Chapter 10

“Never heed him,” said the father, in a whisper; “do you, give the mare the right spur, an' I'll give her the left. Push an! that's it.”

They accordingly dashed forwrard, Denis plying, one heel, and the father another, until the priest found himself gradually falling behind. In vain he plied both spurs; in vain he whipped, and wriggled on the saddle, and pressed forwrard his hack. Being a priest's horse, the animal had been accustomed for the last twelve years to a certain jog-trot-pace, beyond which it neither would nor could go. On finding all his efforts to overtake them unsuccessful, he at last shouted after them.

“Do you call that gratitude, my worthy friends? To lave me creeping over the ups and downs of this villanous road without company?”

“Lay an, aroon,” said the father. “Let us get home. Oh, how your poor mother will die with joy, an' Susy, an' Nanny, an' Brian, an' Michael, an' Dick, an' Lanty, an' all o' them. Glory be to Heaven! what a meetin' we'll have! An' the nabors, too! Push an' avick machree.”

“My curse upon you, Friar Hennessy!” exclaimed the priest, in a soliloquy, “it was you who first taught this four-footed snail to go like a thief to the gallows. I wish to Heaven you had palmed him on some one else, for many a dinner I have lost by him in my time. Is that your gratitude, gentlemen? Do I deserve this?”

“What is he sayin'?” said the father.

“He is declaiming about gratitude,” replied Denis.

“Lay-an' her,” said the father. “Poor Mave!”

“Such conduct does you credit,” shouted the priest. “It's just the way of the world. You have got what you wanted out of me, an' now you throw me off. However, go on.”

“What's that?” said the father again.

“He is desiring us to go on,' replied the son.

“Then, in the name o' Goodness, do so, avourneen. Susy will die downright.”

“Where am I to dine to-day?” shouted the priest, in a louder voice. “I say, where am I to come in for my dinner, for I'm not expected at home, and my curate dines out?”

“I can't hear him,” said the father.

“He says the curate dines out; an' he wants to know if he's to dine with us.”

“Throth, an' he won't; not that we begrudge it to him; but for this day the sarra one we'll have but our own relations. Push an. An' Brian, too, poor fellow, that was always so proud of you!”

They had now reached the top of an ascent on the road, whilst the priest toiled up after them. In a few minutes they began to descend, and consequently were out of his sight.

No description of mine could give an adequate perception to the reader of what was felt by the family on hearing that the object of Denis's hopes, and their own proud ambition, was at length accomplished. The Bishop's letter was looked at, turned in every direction, and the seal inspected with a kind of wonderful curiosity, such as a superstitious person would manifest on seeing and touching some sacred relic. The period appointed for his departure now depended upon the despatch with which they could equip him for college. But until this event should arrive, his friends lost no opportunity of having him among them. Various were the treats he got in fair and markets. Proud were his relations when paying' him the respect which he felt right sincere pleasure in receiving. The medium between dignity and humility which he hit off in these scenes, was worthy o'f being recorded; but, to do him justice, his forte lay in humility. He certainly condescended with a grace, and made them feel the honor done them by his vouchsafing to associate with such poor creatures as if he was one of themselves. To do them also justice, they appeared to feel his condescension; and, as a natural consequence, were ready to lick the very dust under his feet, considering him, as they did, a priest in everything but ordination.

Denis, besides his intercourse with humble relatives, was now asked to dine with the neighboring clergymen, and frequently made one at their parties. In the beginning, his high opinion and awe of the clerical character kept him remarkably dull and sheepish. Many an excellent joke was cracked at his expense; and often did he ask himself what Phadrick Murray, his father's family, or his acquaintances in general, would say, if they saw his learning and his logic so villanously degraded. In proportion, however, as conviviality developed among his reverend friends many defects, opinions, and failings, which he never suspected them to possess, so did he begin to gather courage and facility of expression. By degrees he proceeded modestly from the mild and timid effort at wit to the steadier nerve of moderate confidence--another step brought him to the indifference of a man who can bear an unsuccessful attempt at pleasantry, without being discomposed; the third and last stage advanced him to downright assurance, which having reached, he stopped at nothing. From this forward he began to retort upon his clerical companions, who found that the sheepish youth whom they had often made ridiculous, possessed skill, when properly excited, to foil them at their own weapons. He observed many things in their convivial meetings. The holy man, whom his flock looked upon as a being of the highest sanctity, when lit up into fun and frolic, Denis learned to estimate at his just value. He thought, besides, that a person resolved to go to heaven, had as good a chance of being saved by the direct mercy of God, as through the ministration of men, whose only spiritual advantage over himself consisted in the mere fact of being in orders. To be sure, he saw the usual exceptions among them that are to be found among every other class; but he drew his conclusions from the general rule. All this, however, failed in removing that fundamental principle of honest superstition in which he had been trained. The clergymen whom he saw were only a few who constituted the great body of the church; but when the long and sanctified calendar of saints and miracles opened upon him, there still remained enough to throw a dim and solemn charm of shadowy pomp around the visions of a mind naturally imaginative.

Messengers were once more sent abroad, to inform their friends of his triumph, who, on ascertaining that his journey was fixed for an early day, lost no time in pouring in, each with some gift suited to their circumstances. Some of these were certainly original, the appropriateness having been in every case determined by the wealth or poverty, ignorance, or knowledge, of those who offered them. Some poor relation, for instance, brought him a shirt or two of materials so coarse, that to wear it in a college would be out of the question; others offered him a pair of brogues, much too vulgar for the society he was about to enter; others, again, would present him with books--for it is not at all uncommon to find in many illiterate Irish families half-a-dozen old volumes of whose contents they are ignorant, lying in a dusty corner, where they are kept till some young scion shall be sufficiently instructed to peruse them. The names of these were singular enough. One presented him with “The Necessity of Penance;” another with “Laugh and be Fat;” a third with the “Key of Paradise;” a fourth with “Hell Open;” a fifth handed him a copy of the “Irish Rogues and Rapparees; a sixth gave him “Butler's Lives of Saints;” a seventh “The Necessity of Fasting;” an eighth “The Epicure's _Vade Mecum_.” The list ran on very ludicrously. Among them were the “Garden of Love and Royal Flower of Fidelity;” “An Essay on the Virtue of Celibacy;” and another “On the Increase of Population in Ireland.” To these we may add “The Devil upon Two Sticks,” and “The Life of St. Anthony.”

“Take these, Misther Denis,” said the worthy souls; “they're of no use to us at all at all; but they'll sarve you, of coorse, where you're goin', bekase when you want books in the college you can use them.”

Honest Phadrick Murray, in lieu of a more valuable present, brought him his wife's largest and best shawl as a pocket handkerchief.

“Katty, sir, sent you this,” said Phadrick, “as a pocket handkerchy; an' be gorra, Mither Denis, if you begin at this corner, an' take it out o' the face, it'll last you six months at a time, any how.”

Another neighbor came with a _cool_ of rendered lard, hoping it might be serviceable.

“Norah, sir,” said the honest friend who brought it, “sent you a' crock of her own lard. When, you're makin' colcanon, sir, or _sthilk_,* in the college, if you slip in a lamp of this, it'll save you the price of bufther. The grace 'ill be useful to you, whether or not; an' they say there's a scarcity of it in the college.”.

* Sthilk is made by bruising a quantity of boiled Potatoes and beans together. The potatoes, however, having first been reduced to a pulpy state, the beans are but partially broken. It is then put into dish, and a pound of butter or rendered lard thrust into the middle of it.

A third brought him an oak sapling to keep in his hand about the purlieus of the establishment.

“We know,” said he, “that you're given to arguin' an' to that thing you call logic, Misther Denis. Now, sir, if you're ever hard set in an argument or the like o' that, or if any o' the shthudjeents 'ud be throuble-some or imperant, why give them a touch o' this--a lick of it, do you see; jist this a way. First come wid a back sthroke upon the left ear, if they want to be properly convinced; an' thin agin' afore they have time to recover, come down wid a visitation upon the kidney, My life for yours, they'll soon let you alone. Nothin' puzzles one in an argument more than it does.”

“Ay,” said Denis, “that is what they call--in the books the _argumentum baculinum_. I accept your present, Roger; but I flatter myself I shall be a match for any of the collegians without having recourse to the argumentum baculinum.”

A poor old widow, who was distantly related to them, came upwards of four miles with two or three score of eggs, together with a cock and hen; the eggs for his own use, and the latter for breeding in Maynooth. “Avourneen, Misther O'Shaughnessy,” said she, in broken English, “when you ate out all the eggs, maybe you could get a sonsy little corner about the collegian that you're goin' to larn to be a priest in, an' put them both into it; “--pointing at the same time to the cock and hen--“an' whishper,” she continued, in a low friendly voice, “if you could get a weeshy wisp o' sthraw, an slip it undher your own bed, it would make a nest for them, an' they'd lay an egg for your breakfast all days in the year. But, achora, don't let them be widout a nest egg; an' whishper--maybe you'd breed a clackin' out o' them, that you might sell. Sure they'd help to buy duds of cloes for you; or you might make presents of the crathurs to the blessed an' holy collegian himself. Wouldn't it be good to have him an your side?--He'd help to make a gintleman of you, any way. Faix, sure he does it for many, they say. An' whishper--the breed, avourneen, is good; an' I'm not afeard to say that there never was sich a chicken in the whole collegian, as the ould cock himself. He's the darlin' all out, an' can crow so stoutly, that it bates the world. Sure his comb's a beauty to look at, the darlin'; an' only it's to yourself, an' in regard of the blessed place he's goin' to, I wouldn't part wid him to nobody whatsomever, at all, good or bad.”

The most original gift of all was a purse, formed of a small bladder, ingeniously covered with silk. It was given to him by his uncle, as a remembrance of him, in the first place; and secondly, for a more special purpose.

“This will sarve you, sir,” said his uncle, “an' I'll tell you how: if you want to smuggle in a sup of good whiskey--as of coorse you will, plase goodness--why this houlds exactly a pint, an' is the very thing for it. The sorra one among them will ever think of searchin' your purse, at least for whiskey. Put it in your pocket, Misther Dionmsis; an' I'd take it as a great kindness if you'd write me a scrape or two of the pen, mentionin' what a good parish 'ud be worth: you'll soon be able to tell me, for I've some notion myself of puttin' Barny to Latin.”

Denis was perfectly aware of the honest warmth of heart with which these simple tokens of esteem were presented to him; and young as he was, his knowledge of their habits and prejudices prevented him from disappointing them by a refusal. He consequently accepted everything offered him, appropriated to himself whatever was suitable to his wants, converted the remainder into pocket-money, and, of course, kept his conscience void of offence toward them all: a state of Christian virtue which his refusal of any one gift would have rendered difficult.

On the day before his departure the friends and relations of the family assembled to hold their farewell meeting. The same spirit which marked all their rustic symposia presided in this; if we except a feeling of sorrow natural to his family on being separated from one they loved so affectionately. Denis, who was never deficient in warmth of feeling, could not be insensible to the love and pride with which his family had always looked upon him. Ambition, as he approached it, lost much of its fictitious glitter. A sense of sorrow, if not of remorse, for the fastidious and overbearing spirit he had manifested to them, pressed upon his heart. Pride, in fact, was expelled; nature resumed her empire over him; he looked upon the last two months of his life as a man would be apt to do who had been all that time under the dominion of a feverish dream. We do not say, however, that either ambition or superstition was thoroughly expelled from his mind; for it is hard at all times to root them out of the system of man: but they ceased to govern him altogether. A passion, too, as obstinate as either of them, was determined to dispute their power. The domestic affections softened his heart; but love, which ambition left for dead, was only stunned; it rose again, and finding a favorable position, set its seal to his feelings.

Denis himself, some days before that appointed for his departure, became perfectly conscious that his affections were strongly fixed upon Susan Connor. The nature of their last interview filled him with shame; nay, more, it inspired him with pity for the fair, artless girl whom he had so unfeelingly insulted. The manner in which he had won her young affections; the many tender interviews that had passed between them; the sacred promises of unchangeable love they had made to each other: all crowded to his imagination with a power which reduced his spiritual ambition and ecclesiastical pride, at least to the possession only of a divided empire. He had, therefore, with his book in his hand as usual, taken many solitary walks for the preceding few days, with the expectation of meeting Susan. He heard that for the last month or six weeks she had looked ill, been in low spirits, and lost her health. The cause of this change, though a secret to the world, was known to him. He knew, indeed, that an interview between them was indispensable; but had it not been so, we question whether he would have been able to leave home without seeing her.

His evening strolls, however, up until the day before his setting out for college, were fruitless. Susan, who heretofore had been in the habit of walking in the evenings among the green dells around her father's house, was ever since their last meeting almost invisible. In the meantime, as the day before that of his leaving the neighborhood had arrived, and as an interview with her was, in a religious point of view, essentially necessary, he took his book in the course of the evening, and by a path slightly circuitous, descended the valley that ran between his father's house and hers. With solemn strides he perambulated it in every direction--north, south, east, and west; not a natural bower in the glen was unexplored; not a green, quiet nook unsearched; not a shady tree unexam-ined; but all to no purpose. Yet, although he failed in meeting herself, a thousand objects brought her to his heart. Every dell, natural bower, and shady tree, presented him with a history of their past affections. Here was the spot where, with beating heart and crimson cheek, she had first breathed out in broken music the acknowledgment of her love; there had another stolen meeting, a thousand times the sweeter for being stolen, taken place. Every spot, in fact, was dear to him, and every object associated itself with delightful emotions that kindled new life in a spirit from which their parent affections had not yet passed away.

Denis now sought the only other place where he had any likelihood of meeting her: this was at the well below her father's house. He walked down along the banks of the little stream that ran past it, until he reached a thorn bush that grew within a few yards of the spring. Under this he sat, anxiously hoping that Susan might come to fill her evening pail, as he knew she was wont to do. A thick flowery branch of the hawthorn, for it was the latter end of May, hung down from the trunk, and served as a screen through which he could observe her should she appear, without being visible himself.

It was now the hour of twilight; the evening was warm and balmy; the whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly on him in deep and exquisite tenderness. Up in the air he heard the quavering hum of the snipe, as it rose and fell in undulating motion, and the creak of the rail in many directions around him. From an adjoining meadow in the distance, the merry voices of the village children came upon his ear, as they gathered the wild honey which dropped like dew from the soft clouds upon the long grassy stalks, and meadow-sweet, on whose leaves it lay like amber. He remembered when he and Susan, on meeting there for a similar purpose, felt the first mysterious pleasure in being together, and the unaccountable melancholy produced by separation and absence.

At length he heard a footstep; but he could not persuade himself that the slow and lingering tread of the person approaching him was that of Susan, so much did it differ from the buoyant and elastic step with which she used to trip along. On looking through the branches, however, he perceived her coming towards him, carrying the pitcher as usual in her hand. The blood was already careering at full speed through his veins, and the palpitations of his heart were loud enough to be heard by the ear.

Oh, beauty, beauty! _terrima causa belli_, thou dost play the devil with the hearts of men! Who is there who doth not wish to look upon thee, from the saint to the sinner?--None. For thee worlds have been lost; nations swept off the earth; thrones overturned; and cities laid in ashes! Adam, David, Marc Antony, Abelard, and Denis O'Shaughnessy, exhibit histories of thy power never to be forgotten, but the greatest of these is Denis O'Shaughnessy.

Susan was about the middle size; her tresses, like those of the daughters of her country, were a fair brown, and abundant. Her features were not such, we admit, as mark regular and scientific perfection, and perhaps much of their power was owing to their not being altogether symmetrical. Her great charm consisted in a spirit of youthful innocence, so guileless that the very light of purity and truth seemed to break in radiance from her countenance. Her form was round, light, and flexible. When she smiled her face seemed to lose the character of its mortality--so seraphic and full of an indescribable spell were its lineaments; that is, the spell was felt by its thrilling influence upon the beholder, rather than by any extraordinary perception of her external beauty. The general expression of her countenance, however, was that of melancholy. No person could look upon her! white forehead and dark flashing eyes, without perceiving that she was full of tenderness and enthusiasm; but let the light of cheerfulness fall upon her face, and you wished never to see it beam with any other spirit. In her met those extremes of character peculiar to her country. Her laughing lips expanded with the playful delicacy of mirth, or breathed forth, with untaught melody and deep pathos, her national songs of sorrow.

A little before she made her appearance, the moon had risen and softened with her dewy light the calm secluded scene around them. Denis, too, had an opportunity of seeing the lovely girl more distinctly. Her dress was simple but becoming. Her hair, except the side ringlets that fell to heighten the beauty of her neck, was bound up with a comb which Denis himself had presented to her. She wore a white dimity bedgown, that sat close to her well-formed person, descended below her knee, and opened before; the sleeves of it did not reach the elbow, but displayed an arm that could not be surpassed for whiteness and beauty. The bedgown was frilled about the shoulder, which it covered, leaving the neck only, and the upper part of her snowy bosom, visible. A dark ribbon, tied about her waist, threw her figure into exquisite outline, and gave her that simple elegance which at once bespeaks the harmony of due proportion.

On reaching the well she filled her vessel, and placed it on a small mound beside her; then sitting down, she mused for some time, and turning her eyes towards Denis's father's sighed deeply.

“It's the least,” said the humble girl, “that I may look towards the house that the only one I ever loved, or ever will love, lives in. Little I thought when I loved him that I was standin' between him an' God. Loved him! I wish I could say it was past. I wish I could: for I am afeared that till my weak heart breaks it will love him still. God pity me! It would be well for me I had never seen him! But why he should go to Maynooth without givin' me back my promise I cannot tell.”

Denis rose and approached her. Susan, on seeing him, started, and her lover could perceive that she hastily wiped the tears from her eyes. A single glance, however, convinced her that it was he; and such was the guileless simplicity of her heart, joined to the force of habit, that her face beamed with one of her wonted smiles at his appearance. This soon passed away, and her features again resumed an expression of deep melancholy. Our hero now forgot his learning; his polysyllables were laid aside, and his pedantry utterly abandoned. His pride, too, was gone, and the petty pomp of artificial character thing aside like an unnecessary garment which only oppresses the wearer.

“Susan,” said he, “I am sorry to see you look so pale and unhappy. I deeply regret it; and I could not permit this day to pass, without seeing and speaking to you. If I go to-morrow, Susan, may I now ask in what light will you remember me?”

“I'll remember you without anger, Denis; with sorrow will I remember you, but not, as I said, in anger; though God knows, and you know, the only token you lave me to remember you by is a broken heart.”

“Susan,” said Denis, “it was an unhappy attachment, as circumstances have turned out; and I wish for both our sakes we had never loved one another. For some time past my heart has been torn different ways, and, to tell you the truth, I acknowledge that within the last three or four months I have been little less than a villain to you.”

“You speak harshly of yourself, Denis; I hope, more so than you deserve.”

“No, Susy. With my heart fixed upon other hopes, I continued to draw your affections closer and closer to me.”

“Well, that was wrong, Denis; but you loved me long before that time, an' it's not so asy a thing to draw away the heart from what we love; that is, to draw it away for ever, Denis, even although greater things may rise up before us.”