Part 37 (1/2)
”I suppose you have been about the country a good deal?”
”I have, indeed, your haner.”
”Did you ever happen to hear of, or to meet with, a person called Reilly?”
”Often, s.h.i.+r; met many o' dem.”
”Oh, but I mean the scoundrel called w.i.l.l.y Reilly.”
”Is dat him dat left the country, s.h.i.+r?”
”Why, how do you know that he has left the country?”
”I don't know myself, s.h.i.+r; but dat de people does be sayhi' it. Dey say dat himself and wan of our bishops went to France togither”
The squire seemed to breathe more freely as he said, in a low soliloquy, ”I'm devilish glad of it; for, after all, it would go against my heart to hang the fellow.”
”Well,” he said aloud, ”so he's gone to France?”
”So de people does be sayin, s.h.i.+r.”
”Well, tell me--do you know a gentleman called Sir Robert Whitecraft?”
”Is dat him, s.h.i.+r, dat keeps de misses privately?”
”How do you know that he keeps misses privately?”
”Fwhy, s.h.i.+r, dey say his last one was a Miss Herbert, and dat she had a young one by him, and dat she was an Englishwoman. It isn't ginerally known, I believe, s.h.i.+r, but dey do be sayin' dat she was brought to bed in de cottage of some bad woman named Mary Mahon, dat does be on de lookout to get sweethearts for him.”
”There's five thirteens for you, and I wish to G.o.d, my good fellow, that you would allow yourself to be put in better feathers.”
”Oh, I expect my pinance will be out before a mont', s.h.i.+r; but, until den, I couldn't take any money.”
”Malcomson,” said he to the gardener, ”I think that fellow's a half fool. I offered him a crown, and also said. I would get him a suit of clothes, and he would not take either; but talked about some silly penance he was undergoing.”
”Saul, then, your honor, he may be a fule in ither things, but de'il a ane of him's a fule in the sceence o' b.u.t.tany. As to that penance, it's just some Papistrical nonsense, he has gotten into his head--de'il hae't mair: but sure they're a' full o't--a' o' the same graft, an' a bad one I fear it is.”
”Well, I believe so, Malcomson, I believe so. However, if the unfortunate fool is clever, give him good wages.”
”Saul, your honor, I'll do him justice; only I think that, anent that penance he speaks o', the hail Papish population, bad as we think them, are suffering penance eneuch, one way or t.i.ther. It disna' beseem a Protestant--that is, a prelatic Government--to persecute ony portion o'
Christian people on, account o' their religion. We have felt and kenned that in Scotland, sairly. I'm no freend to persecution, in ony shape.
But, as to this chiel, I ken naething aboot him, but that he is a gude b.u.t.tanist. Hout, your honor, to be sure I'll gi'e him a fair wage for his skeel and labor.”
Malcomson, who was what we have often met, a pedant gardener, saw, however, that the squire's mind was disturbed. In the short conversation which they had, he spoke abruptly, and with a flushed countenance; but he was too shrewd to ask him why he seemed so. It was not, he knew, his business to do so; and as the squire left the garden, to pa.s.s into the house, he looked after him, and exclaimed to himself, ”my certie, there's a bee in that man's bonnet.”
On going to the drawing-room, the squire found Mr. Brown there, and Helen in tears.
”How!” he exclaimed, ”what is this? Helen crying! Why, what's the matter, my child? Brown, have you been scolding her, or reading her a homily to teach her repentance. Confound me, but I know it would teach her patience, at all events. What is the matter?”
”My dear Miss Folliard,” said the clergyman, ”if you will have the goodness to withdraw, I will explain this shocking business to your father.”