Willy Reilly Part 51

"Ha!" said he, when he was nearly dressed, "what if this should be a Government prosecution for what I have undertaken to do on my own responsibility during the last Administration? But no, surely it cannot be; they would have given me some intimation of their proceedings. This was due to my rank and station in the country, and to my exertions, a zealous Protestant, to sustain the existence of Church and State. Curse Church and State if it be! I have got myself, perhaps, into a pretty mess by them."

He had scarcely uttered the last words when Mr. Hastings, accompanied by two or three officers of justice, entered his bedroom.

"Ah, Hastings, my dear friend, what is the matter? Is there any thing wrong, or can I be of any a.s.sistance to you? if so, command me. But we are out of power now, you know. Still, show me how I can a.s.sist you. How do you do?" and as he spoke he put his hand out to shake hands with. Mr.

Hastings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 143--No, Sir Robert, I cannot take your hand]

"No, Sir Robert, I cannot take your hand, nor the hand of any man that is red with the blood of murder. This," said he, turning to the officers, "is Sir Robert Whitecraft; arrest him for murder and arson."

"Why, bless me, Mr. Hastings, are you mad? Surely, I did nothing, unless under the sanction and by the instructions of the last Government?"

"That remains to be seen, Sir Robert; but, at all events, I cannot enter into any discussion with you at present. I am here as a magistrate.

Informations have been sworn against you by several parties, and you must now consider yourself our prisoner and come along with us. There is a party of cavalry below to escort you to Sligo jail."

"But how am I to be conveyed there? I hope I will be allowed my own carriage?"

"Unquestionably," replied Mr. Hastings; "I was about to have proposed it myself. You shall be treated with every respect, six."

"May I not breakfast before I go?"

"Certainly, sir; we wish to discharge our duty in the mildest possible manner."

"Thank you, Hastings, thank you; you were always a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow. You will, of course, breakfast with me; and these men must be attended to."

And he rang the bell.

"I have already breakfasted, Sir Robert; but even if I had not, it would not become me, as your prosecutor, to do so; but perhaps the men--"

"What," exclaimed the baronet, interrupting him, you my prosecutor! For what, pray?"

"That will come in time," replied the other; "and you may rest a.s.sured that I would not be here now were I not made aware that you were about to be married to that sweet girl whom you have persecuted with such a mean and unmanly spirit, and designed to start with her for England this day."

Whitecraft, now that he felt the dreadful consequences of the awful position in which he was placed, became the very picture of despair and pusillanimity; his complexion turned haggard, his eyes wild, and his hands trembled so much that he was not able to bring the tea or bread and b.u.t.ter to his lips; in fact, such an impersonation of rank and I unmanly cowardice could not be witnessed. He rose up, exclaiming, in a faint and hollow voice, that echoed no other sensation than that of horror:

"I cannot breakfast; I can eat nothing. What a fate is this! on the very day, too, which I thought would have consummated my happiness! Oh, it is dreadful!"

His servant then, by Mr. Hastings' orders, packed up changes of linen and apparel in his trunk, for he saw that he himself had not the presence of mind to pay attention to any thing. In the course of a few minutes the carriage was ready, and with tottering steps he went down the stairs, and was obliged to be a.s.sisted into it by two constables, who took their places beside, him. Mr. Hastings bowed to him coldly, but said nothing; the coachman smacked his whip, and was about to start, when he turned round and said:

"Where am I to drive, Sir Robert?"

"To Sligo jail," replied one of the constables, "as quick as you can too."

The horses got a lash or two, and bounded on, whilst an escort of cavalry, with swords drawn, attended the coach until it reached its gloomy destination, where we will leave it for the present.

The next morning, as matters approached to a crisis, the unsteady old squire began to feel less comfortable in his mind than he could have expected. To say truth, he had often felt it rather an unnatural process to marry so lovely a girl to "such an ugly stork of a man as Whitecraft was, and a knave to boot. I cannot forget how he took me in by the 'Hop-and-go-constant' affair. But then he's a good Protestant--not that I mean he has a single spark of religion in his nondescript carca.s.s; but in those times it's not canting and psalm-singing we want, but good political Protestantism, that will enable us to maintain our ascendancy by other means than praying. Curse the hound that keeps him? Is this a day for him to be late on? and it now half past ten o'clock; however, he must come soon; but, upon my honor, I dread what will happen when he does. A scene there will be no doubt of it; however, we must only struggle through it as well as we can. I'll go and see Helen, and try to reconcile her to this chap, or, at all events, to let her know at once that, be the consequences what they may, she must marry him, if I were myself to hold her at the altar."

When he had concluded this soliloquy, Ellen Connor, without whose society Helen could now scarcely live, and who, on this account, had not been discharged after her elopement, she, we say, entered the room, her eye resolute with determination, and sparkling with a feeling which evinced an indignant sense of his cruelty in enforcing this odious match. The old man looked at her with surprise, for, it was the first time she had ever ventured to obtrude her conversation upon him,or to speak, unless when spoken to.

"Well, madam," said he, "what do you want? Have you any message from your mistress? if not, what brings you here?"

"I have no message from my mistress," she replied in a loud, if not in a vehement, voice; "I don't think my mistress is capable of sending a message; but I came to tell you that the G.o.d of heaven will soon send you a message, and a black one too, if you allow this cursed marriage to go on."

"Get out, you jade--leave the room; how is it your affair?"

"Because I have what you want--a heart of pity and affection in my breast. Do you want to drive your daughter mad, or to take her life?"

"Begone, you impudent hussy; why do you dare to come here on such an occasion, only to annoy me?"

"I will not begone," she replied, with a glowing cheek, "unless I am put out by force--until I point out the consequences of your selfish tyranny and weakness. I don't come to annoy you, but I come to warn you, and to tell you, that I know your daughter better than you do yourself. This marriage must not go on; or, if it does, send without delay to a lunatic asylum for a keeper for that only daughter. I know her well, and I tell you that that's what it'll come to."

The squire had never been in the habit of being thus addressed by any of his servants; and the consequence was that the thing was new to him; so much so that he felt not only annoyed, but so much astounded, that he absolutely lost, for a brief period, the use of his speech. He looked at her with astonishment--then about the room--then up at the ceiling, and at length spoke:

"What the deuce does all this mean? What are you driving at? Prevent the marriage, you say?"

"If the man," proceeded Connor, not even waiting to give him an answer--"if the man--had but one good point--one good quality--one virtue in his whole composition to redeem him from contempt and hatred--if he had but one feature in his face only as handsome as the worst you could find in the devil's--yes, if he had but one good thought, or one good feature in either his soul or body, why--vile as it would be--and barbarous as it would be--and shameful and cruel as it would be--still, it would have the one good thought, and the one good feature to justify it. But here, in this deep and wretched villain, there is nothing but one ma.s.s of vice and crime and deformity; all that the eye can ses, or the heart discover, in his soul or body, is as black, odious, and repulsive as could be conceived of the worst imp of perdition. And this is the man--the persecutor--the miser--the debauchee--the hypocrite--the murderer, and the coward, that you are going to join your good--virtuous--spotless--and beautiful daughter to! Oh, shame upon you, you heartless old man; don't dare to say, or pretend, that you love her as a father ought, when you would sacrifice her to so base and d.a.m.nable a villain as that. And again, and what is more, I tell you not to prosecute Reilly; for, as sure as the Lord above is in heaven, your daughter is lost, and you'll not only curse Whitecraft, but the day and hour in which you were born--black and hopeless will be your doom if you do. And now, sir, I have done; I felt it to be my duty to tell you this, and to warn you against what I know will happen unless you go back upon the steps you have taken."

She then courtesied to him respectfully, and left the room in a burst of grief which seized her when she had concluded.

Ellen Connor was a girl by no means deficient in education--thanks to the care and kindness of the _Cooleen Bawn_, who had herself instructed her. 'Tis true, she had in ordinary and familiar conversation a touch of the brogue; but, when excited, or holding converse with respectable persons, her language was such as would have done no discredit to many persons in a much higher rank of life.

After she had left the room, Folliard looked towards the door by which she had taken her exit, as if he had her still in his vision.

He paused--he meditated--he walked about, and seemed taken thoroughly aback.

"By earth and sky," he exclaimed, "but that's the most comical affair I have seen yet. Comical! no, not a touch of comicality in it. Zounds, is it possible that the, jade has coerced and beaten me?--dared to beard the lion in his own den--to strip him, as it were, of his claws, and to pull the very fangs out of his jaws, and, after all, to walk away in triumph? Hang me, but I must have a strong touch of the coward in me or I would not have knuckled as I did to the jade. Yet, hold--can I, or ought I to be angry with her, when I know that this h.e.l.lish racket all proceeded from her love to Helen. Hang me, but she's a precious bit of goods, and I'll contrive to make her a present, somehow, for her courage. Beat me! by sun and sky she did."

He then proceeded to Helen's chamber, and ordered her attendants out of the room; but, on looking at her, he felt surprised to perceive that her complexion, instead of being pale, was quite flushed, and her eyes flashing with a strange wild light that he had never seen in them before.

"Helen," said he, "what's the matter, love? are you unwell?"

She placed her two snowy hands on her temples, and pressed them tightly, as if striving to compress her brain and bring it within the influence of reason.

"I fear you are unwell, darling," he continued; "you look flushed and feverish. Don't, however, be alarmed; if you're not well, I'd see that knave of a fellow hanged before I'd marry you to him, and you in that state. The thing's out of the question, my darling Helen, and must not be done. No: G.o.d forbid that I should be the means of murdering my own child."

So much, we may fairly presume, proceeded from the pithy lecture of Ellen Connor; but the truth was, that the undefinable old squire was the greatest parental coward in the world. In the absence of his daughter he would rant and swear and vapor, strike the ground with his staff, and give other indications of the most extraordinary resolution, combined with fiery pa.s.sion, that seemed alarming. No sooner, however, did he go into her presence, and contemplate not only her wonderful beauty, but her goodness, her tenderness and affection for himself, than the bl.u.s.ter departed from him, his resolution fell, his courage oozed away, and he felt that he was fairly subdued, under which circ.u.mstances he generally entered into a new treaty of friendship and affection with the enemy.

Helen's head was aching dreadfully, and she felt feverish and distracted. Her father's words, however, and the affection which they expressed, went to her heart; she threw her arms about him, kissed him, and was relieved by a copious flood of tears.

"Papa," she said, "you are both kind and good; surely you wouldn't kill your poor Helen?"

"Me kill you, Helen!--oh, no, faith. If Whitecraft were hanged to-morrow it wouldn't give me half so much pain as if your little finger ached."

Just at this progress of the dialogue a smart and impatient knock came to the door.

"Who is that?" said the squire; "come in--or, stay till I see who you are." He than opened the door and exclaimed, "What! Lanigan!--why, you infernal old scoundrel! how dare you have the a.s.surance to look me in the face, or to come under my roof at all, after what I said to you about the pistols?"

"Ay, but you don't know the good news I have for you and Miss Helen."