Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 38

"Off--how?"

"Out of the world clean! Poor fellow, broke his neck with that horse he could never manage--on Sunday last. I left him for dead Sunday night--found him dead Monday morning--came off straight with the news to you."

"Dead!" repeated Corny and Harry, looking at one another. "Heaven forbid!" said Corny, "that I should--"

"Heaven forbid!" repeated Harry; "but--"

"But good morning to you both, then," said O'Tara: "shake hands either way, and I'll condole or congratulate to-morrow as the case may be, with more particulars if required."

O'Tara ran off, saying he would be back again soon; but he had great business to do. "I told the father last night."

"I am no hypocrite," said Corny. "Rest to the dead and all their faults! White Connal is out of my poor Dora's way, and I am free from my accursed promise!" Then clasping his hands, "Praised be Heaven for _that_!--Heaven is too good to me!--Oh, my child! how unworthy White Connal of her!--Thank Heaven on my knees, with my whole heart, thank Heaven that I am not forced to the sacrifice!--My child, my darling Dora, she is free!--Harry Ormond, my dear boy, I'm free," cried O'Shane, embracing Harry with all the warmth of paternal affection.

Ormond returned that embrace with equal warmth, and with a strong sense of grat.i.tude: but was his joy equal to O'Shane's? What were his feelings at this moment? They were in such confusion, such contradiction, he could scarcely tell. Before he heard of White Connal's death, at the time when he was throwing pebbles into the lake, he desired nothing so much as to be able to save Dora from being sacrificed to that odious marriage; he thought, that if he were not bound in honour to his benefactor, he should instantly make that offer of his hand and heart to Dora, which would at once restore her to health, and happiness, and fulfil the wishes of her kind, generous father. But now, when all obstacles seemed to vanish--when his rival was no more--when his benefactor declared his joy at being freed from his promise--when he was embraced as O'Shane's _son_, he did not feel joy: he was surprised to find it; but he could not. Now that he could marry Dora, now that her father expected that he should, he was not clear that he wished it himself. Quick as obstacles vanished, objections recurred: faults which he had formerly seen so strongly, which of late compa.s.sion had veiled from his view, reappeared; the softness of manner, the improvement of temper, caused by love, might be transient as pa.s.sion. Then her coquetry--her frivolity. She was not that superior kind of woman which his imagination had painted, or which his judgment could approve of in a wife. How was he to explain this confusion of feeling to Corny? Leaning on his arm, he walked on towards the house. He saw Corny, smiling at his own meditations, was settling the match, and antic.i.p.ating the joy to all he loved. Harry sighed, and was painfully silent.

"Shoot across like an arrow to the house," cried Corny, turning suddenly to him, and giving him a kind push--"shoot off, Harry, and bring Dora to meet me like lightning, and the poor aunt, too--'twould be cruel else!

But what stops you, son of my heart?"

"Stay!" cried Corny, a sudden thought striking him, which accounted for Harry Ormond's hesitation; "Stop, Harry! You are right, and I am a fool.

There is Black Connal, the twin-brother--oh, mercy!--against us still.

May be Old Connal will keep me to it still--as he couldn't, no more than I could, foresee that when I promised Dora that was not then born, it would be twins--and as I said son, and surely I meant the son that would be born then--and twins is all as one as one, they say. Promise fettering still! Bad off as ever, may be," said Cornelius. His whole countenance and voice changed; he sat down on a fallen tree, and rested his hands on his knees. "What shall we do now, Harry, with Black Connal?"

"He may be a very different man from White Connal--in every respect,"

said Ormond.

O'Shane looked up for a moment, and then interpreting his own way, exclaimed, "That's right, Harry--that thought is like yourself, and the very thought I had myself. We must make no declarations till we have cleared the point of honour. Not the most beautiful angel that ever took woman's beautiful form--and that's the greatest temptation man can meet--could tempt my Harry Ormond from the straight path of honour!"

Harry Ormond stood at this moment abashed by praise which he did not quite deserve. "Indeed, sir," said he, "you give me too much credit." "I cannot give you too much credit; you are an honourable young man, and I understand you through and through."

That was more than Harry himself did. Corny went on talking to himself aloud, "Black Connal is abroad these great many years, ever since he was a boy--never saw him since a child that high--an officer he is in the Irish brigade now--black eyes and hair; that was why they called him Black Connal--Captain Connal now; and I heard the father say he was come to England, and there was some report of his going to be married, if I don't mistake," cried Corny, turning again to Harry, pleasure rekindling in his eye. "If that should be! there's hope for us still; but I see you are right not to yield to the hope till we are clear. My first step, in honour, no doubt, must be across the lake this minute to the father--Connal of Glynn; but the boat is on the other side. The horn is, with my fis.h.i.+ng-tackle, Harry, down yonder--run, for you can run--horn the boat, or if the horn be not there, sign to the boat with your handkerchief--bring it up here, and I will put across before ten minutes shall be over--my horse I will have down to the water's edge by the time you have got the boat up--when an honourable tough job is to be done, the sooner the better."

The horse was brought to the water's edge, the boat came across, Corny and his horse were in; and Corny, with his own hands on the oar, pushed away from land: then calling to Harry, he bid him wait on the sh.o.r.e _by_ such an hour, and he should have the first news.

"Rest on your oars, you, while I speak to Prince Harry.

"That you may know all, Harry, sooner than I can tell you, if all be safe, or as we wish it, see, I'll hoist my neckcloth, _white_, to the top of this oar; if not, the _black_ flag, or none at all, shall tell you. Say nothing till then--G.o.d bless you, boy!" Harry was glad that he had these orders, for he knew that as soon as Mademoiselle should be up, and hear of O'Tara's early visit, with the message he said he had left at the house that he brought _great news_, Mademoiselle would soon sally forth to learn what that news might be. In this conjecture Ormond was not mistaken. He soon heard her voice "Mon-Dieu!-ing" at the top of the bank: he ducked--he dived--he darted through nettles and brambles, and escaped. Seen or unseen he escaped, nor stopped his flight even when out of reach of the danger. As to trusting himself to meet Dora's eyes, "'twas what he dared not."

He hid, and wandered up and down, till near dinner-time. At last, O'Shane's boat was seen returning--but no white flag! The boat rowed nearer and nearer, and reached the spot where Harry stood motionless.

"Ay, my poor boy, I knew I'd find you so," said O'Shane, as he got ash.o.r.e. "There's my hand, you have my heart--I wish I had another hand to give you--but it's all over with us, I fear. Oh! my poor Dora!--and here she is coming down the bank, and the aunt!--Oh, Dora! you have reason to hate me!"

"To hate you, sir? Impossible!" said Ormond, squeezing his hand strongly, as he felt.

"Impossible!--true--for _her_ to hate, who is all love and loveliness!--impossible too for _you_, Harry Ormond, who is all goodness!"

"Bon Dieu!" cried Mademoiselle, who was now within exclamation distance.

"What a _course_ we have had after you, gentlemen! Ladies looking for gentlemen!--C'est inou!--What is it all? for I am dying with curiosity."

Without answering Mademoiselle, the father, and Harry's eyes, at the same moment, were fixed on one who was some steps behind, and who looked as if dying with a softer pa.s.sion. Harry made a step forward to offer his arm, but stopped short; the father offered his, in silence.

"Can n.o.body speak to me?--Bien poli!" said Mademoiselle.

"If you please, Miss O'Faley, ma'am," cried a hatless footman, who had run after the ladies the wrong way from the house: "if you please, ma'am, will _she_ send up dinner now?"

"Oui, qu'on serve!--Yes, she will. Let her dish--by that time she is dished, we shall be in--and have satisfied our curiosity, I hope," added she, turning to her brother-in-law.

"Let us dine first," said Cornelius, "and when the cloth is removed, and the waiting-ears out of hearing, time enough to have our talk to ourselves."

"Bien singulier, ces Anglois!" muttered Mademoiselle to herself, as they proceeded to the house. "Here is a young man, and the most polite of the silent company, who may well be in some haste for his dinner; for to my knowledge, he is without his breakfast."

Harry had no appet.i.te for dinner, but swallowed as much as Mademoiselle O'Faley desired. A remarkably silent meal it would have been, but for her happy volubility, equal to all occasions. At last came the long expected words, "Take away." When all was taken away, and all were gone, but those who, as O'Shane said, would too soon wish unheard what they were dying to hear, he drew his daughter's chair close to him, placed her so as "to save her blushes," and began his story, by relating all that O'Tara had told.

"It was a sudden death--shocking!" Mademoiselle repeated several times; but both she and Dora recovered from the shock, or from the word "shocking!" and felt the delight of Dora's being no longer a sacrifice.

After a general thanksgiving having been offered for her escape from the _butor_, Mademoiselle, in transports, was going on to say that now her niece was free to make a suitable match, and she was just turning to wonder that Harry Ormond was not that moment at her niece's feet; and Dora's eyes, raised slowly towards him and suddenly retracted, abashed and perplexed Harry indescribably; when Corny continued thus: "Dora is not free, nor am I free in honour yet, nor can I give any body freedom of tongue or heart until I know farther."

Various exclamations of surprise and sorrow interrupted him.

"Am I never, never, to be free!" cried Dora: "Oh! am not I now at liberty?"

"Hear me, my child," said her father; "I feel it as you do."

"And what is it next--Qu'est-ce que c'est--this new obstacle?--What can it be?" said Mademoiselle.

The father then stated sorrowfully, that Old Connal of Glynn would by no means relinquish the promise, but considered it equally binding for the twin born with White Connal, considering both twins as coming under the promise to his _son_ that was to be born. He said he would write immediately to his son, who was now in England.

"And now tell me what kind of a person is this new pretender, this Mr.

Black Connal," cried Mademoiselle.

"Of him we know nothing as yet," said O'Shane; "but I hope, in Heaven, that the man that is coming is as different from the man that's gone as black from white."

Harry heard Dora breathe quick and quicker, but she said nothing.

"Then we shall get his answer to the father's letter in eight days, I count," said Mademoiselle; "and I have great hopes we shall never be troubled with him: we shall know if he will come or not, in eight days."

"About that time," said O'Shane: "but, sister O'Faley, do not nurse my child or yourself up with deceitful hopes. There's not a man alive--not a Connal, surely, hearing what happiness he is heir to, but would come flying over post-haste. So you may expect his answer, in eight days--Dora, my darling, and G.o.d grant he may be--"

"No matter what he is, sir--I'll die before I will see him," cried Dora, rising, and bursting into tears.

"Oh, my child, you won't die!--you can't--from me, your father!" Her father threw his arms round her, and would have drawn her to him, but she turned her face from him: Harry was on the other side--her eyes met his, and her face became covered with blushes.

"Open the window, Harry!" said O'Shane, who saw the conflict; "open the window!--we all want it."

Harry opened the window, and hung out of it gasping for breath.

"She's gone--the aunt has taken her off--it's over for this fit," said O'Shane. "Oh, my child, I must go through with it! My boy, I honour as I love you--I have a great deal to say about your own affairs, Harry."

"My affairs--oh! what affairs have I? Never think of me, dear sir--"