg your pardon—nothing at all: only, my good girl, I should be obliged to you if you could let me have a little warm water, that I may shave myself."
It was new and rather strange to me to be without attendants; but I found that, when I was forced to it, I could do things admirably well for myself, that I had never suspected I could perform without assistance. After I had travelled two days without servants, how I had travelled with them was the wonder. I once caught myself saying of myself, "that careless blockhead has forgotten my nightcap." For some time I was liable to make odd blunders about my own identity; I was apt to mistake between my old and my new habits, so that when I spoke in the tone and imperative mood in which Lord Glenthorn had been accustomed to speak, people stared at me as if I were mad, and I in my turn was frequently astonished by their astonishment, and perplexed by their ease of behaviour in my presence.
Upon my arrival in Dublin, I went to a small lodging which Mr. M'Leod had recommended to me; it was such as suited my reduced finances; but, at first view, it was not much to my taste; however, I ate with a good appetite my very frugal supper, upon a little table, covered with a little table-cloth, on which I could not wipe my mouth without stooping low. The mistress of the house, a North-country woman, was so condescending as to blow my fire, remarking, at the same time, that coals were a very scarce article; she begged to know whether I would choose a fire in my bed-room, and what quantity of coals she should lay in; she added many questions about boarding, and small-beer, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and blankets, and sheets, and washerwomen, which almost overwhelmed my spirits.
"And must I think of all these things for myself?" said I, in a lamentable tone, and I suppose with a most deplorable length of face, for the woman could not refrain from laughing: as she left the room, I heard her exclaim, "Lord help him, he looks as much astray as if he was just new from the Isle of Skye."
The cares of life were coming fast upon me, and I was terrified by the idea of a host of petty evils; I sat ruminating, with my feet upon the bars of the grate, till past midnight, when my landlady, who seemed to think it incumbent upon her to supply me with common sense, came to inform me that there was a good fire burning to waste in the bed-room, and that I should find myself a great deal better there than sitting over the cinders. I suffered myself to be removed to the bedchamber, and again established my feet upon the upper bar of the grate.
"Lack! sir, you'll burn your boots," said my careful landlady; who, after bidding me good night, put her head back into the room, to beg I would be sure to rake the fire, and throw up the ashes safe, before I went to bed. Left to my own meditations, I confess I did feel rather forlorn. I reflected upon my helplessness in all the common business of life; and the more I considered that I was totally unfit for any employment or profession, by which I could either earn money, or distinguish myself, the deeper became my despondency. I passed a sleepless night, vainly regretting the time that never could be recalled.
In the morning, my landlady gave me some letters, which had been forwarded for me from Glenthorn Castle; the direction to the Earl of Glenthorn scratched out, and in its place inserted my new address, "C. O'Donoghoe, Esq., No. 6, Duke-street, Dublin." I remember, I held the letters in my hand, contemplating the direction for some minutes, and at length reading it aloud repeatedly, to my landlady's infinite amusement:—she knew nothing of my history, and seemed in doubt whether to think me extremely silly or mad. One of my letters was from Lord Y——, an Irish nobleman, with whom I was not personally acquainted, but for whose amiable character and literary reputation I had always, even during my days of dissipation, peculiar respect. He wrote to me to make inquiries respecting the character of a Mr. Lyddell, who had just proposed himself as tutor to the son of one of his friends. Mr. Lyddell had formerly been my favourite tutor, the man who had encouraged me in every species of ignorance and idleness. In my present state of mind I was not disposed to speak favourably of this gentleman, and I resolved that I would not be instrumental in placing another young nobleman under his guidance. I wrote an explicit, indignant, and I will say eloquent letter upon this occasion; but, when I came to the signature, I felt a repugnance to signing myself, C. O'Donoghoe; and I recollected, that as my history could not yet be public, Lord Y—— would be puzzled by this strange name, and would be unable to comprehend this answer to his letter. I therefore determined to wait upon his lordship, and to make my explanations in person: besides my other reasons for determining on this visit, I had a strong desire to become personally acquainted with a nobleman of whom I had heard so much. His lordship's porter was not quite so insolent as some of his brethren; and though I did not come in a showy equipage, and though I had no laced footmen to enforce my rights, I gained admission. I passed through a gallery of fine statues, to a magnificent library, which I admired till the master of the house appeared, and from that moment he commanded, or rather captivated, my attention.
Lord Y—— was at this time an elderly gentleman. In his address, there was a becoming mixture of ease and dignity; he was not what the French call maniéré; his politeness was not of any particular school, but founded on those general principles of good taste, good sense, and good-nature, which must succeed in all times, places, and seasons. His desire to please evidently arose not from vanity but benevolence. In his conversation, there was neither the pedantry of a recluse, nor the coxcombry of a man of the world: his knowledge was select; his wit without effort, the play of a cultivated imagination: the happiness of his expressions did not seem the result of care; and his allusions were at once so apposite and elegant, as to charm both the learned and the unlearned: all he said was sufficiently clear and just to strike every person of plain sense and natural feeling, while to the man of literature it had often a further power to please, by its less obvious meaning. Lord Y——'s superiority never depressed those with whom he conversed; on the contrary, they felt themselves raised by the magic of politeness to his level; instead of being compelled to pay tribute, they seemed invited to share his intellectual dominion, and to enjoy with him the delightful pre-eminence of genius and virtue.
I shall be forgiven for pausing in my own insignificant story, to dwell on the noble character of a departed friend. That he permitted me to call him my friend, I think the greatest honour of my life. But let me, if I can, go on regularly with my narrative.
Lord Y—— took it for granted, during our first half-hour's conversation, that he was speaking to the Earl of Glenthorn: he thanked me with much warmth for putting him on his guard against the character of Mr. Lyddell: and his lordship was also pleased to thank me for making him acquainted, as he said, with my own character; for convincing him how ill it had been appreciated by those who imagined that wealth and title were the only distinctions which the Earl of Glenthorn might claim. This compliment went nearer to my heart than Lord Y—— could guess.
"My character," said I, "since your lordship encourages me to speak of myself with freedom, my character has, I hope, been much changed and improved by circumstances; and perhaps those which might at present be deemed the most unfortunate, may ultimately prove of the greatest advantage, by urging me to exertion.—Your lordship is not aware of what I allude to; a late event in my singular history," continued I, taking up the newspapers which lay on his library table—"my singular history has not yet, I fancy, got into the public newspapers. Perhaps you will hear it most favourably from myself."
Lord Y—— was politely, benevolently attentive, whilst I related to him the sudden and singular change in my fortune: when I gave an account of the manner in which I had conducted myself after the discovery of my birth, tears of generous feeling filled his eyes; he laid his hand upon mine when I paused—
"Whatever you have lost," said he, "you have gained a friend. Do not be surprised," continued he, "by this sudden declaration. Before I saw you this morning, your real character was better known to me than you imagine. I learnt it from a particular friend of mine, of whose judgment and abilities I have the highest opinion, Mr. Cecil Devereux; I saw him just after his marriage; and the very evening before they sailed, I remember, when Lady Geraldine and he were talking of the regret they felt in leaving Ireland, among the friends whom they lamented that they should not see again, perhaps for years, you were mentioned with peculiar esteem and affection. They called you their generous benefactor, and fully explained to me the claim you had to this title—a title which never can he lost. But Mr. Devereux was anxious to convince me that he was not influenced by the partiality of gratitude in his opinion of his benefactor's talents. He repeated an assertion, that was supported with much energy by the charming Lady Geraldine, that Lord Glenthorn had abilities to be any thing Tie pleased; and the high terms in which they spoke of his talents, and the strong proofs they adduced of the generosity of his character, excited in my mind a warm desire to cultivate his acquaintance; a desire which has been considerably increased within this last hour. May I hope that the Irish rapidity with which I have passed from acquaintance to friendship may not shock English habits of reserve; and may not induce you to doubt the sincerity of the man, who has ventured with so little hesitation or ceremony to declare himself your friend?"
I was so much moved by this unexpected kindness, that, though I felt how much more was requisite, I could answer only with a bow; and I was glad to make my retreat as soon as possible. The very next day, his lordship returned my visit, to my landlady's irrecoverable astonishment; and I had increasing reason to regard him with admiration and affection. He convinced me, that I had interested him in my concerns, and told me, I must forgive him if he spoke to me with the freedom of a friend: thus I was encouraged to consult him respecting my future plans. Plans, indeed, I had none regularly formed; but Lord Y——, by his judicious suggestions, settled and directed my ideas without overpowering me by the formality of advice. My ambition was excited to deserve his friendship, and to accomplish his predictions. The profession of the law was that to which he advised me to turn my thoughts: he predicted, that, if for five years I would persevere in application to the necessary preparatory studies, I should afterwards distinguish myself at the bar, more than I had ever been distinguished by the title of Earl of Glenthorn. Five years of hard labour! the idea alarmed, but did not utterly appal my imagination; and to prevent my dwelling upon it too long at the first, Lord Y—— suddenly changed the conversation; and, in a playful tone, said, "Before you immerse yourself in your studies, I must, however, claim some of your time. You must permit me to carry you home with me to-day, to introduce you to two ladies of my acquaintance: the one prudent and old—if a lady can ever be old; the other, young, and beautiful, and graceful, and witty, and wise, and reasonable. One of these ladies is much prepossessed in your favour, the other strongly prejudiced against you—for the best of all possible reasons, because she does not know you."
I accepted Lord Y——'s invitation; not a little curious to know whether it was the old and prudent, or the young, beautiful, graceful, witty, wise, and reasonable lady, who was much prepossessed in my favour. Notwithstanding my usual indifference to the whole race of very agreeable young ladies, I remember trying to form a picture in my imagination of this all-accomplished female.
Upon my arrival at Y—— house, I found two ladies in the drawing-room, in earnest conversation with Lady Y——. In their external appearance they were nearly what my friend had described; except that the beauty of the youngest infinitely surpassed my expectations. The elegance of her form, and the charming expression of her countenance, struck me with a sort of delightful surprise, that was quickly succeeded by a most painful sensation.
"Lady Y——, give me leave to introduce to you Mr. O'Donoghoe."
Shocked by the sound of my own name, I was ready to recoil abashed. The elderly lady turned her eyes upon me for an instant, with that indifference with which we look at an uninteresting stranger. The young lady seemed to pity my confusion; for though so well and so long used to varieties of the highest company, when placed in a situation that was new to me, I was unaccountably disconcerted. Ah! thought I, how differently should I be received were I still Earl of Glenthorn!
I was rather angry with Lord Y——, for not introducing me, as he had promised, to this fair lady; and yet the repetition of my name would have increased my vexation. In short, I was unjust, and felt an impatience and irritability quite unusual to my temper. Lady Y—— addressed some conversation to me, in an obliging manner, and I did my best to support my part till she left me: but my attention was soon distracted, by a conversation that commenced at another part of the room, between her and the elderly lady.
"My dear Lady Y——, have you heard the extraordinary news? the most incredible thing that ever was heard! For my part, I cannot believe it yet, though we have the intelligence from the best authority. Lord Glenthorn, that is to say, the person we always called Lord Glenthorn, turns out to be the son of the Lord knows who—they don't mention the name."
At this speech I was ready to sink into the earth. Lord Y—— took my arm, and led me into another room. "I have some cameos," said he, "which are thought curious; would you like to look at them?"
"Can you conceive it?" continued the elderly lady, whose voice I still heard, as the folding-doors of the room were open: "Changed at nurse! One hears of such things in novels, but, in real life, I absolutely cannot believe it. Yet here, in this letter from Lady Ormsby, are all the particulars: and a blacksmith is found to be Earl of Glenthorn, and takes possession of Glenthorn castle, and all the estates. And the man is married, to some vulgarian of course: and he has a son, and may have half a hundred, you know; so there is an end of our hopes; and there is an end too of all my fine schemes for Cecilia."
I felt myself change colour again. "I believe," said I to Lord Y——, "I ought not to hear this. If your lordship will give me leave, I will shut the door."
"No, no," said he, smiling, and stopping me; "you ought to hear it, for it will do you a great deal of good. You know I have undertaken to be your guide, philosopher, and friend; so you must let me have my own way: and if it should so happen, hear yourself abused patiently.—Is not this a fine bust of Socrates?"
Some part of the conversation in the next room I missed, whilst his lordship spoke. The next words I heard were—
"But my dear Lady Y——, look at Cecilia.—Would not any other girl be cast down and miserable in Cecilia's place? yet see, see how provokingly happy and well she looks."
"Yes," replied Lady Y——, "I never saw her appear better: but we are not to judge of her by what any other young lady would be in her place, for I know of none at all comparable to Miss Delamere."
"Miss Delamere!" said I to Lord Y——. "Is this the Miss Delamere who is heiress at law to——"
"The Glenthorn estate. Yes—do not let the head of Socrates fall from your hands," said his lordship, smiling.
I again lost something that was said in the next room; but I heard the old lady going on with—
"I only say, my dear, that if the man had been really what he was said to be, you could not have done better."
"Dearest mother, you cannot be serious," replied the sweetest voice I ever heard. "I am sure that you never were in earnest upon this subject: you could not wish me to be united to such a man as Lord Glenthorn was said to be."
"Why? what was he said to be, my dear?—a little dissipated, a little extravagant only: and if he had a fortune to support it, child, what matter?" pursued the mother: "all young men are extravagant now-a-days—you must take the world as it goes."
"The lady who married Lord Glenthorn, I suppose, acted upon that principle; and you see what was the consequence."
"Oh, my dear, as to her ladyship, it ran in the blood: let her have married whom she would, she would have done the same: and I am told Lord Glenthorn made an incomparably good husband. A cousin of Lady Glenthorn's assured me that she was present one day, when her ladyship expressed a wish for a gold chain to wear round her neck, or braid her hair, I forget for what; but that very hour Lord Glenthorn bespoke for her a hundred yards of gold chain, at ten guineas a yard. Another time she longed for an Indian shawl, and his lordship presented her next day with three dozen real India shawls. There's a husband for you, Cecilia!"
"Not for me, mamma," said Cecilia, laughing.
"Ah, you are a strange romantic girl, and never will be married after all, I fear."
"Never to a fool, I hope," said Cecilia.
"Miss Delamere will, however, allow," said Lady Y——, "that a man may have his follies, without being a fool, or wholly unworthy of her esteem; otherwise, what a large portion of mankind she would deprive of hope!"
"As to Lord Glenthorn, he was no fool, I promise you," continued the mother: "has not he been living prudently enough these three years? We have not heard of late of any of his extraordinary landaus,"
"But I have been told," said Cecilia, "that he is quite uninformed, without any taste for literature, and absolutely incapable of exertion—a victim to ennui. How miserable a woman must be with such a husband!"
"But," said Lady Y——, "what could be expected from a young nobleman bred up as Lord Glenthorn was?"
"Nothing," said Cecilia; "and that is the very reason I never wished to see him."
"Perhaps Miss Delamere's opinion might be changed if she had known him," said Lady Y——,
"Ay, for he is a very handsome man, I have heard," said the mother. "Lady Jocunda Lawler told me so, in one of her letters; and Lady Jocunda was very near being married to him herself, I can tell you, for he admired her prodigiously."
"A certain proof that he never would have admired me," said Cecilia; "for two women, so opposite in every respect, no man could have loved."
"Lord bless you, child! how little you know of the matter! After all, I dare say, if you had been acquainted with him, you might have been in love yourself with Lord Glenthorn."
"Possibly," said Cecilia, "if I had found him the reverse of what he is reported to be."
Company came in at this instant. Lord Y—— was called to receive them, and I followed; glad, at this instant, that I was not Lord Glenthorn. At dinner the conversation turned upon general subjects; and Lord Y——, with polite and friendly attention, drew me out, without seeming to do so, in the kindest manner possible.
I had the pleasure to perceive that Cecilia Delamere did not find me a fool. I never, even in the presence of Lady Geraldine, exerted myself so much to avoid this disgrace.
After all the company, except Mrs. and Miss Delamere, were gone, Lord
Y—— called me aside.
"Will you pardon," said he, "the means I have taken to convince you how much superior you are to the opinion that has been commonly formed of Lord Glenthorn? Will you forgive me for convincing you that when a man has sufficient strength of mind to rely upon himself, and sufficient energy to exert his abilities, he becomes independent of common report and vulgar opinion? He secures the suffrages of the best judges; and they, in time, lead all the rest of the world. Will you permit me now to introduce you to your prudent friend and your fair enemy? Mrs. Delamere—Miss Delamere—give me leave to introduce to you the late Earl of Glenthorn."
Of the astonishment in the opening eyes of Mrs. Delamere I have some faint recollection. I can never forget the crimson blush that instantaneously spread over the celestial countenance of Cecilia. She was perfectly silent; but her mother went on talking with increased rapidity.
"Good Heavens! the late Lord Glenthorn! Why, I was talking—but he was not in the room." The ladies exchanged looks, which seemed to say, "I hope he did not hear all we said of him."
"My dear Lord Y——, why did not you tell us this before? Suppose we had spoken of his lordship, you would have been answerable for all the consequences."
"Certainly," said Lord Y——.
"But, seriously," said the old lady, "have I the pleasure to speak to Lord Glenthorn, or have I not? I believe I began, unluckily, to talk of a strange story I had heard; but perhaps all this is a mistake, and my country correspondent may have been amusing herself at the expense of my credulity. I assure you I was not imposed upon; I never believed half the story."
"You may believe the whole of it, madam," said I; "the story is perfectly true."
"Oh! my good sir, how sorry I am to hear you say it is all true! And the blacksmith is really Earl of Glenthorn, and has taken possession of the castle, and is married, and has a son! Lord bless me, how unfortunate! Well, I can only say, sir, I wish, with all my heart, you were Earl of Glenthorn still."
After hearing from Lord Y—— the circumstances of what he was pleased to call my generous conduct, Mrs. Delamere observed, that I had acted very generously, to be sure, but that few in my place would have thought themselves bound to give up possession of an estate, which I had so long been taught to believe was my own. To have and to hold, she observed, always went together in law; and she could not help thinking I had done very injudiciously and imprudently not to let the law decide for me.
I was consoled for Mrs. Delamere's reprehensions by her daughter's approving countenance. After this visit, Lord Y—— gave me a general invitation to his house, where I frequently saw Miss Delamere, and frequently compared her with my recollection of Lady Geraldine ———. Cecilia Delamere was not so entertaining, but she was more interesting than Lady Geraldine: the flashes of her ladyship's wit, though always striking, were sometimes dangerous; Cecilia's wit, though equally brilliant, shone with a more pleasing and inoffensive light. With as much generosity as Lady Geraldine could show in great affairs, she had more forbearance and delicacy of attention on every-day occasions. Lady Geraldine had much pride, and it often gave offence; Cecilia, perhaps, had more pride, but it never appeared, except upon the defensive: without having less candour, she had less occasion for it than Lady Geraldine seemed to have; and Cecilia's temper had more softness and equability. Perhaps Cecilia was not so fascinating, but she was more attractive. One had the envied art of appearing to advantage in public—the other, the more desirable power of being happy in private. I admired Lady Geraldine long before I loved her; I loved Cecilia long before I admired her.
Whilst I possibly could, I called what I felt for Miss Delamere only esteem; but when I found it impossible to conceal from myself that I loved, I resolved to avoid this charming woman. How happy, thought I, would the fortune I once possessed now make me! but in my present circumstances what have I to hope? Surely my friend Lord Y—— has not shown his usual prudence in exposing me to such a temptation; but it is to be supposed, he thinks that the impossibility of my obtaining Miss Delamere will prevent my thinking of her, or perhaps he depends on the inertness and apathy of my temper. Unfortunately for me, my sensibility has increased since I have become poor; for many years, when I was rich, and could have married easily, I never wished to marry, and now that I have not enough to support a wife, I immediately fall desperately in love.
Again and again I pondered upon my circumstances: three hundred a-year was the amount of all my worldly possessions; and Miss Delamere was not rich, and she had been bred expensively; for it had never been absent from her mother's mind, that Cecilia would be heiress to the immense Glenthorn estate. The present possessor was, however, an excellent life, and he had a son stout and healthy, so all these hopes of Mrs. Delamere's were at an end; and as there was little chance, as she said (laughing), of persuading her daughter to marry Johnny, the young lord and heir apparent, it was now necessary to turn her views elsewhere, and to form for Cecilia some suitable alliance. Rank and large fortune were, in Mrs. Delamere's opinion, indispensable to happiness. Cecilia's ideas were far more moderate; but, though perfectly disinterested and generous, she was not so romantic, or so silly, as to think of marrying any man without the probability of his being able to support her in the society of her equals: nor, even if I could have thought it possible to prevail upon Miss Delamere to make an unbecoming and imprudent choice, would I have taken advantage of the confidence reposed in me by Lord Y——, to destroy the happiness of a young friend, for whom he evidently had a great regard. I resolved to see her no more—and for some weeks I kept my resolution; I refrained from going to Y—— house. I deem this the most virtuous action of my life; it certainly was the most painful sacrifice I ever made to a sense of duty. At last, Lord Y—— came to me one morning, and after reproaching me, in a friendly manner, for having so long absented myself from his house, declared that he would not be satisfied with any of those common excuses, which might content a mere acquaintance; that his sincere anxiety for my welfare gave him a right to expect from me the frankness of a friend. It was a relief to my mind to be encouraged in this manner. I confessed with entire openness my real motive: Lord Y—— heard me without surprise.
"It is gratifying to me," said his lordship, "to be convinced that I was not mistaken in my judgment, either of your taste, or your integrity; permit me to assure you, that I foresaw exactly how you would feel, and precisely how you would act. There are certain moral omens, which old experience never fails to interpret rightly, and from which unerring predictions of the future conduct, and consequently of the future fate of individuals, may be formed. I hold that we are the artificers of our own fortune. If there be any whom the gods wish to destroy, these are first deprived of understanding; whom the gods wish to favour, they first endow with integrity, inspire with understanding, and animate with activity. Have I not seen integrity in you, and shall I not see activity? Yes; that supineness of temper or habit with which you reproach yourself has arisen, believe me, only from want of motive; but you have now the most powerful of motives, and in proportion to your exertions will be your success. In our country, you know, the highest offices of the state are open to talents and perseverance; a man of abilities and application cannot fail to secure independence, and obtain distinction. Time and industry are necessary to prepare you for the profession, to which you will hereafter be an honour, and you will courageously submit.
—'Time and industry, the mighty two,
Which bring our wishes nearer to our view.'
As to the probability that your present wishes may be crowned with success, I can judge only from my general knowledge of the views and disposition of the lady whom you admire. I know that her views with respect to fortune are moderate; and that her disposition and excellent understanding will, in the choice of a husband, direct her preference to the essential good qualities, and not to the accidental advantages, of the candidates for her favour. As to the mother's influence, that will necessarily yield to the daughter's superior judgment. Cecilia possesses over her mother that witchcraft of gentle manners, which in the female sex is always irresistible, even over violent tempers. Prudential considerations have a just, though not exclusive, claim to Miss Delamere's attention. But her relations, I fancy, could find means of providing against any pecuniary embarrassments, if she should think proper to unite herself to a man who can be content, as she would be, with a competence, and who should have proved himself able, by his own exertions, to maintain his wife in independence. On this last condition I must dwell with emphasis, because it is indispensable; and I am convinced that without it Miss Delamere's consent, even after she is of age, and at liberty to judge for herself, could never be obtained. You perceive, then, how much depends upon your own exertions; and this is the best hope, and the best motive, that I can give to a strong and generous mind. Farewell—Persevere and prosper."
Such was the general purport of what Lord Y—— said to me; indeed, I believe that I have repeated his very words, for they made a great and ineffaceable impression upon my mind. From this day I date the commencement of a new existence. Fired with ambition,—I hope generous ambition,—to distinguish myself among men, and to win the favour of the most amiable and the most lovely of women, all the faculties of my soul were awakened: I became active, permanently active. The enchantment of indolence was dissolved, and the demon of ennui was cast out for ever.
If, among those who maybe tempted to peruse my history, there should be any mere novel readers, let me advise them to throw the book aside at the commencement of this chapter; for I have no more wonderful incidents to relate, no more changes at nurse, no more sudden turns of fortune. I am now become a plodding man of business, poring over law-books from morning till night, and leading a most monotonous life: yet occupation, and hope, and the constant sense of approaching nearer to my object, rendered this mode of existence, dull as it may seem, infinitely more agreeable than many of my apparently prosperous days, when I had more money, and more time, than I knew how to enjoy. I resolutely persevered in my studies.
About a month after I came to town, the doors of my lodging were blockaded by half a dozen cars, loaded with huge packing-cases, on which I saw, in the hand-writing which I remembered often to have seen in my blacksmith's bills, a direction to Christopher O'Donoghoe, Esquire—this side upwards: to be kept dry.
One of the carmen fumbled in what he called his pocket, and at last produced a very dirty note.
"My dear and honourable foster-brother, larning from Mr. M'Leod that you are thinking of studdeing, I send you inclosed by the bearer, who is to get nothing for the carrige, all the bookes from the big booke-room at the castle, which I hope, being of not as much use as I could wish to me, your honour will not scorn to accept, with the true veneration of
"Your ever-loving foster-brother, and grateful humble servant, to command.
"P.S. No name needful, for you will not be astray about the hand."
This good-natured fellow's present was highly valuable and useful to me.
Among my pleasures at this studious period of my life, when I had few events to break the uniform tenor of my days, I must mention letters which I frequently received from Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine, who still continued in India. Mr. Devereux was acquainted with almost all the men of eminence at the Irish bar; men who are not mere lawyers, but persons of literature, of agreeable manners, and gentlemanlike habits. Mr. Desvereux wrote to his friends so warmly in my favour, that, instead of finding myself a stranger in Dublin, my only difficulty was how to avoid the numerous invitations which tempted me from my studies.
Those gentlemen of the bar who were intimate with Mr. Devereux honoured me with particular attention, and their society was peculiarly useful, as well as agreeable, to me: they directed my industry to the best and shortest means of preparing myself for their profession; they put into my hands the best books; told me all that experience had taught them of the art of distinguishing, in the mass of law-precedents, the useful from the useless: instructed me in the methods of indexing and common-placing; and gave me all those advantages, which solitary students so often want, and the want of which so often makes the study of the law appear an endless maze without a plan. When I found myself surrounded with books, and reading assiduously day and night, I could scarcely believe in my own identity; I could scarcely imagine that I was the same person, who, but a few months before this time, lolled upon a sofa half the day, and found it an intolerable labour to read or think for half an hour together. Such is the power of motive! During the whole time I pursued my studies, and kept my terms, in Ireland, the only relaxation I allowed myself was in the society at Lord Y——'s house in Dublin, and, during my vacations, in excursions which I made with his lordship to different parts of the country. Lord Y—— had two country-seats in the most beautiful parts of Ireland. How differently the face of nature appeared to me now! with what different sensations I beheld the same objects!
"No brighter colours paint th' enamell'd fields,
No sweeter fragrance now the garden yields;
Whence then this strange increase of joy?
Is it to love these new delights I owe?"
It was not to love that I owed these new delights, for Cecilia was not there; but my powers of observation were awakened, and the confinement and labour to which I had lately submitted gave value to the pleasures of rest and liberty, and to the freshness of country air, and the beautiful scenes of nature. So true it is, that all our pleasures must be earned, before they can be enjoyed. When I saw on Lord Y——'s estates, and on those of several other gentlemen, which he occasionally took me to visit, the neat cottages, the well-cultivated farms, the air of comfort, industry, and prosperity, diffused through the lower classes of the people, I was convinced that much may he done by the judicious care and assistance of landlords for their tenantry. I saw this with mixed sensations of pleasure and of pain—of pain, for I reflected how little I had accomplished, and how ill I had done even that little, whilst the means of doing good to numbers had been in my power. For the very trifling services I did to some of my poor tenants, I am sure I had abundant gratitude; and I was astonished and touched by instances of this shown to me after I had lost my fortune, and when I scarcely had myself any remembrance of the people who came to thank me. Trivial as it is, I cannot forbear to record one of the many instances of gratitude I met with from a poor Irishman.
Whilst I was in Dublin, as I was paying a morning visit to Lord Y——, sitting with him in his library, we heard some disturbance in the inner court; and looking out of the window, we saw a countryman with a basket on his arm, struggling with the porter and two footmen.
"He is here; I know to a certainty he is here, and I shall see him, say what you plase now!"
"I tell you my lord is not at home," said the porter.
"What's the matter?" said Lord Y——, opening the window.
"See, there's my lord himself at the window: are not you ashamed of yourself now?" said the footman.
"And why would I be ashamed that am telling no lies, and hindering no one?" said the countryman, looking up to us with so sudden a motion that his hat fell of. I knew his face, but could not recollect his name.
"Oh! there he is, his own honour; I've found him, and axe pardon for my boldness; but it's because I've been all day yesterday, and this day, running through Dublin after yees; and when certified by the lady of the lodgings you was in it here, I could not lave town without my errand, which is no more than a cheese from my wife of her own making, to be given to your honour's own hands, and she would not see me if I did not do it."
"Let him come up," said Lord Y——. "This," continued his lordship, turning to me, "reminds me of Henry the Fourth, and the Gascon peasant with his fromages de boeuf."
"But our countryman brings his offering to an abdicated monarch," said
I.
The poor fellow presented his wife's cheese to me with as good a grace as any courtier could have made his offering. Unembarrassed, his manners and his words gave the natural and easy expression of a grateful heart. He assured me that he and his wife were the happiest couple in all Ireland; and he hoped I would one day be as happy myself in a wife as I desarved, who had made others so; and there were many on the estate remembered as well as he did the good I did to the poor during my reign.
Then stepping up closer to me, he said, in a lower voice, "I'm Jimmy Riley, that married ould Noonan's daughter; and now that it is all over I may tell you a bit of a secret, which made me so eager to get to the speech of your honour, that I might tell it to your own ear alone—no offence to this gentleman, before whom I'd as soon say it as yourself, becaase I see he is all as one as another yourself. Then the thing is—does your honour remember the boy with the cord round his body, looking for the birds' eggs in the rock, and the 'nonymous bit of a letter that you got? 'Twas I wrote it, and the gossoon that threw it to your honour was a cousin of my own that I sent, that nobody, nor yourself even, might not know him: and the way I got the information I never can tell till I die, and then only to the priest, becaase I swore I would not never. But don't go for to think it was by being a rubble any way; no man can, I thank my God, charge me with indifferency. So rejoiced to see you the same, I wish you a good morrow, and long life, and a happy death—when it comes."
About this time I frequently used to receive presents to a considerable amount, and of things which were most useful to me, but always without any indication by which I could discover to whom I was indebted for them: at last, by means of my Scotch landlady, I traced them to Mr. M'Leod. His kindness was so earnest and peremptory, that it would admit neither thanks nor refusals; and I submitted to be obliged to a man for whom I felt such high esteem. I looked upon it as not the least of his proofs of regard, that he gave me what I knew he valued more than any thing else—his time. Whenever he came to Dublin, though he was always hurried by business, so that he had scarcely leisure to eat or sleep, he used constantly to come to see me in my obscure lodgings; and when in the country, though he hated all letter-writing, except letters of business, yet he regularly informed me of every thing that could be interesting to me. Glenthorn Castle he described as a scene of riotous living, and of the most wasteful vulgar extravagance. My poor foster-brother, the best-natured and most generous fellow in the world, had not sufficient prudence or strength of mind to conduct his own family; his wife filled the castle with tribes of her vagabond relations; she chose to be descended from one of the kings of Ireland; and whoever would acknowledge her high descent, and whoever would claim relationship with her, were sure to have their claims allowed, and were welcome to live in all the barbaric magnificence of Glenthorn Castle. Every instance that she could hear of the former Lady Glenthorn's extravagance or of mine—and, alas! there were many upon record, she determined to exceed. Her diamonds, and her pearls, and her finery, surpassed every thing but the extravagance of some of the Russian favourites of fortune. Decked out in the most absurd manner, this descendant of kings, as Mr. M'Leod assured me, often indulged in the pleasures of the banquet, till, no longer able to support the regal diadem, she was carried by some of the meanest of her subjects to her bed. The thefts committed during these interregnums were amazing in their amount, and the jewels of the crown were to be replaced as fast as they were stolen. Poor Christy all this time was considered as a mean-spirited cratur, who had no notion of living like a prince; and whilst his wife and her relations were revelling in this unheard-of manner, he was scarcely considered as the master of the house: he lived by the fireside disregarded in winter, and in summer he spent his time chiefly in walking up and down his garden, and picking fruit. He once made an attempt to amuse himself by mending the lock of his own room door; but he was detected in the fact, and exposed to such loud ridicule by his lady's favourites, that he desisted, and sighing said to Mr. M'Leod—"And isn't it now a great hardship upon a man like me to have nothing to do, or not to be let do any thing? If it had not been for my son Johnny's sake, I never would have quit the forge; and now all will be spent in coshering, and Johnny, at the last, will never be a penny the better, but the worse for my consinting to be lorded; and what grieves me more than all the rest, she is such a negre,[85] that I haven't a guinea I can call my own to send, as I'd always laid out to do at odd times, such little tokens of my love and duty, as would be becoming to my dear foster-brother there in Dublin. And now, you tell me, he is going away too, beyond sea to England, to finish making a lawyer of himself in London; and what friends will he find there, without money in his pocket? and I had been thinking this while past, ever since you gave me notice of his being to quit Ireland, that I would go up to Dublin myself to see him, and wish him a good journey kindly before he would go; and I had a little compliment here, in a private drawer, that I had collected unknownst to my wife; but here last night she lit upon it, and now that her hand has closed upon it, not a guinea of it shall I ever see more, nor a farthing the better of it will my dear foster-brother ever be, for it or for me; and this is what grieves me more than all, and goes to the quick of my heart."
When Mr. M'Leod repeated to me these lamentations of poor Christy, I immediately wrote to set his heart at ease, as much as I could, by the assurance that I was in no distress for money; and that my three hundred a year would support me in perfect comfort and independence, while "I was making a lawyer of myself in London." I farther assured my good foster-brother, that I was so well convinced of his affectionate and generous disposition towards me, that it would be quite unnecessary ever to send me tokens of his regard. I added a few words of advice about his wife and his affairs, which, like most words of advice, were, as I afterwards found, absolutely thrown away.
Though I had taken care to live with so much economy, that I was not in any danger of being in pecuniary embarrassments, yet I felt much distress of another kind in leaving Ireland. I left Miss Delamere surrounded with admirers; her mother using her utmost art and parental influence to induce Cecilia to decide in favour of one of these gentlemen, who was a person of rank and of considerable fortune. I had seen all this going on, and was bound in honour the whole time to remain passive, not to express my own ardent feelings, not to make the slightest attempt to win the affections of the woman who was the object of all my labours, of all my exertions. The last evening that I saw her at Lord Y——'s, just before I sailed for England, I suffered more than I thought it was in my nature to feel, especially at the moment when I went up to make my bow, and take leave of her with all the cold ceremony of a common acquaintance. At parting, however, in the presence of her mother and of Lord Y——, Cecilia, with her sweet smile, and, I think, with a slight blush, said a few words, upon which I lived for months afterwards.
"I sincerely wish you, sir, the success your perseverance so well deserves."
The recollection of these words was often my solace in my lonely chambers in the Temple; and often, after a day's hard study, the repeating them to myself operated as a charm that dissipated all fatigue, and revived at once my exhausted spirits. To be sure, there were moments when my fire was out, and my candle sinking in the socket, and my mind over-wearied saw things in the most gloomy point of view; and at these times I used to give an unfavourable interpretation to Cecilia's words, and I fancied that they were designed to prevent my entertaining fallacious hopes, and to warn me that she must yield to her mother's authority, or perhaps to her own inclinations, in favour of some of her richer lovers. This idea would have sunk me into utter despondency, and I should have lost, with my motive, all power of exertion, had not I opposed to this apprehension the remembrance of Lord Y——'s countenance, at the moment Cecilia was speaking to me. I then felt assured, that his lordship, at least, understood the words in a favourable sense, else he would have suffered for me, and would not certainly have allowed me to go away with false hopes. Re-animated by this consideration, I persevered—for it was by perseverance alone that I could have any chance of success.
It was fortunate for me, that, stimulated by a great motive, I thus devoted my whole time and thoughts to my studies, otherwise I must, on returning to London, have felt the total neglect and desertion of all my former associates in the fashionable world; of all the vast number of acquaintance who used to lounge away their hours in my company, and partake of the luxuries of my table and the festivities of my house. Some, whom I accidentally met in the street, just at my re-appearance in town, thought proper, indeed, to know me again at first, that they might gratify their curiosity about the paragraphs which they had seen in the papers, and the reports which they had heard of my extraordinary change of fortune; but no sooner had they satisfied themselves that all they had heard was true, than their interest concerning me ceased. When they found, that, instead of being Earl of Glenthorn, and the possessor of a large estate, I was now reduced to three hundred a year, lodging in small chambers in the Temple, and studying the law, they never more thought me worthy of their notice. They affected, according to their different humours, either to pity me for my misfortunes, or to blame me for my folly in giving up my estate; but they unanimously expressed astonishment at the idea of my becoming a member of any active profession. They declared that it was impossible that I could ever endure the labour of the law, or succeed in such an arduous career. Their prophecies intimidated me not; I was conscious that these people did not in the least know me; and I hoped and believed that I had powers and a character which they were incapable of estimating: their contempt rather excited than depressed my mind, and their pity I returned with more sincerity than it was given. I had lived their life, knew thoroughly what were its pleasures and its pains; I could compare the ennui I felt when I was a Bond-street lounger with the self-complacency I enjoyed now that I was occupied in a laborious but interesting and honourable pursuit. I confess, I had sometimes, however, the weakness to think the worse of human nature, for what I called the desertion and ingratitude of these my former companions and flatterers; and I could not avoid comparing the neglect and solitude in which I lived in London, where I had lavished my fortune, with the kindness and hospitalities I had received in Dublin, where I lived only when I had no fortune to spend. After a little time, however, I became more reasonable and just; for I considered that it was my former dissipated mode of life, and imprudent choice of associates, which I should blame for the mortifications I now suffered from the desertion of companions, who were, in fact, incapable of being friends. In London I had lived with the most worthless, in Dublin with the best company; and in each place I had been treated as, in fact, I deserved. But, leaving the history of my feelings, I must proceed with my narrative.
One night, after I had dined with an Irish gentleman, a friend of Lord Y——'s, at the west end of the town, as I was returning late to my lodgings, I was stopped for some time by a crowd of carriages, in one of the fashionable streets. I found that there was a masquerade at the house of a lady, with whom I had been intimately acquainted. The clamours of the mob, eager to see the dresses of those who were alighting from their carriages, the gaudy and fantastic figures which I beheld by the light of the flambeaux, the noise and the bustle, put me in mind of various similar nights of my past life, and it seemed to me like a dream, or reminiscence of some former state of existence. I passed on as soon as the crowd would permit, and took my way down a narrow street, by which I hoped to get, by a shorter way than usual, to my quiet lodgings. The rattling of the carriages, the oaths of the footmen, and the shouts of the mob still sounded in my ears; and the masquerade figures had scarcely faded from my sight, when I saw, coming slowly out of a miserable entry, by the light of a few wretched candles and lanterns, a funeral. The contrast struck me: I stood still to make way for the coffin; and I heard one say to another, "What matter how she's buried! I tell you, be at as little expense as possible, for he'll never pay a farthing." I had a confused recollection of having heard the voice before: as one of the bearers lifted his lantern, I saw the face of the woman who spoke, and had a notion of having seen her before. I asked whose funeral it was; and I was answered, "It is one Mrs. Crawley's—Lady Glenthorn that was," added the woman. I heard no more: I was so much shocked, that I believe I should have fallen in the street, if I had not been immediately supported by somebody near me. When I recovered my recollection, I saw the funeral had moved on some paces, and the person who supported me, I now found, was a clergyman. In a mild voice, he told me that his duty called him away from me at present, but he added, that if I would tell him where I could be found, he would see me in the morning, and give me any information in his power, as he supposed that I was interested for this unfortunate woman. I put a card with my address into his hands, thanked him, and got home as well as I could. In the morning, the clergyman called upon me—a most benevolent man, unknown to fame; but known to all the wretched within the reach of his consolatory religion. He gave me a melancholy account of the last days of the unhappy woman, whose funeral I had just seen. I told him who I was, and what she had been to me. She had, almost in her last moments, as he assured me, expressed her sense of, what she called, my generosity to her, and had shown deep contrition for her infidelity. She died in extreme poverty and wretchedness, with no human being who was, or even seemed, interested for her, but a maid-servant (the woman whose voice I recollected), whose services were purchased to the last, by presents of whatever clothes or trinkets were left from the wreck of her mistress's fortune. Crawley, it seems, had behaved brutally to his victim. After having long delayed to perform his promise of marrying her, he declared that he could never think of a woman who had been divorced in any other way than a mistress: she, poor weak creature, consented to live with him on any terms; but, as his passions and his interest soon turned to new objects, he cast her off without scruple, refusing to pay any of the tradesmen, who had supplied her while she bore his name. He refused to pay the expenses even of her funeral, though she had shared with him her annuity, and every thing she possessed. I paid the funeral expenses, and some arrears of the maid's wages, together with such debts for necessaries as I had reason to believe were justly due: the strict economy with which I had lived for three years, and the parting with a watch and some other trinkets too fine for my circumstances, enabled me to pay this money without material inconvenience, and it was a satisfaction to my mind. The good clergyman who managed these little matters became interested for me, and our acquaintance with each other grew every day more intimate and agreeable. When he found that I was studying the law, he begged to introduce me to a brother of his, who had been one of the most eminent special pleaders in London, and who now, on a high salary, undertook to prepare students for the bar. I was rather unwilling to accept of this introduction, because I was not rich enough to become a pupil of this gentleman's; but my clergyman guessed the cause of my reluctance, and told me that his brother had charged him to overrule all such objections. "My brother and I," continued he, "though of different professions, have in reality but one mind between us: he has heard from me all the circumstances I know of you, and they have interested him so much, that he desires, in plain English, to be of any service he can to you."
This offer was made in earnest; and if I had given him the largest salary that could have been offered by the most opulent of his pupils, I could not have met with more attention, or have been instructed with more zeal than I was, by my new friend the special pleader. He was also so kind as to put me at ease by the assurance, that whenever I should begin to make money by my profession, he would accept of remuneration. He jestingly said, that he would make the same bargain with me that was made by the famous sophist Protagoras of old with his pupil, that he should have the profits of the first cause I should win—certain that I would not, like his treacherous pupil Evathlus, employ the rhetorician's arms against himself, to cheat him out of his promised reward. My special pleader was not a mere man of forms and law rigmaroles; he knew the reason for the forms he used: he had not only a technical, but a rational knowledge of his business; and, what is still more uncommon, he knew how to teach what he had learnt. He did not merely set me down at a desk, and leave me skins after skins of parchment to pore over in bewildered and hopeless stupidity; he did not use me like a mere copying machine, to copy sheet after sheet for him, every morning from nine till four, and again every evening from five till ten. Mine was a law tutor of a superior sort. Wherever he could, he gave me a clue to guide me through the labyrinth; and when no reason could be devised for what the law directs, he never puzzled me by attempting to explain what could not be explained; he did not insist upon the total surrender of my rational faculties, but with wonderful liberality would allow me to call nonsense, nonsense; and would, after two or three hours' hard scrivening, as the case might require—for this I thank him more than all the rest—permit me to yawn, and stretch, and pity myself, and curse the useless repetitions of lawyers, sinking under the weight of declarations, and replications, and double pleas, and dilatory, pleas;
"Of horse pleas, traverses, demurrers, Jeofails, imparlances, and errors. Averments, bars, and profestandoes.'"
O! Cecilia, what pains did I endure to win your applause! Yet, that I may state the whole truth, let me acknowledge, that even these, my dullest, hardest tasks, were light, compared with the burden I formerly bore of ennui. At length my period of probation in my pleader's office was over; I escaped from the dusky desk, and the smell of musty parchments, and the close smoky room; I finished eating my terms at the Temple, and returned, even, as the captain of the packet swore, "in the face and teeth of the wind," to Dublin.
But, in my haste to return, I must not omit to notice, for the sake of poetical equity, that just when I was leaving England, I heard that slow but sure-paced justice at last overtook that wretch Crawley. He was detected and convicted of embezzling considerable sums, the property of a gentleman in Cheshire, who had employed him as his agent. I saw him, as I passed through Chester, going to prison, amidst the execrations of the populace.
As I was not, as formerly, asleep in my carriage on deck, when we came within sight of the Irish shore, I saw, and hailed with delight, the beautiful bay of Dublin. The moment we landed, instead of putting myself out of humour, as before, with every thing at the Marine Hotel, I went directly to my friend Lord Y——'s. I made my sortie from the hotel with so much extraordinary promptitude, that a slip-shod waiter was forced to pursue me, running or shuffling after me the whole length of the street, before he could overtake me with a letter, which had been "waiting for my honour, at the hotel, since yesterday's Holyhead packet." This was a mistake, as the letter had never come or gone by any Holyhead packet; it was only a letter from Mr. M'Leod, to welcome me to Ireland again; and to tell me, that he had taken care to secure good well-aired lodgings for me: he added an account of what was going on at Glenthorn Castle. The extravagance of my lady had by this time reduced the family to great difficulties for ready money, as they could neither sell nor mortgage any part of the Glenthorn estate, which was settled on the son. My poor foster-brother had, it seems, in vain attempted to restrain the wasteful folly of his wife, and to persuade Johnny, the young heir-apparent, to larn to be a jantleman: in vain Christy tried to prevail on his lordship to "refrain drinking whisky preferably to claret:" the youth pleaded both his father's and mother's examples; and said, that as he was an only son, and his father had but a life-interest in the estate, he expected to be indulged; he repeated continually "a short life and a merry one for me." Mr. M'Leod concluded this letter by observing, "that far from its being a merry life, he never saw any thing more sad than the life this foolish boy led; and that Glenthorn Castle was so melancholy and disgusting a scene of waste, riot, and intemperance, that he could not bear to go there." I was grieved by this account, for the sake of my poor foster-brother; but it would have made a deeper impression upon me at any other time. I must own that I forgot the letter, and all that it contained, as I knocked at Lord Y——'s door.
Lord Y—— received me with open arms; and, with all the kindness of friendship, anticipated the questions I longed, yet feared, to ask.
"Cecilia Delamere is still unmarried—Let these words be enough to content you for the present; all the rest is, I hope, in your own power."
In my power!—delightful thought! yet how distant that hope! For I was now, after all my labours, but just called to the bar; not yet likely, for years, to make a guinea, much less a fortune, by my profession. Many of the greatest of our lawyers have gone circuit for ten or twelve years, before they made a Fashionable Life. hundred a year; and I was at this time four-and-thirty. I confessed to my Lord Y——, that these reflections alarmed and depressed me exceedingly: but he encouraged me by this answer—"Persevere—deserve success; and trust the rest, not to fortune, but to your friends. It is not required of you to make ten thousand or one thousand a year at the bar, in any given time; but it is expected from you to give proofs that you are capable of conquering the indolence of your disposition or of your former habits. It is required from you to give proofs of intellectual energy and ability. When you have convinced me that you have the knowledge and assiduity that ought to succeed at the bar, I shall be certain that only time is wanting to your actual acquisition of a fortune equal to what I ought to require for my fair friend and relation. When it comes to that point, it will, my dear sir, be time enough for me to say more. Till it comes to that point, I have promised Mrs. Delamere that you will not even attempt to see her daughter. She blames me for having permitted Cecilia and you to see so much of each other, as you did in this house when you were last in Ireland. Perhaps I was imprudent, but your conduct has saved me from my own reproaches, and I fear no other. I end where I began, with 'Persevere—and may the success your perseverance deserves be your reward.' If I recollect right, these were nearly Miss Delamere's own words at parting with you."
In truth, I had not forgotten them; and I was so much excited by their repetition at this moment, and by my excellent friend's encouraging voice, that all difficulties, all dread of future labours or evils, vanished from my view. I went my first circuit, and made two guineas, and was content; for Lord Y—— was not disappointed: he told me it would, it must be so. But though I made no money, I obtained gradually, amongst my associates at the bar, the reputation for judgment and knowledge. Of this they could judge by my conversation, and by the remarks on the trials brought on before us. The elder counsel had been prepared in my favour, first by Mr. Devereux, and afterwards by my diligence in following their advice, during my studies in Dublin: they perceived that I had not lost my time in London, and that my mind was in my possession. They prophesied, that from the moment I began to be employed, I should rise rapidly. Opportunity, they told me, was now all that I wanted, and for that I must wait with patience. I waited with as much patience as I could. I had many friends; some among the judges, some among a more powerful class of men, the attorneys: some of these friends made for me by Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine; some by Lord Y——; some, may I say it? by myself. Yet the utmost that even the highest patronage from the bench can do for a young barrister is, to give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself in preference to other competitors. This was all I hoped; and I was not deceived in this hope. It happened that a cause of considerable moment, which had come on in our circuit, and to the whole course of which I had attended with great care, was removed, by an appeal, to Dublin. I fortunately, I should say prudently, was in the habit of constant attendance at the courts: the counsel who was engaged to manage this cause was suddenly taken ill, and was disabled from proceeding. The judge called upon me; the attorneys, and the other counsel, were all agreed in wishing me to take up the business, for they knew I was prepared, and competent to the question. The next day the cause, which was then to be finally decided, came on. I sat up all night to look over my documents, and to make myself sure of my points. Ten years before this, if any one had prophesied this of me, how little could I have believed them!
The trial came on—I rose to speak. How fortunate it was for me, that I did not know my Lord Y—— was in the court! I am persuaded that I could not have uttered three sentences, if he had caught my eye in the exordium of this my first harangue. Every man of sensibility—and no man without it can be an orator—every man of sensibility knows that it is more difficult to speak in the presence of one anxious friend, of whose judgment we have a high opinion, than before a thousand auditors who are indifferent, and are strangers to us. Not conscious who was listening to me, whose eyes were upon me, whose heart was beating for me, I spoke with confidence and fluency, for I spoke on a subject of which I had previously made myself completely master; and I was so full of the matter, that I thought not of the words. Perhaps this, and my having the right side of the question, were the causes of my success. I heard a buzz of thanks and applause round me. The decree was given in our favour. At this moment I recollected my bargain, and my debt to my good master the special pleader. But all bargains, all debts, all special pleaders, vanished the next instant from my mind; for the crowd opened, Lord Y—— appeared before me, seized my hand, congratulated me actually with tears of joy, carried me away to his carriage, ordered the coachman to drive home—fast! fast!
"And now," said he to me, "I am satisfied. Your trial is over—successfully over—you have convinced me of your powers and your perseverance. All the hopes of friendship are fulfilled: may all the hopes of love be accomplished! You have now my free and full approbation to address my ward and relation, Cecilia Delamere. You will have difficulties with her mother, perhaps; but none beyond what we good and great lawyers shall, I trust, be able to overrule. Mrs. Delamere knows, that, as I have an unsettled estate, and but one son, I have it in my power to provide for her daughter as if she were my own. It has always been my intention to do so: but if you marry Miss Delamere, you will still find it necessary to pursue your profession diligently, to maintain her in her own rank and style of life; and now that you have felt the pleasures of successful exertion, you will consider this necessity as an additional blessing. From what I have heard this day, there can be no doubt, that, by pursuing your profession, you can secure, in a few years, not only ease and competence, but affluence and honours—honours of your own earning. How far superior to any hereditary title!"
The carriage stopped at Lord Y——'s door. My friend presented me to Cecilia, whom I saw this day for the first time since my return to Ireland. From this hour I date the commencement of my life of real happiness. How unlike that life of pleasure, to which so many give erroneously the name of happiness! Lord Y——, with his powerful influence, supported my cause with Mrs. Delamere, who was induced, though with an ill grace, to give up her opposition.
"Cecilia," she said, "was now three-and-twenty, an age to judge for herself; and Lord Y——'s judgment was a great point in favour of Mr. O'Donoghoe, to be sure. And no doubt Mr. O'Donoghoe might make a fortune, since he had made a figure already at the bar. In short, she could not oppose the wishes of Lord Y——, and the affections of her daughter, since they were so fixed. But, after all," said Mrs. Delamere, "what a horrid thing it will be to hear my girl called Mrs. O'Donoghoe! Only conceive the sound of—Mrs. O'Donoghoe's carriage there!—Mrs. O'Donoghoe's carriage stops the way!"
"Your objection, my dear madam," replied Lord Y——, "is fully as well founded as that of a young lady of my acquaintance, who could not prevail on her delicacy to become the wife of a merchant of the name of Sheepshanks. He very wisely, or very gallantly, paid five hundred pounds to change his name. I make no doubt that your future son-in-law will have no objection to take and bear the name and arms of Delamere; and I think I can answer for it, that a king's letter may be obtained, empowering him to do so. With this part of the business allow me to charge myself."
I spare the reader the protracted journal of a lover's hopes and fears. Cecilia, convinced, by the exertions in which I had so long persevered, that my affection for her was not only sincere and ardent, but likely to be permanent, did not torture me by the vain delays of female coquetry. She believed, she said, that a man capable of conquering habitual indolence could not be of a feeble character; and she therefore consented, without hesitation, to entrust her happiness to my care.
I hope my readers have, by this time, too favourable an opinion of me to suspect, that, in my joy, I forgot him who had been my steady friend in adversity. I wrote to M'Leod, as soon as I knew my own happiness, and assured him that it would be incomplete without his sympathy. I do not think there was at our wedding a face of more sincere, though sober joy, than M'Leod's. Cecilia and I have been now married above a twelvemonth, and she permits me to say, that she has never, for a moment, repented her choice. That I have not relapsed into my former habits, the judicious and benevolent reader will hence infer: and yet I have been in a situation to be spoiled; for I scarcely know a wish of my heart that remains ungratified, except the wish that my friend Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine should return from India, to see and partake of that happiness of which they first prepared the foundation. They first awakened my dormant intellects, made me know that I had a heart, and that I was capable of forming a character for myself. The loss of my estate continued the course of my education, forced me to exert my own powers, and to rely upon myself. My passion for the amiable and charming Cecilia was afterwards motive sufficient to urge me to persevering intellectual labour: fortunately my marriage has obliged me to continue my exertions, and the labours of my profession have made the pleasures of domestic life most delightful. The rich, says a philosophic moralist, are obliged to labour, if they would be healthy or happy; and they call this labour exercise.
Whether, if I were again a rich man, I should have sufficient voluntary exertion to take a due portion of mental and bodily exercise, I dare not pretend to determine, nor do I wish to be put to the trial. Desiring nothing in life but the continuance of the blessings I possess, I may here conclude my memoirs, by assuring my readers, that after a full experience of most of what are called the pleasures of life, I would not accept of all the Glenthorn and Sherwood estates, to pass another year of such misery as I endured whilst I was "stretched on the rack of a too easy chair."
The preceding memoirs were just ready for publication, when I received the following letter:
"Since the day I parted yees, nothing in life but misfortins has happened me, owing to my being overruled by my wife, who would be a lady, all I could say again it. But that's over, and there's no help; for all and all that ever she can say will do no good. The castle's burnt down all to the ground, and my Johnny's dead, and I wish I was dead in his place. The occasion of his death was owing to drink, which he fell into from getting too much money, and nothing to do—and a snuff of a candle. When going to bed last night, a little in liquor, what does he do but takes the candle, and sticks it up against the head of his bed, as he used oftentimes to do, without detriment, in the cabin where he was reared, against the mud-wall. But this was close to an ould window curtain, and a deal of ould wood in the bed, which was all in a smother, and he lying asleep after drinking, when he was ever hard to wake, and before he waked at all, it appears the unfortunit cratur was smothered, and none heard a sentence of it, till the ceiling of my room, the blue bedchamber, with a piece of the big wood cornice, fell, and wakened me with terrible uproar, and all above and about me was flame and smoke, and I just took my wife on my back, and down the stairs with her, which did not give in till five minutes after, and she screeching, and all them relations she had screeching and running every one for themselves, and no thought in any to save any thing at all, but just what they could for themselves, and not a sarvant that was in his right rason. I got the ladder with a deal of difficulty, and up to Johnny's room, and there was a sight for me—he a corpse, and how even to get the corpse out of that, myself could not tell, for I was bewildered, and how they took me down, I don't well know. When I came to my sinses, I was lying on the ground in the court, and all confusion and screaming still, and the flames raging worse than ever. There's no use in describing all—the short of it is, there's nothing remaining of the castle but the stones; and it's little I'd think o' that, if I could have Johnny back—such as he used to be in my good days; since he's gone, I am no good. I write this to beg you, being married, of which I give you joy, to Miss Delamere, that is the hare at law, will take possession of all immediately, for I am as good as dead, and will give no hindrance. I will go back to my forge, and, by the help of God, forget at my work what has passed; and as to my wife, she may go to her own kith and kin, if she will not abide by me. I shall not trouble her long. Mr. M'Leod is a good man, and will follow any directions you send; and may the blessing of God attind, and come to reign over us again, when you will find me, as heretofore,
"Your loyal foster-brother,
Glenthorn Castle is now rebuilding; and when it is finished, and when I return thither, I will, if it should be desired by the public, give a faithful account of my feelings. I flatter myself that I shall not relapse into indolence; my understanding has been cultivated—I have acquired a taste for literature, and the example of Lord Y—— convinces me that a man may at once be rich and noble, and active and happy.
Written in 1804. Printed in 1809.
[73] Clodius Albinus.
[74] I was not the nobleman who laid a wager, that he could ride a fine horse to death in fifteen minutes. Indeed, I must do myself the justice to say, that I rejoiced at this man's losing his bet. He blew the horse in four minutes, and killed it; but it did not die within the time prescribed by the bet.
[75] If any one should think it impossible that a man of Lord Glenthorn's consequence should, at the supposed moment of his death, thus be neglected, let them recollect the scenes that followed the death of Tiberius—of Henry the Fourth of France—of William Rufus, and of George the Second.
[76] "For fostering, I did never hear or read, that it was in use or reputation in any country, barbarous or civil, as it hath been, and yet is, in Ireland…. In the opinion of this people, fostering hath always been a stronger alliance than blood; and the foster-children do love and are beloved of their foster-fathers and their sept (or clan) more than of their natural parents and kindred; and do participate of their means more frankly, and do adhere unto them, in all fortunes, with more affection and constancy…. Such a general custom in a kingdom, in giving and taking children to foster, making such a firm alliance as it doth in Ireland, was never seen or heard of in any other country of the world beside."—DAVIES.
See in Lodge's Peerage of Ireland an account of an Irish nurse, who went from Kerry to France, and from France to Milan, to see her foster-son, the Lord Thomas Fitzmaurice; and to warn him that his estate was in danger from an heir-at-law, who had taken possession of it in his absence. The nurse, being very old, died on her return home.
[77] Verbatim.
[78] Since Lord Glenthorn's Memoirs were published, the editor has received letters and information from the east, west, north, and south of Ireland, on the present state of posting in that country. The following is one of the many, which is vouched by indisputable authority as a true and recent anecdote, given in the very words in which it was related to the editor … Mr. ———, travelling in Ireland, having got into a hackney chaise, was surprised to hear the driver knocking at each side of the carriage. "What are you doing?"—"A'n't I nailing your honour up?"—"Why do you nail me up? I don't wish to be nailed up."—"Augh! would your honour have the doors fly off the hinges?" When they came to the end of the stage, Mr. ——— begged the man to unfasten the doors. "Ogh! what would I he taking out the nails for, to be racking the doors?"—"How shall I get out then?"—"Can't your honour get out of the window like any other jantleman?" Mr. ——— began the operation; but, having forced his head and shoulder out, could get no farther, and called again to the postilion. "Augh! did any one ever see any one get out of a chay head foremost? Can't your honour put out your feet first, like a Christian?"
Another correspondent from the south relates, that when he refused to go on till one of the four horses, who wanted a shoe, was shod, his two postilions in his hearing commenced thus: "Paddy, where will I get a shoe, and no smith nigh hand?"—"Why don't you see yon jantleman's horse in the field? can't you go and unshoe him?"—"True for ye," said Jem; "but that horse's shoe will never fit him."—"Augh! you can but try it," said Paddy.—So the gentleman's horse was actually unshod, and his shoe put upon the hackney horse; and, fit or not fit, Paddy went off with it.
Another gentleman, travelling in the north of Ireland in a hackney chaise during a storm of wind and rain, found that two of the windows were broken, and two could not by force or art of man be pulled up: he ventured to complain to his Paddy of the inconvenience he suffered from the storm pelting in his face. His consolation was, "Augh! God bless your honour, and can't you get out and set behind the carriage, and you'll not get a drop at all, I'll engage."
[79] Mirabeau—Secret Memoirs.
[80] See Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxvii. part ii., Sir George Shuckburgh's observations to ascertain the height of mountains—for a full account of the cabin of a couple of Alpine shepherdesses.
[81] See Harrison.
[82] "En petit compris vous pouvez voir
Ce qui comprend beaucoup par renommé,
Plume, labeur, la langue, et le devoir
Furent vaincus par l'amant de l'aimée.
O gentille ame, étant toute estimée!
Qui te pourra louer, qu'en se taisant?
Car la parole est toujours réprimée
Quand le sujet surmonte le disant."
[83] "The stag is roused from the woods that skirt Glenaa mountain, in which there are many of these animals that run wild; the bottoms and sides of the mountains are covered with woods, and the declivities are so long and steep that no horse could either make his way to the bottom, or climb these impracticable hills. It is impossible to follow the hunt, either on foot or on horseback. The spectator enjoys the diversion on the lake, where the cry of hounds, the harmony of the horn, resounding from the hills on every side, the universal shouts of joy along the valleys and mountains, which are often lined with foot-people, who come in vast numbers to partake and assist at the diversion, re-echo from hill to hill, and give the highest glee and satisfaction that the imagination can conceive possible to arise from the chase, and perhaps can nowhere be enjoyed with that spirit and sublime elevation of soul, that a thorough-bred sportsman feels at a stag-hunt on the Lake of Killarney. There is, however, one imminent danger which awaits him; that in his raptures and ecstasies he may forget himself and jump out of the boat. When hotly pursued, and weary with the constant difficulty of making his way with his ramified antlers through the woods, the stag, terrified at the cry of his open-mouthed pursuers, almost at his heels, now looks toward the lake as his last resource—then pauses and looks upwards; but the hills are insurmountable, and the woods refuse to shelter him—the hounds roar with redoubled fury at the sight of their victim—he plunges into the lake. He escapes but for a few minutes from one merciless enemy to fall into the hands of another—the shouting boat-men surround their victim—throw cords round his majestic antlers—he is haltered and dragged to shore; while the big tears roll down his face, and his heaving sides and panting flanks speak his agonies, the keen searching knife drinks his blood, and savages exult at his expiring groan."
[84] Than.
[85] An Irishman in using this word has some confused notion that it comes from negro; whereas it really means niggard.
"Horrible monster! hated by gods and men."—PHILLIPS.
"In the higher and middle classes of society," says a celebrated writer, "it is a melancholy and distressing sight to observe, not unfrequently, a man of a noble and ingenuous disposition, once feelingly alive to a sense of honour and integrity, gradually sinking under the pressure of his circumstances, making his excuses at first with a blush of conscious shame, afraid to see the faces of his friends from whom he may have borrowed money, reduced to the meanest tricks and subterfuges to delay or avoid the payment of his just debts, till, ultimately grown familiar with falsehood, and at enmity with the world, he loses all the grace and dignity of man."
Colonel Pembroke, the subject of the following story, had not, at the time his biographer first became acquainted with him, "grown familiar with falsehood;" his conscience was not entirely callous to reproach, nor was his heart insensible to compassion; but he was in a fair way to get rid of all troublesome feelings and principles. He was connected with a set of selfish young men of fashion, whose opinions stood him in stead of law, equity, and morality; to them he appealed in all doubtful cases, and his self-complacency being daily and hourly dependent upon their decisions, he had seldom either leisure or inclination to consult his own judgment. His amusements and his expenses were consequently regulated by the example of his companions, not by his own choice. To follow them in every absurd variety of the mode, either in dress or, equipage, was his first ambition; and all their factitious wants appeared to him objects of the first necessity. No matter how good the boots, the hat, the coat, the furniture, or the equipage might be, if they had outlived the fashion of the day, or even of the hour, they were absolutely worthless in his eyes. Nobody could be seen in such things—then of what use could they be to any body? Colonel Pembroke's finances were not exactly equal to the support of such liberal principles; but this was a misfortune which he had in common with several of his companions. It was no check to their spirit—they could live upon credit—credit, "that talisman, which realizes every thing it imagines, and which can imagine every thing." [See Des Casaux sur le Méchanisme de la Société.] Without staying to reflect upon the immediate or remote consequences of this system, Pembroke, in his first attempts, found it easy to reduce it to practice: but, as he proceeded, he experienced some difficulties. Tradesmen's bills accumulated, and applications for payment became every day more frequent and pressing. He defended himself with much address and ingenuity, and practice perfected him in all the Fabian arts of delay. "No faith with duns" became, as he frankly declared, a maxim of his morality. He could now, with a most plausible face, protest to a poor devil, upon the honour of a gentleman, that he should be paid to-morrow; when nothing was farther from his intentions or his power than to keep his word: and when to-morrow came, he could, with the most easy assurance, damn the rascal for putting a gentleman in mind of his promises. But there were persons more difficult to manage than poor devils. Colonel Pembroke's tailor, who had begun by being the most accommodating fellow in the world, and who had in three years run him up a bill of thirteen hundred pounds, at length began to fail in complaisance, and had the impertinence to talk of his large family, and his urgent calls for money, etc. And next, the colonel's shoe and boot-maker, a man from whom he had been in the habit of taking two hundred pounds' worth of shoes and boots every year, for himself and his servants, now pretended to be in distress for ready money, and refused to furnish more goods upon credit. "Ungrateful dog!" Pembroke called him; and he actually believed his creditors to be ungrateful and insolent, when they asked for their money; for men frequently learn to believe what they are in the daily habit of asserting [Rochefoucault], especially if their assertions be not contradicted by their audience. He knew that his tradesmen overcharged him in every article he bought, and therefore he thought it but just to delay payment whilst it suited his convenience. "Confound them, they can very well afford to wait!" As to their pleas of urgent demands for ready money, large families, &c., he considered these merely as words of course, tradesmen's cant, which should make no more impression upon a gentleman than the whining of a beggar.
One day when Pembroke was just going out to ride with some of his gay companions, he was stopped at his own door by a pale, thin, miserable-looking boy, eight or nine years old, who presented him with a paper, which he took for granted was a petition; he threw the child half-a-crown. "There, take that," said he, "and stand out of the way of my horse's heels, I advise you, my little fellow."
The boy, however, still pressed closer; and, without picking up the half-crown, held the paper to Colonel Pembroke, who had now vaulted into his saddle.
"O no! no! That's too much, my lad—I never read petitions—I'd sooner give half-a-crown at any time than read a petition."
"But, sir, this is not a petition—indeed, sir, I am not a beggar."
"What is it then?—Heyday! a bill!—Then you're worse than a beggar—a dun!—a dun! in the public streets, at your time of life! You little rascal, why what will you come to before you are your father's age?" The boy sighed. "If," pursued the colonel, "I were to serve you right, I should give you a good horse-whipping. Do you see this whip?"
"I do, sir," said the boy; "but——"
"But what? you insolent little dun!—But what?"
"My father is dying," said the child, bursting into tears, "and we have no money to buy him bread, or any thing."
Struck by these words, Pembroke snatched the paper from the boy, and looking hastily at the total and title of the bill, read—"Twelve pounds fourteen—John White, weaver."—"I know of no such person!—I have no dealings with weavers, child," said the colonel, laughing: "My name's Pembroke—Colonel Pembroke."
"Colonel Pembroke—yes, sir, the very person Mr. Close, the tailor, sent me to!"
"Close the tailor! D—n the rascal: was it he sent you to dun me? For this trick he shall not see a farthing of my money this twelvemonth. You may tell him so, you little whining hypocrite!—And, hark you! the next time you come to me, take care to come with a better story—let your father and mother, and six brothers and sisters, be all lying ill of the fever—do you understand?"
He tore the bill into bits as he spoke, and showered it over the boy's head. Pembroke's companions laughed at this operation, and he facetiously called it "powdering a dun." They rode off to the Park in high spirits; and the poor boy picked up the half-crown, and returned home. His home was in a lane in Moorfields, about three miles distant from this gay part of the town. As the child had not eaten any thing that morning, he was feeble, and grew faint as he was crossing Covent Garden. He sat down upon the corner of a stage of flowers.
"What are you doing there?" cried a surly man, pulling him up by the arm; "What business have you lounging and loitering here, breaking my best balsam?"
"I did not mean to do any harm—I am not loitering, indeed, sir,—I'm only weak," said the boy, "and hungry."
"Oranges! oranges! fine China oranges!" cried a woman, rolling her barrow full of fine fruit towards him. "If you've a two-pence in the world, you can't do better than take one of these fine ripe China oranges."
"I have not two-pence of my own in the world," said the boy.
"What's that I see through the hole in your waistcoat pocket?" said the woman; "is not that silver?"
"Yes, half-a-crown; which I am carrying home to my father, who is ill, and wants it more than I do."
"Pooh! take an orange out of it—it's only two-pence—and it will do you good—I'm sure you look as if you wanted it badly enough."
"That may be; but father wants it worse.—No, I won't change my half-crown," said the boy, turning away from the tempting oranges.
The gruff gardener caught him by the hand.
"Here, I've moved the balsam a bit, and it is not broke, I see; sit ye down, child, and rest yourself, and eat this," said he, putting into his hand half a ripe orange, which he just cut.
"Thank you!—God bless you, sir!—How good it is!—But," said the child, stopping after he had tasted the sweet juice, "I am sorry I have sucked so much; I might have carried it home to father, who is ill; and what a treat it would be to him!—I'll keep the rest."
"No—that you sha'n't," said the orange-woman. "But I'll tell you what you shall do—take this home to your father, which is a better one by half—I'm sure it will do him good—I never knew a ripe China orange do harm to man, woman, or child."
The boy thanked the good woman and the gardener, as only those can thank who have felt what it is to be in absolute want. When he was rested, and able to walk, he pursued his way home. His mother was watching for him at the street-door.
"Well, John, my dear, what news? Has he paid us?"
The boy shook his head.
"Then we must bear it as well as we can," said his mother, wiping the cold dew from her forehead.
"But look, mother, I have this half-crown, which the gentleman, thinking me a beggar, threw to me."
"Run with it, love, to the baker's. No—stay, you're tired—I'll go myself; and do you step up to your father, and tell him the bread is coming in a minute."
"Don't run, for you're not able, mother; don't hurry so," said the boy, calling after her, and holding up his orange: "see, I have this for father whilst you are away."
He clambered up three flights of dark, narrow, broken stairs, to the room in which his father lay. The door hung by a single hinge, and the child had scarcely strength enough to raise it out of the hollow in the decayed floor into which it had sunk. He pushed it open, with as little noise as possible, just far enough to creep in.
Let those forbear to follow him whose fine feelings can be moved only by romantic, elegant scenes of distress, whose delicate sensibility shrinks from the revolting sight of real misery. Here are no pictures for romance, no stage effect to be seen, no poetic language to be heard; nothing to charm the imagination,—every thing to disgust the senses.
This room was so dark, that upon first going into it, after having been in broad daylight, you could scarcely distinguish any one object it contained; and no one used to breathe a pure atmosphere could probably have endured to remain many minutes in this garret. There were three beds in it: one on which the sick man lay; divided from it by a tattered rug was another, for his wife and daughter; and a third for his little boy in the farthest corner. Underneath the window was fixed a loom, at which the poor weaver had worked hard many a day and year—too hard, indeed—even till the very hour he was taken ill. His shuttle now lay idle upon his frame. A girl of about sixteen—his daughter—was sitting at the foot of his bed, finishing some plain work.
"Oh, Anne! how your face is all flushed!" said her little brother, as she looked up when he came into the room.
"Have you brought us any money?" whispered she: "don't say No loud, for fear father should hear you." The boy told her in a low voice all that had passed.
"Speak out, my dear, I'm not asleep," said his father. "So you are come back as you went?"
"No, father, not quite—there's bread coming for you."
"Give me some more water, Anne, for my mouth is quite parched."
The little boy cut his orange in an instant, and gave a piece of it to his father, telling him, at the same time, how he came by it The sick man raised his hands to heaven, and blessed the poor woman who gave it to him.
"Oh, how I love her! and how I hate that cruel, unjust, rich man, who won't pay father for all the hard work he has done for him!" cried the child: "how I hate him!"
"God forgive him!" said the weaver. "I don't know what will become of you all, when I'm gone; and no one to befriend you, or even to work at the loom. Anne, I think if I was up," said he, raising himself, "I could still contrive to do a little good."
"Dear father, don't think of getting up; the best you can do for us is to lie still and take rest."
"Rest! I can take no rest, Anne. Rest! there's none for me in this world. And whilst I'm in it, is not it my duty to work for my wife and children? Reach me my clothes, and I'll get up."
It was in vain to contend with him, when this notion seized him that it was his duty to work till the last. All opposition fretted and made him worse; so that his daughter and his wife, even from affection, were forced to yield, and to let him go to the loom, when his trembling hands were scarcely able to throw the shuttle. He did not know how weak he was till he tried to walk. As he stepped out of bed, his wife came in with a loaf of bread in her hand: at the unexpected sight he made an exclamation of joy; sprang forward to meet her, but fell upon the floor in a swoon, before he could put one bit of the bread which she broke for him into his mouth. Want of sustenance, the having been overworked, and the constant anxiety which preyed upon his spirits, had reduced him to this deplorable state of weakness. When he recovered his senses, his wife showed him his little boy eating a large piece of bread; she also ate, and made Anne eat before him, to relieve his mind from that dread which had seized it—and not without some reason—that he should see his wife and children starve to death.
"You find, father, there's no danger for to-day," said Anne; "and to-morrow I shall be paid for my plain work, and then we shall do very well for a few days longer; and I dare say in that time Mr. Close the tailor will receive some money from some of the great many rich gentlemen who owe him so much; and you know he promised that as soon as ever he was able he would pay us."
With such hopes, and the remembrance of such promises, the poor man's spirits could not be much raised; he knew, alas! how little dependence was to be placed on them. As soon as he had eaten, and felt his strength revive, he insisted upon going to the loom; his mind was bent upon finishing a pattern, for which he was to receive five guineas in ready money: he worked and worked, then lay down and rested himself,—then worked again, and so on during the remainder of the day; and during several hours of the night he continued to throw the shuttle, whilst his little boy and his wife by turns wound spools for him.
He completed his work, and threw himself upon his bed quite exhausted, just as the neighbouring clock struck one.
At this hour Colonel Pembroke was in the midst of a gay and brilliant assembly at Mrs. York's, in a splendid saloon, illuminated with wax-lights in profusion, the floor crayoned with roses and myrtles, which the dancers' feet effaced, the walls hung with the most expensive hot-house flowers; in short, he was surrounded with luxury in all its extravagance. It is said that the peaches alone at this entertainment amounted to six hundred guineas. They cost a guinea a-piece: the price of one of them, which Colonel Pembroke threw away because it was not perfectly ripe, would have supported the weaver and his whole family for a week.
There are political advocates for luxury, who assert, perhaps justly, that the extravagance of individuals increases the wealth of nations. But even upon this system, those who by false hopes excite the industrious to exertion, without paying them their just wages, commit not only the most cruel private injustice, but the most important public injury. The permanence of industry in any state must be proportioned to the certainty of its reward.
Amongst the masks at Mrs. York's were three who amused the company particularly; the festive mob followed them as they moved, and their bon-mots were applauded and repeated by all the best, that is to say, the most fashionable male and female judges of wit. The three distinguished characters were a spendthrift, a bailiff, and a dun. The spendthrift was supported with great spirit and truth by Colonel Pembroke, and two of his companions were great and correct in the parts of the bailiff and the dun. The happy idea of appearing in these characters this night had been suggested by the circumstance that happened in the morning. Colonel Pembroke gave himself great credit, he said, for thus "striking novelty even from difficulty;" and he rejoiced that the rascal of a weaver had sent his boy to dun him, and had thus furnished him with diversion for the evening as well as the morning. We are much concerned that we cannot, for the advantage of posterity, record any of the innumerable good things which undoubtedly were uttered by this trio. Even the newspapers of the day could speak only in general panegyric. The probability, however, is, that the colonel deserved the praises that were lavished upon his manner of supporting his character. No man was better acquainted than himself with all those anecdotes of men of fashion, which could illustrate the spendthrift system. At least fifty times he had repeated, and always with the same glee, the reply of a great character to a creditor, who, upon being asked when his bond debts were likely to be paid, answered, "On the day of judgment."
Probably the admiration which this and similar sallies of wit have excited, must have produced a strong desire in the minds of many young men of spirit to perform similar feats; and though the ruin of innumerable poor creditors may be the consequence, that will not surely be deemed by a certain class of reasoners worthy of a moment's regret, or even a moment's thought. Persons of tender consciences may, perhaps, be shocked at the idea of committing injustice and cruelty by starving their creditors, but they may strengthen their minds by taking an enlarged political view of the subject.
It is obvious, that whether a hundred guineas be in the pocket of A or B, the total sum of the wealth of the nation remains the same; and whether the enjoyments of A be as 100, and those of B as 0,—or whether these enjoyments be equally divided between A and B,—is a matter of no importance to the political arithmetician, because in both cases it is obvious that the total sum of national happiness remains the same. The happiness of individuals is nothing compared with the general mass.
And if the individual B should fancy himself ill-used by our political arithmetician, and should take it into his head to observe, that though the happiness of B is nothing to the general mass, yet that it is every thing to him, the politician of course takes snuff, and replies, that his observation is foreign to the purpose—that the good of the whole society is the object in view. And if B immediately accede to this position, and only ask humbly whether the good of the whole be not made up of the good of the parts, and whether as a part he have not some right to his share of good, the dexterous logical arithmetician answers, that B is totally out of the question, because B is a negative quantity in the equation. And if obstinate B, still conceiving himself aggrieved, objects to this total annihilation of himself and his interests, and asks why the lot of extinction should not fall upon the debtor C, or even upon the calculator himself, by whatever letter of the alphabet he happens to be designated, the calculator must knit his brow, and answer—any thing he pleases—except, I don't know—for this is a phrase below the dignity of a philosopher. This argument is produced, not as a statement of what is really the case, but as a popular argument against political sophistry.
Colonel Pembroke, notwithstanding his success at Mrs. York's masquerade in his character of a spendthrift, could not by his utmost wit and address satisfy or silence his impertinent tailor. Mr. Close absolutely refused to give further credit without valuable consideration; and the colonel was compelled to pass his bond for the whole sum which was claimed, which was fifty pounds more than was strictly due, in order to compound with the tailor for the want of ready money. When the bond was fairly signed, sealed, and delivered, Mr. Close produced the poor weaver's bill.
"Colonel Pembroke," said he, "I have a trifling bill here—I am really ashamed to speak to you about such a trifle—but as we are settling all accounts—and as this White, the weaver, is so wretchedly poor, that he or some of his family are with me every day of my life dunning me to get me to speak about their little demand—"
"Who is this White?" said Mr. Pembroke.
"You recollect the elegant waistcoat pattern of which you afterwards bought up the whole piece, lest it should become common and vulgar?—this White was the weaver from whom we got it."
"Bless me! why that's two years ago: I thought that fellow was paid long ago!"
"No, indeed, I wish he had been; for he has been the torment of my life this many a month—I never saw people so eager about their money."
"But why do you employ such miserable, greedy creatures? What can you expect but to be dunned every hour of your life?"
"Very true, indeed, colonel; it is what I always, on that principle, avoid as far as possibly I can: but I can't blame myself in this particular instance; for this White, at the time I employed him first, was a very decent man, and in a very good way, for one of his sort: but I suppose he has taken to drink, for he is worth not a farthing now."
"What business has a fellow of his sort to drink? He should leave that for his betters," said Colonel Pembroke, laughing. "Drinking's too great a pleasure for a weaver. The drunken rascal's money is safer in my hands, tell him, than in his own."
The tailor's conscience twinged him a little at this instant, for he had spoken entirely at random, not having the slightest grounds for his insinuation that this poor weaver had ruined himself by drunkenness.
"Upon my word, sir," said Close, retracting, "the man may not be a drunken fellow for any thing I know positively—I purely surmised that might be the case, from his having fallen into such distress, which is no otherwise accountable for, to my comprehension, except we believe his own story, that he has money due to him which he cannot get paid, and that this has been his ruin."
Colonel Pembroke cleared his throat two or three times upon hearing this last suggestion, and actually took up the weaver's bill with some intention of paying it; but he recollected that he should want the ready money he had in his pocket for another indispensable occasion; for he was obliged to go to Brookes's that night; so he contented his humanity by recommending it to Mr. Close to pay White and have done with him.
"If you let him have the money, you know, you can put it down to my account, or make a memorandum of it at the back of the bond. In short, settle it as you will, but let me hear no more about it. I have not leisure to think of such trifles—Good morning to you, Mr. Close."
Mr. Close was far from having any intention of complying with the colonel's request. When the weaver's wife called upon him after his return home, he assured her that he had not seen the colour of one guinea, or one farthing, of Colonel Pembroke's money; and that it was absolutely impossible that he could pay Mr. White till he was paid himself—that it could not be expected he should advance money for any body out of his own pocket—that he begged he might not be pestered and dunned any more, for that he really had not leisure to think of such trifles.
For want of this trifle, of which neither the fashionable colonel nor his fashionable tailor had leisure to think, the poor weaver and his whole family were reduced to the last degree of human misery—to absolute famine. The man had exerted himself to the utmost to finish a pattern, which had been bespoken for a tradesman who promised upon the delivery of it to pay him five guineas in hand. This money he received; but four guineas of it were due to his landlord for rent of his wretched garret, and the remaining guinea was divided between the baker, to whom an old bill was due, and the apothecary, to whom they were obliged to have recourse, as the weaver was extremely ill. They had literally nothing now to depend upon but what the wife and daughter could earn by needlework; and they were known to be so miserably poor, that the prudent neighbours did not like to trust them with plain work, lest it should not be returned safely. Besides, in such a dirty place as they lived in, how could it be expected that they should put any work out of their hands decently clean? The woman to whom the house belonged, however, at last procured them work from Mrs. Carver, a widow lady, who she said was extremely charitable. She advised Anne to carry home the work as soon as it was finished, and to wait to see the lady herself, who might perhaps be as charitable to her as she was to many others. Anne resolved to take this advice: but when she carried home her work to the place to which she was directed, her heart almost failed her; for she found Mrs. Carver lived in such a handsome house, that there was little chance of a poor girl being admitted by the servants farther than the hall-door or the kitchen. The lady, however, happened to be just coming out of her parlour at the moment the hall-door was opened for Anne; and she bid her come in and show her work—approved of it—commended her industry—asked her several questions about her family—seemed to be touched with compassion by Anne's account of their distress—and after paying what she had charged for the work, put half-a-guinea into her hand, and bid her call the next day, when she hoped that she should be able to do something more for her. This unexpected bounty, and the kindness of voice and look with which it was accompanied, had such an effect upon the poor girl, that if she had not caught hold of a chair to support herself she would have sunk to the ground. Mrs. Carver immediately made her sit down—"Oh, madam! I'm well, quite well now—it was nothing—only surprise," said she, bursting into tears. "I beg your pardon for this foolishness—but it is only because I'm weaker to-day than usual, for want of eating."
"For want of eating! my poor child! How she trembles! she is weak indeed, and must not leave my house in this condition."
Mrs. Carver rang the bell, and ordered a glass of wine; but Anne was afraid to drink it, as she was not used to wine, and as she knew that it would affect her head if she drank without eating. When the lady found that she refused the wine, she did not press it, but insisted upon her eating something.
"Oh, madam!" said the poor girl, "it is long, long indeed, since I have eaten so heartily; and it is almost a shame for me to stay eating such dainties, when my father and mother are all the while in the way they are. But I'll run home with the half-guinea, and tell them how good you have been, and they will be so joyful and so thankful to you! My mother will come herself, I'm sure, with me to-morrow morning—she can thank you so much better than I can!"
Those only who have known the extreme of want can imagine the joy and gratitude with which the half-guinea was received by this poor family. Half-a-guinea!—Colonel Pembroke spent six half-guineas this very day in a fruit-shop, and ten times that sum at a jeweller's on seals and baubles for which he had no manner of use.
When Anne and her mother called the next morning to thank their benefactress, she was not up; but her servant gave them a parcel from his mistress: it contained a fresh supply of needlework, a gown, and some other clothes, which were directed for Anne. The servant said, that if she would call again about eight in the evening, his lady would probably be able to see her, and that she begged to have the work finished by that time. The work was finished, though with some difficulty, by the appointed hour; and Anne, dressed in her new clothes, was at Mrs. Carver's door just as the clock struck eight. The old lady was alone at tea; she seemed to be well pleased by Anne's punctuality; said that she had made inquiries respecting Mr. and Mrs. White, and that she heard an excellent character of them; that therefore she was disposed to do every thing she could to serve them. She added, that she "should soon part with her own maid, and that perhaps Anne might supply her place." Nothing could be more agreeable to the poor girl than this proposal: her father and mother were rejoiced at the idea of seeing her so well placed; and they now looked forward impatiently for the day when Mrs. Carver's maid was to be dismissed. In the mean time the old lady continued to employ Anne, and to make her presents, sometimes of clothes, and sometimes of money. The money she always gave to her parents; and she loved her "good old lady," as she always called her, more for putting it in her power thus to help her father and mother than for all the rest. The weaver's disease had arisen from want of sufficient food, from fatigue of body, and anxiety of mind; and he grew rapidly better, now that he was relieved from want, and inspired with hope. Mrs. Carver bespoke from him two pieces of waistcoating, which she promised to dispose of for him most advantageously, by a raffle, for which she had raised subscriptions amongst her numerous acquaintance. She expressed great indignation, when Anne told her how Mr. White had been ruined by persons who would not pay their just debts; and when she knew that the weaver was overcharged for all his working materials, because he took them upon credit, she generously offered to lend them whatever ready money might be necessary, which she said Anne might repay, at her leisure, out of her wages.
"Oh, madam!" said Anne, "you are too good to us, indeed—too good! and if you could but see into our hearts, you would know that we are not ungrateful."
"I am sure that is what you never will be, my dear," said the old lady; "at least such is my opinion of you."
"Thank you, ma'am! thank you, from the bottom of my heart!—We should all have been starved, if it had not been for you. And it is owing to you that we are so happy now—quite different creatures from what we were."
"Quite a different creature indeed, you look, child, from what you did the first day I saw you. To-morrow my own maid goes, and you may come at ten o'clock; and I hope we shall agree very well together—you'll find me an easy mistress, and I make no doubt I shall always find you the good, grateful girl you seem to be."
Anne was impatient for the moment when she was to enter into the service of her benefactress; and she lay awake half the night, considering how she should ever be able to show sufficient gratitude. As Mrs. Carver had often expressed her desire to have Anne look neat and smart, she dressed herself as well as she possibly could; and when her poor father and mother took leave of her, they could not help observing, as Mrs. Carver had done the day before, that "Anne looked quite a different creature from what she was a few weeks ago." She was, indeed, an extremely pretty girl; but we need not stop to relate all the fond praises that were bestowed upon her beauty by her partial parents. Her little brother John was not at home when she was going away; he was at a carpenter's shop in the neighbourhood mending a wheelbarrow, which belonged to that good-natured orange-woman who gave him the orange for his father. Anne called at the carpenter's shop to take leave of her brother. The woman was there waiting for her barrow—she looked earnestly at Anne when she entered, and then whispered to the boy, "Is that your sister?"—"Yes," said the boy, "and as good a sister she is as ever was born."
"Maybe so," said the woman; "but she is not likely to be good for much long, in the way she is going on now."
"What way—what do you mean?" said Anne, colouring violently.
"Oh, you understand me well enough, though you look so innocent."
"I do not understand you in the least."
"No!—Why, is not it you that I see going almost every day to that house in Chiswell-street?"
"Mrs. Carver's?—Yes."
"Mrs. Carver's indeed!" cried the woman, throwing an orange-peel from her with an air of disdain—"a pretty come-off indeed! as if I did not know her name, and all about her, as well as you do."
"Do you?" said Anne; "then I am sure you know one of the best women in the world."
The woman looked still more earnestly than before in Anne's countenance; and then, taking hold of both her hands, exclaimed, "You poor young creature! what are you about? I do believe you don't know what you are about—if you do, you are the greatest cheat I ever looked in the face, long as I've lived in this cheating world."
"You frighten my sister," said the boy: "do pray tell her what you mean at once, for look how pale she turns!"
"So much the better, for now I have good hope of her. Then to tell you all at once—no matter how I frighten her, it's for her good—this Mrs. Carver, as you call her, is only Mrs. Carver when she wants to pass upon such as you for a good woman."
"To pass for a good woman!" repeated Anne, with indignation. "Oh, she is, she is a good woman—you do not know her as I do."
"I know her a great deal better, I tell you: if you choose not to believe me, go your ways—go to your ruin—go to your shame—go to your grave—as hundreds have gone, by the same road, before you. Your Mrs. Carver keeps two houses, and one of them is a bad house—and that's the house you'll soon go to, if you trust to her: now you know the whole truth."
The poor girl was shocked so much, that for several minutes she could neither speak nor think. As soon as she had recovered sufficient presence of mind to consider what she should do, she declared that she would that instant go home and put on her rags again, and return to the wicked Mrs. Carver all the clothes she had given her.
"But what will become of us all?—She has lent my father money—a great deal of money. How can he pay her?—Oh, I will pay her all—I will go into some honest service, now I am well and strong enough to do any sort of hard work, and God knows I am willing."
Full of these resolutions, Anne hurried home, intending to tell her father and mother all that had happened; but they were neither of them within. She flew to the mistress of the house, who had first recommended her to Mrs. Carver, and reproached her in the most moving terms which the agony of her mind could suggest. Her landlady listened to her with astonishment, either real or admirably well affected—declared that she knew nothing more of Mrs. Carver but that she lived in a large fine house, and that she had been very charitable to some poor people in Moorfields—that she bore the best of characters—and that if nothing could be said against her but by an orange-woman, there was no great reason to believe such scandal.
Anne now began to think that the whole of what she had heard might be a falsehood, or a mistake; one moment she blamed herself for so easily suspecting a person who had shown her so much kindness; but the next minute the emphatic words and warning looks of the woman recurred to her mind; and though they were but the words and looks of an orange-woman, she could not help dreading that there was some truth in them. The clock struck ten whilst she was in this uncertainty. The woman of the house urged her to go without farther delay to Mrs. Carver's, who would undoubtedly be displeased by any want of punctuality; but Anne wished to wait for the return of her father and mother.
"They will not be back, either of them, these three hours, for your mother is gone to the other end of the town about that old bill of Colonel Pembroke's, and your father is gone to buy some silk for weaving—he told me he should not be home before three o'clock."
Notwithstanding these remonstrances, Anne persisted in her resolution: she took off the clothes which she had received from Mrs. Carver, and put on those which she had been used to wear. Her mother was much surprised, when she came in, to see her in this condition; and no words can describe her grief, when she heard the cause of this change. She blamed herself severely for not having made inquiries concerning Mrs. Carver before she had suffered her daughter to accept of any presents from her; and she wept bitterly, when she recollected the money which this woman had lent her husband.
"She will throw him into jail, I am sure she will—we shall be worse off a thousand times than ever we were in our worst days. The work that is in the loom, by which he hoped to get so much, is all for her, and it will be left upon our hands now; and how are we to pay the woman of this house for the lodgings?——Oh! I see it all coming upon us at once," continued the poor woman, wringing her hands. "If that Colonel Pembroke would but let us have our own!—But there I've been all the morning hunting him out, and at last, when I did see him, he only swore, and said we were all a family of duns, or some such nonsense. And then he called after me from the top of his fine stairs, just to say, that he had ordered Close the tailor to pay us; and when I went to him there was no satisfaction to be got from him—his shop was full of customers, and he hustled me away, giving me for answer, that when Colonel Pembroke paid him, he would pay us, and no sooner. Ah! these purse-proud tradesfolk, and these sparks of fashion, what do they know of all we suffer? What do they care for us?—It is not for charity I ask any of them—only for what my own husband has justly earned, and hardly toiled for too; and this I cannot get out of their hands. If I could, we might defy this wicked woman—but now we are laid under her feet, and she will trample us to death."
In the midst of these lamentations, Anne's father came in: when he learned the cause of them, he stood for a moment in silence; then snatched from his daughter's hand the bundle of clothes, which she had prepared to return to Mrs. Carver.
"Give them to me; I will go to this woman myself," cried he with indignation: "Anne shall never more set her foot within those doors."
"Dear father," cried Anne, stopping him as he went out of the door, "perhaps it is all a mistake: do pray inquire from somebody else before you speak to Mrs. Carver—she looks so good, she has been so kind to me, I cannot believe that she is wicked. Do pray inquire of a great many people before you knock at the door."
He promised that he would do all his daughter desired.
With most impatient anxiety they waited for his return: the time of his absence appeared insupportably long, and they formed new fears and new conjectures every instant. Every time they heard a footstep upon the stairs, they ran out to see who it was: sometimes it was the landlady—sometimes the lodgers or their visitors—at last came the person they longed to see; but the moment they beheld him, all their fears were confirmed. He was pale as death, and his lips trembled with convulsive motion. He walked directly up to his loom, and without speaking one syllable, began to cut the unfinished work out of it.
"What are you about, my dear?" cried his wife. "Consider what you are about—this work of yours is the only dependence we have in the world."
"You have nothing in this world to depend upon, I tell you," cried he, continuing to cut out the web with a hurried hand—"you must not depend on me—you must not depend on my work—I shall never throw this shuttle more whilst I live—think of me as if I was dead—to-morrow I shall be dead to you—I shall be in a jail, and there must lie till carried out in my coffin. Here, take this work just as it is to our landlady—she met me on the stairs, and said she must have her rent directly—that will pay her—I'll pay all I can. As for the loom, that's only hired—the silk I bought to-day will pay the hire—I'll pay all my debts to the uttermost farthing, as far as I am able—but the ten guineas to that wicked woman I cannot pay—so I must rot in a jail. Don't cry, Anne, don't cry so, my good girl—you'll break my heart, wife, if you take on so. Why! have not we one comfort, that let us go out of this world when we may, or how we may, we shall go out of it honest, having no one's ruin to answer for, having done our duty to God and man, as far as we are able?—My child," continued he, catching Anne in his arms, "I have you safe, and I thank God for it!"
When this poor man had thus in an incoherent manner given vent to his first feelings, he became somewhat more composed, and was able to relate all that had passed between him and Mrs. Carver. The inquiries which he made before he saw her sufficiently confirmed the orange-woman's story; and when he returned the presents which Anne had unfortunately received, Mrs. Carver, with all the audacity of a woman hardened in guilt, avowed her purpose and her profession—declared that whatever ignorance and innocence Anne or her parents might now find it convenient to affect, she was "confident they had all the time perfectly understood what she was about, and that she would not be cheated at last by a parcel of swindling hypocrites." With horrid imprecations she then swore, that if Anne was kept from her she would have vengeance—and that her vengeance should know no bounds. The event showed that these were not empty threats—the very next day she sent two bailiffs to arrest Anne's father. They met him in the street, as he was going to pay the last farthing he had to the baker. The wretched man in vain endeavoured to move the ear of justice by relating the simple truth. Mrs. Carver was rich—her victim was poor. He was committed to jail; and he entered his prison with the firm belief, that there he must drag out the remainder of his days.
One faint hope remained in his wife's heart—she imagined that if she could but prevail upon Colonel Pembroke's servants, either to obtain for her a sight of their master, or if they would carry to him a letter containing an exact account of her distress, he would immediately pay the fourteen pounds which had been so long due. With this money she could obtain her husband's liberty, and she fancied all might yet be well. Her son, who could write a very legible hand, wrote the petition. "Ah, mother!" said he, "don't hope that Colonel Pembroke will read it—he will tear it to pieces, as he did one that I carried him before."
"I can but try," said she; "I cannot believe that any gentleman is so cruel, and so unjust—he must and will pay us when he knows the whole truth."
Colonel Pembroke was dressing in a hurry, to go to a great dinner at the Crown and Anchor tavern. One of Pembroke's gay companions had called, and was in the room waiting for him. It was at this inauspicious time that Mrs. White arrived. Her petition the servant at first absolutely refused to take from her hands; but at last a young lad, whom the colonel had lately brought from the country, and who had either more natural feeling, or less acquired power of equivocating, than his fellows, consented to carry up the petition, when he should, as he expected, be called by his master to report the state of a favourite horse that was sick. While his master's hair was dressing, the lad was summoned; and when the health of the horse had been anxiously inquired into, the lad with country awkwardness scratched his head, and laid the petition before his master, saying—"Sir, there's a poor woman below waiting for an answer; and if so be what she says is true, as I take it to be, 'tis enough to break one's heart."
"Your heart, my lad, is not seasoned to London yet, I perceive," said Colonel Pembroke, smiling; "why, your heart will be broke a thousand times over by every beggar you meet."
"No, no; I be too much of a man for that," replied the groom, wiping his eyes hastily with the back of his hand—"not such a noodle as that comes to, neither—beggars are beggars, and so to be treated—but this woman, sir, is no common beggar, not she; nor is she begging any ways—only to be paid her bill—so I brought it, as I was coming up."
"Then, sir, as you are going down, you may take it down again, if you please," cried Colonel Pembroke; "and in future, sir, I recommend it to you to look after your horses, and to trust me to look after my own affairs."
The groom retreated; and his master gave the poor woman's petition, without reading it, to the hair-dresser, who was looking for a piece of paper to try the heat of his irons.
"I should be pestered with bills and petitions from morning till night, if I did not frighten these fellows out of the trick of bringing them to me," continued Colonel Pembroke, turning to his companion. "That blockhead of a groom is but just come to town; he does not yet know how to drive away a dun—but he'll learn. They say that the American dogs did not know how to bark, till they learnt it from their civilized betters."
Colonel Pembroke habitually drove away reflection, and silenced the whispers of conscience, by noisy declamation, or sallies of wit.
At the bottom of the singed paper, which the hair-dresser left on the table, the name of White was sufficiently visible. "White!" exclaimed Colonel Pembroke, "as I hope to live and breathe, these Whites have been this half-year the torment of my life." He started up, rang the bell, and gave immediate orders to his servant, that these Whites should never more be let in, and that no more of their bills and petitions in any form whatever should be brought to him. "I'll punish them for their insolence—I won't pay them one farthing this twelvemonth: and if the woman is not gone, pray tell her so—I bid Close the tailor pay them: if he has not, it is no fault of mine. Let me not hear a syllable more about it—I'll part with the first of you who dares to disobey me."
"The woman is gone, I believe, sir," said the footman; "it was not I let her in, and I refused to bring up the letter."
"You did right. Let me hear no more about the matter. We shall be late at the Crown and Anchor. I beg your pardon, my dear friend, for detaining you so long."
Whilst the colonel went to his jovial meeting, where he was the life and spirit of the company, the poor woman returned in despair to the prison where her husband was confined.
We forbear to describe the horrible situation to which this family were soon reduced. Beyond a certain point, the human heart cannot feel compassion.
One day, as Anne was returning from the prison, where she had been with her father, she was met by a porter, who put a letter into her hands, then turned down a narrow lane, and was out of sight before she could inquire from whom he came. When she read the letter, however, she could not be in doubt—it came from Mrs. Carver, and contained these words:—
"You can gain nothing by your present obstinacy—you are the cause of your father's lying in jail, and of your mother's being as she is, nearly starved to death. You can relieve them from misery worse than death, and place them in ease and comfort for the remainder of their days. Be assured, they do not speak sincerley to you, when they pretend not to wish that your compliance should put an end to their present sufferings. It is you that are cruel to them—it is you that are cruel to yourself, and can blame nobody else. You might live all your days in a house as good as mine, and have a plentiful table served from one year's end to another, with all the dainties of the season, and you might be dressed as elegantly as the most elegant lady in London (which, by-the-bye, your beauty deserves), and you would have servants of your own, and a carriage of your own, and nothing to do all day long but take your pleasure. And after all, what is asked of you?—only to make a person happy, whom half the town would envy you, that would make it a study to gratify you in every wish of your heart. The person alluded to you have seen, and more than once, when you have been talking to me of work in my parlour. He is a very rich and generous gentleman. If you come to Chiswell-street about six this evening, you will find all I say true—if not, you and yours must take the consequences."
* * * * *
Coarse as the eloquence of this letter may appear, Anne could not read it without emotion: it raised in her heart a violent contest. Virtue, with poverty and famine, were on one side—and vice, with affluence, love, and every worldly pleasure, on the other.
Those who have been bred up in the lap of luxury; whom the breath of heaven has never visited too roughly; whose minds from their earliest infancy have been guarded even with more care than their persons; who in the dangerous season of youth are surrounded by all that the solicitude of experienced friends, and all that polished society, can devise for their security; are not perhaps competent to judge of the temptations by which beauty in the lower classes of life may be assailed. They who have never seen a father in prison, or a mother perishing for want of the absolute necessaries of life—they who have never themselves known the cravings of famine, cannot form an adequate idea of this poor girl's feelings, and of the temptation to which she was now exposed. She wept—she hesitated—and "the woman that deliberates is lost." Perhaps those who are the most truly virtuous of her sex will be the most disposed to feel for this poor creature, who was literally half famished before her good resolutions were conquered. At last she yielded to necessity. At the appointed hour she was in Mrs. Carver's house. This woman received her with triumph—she supplied Anne immediately with food, and then hastened to deck out her victim in the most attractive manner. The girl was quite passive in her hand. She promised, though scarcely knowing that she uttered the words, to obey the instructions that were given to her, and she suffered herself without struggle, or apparent emotion, to be led to destruction. She appeared quite insensible—but at last she was roused from this state of stupefaction, by the voice of a person with whom she found herself alone. The stranger, who was a young and gay gentleman, pleasing both in his person and manners, attempted by every possible means to render himself agreeable to her, to raise her spirits, and calm her apprehensions. By degrees his manner changed from levity to tenderness. He represented to her, that he was not a brutal wretch, who could be gratified by any triumph in which the affections of the heart have no share; and he assured her, that in any connexion which she might be prevailed upon to form with him, she should be treated with honour and delicacy.
Touched by his manner of speaking, and overpowered by the sense of her own situation, Anne could not reply one single word to all he said—but burst into an agony of tears, and sinking on her knees before him, exclaimed, "Save me! save me from myself!—Restore me to my parents, before they have reason to hate me."
The gentleman seemed to be somewhat in doubt whether this was acting or nature: but he raised Anne from the ground, and placed her upon a seat beside him. "Am I to understand, then, that I have been deceived, and that our present meeting is against your own consent?"
"No, I cannot say that—oh, how I wish that I could!—I did wrong, very wrong, to come here—but I repent—I was half-starved—I have a father in jail—I thought I could set him free with the money——but I will not pretend to be better than I am—I believe I thought that, beside relieving my father, I should live all my days without ever more knowing what distress is—and I thought I should be happy—but now I have changed my mind—I never could be happy with a bad conscience—I know—by what I have felt this last hour."
Her voice failed; and she sobbed for some moments without being able to speak. The gentleman, who now was convinced that she was quite artless and thoroughly in earnest, was struck with compassion; but his compassion was not unmixed with other feelings, and he had hopes that, by treating her with tenderness, he should in time make it her wish to live with him as his mistress. He was anxious to hear what her former way of life had been; and she related, at his request, the circumstances by which she and her parents had been reduced to such distress. His countenance presently showed how much he was interested in her story—he grew red and pale—he started from his seat, and walked up and down the room in great agitation, till at last, when she mentioned the name of Colonel Pembroke, he stopped short, and exclaimed, "I am the man—I am Colonel Pembroke—I am that unjust, unfeeling wretch! How often, in the bitterness of your hearts, you must have cursed me!"
"Oh, no—my father, when he was at the worst, never cursed you; and I am sure he will have reason to bless you now, if you send his daughter back again to him, such as she was when she left him."
"That shall be done," said Colonel Pembroke; "and in doing so, I make some sacrifice, and have some merit. It is time I should make some reparation for the evils I have occasioned," continued he, taking a handful of guineas from his pocket: "but first let me pay my just debts."
"My poor father!" exclaimed Anne; "to-morrow he will be out of prison."
"I will go with you to the prison, where your father is confined—I will force myself to behold all the evils I have occasioned."
Colonel Pembroke went to the prison; and he was so much struck by the scene, that he not only relieved the misery of this family, but in two months afterwards his debts were paid, his race-horses sold, and all his expenses regulated, so as to render him ever afterwards truly independent. He no longer spent his days, like many young men of fashion, either in DREADING or in DAMNING DUNS.
Edgeworthstown, 1802.