Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 31

said he: "do you think I haven't them all by heart already? and as to the lady's letter, while you live never show a lady's letter."

Sir Ulick, without ceremony, took the letter, and in a moment satisfying his curiosity that it was merely a friendly note, returned it and the list of his faults to Harry, saying. "If it had been a young lady's letter, I am sure you would not have shown it to me, Harry, nor, of course, would I have looked at it. But I presumed that a letter from old Lady Annaly could only be, what I see it is, very edifying."

"Old Lady Annaly, is it?" cried Cornelius: "oh! then there's no indiscretion, young man, in the case. You might as well scruple about your mother's letter, if you had one; or your mother's-in-law, which, to be sure, you'll have, I hope, in due course of nature."

At the sound of the words mother-in-law, a cloud pa.s.sed over Sir Ulick's brow, not unnoticed by the shrewd Cornelius; but the cloud pa.s.sed away quickly, after Sir Ulick had darted another reconnoitring glance on Harry's open unconscious countenance.

"All's safe," said Sir Ulick to himself, as he took leave.

"_Woodc.o.c.ked_! that he has--as I foresaw he would," cried King Corny, the moment his guest had departed. "_Woodc.o.c.ked_! if ever man did, by all that's cunning!"

CHAPTER VII.

King Corny sat for some minutes after Sir Ulick's departure perfectly still and silent, leaning both hands and his chin on his crutch. Then, looking up at Harry, he exclaimed, "What a dupe you are! but I like you the better for it."

"I am glad you like me the better, at all events," said Harry; "but I don't think I am a dupe."

"No--if you _did_, you would not be one: so you don't see that it was and _is_ Sir Ulick, and not her ladys.h.i.+p, that wanted and wants to get rid of you?"

No, Harry did not see this, and would not be persuaded of it. He defended his guardian most warmly; he was certain of Sir Ulick's affection; he was sure Sir Ulick was incapable of acting with such duplicity.

His majesty repeated, at every pause, "You are a dupe; but I like you the better for it. And," added he, "you don't--blind buzzard! as your want of conceit makes you, for which I like you the better, too--you don't see the reason why he banished you from Castle Hermitage--you don't see that he is jealous of your rivalling that puppy, Marcus, his son."

"Rivalling Marcus in what, or how?"

"_With_ whom? boy, is the question you should ask; and in that case the answer is--Dunce, can't you guess now?--Miss Annaly."

"Miss Annaly!" repeated Harry with genuine surprise, and with a quick sense of inferiority and humiliation. "Oh, sir, you would not be so ill-natured as to make a jest of me!--I know how ignorant, how uninformed, what a raw boy I am. Marcus has been educated like a gentleman."

"More shame for his father that couldn't do the same by you when he was about it."

"But Marcus, sir--there ought to be a difference--Marcus is heir to a large fortune--I have nothing. Marcus may hope to marry whoever he pleases."

"Ay, whoever he _pleases_; and who will that be, if women are of my mind?" muttered Corny. "I'll engage, if you had a mind to rival him--"

"Rival him! the thought of rivalling my friend never entered my head."

"But is he your friend?" said Cornelius.

"As to that, I don't know: he was my friend, and I loved him sincerely--warmly--he has cast me off--I shall never complain--never blame him directly or indirectly; but don't let me be accused or suspected unjustly--I never for one instant had the treachery, presumption, folly, or madness, to think of Miss Annaly."

"Nor she of you, I suppose, you'll swear?"

"Nor she of me! a.s.suredly not, sir," said Harry, with surprise at the idea. "Do you consider what I am--and what she is?"

"Well, I am glad they are gone to England out of the way!" said Cornelius.

"I am very sorry for that," said Harry; "for I have lost a kind friend in Lady Annaly--one who at least I might have hoped would have become my friend, if I had deserved it."

"_Might have hoped!--would have become!_--That's a friend in the air, who may never be found on earth. _If you deserved it_!--Murder!--who knows how that might turn out--_if_--I don't like that kind of subjunctive mood tenure of a friend. Give me the good imperative mood, which I understand--be my friend--at once--or not at all--that's my mood. None of your _if_ friends for me, setting out with a proviso and an excuse to be off; and may be when you'd call upon 'em at your utmost need, 'Oh! I said if you deserve it--Lie there like a dog.' Now, what kind of a friend is that? If Lady Annaly is that sort, no need to regret her. My compliments to her, and a good journey to England--Ireland well rid of her! and so are you, too, my boy!"

"But, dear sir, how you have worked yourself up into a pa.s.sion against Lady Annaly for nothing."

"It's not for nothing--I've good rason to dislike the woman. What business had she, because she's an old woman and you a young man, to set up preaching to you about your faults? I hate prachers, feminine gender, especially."

"She is no preacher, I a.s.sure you, sir."

"How dare you tell me that--was not her letter very _edifying?_ Sir Ulick said."

"No, sir; it was very kind--will you read it?"

"No, sir, I won't; I never read an edifying letter in my life with my eyes open, nor never will--quite enough for me that impertinent list of your faults she enclosed you."

"That list was my own, not hers, sir: I dropped it under a tree."

"Well, drop it into the fire now, and no more about it. Pray, after all, Harry, for curiosity's sake, what faults have you?"

"Dear sir, I thought you told me you knew them by heart."

"I always forget what I learn by heart; put me in mind, and may be I'll recollect as you go on."

"Well, sir, in the first place, I am terribly pa.s.sionate."

"Pa.s.sionate! true; that is Moriarty you are thinking of; and I grant you, that had like to have been a sad job--you had a squeak for your life there, and I pitied you as if it had been myself; for I know what it is after one of them blind rages is over, and one opens one's eyes on the wrong one has done--and then such a cursed feel to be penitent in vain--for that sets no bones. You were blind drunk that night, and that was my fault; but my late vow has prevented the future, and Moriarty's better in the world than ever he was."

"Thanks to your goodness, sir." "Oh! I wasn't thinking of my goodness--little enough that same; but to ease your conscience, it was certainly the luckiest turn ever happened him the shot he got, and so he says himself. Never think of that more in the way of penitence."

"In the way of reformation though, I hope, I shall all my life," said Harry. "One comfort--I have never been in a pa.s.sion since."

"But, then, a rasonable pa.s.sion's allowable: I wouldn't give a farthing for a man that couldn't be in a pa.s.sion on a proper occasion. I'm pa.s.sionate myself, rasonably pa.s.sionate, and I like myself the better for it."

"I thought you said just now you often repented."

"Oh! never mind what I said _just now_--mind what I'm saying now. Isn't a red heat that you can see, and that warms you, better than a white heat that blinds you? I'd rather a man would knock me down than stand smiling at me, as cousin Ulick did just now, when I know he could have kilt me; he is not pa.s.sionate--he has the command of himself--every feature under the courtier's regimen of hypocrisy. Harry Ormond, don't set about to cure yourself of your natural pa.s.sions--why, this is rank methodism, all!"

"Methodism, sir?"

"_Methodism_, sir!--don't contradict or repeat me--methodism, that the woman has brought you to the brink of, and I warn you from it! I did not know till now that your Lady Annaly was such a methodist--no methodist shall ever darken my doors, or lighten them either, with their _new_ lights. New lights! new nonsense!--for man, woman, or beast. But enough of this, and too much, Harry. Prince Harry, pull that bell a dozen times for me this minute, till they bring out my old horse."

Before it was possible that any one could have come up stairs, the impatient monarch, pointing with his crutch, added, "Run to the head of the stairs, Prince Harry dear, and call and screech to them to make no delay; and I want you out with me; so get your horse, Harry."

"But, sir--is it possible--are you able?"

"I am able, sir, possible or not," cried King Corny, starting up on his crutches. "Don't stand talking to me of possibilities, when 'tis a friend I am going to serve, and that friend as dear as yourself. Aren't you at the head of the stairs yet? Must I go and fall down them myself?"

To prevent this catastrophe, our young hero ran immediately and ordered the horses: his majesty mounted, or rather was mounted, and they proceeded to one of the prettiest farms in the Black Islands. As they rode to it, he seemed pleased by Harry's admiring, as he could, with perfect truth, the beauty of the situation.