Willy Reilly Part 10

"Very well, Sir Robert, but in the meantime I shall not throw Reilly overboard."

"Could I not be permitted to pay my respects to Miss Folliard before I go, sir?" asked Sir Robert.

"Don't insist upon it," replied her father; "you know perfectly well that she--that you are no favorite with her."

"Nothing on earth, sir, grieves me so much," said the baronet, affecting a melancholy expression of countenance, which was ludicrous to look at.

"Well, well," said the old man, "as you can't see her now, come and meet Reilly here at dinner the day after to-morrow, and you shall have that pleasure."

"It will be with pain, sir, that I shall force myself into that person's society; however, to oblige you, I shall do it."

"Consider, pray consider, Sir Robert," replied the old squire, all his pride of family glowing strong within him, "just consider that my table, sir, and my countenance, sir, and my sense of grat.i.tude, sir, are a sufficient guarantee to the worth and respectability of any one whom I may ask to my house. And, Sir Robert, in addition to that, just reflect that I ask him to meet my daughter, and, if I don't mistake, I think I love, honor, and respect her nearly as much as I do you. Will you come then, or will you not?"

"Unquestionably, sir, I shall do myself the honor."

"Very well," replied the old squire, clearing up at once--undergoing, in fact, one of those rapid and unaccountable changes which const.i.tuted so prominent a portion of his character. "Very well, Bobby; good-by, my boy; I am not angry with you; shake hands, and curse Popery."

Until the morning of the day on which the two rivals were to meet, Miss Folliard began to entertain a dreadful apprehension that the fright into which the Red Rapparee had thrown her father was likely to terminate, ere long, in insanity. The man at best was eccentric, and full of the most unaccountable changes of temper and purpose, hot, pa.s.sionate, vindictive, generous, implacable, and benevolent. What he had seldom been accustomed to do, he commenced soliloquizing aloud, and talking to himself in such broken hints and dark mysterious allusions, drawing from unknown premises such odd and ludicrous inferences; at one time brus.h.i.+ng himself up in Scripture; at another moment questioning his daughter about her opinion on Popery--sometimes dealing about political and religious allusions with great sarcasm, in which he was a master when he wished, and sometimes with considerable humor of ill.u.s.tration, so far, at least, as he could be understood.

"Confound these Jesuits," said he; "I wish they were scourged out of Europe. Every man of them is sure to put his finger in the pie and then into his mouth to taste what it's like; not so the parsons--Hallo! where am I? Take care, old Folliard; take care, you old dog; what have you to say in favor of these same parsons--lazy, negligent fellows, who snore and slumber, feed well, clothe well, and think first of number one?

Egad, I'm in a mess between them. One makes a slave of you, and the other allows you to play the tyrant. A plague, as I heard a fellow say in a play once, a plague o' both your houses: if you paid more attention to your duties, and scrambled less for wealth and power, and this world's honors, you would not turn it upside down as you do. Helen!"

"Well, papa."

"I have doubts whether I shall allow you to sound Reilly on. Popery."

"I would rather decline it, sir."

"I'll tell you what; I'll see Andy c.u.mmiskey--Andy's opinion is good on any thing." And accordingly he proceeded to see his confidential old servant. With this purpose, and in his own original manner, he went about consulting every servant under his roof upon their respective notions of Popery, as he called it, and striving to allure them, at one time by kindness, and at another by threatening them, into an avowal of its idolatrous tendency. Those to whom he spoke, however, knew very little about it, and, like those of all creeds in a similar predicament, he found that, in proportion to their ignorance of its doctrines, arose the vehemence and sincerity of their defence of it. This, however, is human nature, and we do not see how the learned can condemn it. Upon the day appointed for dinner only four sat down to it--that is to say, the squire, his daughter, Sir Robert Whitecraft, and Reilly. They had met in the drawing-room some time before its announcement, and as the old man introduced the two latter, Reilly's bow was courteous and gentlemanly, whilst that of the baronet, who not only detested Reilly with the hatred of a demon, but resolved to make him feel the superiority of rank and wealth, was frigid, supercilious, and offensive. Reilly at once saw this, and, as he knew not that the baronet was in possession of his secret, he felt his ill-bred insolence the more deeply. He was too much of a gentleman, however, and too well acquainted with the principles and forms of good breeding, to seem to notice it in the slightest degree.

The old squire at this time had not at all given Reilly up, but still his confidence in him was considerably shaken. He saw, moreover, that, notwithstanding what had occurred at their last interview, the baronet had forgotten the respect due both to himself and his daughter; and, as he had, amidst all his eccentricities, many strong touches of the old Irish gentleman about him, he resolved to punish him for his ungentlemanly deportment. Accordingly, when dinner was announced, he said:

"Mr. Reilly, you will give Miss Folliard your arm."

We do not say that the worthy baronet squinted, but there was a bad, vindictive look in his small, cunning eyes, which, as they turned upon Reilly, was ten times more repulsive than the worst squint that ever disfigured a human countenance. To add to his chagrin, too, the squire came out with a bit of his usual sarcasm.

"Come, baronet," said he, "here's my arm. I am the old man, and you are the old lady; and now for dinner."

In the meantime Reilly and the Cooleen Bawn had gone far enough in advance to be in a condition to speak without being heard.

"That," said she, "is the husband my father intends for me, or, rather, did intend; for, do you know, that you have found such favor in his sight that--that--" she hesitated, and Reilly, looking into her face, saw that she blushed deeply, and he felt by her arm that her whole frame trembled with emotion.

"Proceed, dearest love," said he; "what is it?"

"I have not time to tell you now," she replied, "but he mentioned a project to me which, if it could be accomplished, would seal both your happiness and mine forever. Your religion is the only obstacle."

"And that, my love," he replied, "is an insurmountable one."

"Alas! I feared as much," she replied, sighing bitterly as she spoke.

The old squire took the head of the table, and requested Sir Robert to take the foot; his daughter was at his right hand, and Reilly opposite her, by which means, although denied any confidential use of the tongue, their eyes enjoyed very gratifying advantages, and there pa.s.sed between them occasionally some of those rapid glances which, especially when lovers are under surveillance, concentrate in their lightning flash more significance, more hope, more joy, and more love, than ever was conveyed by the longest and tenderest gaze of affection under other circ.u.mstances.

"Mr. Reilly," said the squire, "I'm told that you are a very well educated man; indeed, the thing is evident. What, let me ask, is your opinion of education in general?"

"Why, sir," replied Reilly, "I think there can be but one opinion about it. Without education a people can never be moral, prosperous, or happy.

Without it, how are they to learn the duties of this life, or those still more important ones that prepare them for a better?"

"You would entrust the conduct and control of it, I presume, sir, to the clergy?" asked Sir Robert insidiously.

"I would give the priest such control in education as becomes his position, which is not only to educate the youth, but to instruct the man, in all the duties enjoined by religion."

The squire now gave a triumphant look at the baronet, and a very kind and gracious one at Reilly.

"Pray, sir," continued the baronet, in his cold, supercilious manner, "from the peculiarity of your views, I feel anxious, if you will pardon me, to ask where you yourself have received your very accomplished education."

"Whether my education, sir, has been an accomplished one or otherwise,"

replied Reilly, "is a point, I apprehend, beyond the reach of any opportunity you ever had to know. I received my education, sir, such as it is, and if it be not better the fault is my own, in a Jesuit seminary on the Continent."

It was now the baronet's time to triumph; and indeed the bitter glancing look he gave at the squire, although it was intended for Reilly, resembled that which one of the more cunning and ferocious beasts of prey makes previous to its death-spring upon its victim. The old man's countenance instantly fell. He looked with surprise, not unmingled with sorrow and distrust, at Reilly, a circ.u.mstance which did not escape his daughter, who could not, for the life of her, avoid fixing her eyes, lovelier even in the disdain they expressed, with an indignant look at the baronet.

The latter, however, felt resolved to bring his rival still further within the toils he was preparing for him, an object which Reilly's candor very much facilitated.

"Mr. Reilly," said the squire, "I was not prepared to hear--a--a--hem--G.o.d bless me, it is very odd, very deplorable, very much to be regretted indeed!"

"What is, sir?" asked Reilly.

"Why, that you should be a Jesuit. I must confess I was not--ahem!--G.o.d bless me. I can't doubt your own word, certainly."

"Not on this subject," observed the baronet coolly.

"On no subject, sir," replied Reilly, looking him sternly, and with an indignation that was kept within bounds only by his respect for the other parties, and the roof that covered him; "On no subject, Sir Robert Whitecraft, is my word to be doubted."

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied the other, "I did not say so."

"I will neither have it said, sir, nor insinuated," rejoined Reilly. "I received my education on the Continent because the laws of this country prevented me from receiving it here. I was placed in a Jesuit seminary, not by my own choice, but by that of my father, to whom I owed obedience. Your oppressive laws, sir, first keep us ignorant, and then punish us for the crimes which that ignorance produces."

"Do you call the laws of the country oppressive?" asked the baronet, with as much of a sneer as cowardice would permit him to indulge in.

"I do, sir, and ever will consider them so, at least so long as they deprive myself and my Catholic fellow-countrymen of their civil and religious rights."

"That is strong language, though," observed the other, "at this time of day."

"Mr. Reilly," said the squire, "you seem to be very much attached to your religion."

"Just as much as I am to my life, sir, and would as soon give up the one as the other."

The squire's countenance literally became pale, his last hope was gone, and so great was his agitation that, in bringing a gla.s.s of wine to his lips, his hand trembled to such a degree that he spilled a part of it.

This, however, was not all. A settled gloom--a morose, dissatisfied expression--soon overshadowed his features, from which disappeared all trace of that benignant, open, and friendly hospitality towards Reilly that had hitherto obtained from them. He and the baronet exchanged glances of whose import, if Reilly was ignorant, not so his beloved _Cooleen Bawn_. For the remainder of the evening the squire treated Reilly with great coolness; always addressing him as Mister, and evidently contemplating him in a spirit which partook of the feeling that animated Sir Robert Whitecraft.

Helen rose to withdraw, and contrived, by a sudden glance at the door, and another as quick in the direction of the drawing-room, to let her lover know that she wished him to follow her soon. The hint was not lost, for in less than half an hour Reilly, who was of very temperate habits, joined her as she had hinted.