The Catholic World Volume I Part 116

Let Winny alone for that. Women seldom make a bad guess in such a case.

Winny's mental and nervous system having both regained their ordinary degree of composure, she left her room, and proceeded through the house upon her usual occupations. She was not, however, quite free from a certain degree of anxiety at the antic.i.p.ated interview with her father. He had not in any way intimated his intention to ask certain questions touching any communication she might have received from Tom Murdock, together with her answers thereto; and yet she felt certain that on the first favorable occasion he would ask the questions, without any notice whatever. She had subsided for the day, after a very exciting morning upon two very different subjects. Yes; she called them different, though they were pretty much akin; and she would now prefer a cessation of her anxiety for the remainder of that afternoon at least.

So far she was fortunate. Her father did not come in until it was very late; and being much fatigued by his stewards.h.i.+p of the day, he did not appear inclined to enter upon any important subject, but fell asleep in his arm-chair after a hasty and (Winny observed) scarcely-touched dinner.

Winny was an affectionate good child. She was devotedly fond of her father, with whose image were a.s.sociated all her thoughts of happiness and love since she was able to clasp his knees and clamber to his lap.

Even yet no absolute allegiance of a decided nature claimed the disloyalty of her heart; but she felt that the time was not far distant when either he must abdicate his royalty, or she must rebel.

{795}

"It is clearly my duty now," she said to herself, "not to delay this business about Tom, upon the chance of his being the first to speak of it: to-morrow, before the cares and labors of the day occupy his mind, and perhaps make him ever so little a bit cross, I will tell him what has happened. I am afraid he will be very angry with me for refusing that man; but it cannot be helped: not for all the gold they both possess would I marry Tom Murdock. I shall not betray his sordid villany, however, until all other resources fail; but I know my father will scorn the fellow as I do when he knows the whole truth--but ah, I have no witness," thought she, "and they will make a liar of me."

If the old man could have ever perceived any difference in the kind and affectionate attention so uniformly bestowed upon him by his fond daughter, perhaps it might have been upon that night after he awoke from a rather lengthened nap in his easy chair.

Winny had sat during the whole time gazing upon the loved features of the sleeping old man. She could not call to mind, from the day upon which her memory first became conscious, a single unkind or even a harsh word which he had uttered to her. That he could be more than harsh to others she knew, and she was now in her nineteenth year; fifteen clear years, she might say, of unbroken memory. She could remember her fifth birthday quite well, and so much as a snappish word or a commanding look she had never received from him; not, G.o.d knows, but he had good reason, many's the time, for more than either. And there he lay now, calm, and fast asleep, the only one belonging to her on the wide earth, and she meditating an opposition in her heart to his plans respecting her--all, she knew, arising from the great love he had for her, and the frustration of which, she was aware, would vex him sore. "Oh, Tom Murdock, Tom Murdock, why are you Tom Murdock? or Emon-a-knock, why did I ever see you?" was the conclusion to this train of thought, as she sat still, gazing on her sleeping father.

Then a happier train succeeded, and a fond smile lit up her handsome face. "Ah no, no! I am the only being belonging to him, the only one he loves. The father who for nearly twenty years never spoke an unkind word--and if he had reason to reprove me did so by example and request, and not the rod--has only to know that a marriage with Tom Murdock would make me miserable to make him spurn him, as I did myself. As to the other boy, I know nothing for certain myself about him, and I can fairly deny any accusation he may make; and I am certain he has been put up to it by old Murdock through his son. Yet even on this score I'll deny as little as I can."

Here it was her father awakened; and Winny had only time to conclude her thoughts by wondering how that fellow dare call Emon "a whelp."

"Well, father dear," she said, "you have had a nice nap; you must have been very tired. I wish I was a man, that I might help you on the farm."

"Winny darlin', I wouldn't have you anything but what you are for the world. I have not much to do at all on the farm but to poke about, and see that the men I have at work don't rob me by idling; and I must say I never saw honester work than what they leave after them. But, Winny, I came across old Murdock shortly after I went out, and he came over my land with me, and I went over his with him, so that we had rather a long walk. I'll engage he's as tired as what I am. I did not think his farm was so extensive as it is, or that the land was so good, or in such to-au-op caun-di-shon." And poor old Ned yawned and stretched himself.

Winny saw through the whole thing at once. The matter of a marriage between herself and Tom Murdock, and a union of the farms, had doubtless been discussed between her father and old Mick Murdock, and a final arrangement, so far as they were concerned, had been arrived at. A hitch upon her part she was certain neither {796} of them had ever dreamt of; and yet "hitch" was a slight word to express the opposition she was determined to give to their wishes.

She knew that if her father had got so far as where he had been interrupted by the yawn when he was fresh after breakfast, the whole thing would have come out. She was, however, a considerate girl; and although she knew there was at that moment a good opening, where a word would have brought the matter on, she knew that the result would have completely driven rest and sleep from the poor old man's pillow for the night, tired and fatigued as he was. She therefore adroitly changed the conversation to his own comforts in a cup of tea before he went to bed.

"Yes, _mavourneen_" he said, "I fell asleep before I mixed a tumbler of punch, and I'll take the tea now instead; for, Winny, my love, you can join me at that. Do you know, Winny, I'm very thirsty?"

"Well, father dear, I'll soon give you what will refresh you."

While Winny was busying herself for the tea, putting down a huge kettle of water in the kitchen, and rattling the cups and saucers until you'd think she was trying to break them, the old man wakened up into a train of thought not altogether dissimilar to that which Winny herself had indulged in over his sleeping form.

Winny was quite right. The whole matter had been discussed on that day between the old men during their perambulations round the two farms; the respective value and condition of the land forming a minute calculation not unconnected with the other portion of their discourse--settlements, deeds of conveyance, etc., etc., had all been touched upon.

Winny was right in another of her surmises, although at the time she scarcely believed so herself. Old Murdock, taking his cue from Tom, told old Ned that if he found Winny at all averse to marrying Tom, he was certain young Lennon would be at the bottom of it--at least Tom had more than hinted such to him.

Old Ned was furious at this, declaring that if Tom Murdock was never to the fore, his daughter should never bestow his long and hard earnings upon a pauper like that, looking for a day's wages here and there, and as often without it as with it; how dare the likes of him lift his eyes to his little girl! But he'd soon put a stop to that, if there was anything in it, let what would turn up. Every penny-piece he was worth in the world was in his own power, and there was a very easy way of bringing Miss Winny to her senses, if she had that wild notion in her head.

Poor old Ned, in his indignation for what he thought Winny's welfare, forgot that she was the only being belonging to him in the world, and that when it came to the point he would find it impossible to put this threat of "cutting her off" into execution.

Old Murdock was delighted with this tirade against young Lennon, whom he looked upon as the only real obstacle to Tom's acquisition of land and money, to say nothing of a handsome wife.

"Be studdy with her, Ned," said he, "she has a very floostherin' way wid her where you're concerned; I often remarked it. Don't let her come round you, Ned, wid her pillaverin' about that 'whelp,' as Tom calls him."

"An' he calls him quite right. If he daars to look up to my little girl, he'll soon find out his mistake, I can tell him."

"Nothin' would show him his mistake so much as to have Tom's business an' hers settled at Shraft, Ned."

"I know that, Mick; an' with the blessing I'll spake to her in the mornin' upon the subjict. I dunna did Tom ever spake to herself, Mick?"

"If he didn't he will afore to-morrow night; he's on the watch to meet with her by accident; he says it's betther nor to go straight up to her, an' maybe frighten her."

"Very well, Mick; I'll have an eye to them; maybe it would be betther {797} let Tom himself spake first. These girls are so dam' proud; an'

I can tell you it is betther not vex Winny."

Of course these two old men said a great deal more; but the above is the pith of what set old Ned Cavana thinking the greater part of the night; for the tea Winny made was very strong, and, as he said, he was thirsty, having missed his tumbler of punch after dinner. He fell asleep, however, much sooner than he would have done had the sequel to his plans become known to him before he went to bed.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

From The Book of Days.

YOUNG'S NARCISSA.

The Third Night of Young's Complaint is ent.i.tled Narcissa, from its being dedicated to the sad history of the early death of a beautiful lady, thus poetically designated by the author. Whatever doubts may exist with respect to the reality or personal ident.i.ty of the other characters noticed in the "Night Thoughts," there can be none whatever as regards Narcissa. She was the daughter of Young's wife, by her first husband, Colonel Lee. When scarcely seventeen years of age she was married to Mr. Henry Temple, son of the then Lord Palmerston.

[Footnote 158] Soon afterward, being attacked by consumption, she was taken by Young to the south of France in hopes of a change for the better; but she died there about a year after her marriage, and Dr.

Johnson tells us, in his "Lives of the Poets," that "her funeral was attended with the difficulties painted in such animated colors in Night the Third." Young's words in relation to the burial of Narcissa, eliminating, for brevity's sake, some extraneous and redundant lines, are as follows:

[Footnote 158: By a second wife, grandfather of the present Premier.]

"While nature melted, superst.i.tion raved; That mourned the dead; and this denied a grave.

For oh! the curst unG.o.dliness of zeal!

While sinful flesh r.e.t.a.r.ded, spirit nursed In blind infallibility's embrace, Denied the charity of dust to spread O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy.

What could I do? what succor? what resource?

With pious sacrilege a grave I stole; With impious piety that grave I wronged; Short in my duty: coward in my grief!

More like her murderer than friend, I crept With soft suspended step, and m.u.f.fled deep In midnight darkness, whispered my last sigh.

I whispered what should echo through their realms, Nor writ her name whose tomb should pierce the skies."

All Young's biographers have told the same story from Johnson down to the last edition of the "Night Thoughts," edited by Mr. Gilfillan, who, speaking of Narcissa, says "her remains were brutally denied sepulture as the dust of a Protestant." Le Tourneure translated the "Night Thoughts" into French in 1770, and, strange to say, the work soon became exceedingly popular in France, more so probably than ever it has been in England. Naturally enough, then, curiosity became excited as to where the unfortunate Narcissa was buried, and it was soon discovered that she had been interred in the Botanic Garden of Montpellier. An old gate-keeper of the garden, named Mercier, confessed that many years previously he had a.s.sisted to bury an English lady in a hollow, waste spot of the garden. As he told the story, an English clergyman came to him and begged that he would bury a lady; but he refused, until the Englishman, with tears in his eyes, said that she was his only daughter; on hearing this, he (the gate-keeper), being a father himself, consented. Accordingly the Englishman brought the dead {798} body on his shoulders, his eyes raining tears, to the garden at midnight, and he there and then buried the corpse. About the time this confession was made, Professor Gouan, an eminent botanist, was writing a work on the plants in the garden, into which he introduced the above story, thus giving it a sort of scientific authority; and consequently the grave of Narcissa became one of the treasures of the garden, and one of the leading lions of Montpellier. A writer in the "Evangelical Magazine" of 1797 gives an account of a visit to the garden, and a conversation with one Bannal, who had succeeded Mercier in his office, and who had often heard the sad story of the burial of Narcissa from Mercier's lips. Subsequently, Talma, the tragedian, was so profoundly impressed with the story that he commenced a subscription to erect a magnificent tomb to the memory of Narcissa; but as the days of bigotry in matters of sepulture had nearly pa.s.sed away, it was thought better to erect a simple monument, inscribed, as we learn from "Murray's Handbook," with the words:

"Placandis Narcissae manibus,"

the "Handbook" adding, "She was buried here at a time when the atrocious laws which accompanied the Revocation of Nantes, backed by the superst.i.tion of a fanatic populace, denied Christian burial to Protestants."

Strange to say, this striking story is almost wholly devoid of truth.

Narcissa never was at Montpellier. That she died at Lyons we know from Mr. Herbert Crofts's account of Young, published by Dr. Johnson; that she was buried there we know by her burial registry and her tombstone, both of which are yet in existence. And by these we also learn that Young's "animated" account of her funeral in the "Night Thoughts" is simply untrue. She was not denied a grave:

"Denied the charity of dust to spread O'er dust,"

nor did he steal a grave, as he a.s.serts, but bought and paid for it.

Her name was not unwrit, as her tombstone still testifies. The central square of the Hotel de Dieu at Lyons was long used as a burial place for Protestants; but the alteration in the laws at the time of the great Revolution doing away with the necessity of having separate burial places for different religions, the central garden was converted into a medical garden for the use of the hospital. The Protestants of Lyons being of the poorer cla.s.s, there were few memorials to move when the ancient burying place was made into a garden. The princ.i.p.al one, however, consisting of a large slab of black marble, was set up against a wall, close beside an old Spanish mulberry-tree. About twenty years ago the increasing growth of this tree necessitated the removal of the slab, when it was found that the side which had been placed against the wall contained a Latin inscription to the memory of Narcissa. The inscription, which is too long to be quoted here, leaves no doubt upon the matter. It mentions the names of her father and mother, her connection with the n.o.ble family of Lichfield, her descent from Charles II., and concludes by stating that she died on the 8th of Oct., 1736, aged 18 years. On discovering this inscription M. Ozanam, the director of the Hotel de Dieu, searched the registry of the Protestant burial, still preserved in the Hotel de Ville at Lyons, and found an entry, of which the following is a correct translation: "Madam Lee, daughter of Col. Lee, aged about eighteen years, wife of Henry Temple, English by birth, was buried at the Hotel de Dieu at Lyons, in the cemetery of persons of the Reformed religion of the Swiss nation, the 12th of Oct., 1736, at eleven o'clock at night, by order of the Prevot of merchants."

"Received 729 livres 12 sols. Signed, Para, priest and treasurer."