Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Ormond was indignant at the inveterate prejudice that Marcus showed against a poor man, whom he had injured, but who had never injured him. The moment Marcus saw Moriarty Carroll again, and heard his name mentioned, he exclaimed and reiterated, “That’s a bad fellow — I know him of old — all those Carrolls are rascals and rebels.”

  Marcus looked with a sort of disdainful spleen at the house which Ormond had fitted up for Moriarty.

  “So, you stick to this fellow still! — What a dupe, Ormond, this Moriarty has made of you!” said Marcus; “but that’s not my affair. I only wonder how you wheedled my father out of the ground for the garden here.”

  “There was no wheedling in the case,” said Ormond: “your father gave it freely, or I should not have accepted it.”

  “You were very good to accept it, no doubt,” said Marcus, in an ironical tone: “I know I have asked my father for a garden to a cottage before now, and have been refused.”

  Sir Ulick came up just as this was said, and, alarmed at the tone of voice, used all his address to bring his son back to good temper; and he might have succeeded, but that Peggy Carroll chanced to appear at that instant.

  “Who is that?” cried Marcus—”Peggy Sheridan, as I live! is it not?”

  “No, please your honour, but Peggy Sheridan that was — Peggy Carroll that is,” said Peggy, curtsying, with a slight blush, and an arch smile.

  “So, you have married that Moriarty at last.”

  “I have, please your honour — he is a very honest boy — and I’m very happy — if your honour’s pleased.”

  “Who persuaded your father to this, pray, contrary to my advice?”

  “Nobody at all, plase your honour,” said Peggy, looking frightened.

  “Why do you say that, Peggy,” said Ormond, “when you know it was I who persuaded your father to give his consent to your marriage with Moriarty?”

  “You! Mr. Ormond! — Oh, I comprehend it all now,” said Marcus, with his sneering look and tone: “no doubt you had good reasons.”

  Poor Peggy blushed the deepest crimson.

  “I understand it all now,” said Marcus—”I understand you now, Harry.”

  Ormond’s anger rose, and with a look of high disdain, he replied, “You understand me, now! No, nor ever will, nor ever can. Our minds are unintelligible to each other.”

  Then turning from him, Ormond walked away with indignant speed.

  “Peggy, don’t I see something like a cow yonder, getting her bread at my expense?” said Sir Ulick, directing Peggy’s eye to a gap in the hedge by the road-side. “Whose cow is that at the top of the ditch, half through my hedge?”

  “I can’t say, please your honour,” said Peggy, “if it wouldn’t be Paddy M’Grath’s — Betty M’Gregor!” cried she, calling to a bare-footed girl, “whose cow is yonder?”

  “Oh, marcy! but if it isn’t our own red rogue — and when I tied her legs three times myself, the day!” said the girl, running to drive away the cow.

  “Oh! she strays and trespasses strangely, the red cow, for want of the little spot your honour promised her,” said Peggy.

  “Well, run and save my hedge from her now, my pretty Peggy, and I will find the little spot for her to-morrow,” said Sir Ulick.

  Away ran Peggy after the cow — while lowering Marcus cursed them all three. Pretty Peg he swore ought to be banished the estate — the cow ought to be hamstrung instead of having a spot promised her; “but this is the way, sir, you ruin the country and the people,” said he to his father.

  “Be that as it may, I do not ruin myself as you do, Marcus,” replied the cool Sir Ulick. “Never mind the cow — nonsense! I am not thinking of a cow.”

  “Nor I neither, sir.”

  “Then follow Harry Ormond directly, and make him understand that he misunderstood you,” said Sir Ulick.

  “Excuse me, sir — I cannot bend to him,” said Marcus.

  “And you expect that he will lend you ten thousand pounds at your utmost need?”

  “The money, with your estate, can be easily raised elsewhere, sir,” said Marcus.

  “I tell you it cannot, sir,” said the father.

  “I cannot bend to Ormond, sir: to any body but him — any thing but that — my pride cannot stoop to that.”

  “Your pride!—’pride that licks the dust,’” thought Sir Ulick. It was in vain for the politic father to remonstrate with the headstrong son. The whole train which Sir Ulick had laid with so much skill, was, he feared, at the moment when his own delicate hand was just preparing to give the effective touch, blown up by the rude impatience of his son. Sir Ulick, however, never lost time or opportunity in vain regret for the past. Even in the moment of disappointment, he looked to the future. He saw the danger of keeping two young men together, who had such incompatible tempers and characters. He was, therefore, glad when he met Ormond again, to hear him propose his returning to Annaly, and he instantly acceded to the proposal.

  “Castle Hermitage, I know, my dear boy, cannot be as pleasant to you just now, as I could wish to make it: we have nobody here now, and Marcus is not all I could wish him,” said Sir Ulick, with a sigh. “He had always a jealousy of my affection for you, Harry — it cannot be helped — we do not choose our own children — but we must abide by them — you must perceive that things are not going on quite rightly between my son and me.”

  “I am sorry for it, sir; especially as I am convinced I can do no good, and therefore wish not to interfere.”

  “I believe you are right — though I part from you with regret.”

  “I shall be within your reach, sir, you know: whenever you wish for me, if ever I can be of the least use to you, summon me, and I am at your orders.”

  “Thank you! but stay one moment,” said Sir Ulick, with a sudden look of recollection: “you will be of age in a few days, Harry — we ought to settle accounts, should not we?”

  “Whenever you please, sir — no hurry on my part — but you have advanced me a great deal of money lately — I ought to settle that.”

  “Oh, as to that — a mere trifle. If you are in no hurry, I am in none; for I shall have business enough on my hands during these few days, before Lady Norton fills the house again with company — I am certainly a little hurried now.”

  “Then, sir, do not think of my business — I cannot be better off, you know, than I am — I assure you I am sensible of that. Never mind the accounts — only send for me whenever I can be of any use or pleasure to you. I need not make speeches: I trust, my dear guardian — my father, when I was left fatherless — I trust you believe I have some gratitude in me.”

  “I do,” cried Sir Ulick, much moved; “and, by Heaven, it is impossible to — I mean — in short, it is impossible not to love you, Harry Ormond.”

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  There are people who can go on very smoothly with those whose principles and characters they despise and dislike. There are people who, provided they live in company, are happy, and care but little of what the company is composed. But our young hero certainly was not one of these contented people. He was perhaps too much in the other extreme. He could not, without overt words or looks of indignation, endure the presence of those whose characters or principles he despised — he could not, even without manifest symptoms of restlessness or ennui, submit long to live with mere companions; he required to have friends; nor could he make a friend from ordinary materials, however smooth the grain, or however fine the polish they might take. Even when the gay world at Castle Hermitage was new to him — amused and enchanted as he was at first with that brilliant society, he could not have been content or happy without his friends at Vicar’s Dale, to whom, once at least in the four-and-twenty hours, he found it necessary to open his heart. We may then judge how happy he now felt in returning to Annaly: after the sort of moral constraint which he had endured in the company of Marcus O’Shane, we may guess what an expansion of heart took place.

  The family union and domestic happine
ss which he saw at Annaly, certainly struck him at this time more forcibly, from the contrast with what he had just seen at Castle Hermitage. The effect of contrast, however, is but transient. It is powerful as a dramatic resource, but in real life it is of no permanent consequence. There was here a charm which operates with as great certainty, and with a power secure of increasing instead of diminishing from habit — the charm of domestic politeness, in the every day manners of this mother, son, and daughter, towards each other, as well as towards their guests. Ormond saw and felt it irresistibly. He saw the most delicate attentions combined with entire sincerity, perfect ease, and constant respect; the result of the early habits of good-breeding acting upon the feelings of genuine affection. The external polish, which Ormond now admired, was very different from that varnish which often is hastily applied to hide imperfections. This polish was of the substance itself, to be obtained only by long use; but, once acquired, lasting for ever: not only beautiful, but serviceable, preserving from the injuries of time and from the dangers of familiarity.

  What influence the sister’s charms might have to increase Ormond’s admiration of the brother, we shall not presume to determine; but certainly he liked Sir Herbert Annaly better than any young man he had ever seen. Sir Herbert was some years older than Ormond; he was in his twenty-seventh year: but at this age he had done more good in life than many men accomplish during their whole existence. Sir Herbert’s principal estates were in another part of Ireland. Dr. Cambray had visited them. The account he gave Ormond of what had been done there, to improve the people and to make them happy; of the prosperous state of the peasantry; their industry and independence; their grateful, not servile, attachment to Sir Herbert Annaly and his mother; the veneration in which the name of Annaly was held; all delighted the enthusiastic Ormond.

  The name of Annaly was growing wonderfully dear to him; and, all of a sudden, the interest he felt in the details of a country gentleman’s life was amazingly increased. At times, when the ladies were engaged, he accompanied Sir Herbert in visiting his estate. Sir Herbert had never till lately resided at Annaly, which had, within but a short time, reverted to his possession, in consequence of the death of the person to whom it had been let. He found much that wanted improvement in the land, and more in the people.

  This estate stretched along the sea-shore: the tenants whom he found living near the coast were an idle, profligate, desperate set of people; who, during the time of the late middle landlord, had been in the habit of making their rents by nefarious practices. The best of the set were merely idle fishermen, whose habits of trusting to their luck incapacitated them from industry: the others were illicit distillers — smugglers — and miscreants who lived by waifs and strays; in fact, by the pillage of vessels on the coast. The coast was dangerous — there happened frequent shipwrecks; owing partly, as was supposed, to the false lights hung out by these people, whose interest it was that vessels should be wrecked. Shocked at these practices, Sir Herbert Annaly had, from the moment he came into possession of the estate, exerted himself to put a stop to them, and to punish, where he could not reform the offenders. The people at first pleaded a sort of tenant’s right, which they thought a landlord could scarcely resist. They protested that they could not make the rent, if they were not allowed to make it in their own way; and showed, beyond a doubt, that Sir Herbert could not get half as much rent for his land in those parts, if he looked too scrupulously into the means by which it was made. They brought, in corroboration of their arguments or assertions, the example and constant practice of “many as good a jantleman as any in Ireland, who had his rent made up for him that ways, very ready and punctual. There was his honour, Mr. Such-a-one, and so on; and there was Sir Ulick O’Shane, sure! Oh! he was the man to live under — he was the man that knew when to wink and when to blink; and if he shut his eyes properly, sure his tenants filled his fist. Oh! Sir Ulick was the great man for favour and purtection, none like him at all! — He is the good landlord, that will fight the way clear for his own tenants through thick and thin — none dare touch them. Oh! Sir Ulick’s the kind jantleman that understands the law for the poor, and could bring them off at every turn, and show them the way through the holes in an act of parliament, asy as through a riddle!

  “Oh, and if he could but afford to be half as good as his promises, Sir Ulick O’Shane would be too good entirely!”

  Now Sir Ulick O’Shane had purchased a tract of ground adjoining to Sir Herbert’s, on this coast; and he had bought it on the speculation that he could let it at a very high rent to these people, of whose ways and means of paying it he chose to remain in ignorance. All the tenants whom Sir Herbert banished from his estate flocked to Sir Ulick’s.

  By the sacrifice of his own immediate interest, and by great personal exertion, strict justice, and a generous and well secured system of reward, Sir Herbert already had produced a considerable change for the better in the morals and habits of the people. He was employing some of his tenants on the coast, in building a lighthouse, for which he had a grant from parliament; and he was endeavouring to establish a manufacture of sail-cloth, for which there was sufficient demand. But almost at every step of his progress, he was impeded by the effects of the bad example of his neighbours on Sir Ulick’s estate; and by the continual quarrels between the idle, discarded tenants, and their industrious and now prosperous successors.

  Whenever a vessel in distress was seen off the coast, there was a constant struggle between the two parties who had opposite interests; the one to save, the other to destroy. In this state of things, causes of complaint perpetually occurred; and Ormond who was present, when the accusers and the accused appealed to their landlord, sometimes as lord of the manor, sometimes as magistrate, had frequent opportunities of seeing both Sir Herbert’s principles and temper put to the test. He liked to compare the different modes in which King Corny, his guardian, and Sir Herbert Annaly managed these things. Sir Herbert governed neither by threats, punishments, abuse, nor tyranny; nor yet did he govern by promises nor bribery, favour and protection, like Sir Ulick. He neither cajoled nor bullied — neither held it as a principle, as Marcus did, that the people must be kept down, or that the people must be deceived. He treated them neither as slaves, subject to his will; nor as dupes, or objects on which to exercise his wit or his cunning. He treated them as reasonable beings, and as his fellow-creatures, whom he wished to improve, that he might make them and himself happy. He spoke sense to them; and he mixed that sense with wit and humour, in the proportion necessary to make it palatable to an Irishman.

  In generosity there was a resemblance between the temper of Sir Herbert and of Corny; but to Ormond’s surprise, and at first to his disappointment, Sir Herbert valued justice more than generosity. Ormond’s heart on this point was often with King Corny, when his head was forced to be with Sir Herbert; but, by degrees, head and heart came together. He became practically convinced that justice is the virtue that works best for a constancy, and best serves every body’s interest in time and in turn. Ormond now often said to himself, “Sir Herbert Annaly is but a few years older than I am; by the time I am of his age, why should not I become as useful, and make as many human beings happy as he does?” In the meantime, the idea of marrying and settling in Ireland became every day more agreeable to Ormond; and France and Italy, which he had been so eager to visit, faded from his imagination. Sir Herbert and Lady Annaly, who had understood from Dr. Cambray that Ormond was going to commence his grand tour immediately, and who heard him make a number of preparatory inquiries when he had been first at Annaly, naturally turned the conversation often to the subject. They had looked out maps and prints, and they had taken down from their shelves the different books of travels, which might be most useful to him, with guides, and post-road books, and all that could speed the parting guest. But the guest had no mind to part — every thing, every body at Annaly, he found so agreeable and so excellent.

  It must be a great satisfaction to a young man who has a
grain of sense, and who feels that he is falling inevitably and desperately in love, to see that all the lady’s family, as well as the object of his passion, are exactly the people whom he should wish of all others to make his friends for life. Here was every thing that could be desired, suitability of age, of fortune, of character, of temper, of tastes — every thing that could make a marriage happy, could Ormond but win the heart of Florence Annaly. Was that heart disengaged? — He resolved to inquire first from his dear friend, Dr. Cambray, who was much in the confidence of this family, a great favourite with Florence, and consequently dearer than ever to Ormond. He went directly to Vicar’s Dale to see and consult him, and Ormond thought he was confiding a profound secret to the doctor, when first he spoke to him of his passion for Miss Annaly; but to his surprise, the doctor told him he had seen it long ago, and his wife and daughters had all discovered it, even when they were first with him at Annaly.

  “Is it possible? — and what do you all think?”

  “We think that you would be a perfectly happy man, if you could win Miss Annaly; and we wish you success most sincerely. But—”

  “But — Oh, my dear doctor, you alarm me beyond measure.”

  “What! by wishing you success?”

  “No, but by something in your look and manner, and by that terrible but: you think that I shall never succeed — you think that her heart is engaged. If that be the case, tell me so at once, and I will set off for France to-morrow.”

  “My good sir, you are always for desperate measures — you are in too great a hurry to come to a conclusion, before you have the means of forming a just conclusion. Remember, I tell you, this precipitate temper will some time or other bring some great evil upon you.”

  “I will be patient all my life afterwards, if you will only this instant tell me whether she is engaged.”