Part 25 (2/2)
”Will you not have some chicken, sir?”
”No, my dear--no; just what I said--a mouthful of toast, and a cup of tea, with plenty of cream in it. Thank you, love. (A good swing for him will be delightful. I'll go to see it.) Helen, my dear, I'm going to give a dinner-party next week. Of course we'll have your future--hem--I mean we'll have Sir Robert, and--let me see--who else? Why, Oxley, the sheriff”, Mr. Brown, the parson--I wish he didn't lean so much to the cursed Papists, though--Mr. Hastings, who is tarred with the same stick, it is whispered. Well, who next? Lord Deilmacare, a good-natured jacka.s.s--a fellow who would eat a jacketful of carrion, if placed before him, with as much _gout_ as if it were venison. He went home one night, out of this, with the parson's outside coat and shovel hat upon him, and did not return them for two days.”
”Does this habit proceed from stupidity, papa?”
”Not at all; but from mere carelessness. The next two days he was out with his laborers, and if a cow or pig chanced--(the villain! we'll hang him to a certainty)--chanced, I say, to stray into the field, he would shy the shovel hat at them, without remorse. Oh! we must have him, by all means. But who next? Sir Jenkins Joram. Give him plenty to drink, and he is satisfied.”
”But what are his political principles, papa?”
”They are to be found in the bottle, Helen, which is the only creed, political or religious, to which I ever knew him to be attached; and I tell you, girl, that if every Protestant in Ireland were as deeply devoted to his Church as he is to the bottle, we would soon be a happy people, uncorrupted by treacherous scoundrels, who privately harbor Papists and foster Popery itself. (The infernal scoundrel.)”
”But, papa,” replied his daughter, with a melancholy smile, ”I think I know some persons, who, although very loud and vehement in their outcry against Popery, have, nevertheless, on more than one or two occasions, harbored Papists in their house, and concealed even priests, when the minions of the law were in search of them.”
”Yes, and it is of this cursed crew of hollow Protestants that I now speak--ahem--ay--ha--well, what the devil--hem. To be sure I--I--I--but it doesn't signify; we can't be wise at all times. But after all, Helen (she has me there), after all, I say, there are some good Papists, and some good--ahem--priests, too. There now, I've got it out. However, Helen, those foolish days are gone, and we have nothing for it now but to hunt Popery out of the country. But to proceed as to the dinner.”
”I think Popery is suffering enough, sir, and more than enough.”
”Ho, ho,” he exclaimed with triumph, ”here comes the next on my list--a fine fellow, who will touch it up still more vigorously--I mean Captain Smellpriest.”
”I have heard of that inhuman man,” replied Helen; ”I wish you would not ask him, papa. I am told he equals Sir Robert Whitecraft in both cowardice and cruelty. Is not that a nickname he has got in consequence of his activity in pursuit of the unfortunate priests?”
”It's a nickname he has given himself,” replied her father; ”and he has become so proud of it that he will allow himself to be called by no other. He swears that if a priest gets on the windy side of him, he will scent him as a hound would a fox. Oh! by my honor, Smellpriest must be here. The scoundrel like Whitecraft!--eh-what am I saying? Smellpriest, I say, first began his career as a friend to the Papists; he took large tracts of land in their name, and even purchased a couple of estates with their money; and in due time, according as the tide continued to get strong against them, he thought the best plan to cover his villany--ahem--his policy, I mean--was to come out as a fierce loyalist; and as a mark of his repentance, he claimed the property, as the real purchaser, and arrested those who were fools enough to trust him.”
”I think I know another gentleman of my acquaintance who holds property in some similar trust for Papists,” observed Helen, ”but who certainly is incapable of imitating the villany of that most unprincipled man.”
”Come, come, Helen; come, my girl; tut--ahem; come, you are getting into politics now, and that will never do. A girl like you ought to have nothing to do with politics or religion.”
”Religion! papa.”
”Oh--hem-I don't mean exactly that. Oh, no; I except religion; a girl may be as religious as she pleases, only she must say as little upon the subject as possible. Come, another cup of tea, with a little more sugar, for, I give you my honor, you did not make the last one of the sweetest;” and so saying, he put over his cup with a grimace, which resembled that of a man detected in a bad action, instead of a good one.
At this moment John, the butler, came in with a plate of hot toast; and, as he was a privileged old man, he addressed his master without much hesitation.
”That was a quare business,” he observed, using the word quare as an equivocal one, until he should see what views of the circ.u.mstance his master might take; ”a quare business, sir, that happened to Mr. Reilly.”
”What business do you allude to, you old sinner?”
”The burning of his house and place, sir. All he has, or had, is in a heap of ashes.”
Helen felt not for the burning, but her eyes were fixed upon the features of the old man, as if the doom of her life depended on his words; whilst the paper on which ee write is not whiter than were her cheeks.
”What--what--how was it?” asked his master; ”who did it?--and by whose authority was it done?”
”Sir Robert Whitecraft and his men did it, sir.”
”Ay, but I can't conceive he had any authority for such an act.”
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