Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 7

"Then read it loud, you plockit."

Dominick read aloud--

"There is _nothing appears so clearly_ an object of the mind or intellect only as _the future_ does, since we can find no place for its existence any where else: not but the same, if we consider, is _equally true_ of the past--"

"Well, co on--What stops the plockit? Can't you reat Enclish now?"

"Yes, sir; but I was trying to understand it. I was considering, that this is like what they would call an Irish bull, if I had said it."

Little Dominick could not explain what he meant in English, that Mr.

Owen ap Jones _would_ understand; and, to punish him for his impertinent observation, the boy was doomed to learn all that Harris and Lowth have written to explain the nature of _shall_ and _will_. The reader, if he be desirous of knowing the full extent of the penance enjoined, may consult Lowth's Grammar, p. 52, ed. 1799, and Harris's Hermes, p. 10, 11, and 12, 4th edition. Undismayed at the length of his task, little Dominick only said, "I hope, if I say it all without missing a word, you will not give my mother a bad account of me and my grammar studies, sir."

"Say it all first, without missing a word, and then I shall see what I shall say," replied Mr. Owen ap Jones.

Even the encouragement of this oracular answer excited the boy's fond hopes so keenly, that he lent his little soul to the task, learned it perfectly, said it at night, without missing one word, to his friend Edwards, and said it the next morning, without missing one word, to his master.

"And now, sir," said the boy, looking up, "will you write to my mother?

And _shall_ I see her? And _shall_ I go home?"

"Tell me first, whether you understant all this that you have learnt so cliply," said Mr. Owen ap Jones.

That was more than his bond. Our hero's countenance fell: and he acknowledged that he did not understand it perfectly.

"Then I cannot write a coot account of you and your crammer studies to your mother; my conscience coes against it," said the conscientious Mr.

Owen ap Jones.

No entreaties could move him. Dominick never saw the letter that was written to his mother; but he felt the consequence. She wrote word this time punctually _by return of the post_, that she was sorry that she could not send for him home these holydays, as she heard so bad an account from Mr. Jones, &c. and as she thought it her duty not to interrupt the course of his education, especially his grammar studies.

Little Dominick heaved many a sigh when he saw the packings-up of all his school-fellows, and dropped a few tears as he looked out of the window, and saw them, one after another, get on their Welsh ponies, and gallop off towards their homes.

"I have no home to go to," said he.

"Yes, you have," cried Edwards; "and _our_ horses are at the door to carry us there."

"To Ireland? me!--the horses!" said the poor boy, quite bewildered: "and will they bring me to Ireland?"

"No; the horses cannot carry you to Ireland," said Edwards, laughing good-naturedly, "but you have a home now in England. I asked my father to let me _take_ you home with me; and he says 'Yes,' like a dear, good father, and has sent the horses. Come, let's away."

"But will Mr. Jones let me go?"

"Yes; he dare not refuse; for my father has a living in his gift that Jones wants, and which he will not have, if he do not change his tone to you."

Little Dominick could not speak one word, his heart was so full. No boy could be happier than he was during these holydays: "the genial current of his soul," which had been frozen by unkindness, flowed with all its natural freedom and force. When Dominick returned to school after these holydays were over, Mr. Owen ap Jones, who now found that the Irish boy had an English protector with a living in his gift, changed his tone.

He never more complained unjustly that Dominick broke Priscian's head, seldom called him Irish plockit, and once would have flogged a Welsh boy for taking up this cast-off expression of the master's, but the Irish blockhead begged the culprit off.

Little Dominick sprang forward rapidly in his studies: he soon surpa.s.sed every boy in the school, his friend Edwards only excepted. In process of time his guardian removed him to a higher seminary of education. Edwards had a tutor at home. The friends separated. Afterwards they followed different professions in distant parts of the world; and they neither saw nor heard any more of each other for many years. From boys they grew into men, and Dominick, now no longer little Dominick, went over to India as private secretary to one of our commanders in chief. How he got into this situation, or by what gradations he rose in the world, we are not exactly informed: we know only that he was the reputed author of a much-admired pamphlet on Indian affairs; that the despatches of the general to whom he was secretary were remarkably well written, and that Dominick O'Reilly, Esq. returned to England, after several years'

absence, not miraculously rich, but with a fortune equal to his wishes.

His wishes were not extravagant: his utmost ambition was to return to his native country with a fortune that should enable him to live independently of all the world, especially of some of his relations, who had not used him well. His mother was no more.

Upon his arrival in London, one of the first things he did was to read the Irish newspapers.--To his inexpressible joy, he saw the estate of Fort-Reilly advertised to be sold--the very estate which had formerly belonged to his own family. Away he posted directly to an attorney's who was empowered to dispose of the land.

When this attorney produced a map of the well-known pleasure-ground, and an elevation of that house in which he had spent the happiest hours of his infancy, his heart was so touched, that he was on the point of paying down more for an old ruin than a good new house would cost.

The attorney acted _honestly by his client_, and seized this moment to exhibit a plan of the stabling and offices, which, as sometimes is the case in Ireland, were in a style far superior to the dwelling-house.

Our hero surveyed these with transport. He rapidly planned various improvements in imagination, and planted certain favourite spots in the pleasure-ground. During this time the attorney was giving directions to a clerk about some other business: suddenly the name of _Owen ap Jones_ struck his ear--He started.

"Let him wait in the front parlour; his money is not forthcoming," said the attorney; "and if he keep Edwards in gaol till he rots."

"Edwards! Good heavens!--in gaol! What Edwards?" exclaimed our hero.

It was his friend Edwards.

The attorney told him that Mr. Edwards had been involved in great distress by taking upon himself his father's debts, which had been incurred in exploring a mine in Wales; that of all the creditors none had refused to compound, except a Welsh parson, who had been presented to his living by old Edwards; and that this Mr. Owen ap Jones had thrown young Mr. Edwards into gaol for the debt.

"What is the rascal's demand? He shall be paid off this instant," cried Dominick, throwing down the plan of Fort-Reilly: "send for him up, and let me pay him off upon the spot."

"Had not we best finish our business first, about the O'Reilly estate, sir?" said the attorney.

"No, sir; d.a.m.n the O'Reilly estate," cried he, huddling the maps together on the desk, and taking up the bank notes, which he had begun to reckon for the purchase money. "I beg your pardon, sir. If you knew the facts, you would excuse me. Why does not this rascal come up to be paid?"

The attorney, thunderstruck by this Hibernian impetuosity, had not yet found time to take his pen out of his mouth. As he sat transfixed in his arm-chair, O'Reilly ran to the head of the stairs, and called out in a stentorian voice, "Here, you Mr. Owen ap Jones; come up and be paid off this instant, or you shall never be paid _at all_."

Up stairs hobbled the old schoolmaster, as fast as the gout and Welsh ale would let him. "Cot pless me, that voice," he began--

"Where's your bond, sir?" said the attorney.

"Safe here, Cot be praised," said the terrified Owen ap Jones, pulling out of his bosom, first a blue pocket-handkerchief, and then a tattered Welsh grammar, which O'Reilly kicked to the farther end of the room.

"Here is my bond," said he, "in the crammer," which he gathered from the ground; then fumbling over the leaves, he at length unfolded the precious deposit.

O'Reilly saw the bond, seized it, looked at the sum, paid it into the attorney's hands, tore the seal from the bond; then, without looking at old Jones, whom he dared not trust himself to speak to, he clapped his hat upon his head, and rushed out of the room. Arrived at the King's Bench prison, he hurried to the apartment where Edwards was confined.

The bolts flew back; for even the turnkeys seemed to catch our hero's enthusiasm.

"Edwards, my dear boy! how do you do? Here's a bond debt, justly due to you for my education. Oh, never mind asking any unnecessary questions; only just make haste out of this undeserved abode: our old rascal is paid off--Owen ap Jones, you know.--Well, how the man stares! Why, now, will you have the a.s.surance to pretend to forget who I am? and must I _spake_," continued he, a.s.suming the tone of his childhood, "and must I _spake_ to you again in my ould Irish brogue before you will ricollict your own _little Dominick_?"

When his friend Edwards was out of prison, and when our hero had leisure to look into business, he returned to the attorney to see that Mr. Owen ap Jones had been legally satisfied.

"Sir," said the attorney, "I have paid the plaintiff in this suit; and he is satisfied: but I must say," added he, with a contemptuous smile, "that you Irish gentlemen are rather in too great a hurry in doing business: business, sir, is a thing that must be done slowly to be done well."

"I am ready now to do business as slowly as you please; but when my friend was in prison, I thought the quicker I did his business the better. Now tell me what mistake I have made, and I will rectify it instantly."

"_Instantly!_ 'Tis well, sir, with your prompt.i.tude, that you have to deal with what prejudice thinks uncommon--an honest attorney. Here are some bank notes of yours, sir, amounting to a good round sum. You made a little blunder in this business: you left me the penalty, instead of the princ.i.p.al, of the bond--just twice as much as you should have done."

"Just twice as much as was in the bond, but not twice as much as I should have done, nor half as much as I should have done, in my opinion," said O'Reilly; "but whatever I did was with my eyes open: I was persuaded you were an honest man; in which you see I was not mistaken; and as a man of business, I knew you would pay Jones only his due. The remainder of the money I meant, and mean, should lie in your hands for my friend Edwards's use. I feared he would not have taken it from my hands: I therefore left it in yours. To have taken my friend out of prison merely to let him go back again to-day, for want of money to keep himself clear with the world, would have been a blunder indeed, but not an Irish blunder: our Irish blunders are never blunders of the heart."

CHAPTER V.