"O my
innocent
mother!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
It's get-
ting late, and this has been a fatiguing day. I'll send you up
some negus, and I think you had better go to bed. "
And with these commonplace words, Dr. Marjoribanks with-
drew in calm possession of the field. As for Lucilla, she obeyed
him, and betook herself to her own room; and swallowed her
negus with a sense not only of defeat, but of disappointment and
mortification, which was very unpleasant. To go back again
and be an ordinary schoolgirl, after the pomp of woe in which
she had come away, was naturally a painful thought;-she who
had ordered her mourning to be made long, and contemplated
new furniture in the drawing-room, and expected to be mistress
of her father's house, not to speak of the still dearer privilege
of being a comfort to him; and now, after all, her active mind
was to be condemned over again to verbs and chromatic scales,
though she felt within herself capacities so much more extended.
Miss Marjoribanks did not by any means learn by this defeat to
take the characters of the other personæ in her little drama into
consideration, when she rehearsed her pet scenes hereafter,
for
## p. 10832 (#40) ###########################################
10832
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
that is a knowledge slowly acquired, but she was wise enough
to know when resistance was futile; and like most people of
lively imagination, she had a power of submitting to circum-
stances when it became impossible to change them. Thus she
consented to postpone her reign, if not with a good grace, yet
still without foolish resistance, and retired with the full honors
of war.
She had already rearranged all the details, and settled
upon all the means possible of preparing herself for what she
called the charge of the establishment when her final emancipa-
tion took place, before she returned to school. "Papa thought me
too young," she said, when she reached Mount Pleasant, "though
it was dreadful to come away and leave him alone with only the
servants: but dear Miss Martha, you will let me learn all about
political economy and things, to help me manage everything; for
now that dear mamma is gone, there is nobody but me to be a
comfort to papa. "
And by this means Miss Marjoribanks managed to influence
the excellent woman who believed in 'Friends in Council,' and to
direct the future tenor of her education; while at least, in that
one moment of opportunity, she had achieved long dresses, which
was a visible mark of womanhood, and a step which could not be
retraced.
THE DELIVERANCE
From The Ladies Lindores >
[The Lindores are a simple family, of good birth and breeding, who for
years have wandered happily over the Continent, living in cheap places on a
meagre income, and making friends with everybody. Unexpectedly inheriting
the title, and finding the estates insufficient, Lord Lindores determines that
his pretty daughters must marry fortunes. The elder, Lady Caroline, is sac-
rificed to the richest man in the county, a coarse, purse-proud, vain, and brutal
ignoramus, whom she abhors, and who grows daily more and more detestable.
Suddenly he is killed by an accident, induced by his own evil temper and
bravado. ]
C
ARRY, upon the other side of the great house, had retired to
her room in the weariness that followed her effort to look
cheerful and do the honors of her table. She had made
that effort very bravely; and though it did not even conceal from
Millefleurs the position of affairs, still less deceive her own fam-
ily, yet at least it kept up the appearance of decorum necessary,
I
## p. 10833 (#41) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10833
-
and made it easier for the guests to go through their part.
She lay on a sofa very quiet in the stillness of exhaustion, not
doing anything, not saying anything, looking wistfully at the blue
sky that was visible through the window with the soft foliage of
some birch-trees waving lightly over it-and trying not to think.
Indeed, she was so weary that it was scarcely necessary to try.
And what was there to think about? Nothing could be done to
deliver her-nothing that she was aware of even to mend her
position. She was grateful to God that she was to be spared the
still greater misery of seeing Beaufort, but that was all. Even
heaven itself seemed to have no help for Carry. If she could
have been made by some force of unknown agency to love her
husband, she would still have been an unhappy wife; but it is to
be feared, poor soul, that things had come to this pass with her,
that she did not even wish to love her husband, and felt it less
degrading to live with him under compulsion, than to be brought
down to the level of his coarser nature, and take pleasure in
the chains she wore. Her heart revolted at him more and more.
In such a terrible case, what help was there for her in earth
or heaven? Even had he been reformed, had he been made a
better man, Carry would not have loved him: she shrank from
the very suggestion that she might some time do so. There was
no help for her; her position could not be bettered anyhow. She
knew this so well, that all struggle except the involuntary strug-
gle in her mind, which never could intermit, against many of
the odious details of the life she had to lead, had died out of
her. She had given in to the utter hopelessness of her situation.
Despair is sometimes an opiate, as it is sometimes a frantic and
maddening poison. There was nothing to be done for her,—no
use in wearying Heaven with prayers, as some of us do. Nothing
could make her better. She had given in utterly, body and soul,
and this was all that was to be said. She lay there in this still-
ness of despair, feeling more crushed and helpless than usual
after the emotions of the morning, but not otherwise disturbed;
lying like a man who has been shattered by an accident, but
lulled by some anodyne draught,- still, and almost motionless,
letting every sensation be hushed so long as nature would per-
mit, her hands folded, her very soul hushed and still. She took
no note of time in the exhaustion of her being. She knew that
when her husband returned she would be sent for, and would
have to re-enter the other world of eternal strife and pain; but
XIX-678
—
.
## p. 10834 (#42) ###########################################
10834
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
here she was retired, as in her chapel, in herself - the sole
effectual refuge which she had left.
-
The house was very well organized, very silent and orderly in
general; so that it surprised Lady Caroline a little, in the depth
of her quiet, to hear a distant noise as of many voices, distinct
though not loud- a confusion and far-away babel of outcries and
exclamations. Nothing could be more unusual; but she felt no
immediate alarm, thinking that the absence of her husband and
her own withdrawal had probably permitted a little outbreak of
gayety or gossip down-stairs, with which she did not wish to
interfere. She lay still accordingly, listening vaguely, without
taking much interest in the matter. Certainly something out of
the way must have happened. The sounds had sprung up all at
once,—a hum of many excited voices, with sharp cries as of dis-
may and wailing breaking in.
At last her attention was attracted. "There has been some
accident," she said to herself, sitting upright upon her sofa. As
she did this she heard steps approaching her door. They came
with a rush, hurrying along, the feet of at least two women,
with a heavier step behind them; then paused suddenly, and
there ensued a whispering and consultation close to her door.
Carry was a mother, and her first thought was of her child-
ren. "They are afraid to tell me," was the thought that passed
through her mind. She rose and rushed to the door, throwing
it open.
"What is it? Something has happened," she said,-
"something you are afraid to tell me. Oh, speak, speak! - the
children- »
•
"My leddy, it's none of the children. The children are as
well as could be wished, poor dears," said her own maid, who
had been suddenly revealed, standing very close to the door.
The woman, her cheeks blazing with some sudden shock, eager
to speak, yet terrified, stopped there with a gasp. The house-
keeper, who was behind her, pushed her a little forward, sup-
porting her with a hand on her waist, whispering confused but
audible exhortations. "Oh, take heart-oh, take heart. She
must be told. The Lord will give you strength," this woman
said. The butler stood solemnly behind, with a very anxious,
serious countenance.
To Carry, all this scene became confused by wild anxiety
and terror. "What is it? " she said; "my mother? some one
at home? " She stretched out her hands vaguely towards the
## p. 10835 (#43) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10835
messengers of evil, feeling like a victim at the block, upon
whose neck the executioner's knife is about to fall.
"O my leddy! far worse! far worse! " the woman cried.
Carry, in the dreadful whirl of her feelings, still paused
bewildered, to ask herself what could be worse? And then there
came upon her a moment of blindness, when she saw nothing,
and the walls and the roof seemed to burst asunder, and whirl
and whirl. She dropped upon her knees in this awful blank and
blackness unawares; and then the haze dispelled, and she saw,
coming out of the mist, a circle of horror-stricken pale faces,
forming a sort of ring round her. She could do nothing but
gasp out her husband's name - "Mr. Torrance? " with quivering
lips.
―
"O my lady, my lady! To see her on her knees, and us
bringin' her such awfu' news! But the Lord will comfort ye,"
cried the housekeeper, forgetting the veneration due to her mis-
tress, and raising her in her arms. The two women supported
her into her room, and she sat down again upon the sofa where
she had been sitting — sitting, was it a year ago? —in the quiet,
thinking that no change would ever come to her; that nothing,
nothing could alter her condition; that all was over and finished
for her life.
And it is to be supposed that they told poor Carry exactly
the truth. She never knew. When she begged them to leave
her alone till her mother came, whom they had sent for, she had
no distinct knowledge of how it was, or what had happened;
but she knew that had happened. She fell upon her knees
before her bed, and buried her head in her hands, shutting out
the light. Then she seized hold of herself with both her hands
to keep herself (as she felt) from floating away upon that flood
of new life which came swelling up all in a moment, swelling
into every vein-filling high the fountain of existence which had
been so feeble and so low. Oh, shut out-shut out the light,
that nobody might see! close the doors and the shutters in the
house of death, and every cranny, that no human eye might
descry it! After a while she dropped lower, from the bed which
supported her, to the floor, prostrating herself with more than
Oriental humbleness. Her heart beat wildly, and in her brain
there seemed to wake a hundred questions clanging like bells in
her ears, filling the silence with sound. Her whole being, that
had been crushed, sprang up like a flower from under a passing
## p. 10836 (#44) ###########################################
10836
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
foot. Was it possible? was it possible? She pulled herself
down; tried by throwing herself upon her face on the carpet,
prostrating herself body and soul, to struggle against that secret,
voiceless, mad exultation that came upon her against her will.
Was he dead? — was he dead? struck down in the middle of his
days, that man of iron? Oh, the pity of it! -oh, the horror of
it! She tried to force herself to feel this-to keep down, down,
that climbing joy in her. God in heaven, was it possible? she
who thought nothing could happen to her more.
A fire had been lighted by the anxious servants,- who saw
her shiver in the nervous excitement of this great and terrible
event, and blazed brightly, throwing ruddy gleams of light
through the room, and wavering ghostly shadows upon the wall.
The great bed, with its tall canopies and heavy ornaments,
shrouded round with satin curtains, looped and festooned with
tarnished gold lace and every kind of clumsy grandeur, stood
like a sort of catafalque, the object of a thousand airy assaults
and attacks from the fantastic light, but always dark,—a fune-
real object in the midst; while the tall polished wardrobes all
round the room gave back reflections like dim mirrors, showing
nothing but the light. Two groups of candles on the high
mantelpiece, twinkling against the dark wall, were the only other
illuminations. Carry sat sunk in a big chair close to the fire.
If she could have cried, if she could have talked and lamented,
if she could have gone to bed, or failing this, if she had read
her Bible, the maids in the house, who hung about the doors
in anxiety and curiosity, would have felt consoled for her. But
she did none of these. She only sat there, her slight figure
lost in the depths of the chair, still in the white dress which
she had worn to receive her guests in the morning. She had
not stirred the women said, gathering round Lady Lindores in
whispering eagerness for hours, and had not even touched the
cup of tea they had carried to her. "O my lady, do something
to make her cry," the women said. "If she doesn't get it out
it'll break her heart. " They had forgotten, with the facile emo-
tion which death, and especially a death so sudden, calls forth,
that the master had been anything but the most devoted of hus-
bands, or his wife other than the lovingest of wives. This pious
superstition is always ready to smooth away the horror of deaths
which are a grief to no one. "Your man's your man when a's
done, even if he's but an ill ane," was the sentiment of the awe-
-
――――
-
—
-
--
## p. 10837 (#45) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10837
stricken household.
"Ye never ken what he's been to ye till ye
lose him. " It gave them all a sense of elevation that Lady
Caroline should, as they thought, be wrapped in hopeless grief,—
it made them think better of her and of themselves. The two
ladies went into the ghostly room with something of the same
feeling.
Lady Lindores felt that she understood it, that she had
expected it. Had not her own mind been filled by sudden com-
punction, the thought that perhaps she had been less tolerant
of the dead man than she ought; and how much more must
Carry, poor Carry, have felt the awe and pang of an almost
remorse to think that he was gone, without a word, against whom
her heart had risen in such rebellion, yet who was of all men
the most closely involved in her very being? Lady Lindores
comprehended it all; and yet it was a relief to her mind that
Carry felt it so, and could thus wear the garb of mourning with
reality and truth. She went in with her heart full, with tears
in her eyes, the profoundest tender pity for the dead, the deepest
sympathy with her child in sorrow. The room was very large,
very still, very dark, save for that ruddy twilight, the two little
groups of pale lights glimmering high up upon the wall, and no
sign of any human presence.
«<
-
Carry, my darling! " her mother said, wondering and dis-
mayed. Then there was a faint sound, and Carry rose, tall, slim,
and white, like a ghost out of the gloom. She had been sitting
there for hours, lost in thoughts, in dreams and visions. She
seemed to herself to have so exhausted this event by thinking of
it, that it was now years away. She stepped forward and met
her mother, tenderly indeed, but with no effusion.
come all the way so late to be with me, mother?
how kind you are! And Edith too-"
"Kind! " cried Lady Lindores, with an almost angry bewilder-
ment. "Did you not know I would come, Carry, my poor child?
But you are stunned with this blow- »
at
"I suppose I was at first. Yes, I knew you would come
first; but it seems so long since. Sit down, mother.
You are
cold. You have had such a miserable drive. Come near to the
fire- »
«< Carry, Carry dear, never mind us: it is you we are all think-
ing of.
You must not sit there and drive yourself distracted
thinking. "
"Have you
How kind,
――――――――――
## p. 10838 (#46) ###########################################
10838
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
"Let me take off this shawl from your cap, mamma. Now
you look more comfortable. Have you brought your things to
stay? I am ringing to have fires lit in your rooms. Oh yes, I
want you to stay. I have never been able to endure this house,
you know, and those large rooms, and the desert feeling in
it. And you will have some tea or something. I must give
orders->
"Carry," cried her mother, arresting her hand on the bell,
"Edith and I will see to all that. Don't pay any attention to us.
I have come to take care of you, my dearest. Carry, dear, your
nerves are all shattered. How could it be otherwise? You must
let me get you something,-they say you have taken nothing,-
and you must go to bed. "
"I don't think my nerves are shattered. I am quite well.
There is nothing the matter with me. You forget," she said,
with something like a faint laugh, "how often we have said,
mamma, how absurd to send and ask after a woman's health
when there is nothing the matter with her, when only she has
lost - " Here she paused a little; and then said gravely, "Even
grief does not affect the health. ”
"Very often it does not, dear; but Carry, you must not for-
get that you have had a terrible shock. Even I, who am not
so nearly involved even I-» Here Lady Lindores, in her
excitement and agitation, lost her voice altogether, and sobbed,
unable to command herself. "Oh, poor fellow! poor fellow!
she said with broken tones. "In a moment, Carry, without
warning. "
Carry went to her mother's side, and drew her head upon her
breast. She was perfectly composed, without a tear. "I have
thought of all that," she said: "I cannot think it matters. If
God is the Father of us all, we are the same to him, dead or liv-
ing. What can it matter to him that we should make prepara-
tions to appear before him? Oh, all that must be folly, mother.
However bad I had been, should I have to prepare to go to
you? »
--
"Carry, Carry, my darling! It is I that should be saying
this to you.
You are putting too much force upon yourself: it
is unnatural; it will be all the more terrible for you after "
Carry stood stooping over her mother, holding Lady Lindores's
head against her bosom. She smiled faintly, and shook her head.
"Has it not been unnatural altogether? " she said.
•
## p. 10839 (#47) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10839
"The children poor children! have you seen them, Carry?
do they know? " said Lady Lindores, drying the tears-the only
tears that had been shed for Torrance from her cheeks.
――――――――――
Carry did not make any reply. She went away to the other
end of the room, and took up a white shawl in which she
wrapped herself. "The only thing I feel is cold," she said.
"Ah, my love, that is the commonest feeling. I have felt
sometimes as if I could just drag myself to the fire like a
wounded animal and care for nothing more. "
"But, mother, you were never in any such terrible trouble. "
"Not like this- but I have lost children," said Lady Lin-
dores. She had to pause again, her lip quivering. "To be only
sorrow, there is no sorrow like that. "
She had risen, and they stood together, the fantastic firelight
throwing long shadows of them all over the dim and ghastly
room. Suddenly Carry flung herself into her mother's arms.
"O my innocent mother! " she cried. "O mother! you only
know such troubles as angels may have. Look at me! look at
me! I am like a mad woman. I am keeping myself in, as you
say, that I may not go mad with joy! "
Lady Lindores gave a low terrible cry, and held her daughter
in her arm, pressing her desperately to her heart as if to silence.
her.
-
"No, Carry-no, no," she cried.
"It is true. To think I shall never be subject to all that any
more - that he can never come in here again - that I am free-
that I can be alone. O mother, how can you tell what it is?
Never to be alone; never to have a corner in the world where-
some one else has not a right to come, a better right than your-
self. I don't know how I have borne it. I don't know how I
can have lived, disgusted, loathing myself.
else I shall be sorry when I have time to think, when I can for-
get what it is that has happened to me- but in the mean time I
am too happy — too — »
No, no: some time
Lady Lindores put her hand upon her daughter's mouth.
"No, no, Carry-no, no: I cannot bear it-you must not say
it," she cried.
Carry took her mother's hands and kissed them, and then be-
gan to sob-the tears pouring from her eyes like rain. "I will
not say anything," she cried; "no, no-nothing, mother. I had
to tell you to relieve my heart. I have been able to think of
nothing else all these hours. I have never had so many hours
## p. 10840 (#48) ###########################################
10840
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
to myself for years. It is so sweet to sit still and know that
no one will burst the door open and come in. Here I can be
sacred to myself, and sit and think; and all quiet-all quiet
about me. "
Carry looked up, clasping her hands, with the tears dropping
now and then, but a smile quivering upon her mouth and in
her eyes. She seemed to have reached that height of passionate
emotion- the edge where expression at its highest almost loses
itself, and a blank of all meaning seems the next possibility. In
her white dress, with her upturned face and the wild gleam of
But to
rapture in her eyes, she was like an unearthly creature.
describe Lady Lindores's anguish and terror and pain would be
impossible. She thought her daughter was distraught. Never
in her life had she come in contact with feeling so absolute,
subdued by no sense of natural fitness, or even by right and
wrong. . . And the truth was that her own heart, though so
panic-stricken and penetrated with so much pity for the dead,
understood too, with a guilty throb, the overwhelming sense of
emancipation which drove everything else from Carry's n
ngind.
She had feared it would be so. She would not allow herself to
think so; but all through the darkness of the night as she drove
along, she had been trembling lest she should find Carry not
heart-broken but happy, yet had trusted that pity somehow would
keep her in the atmosphere of gloom which ought to surround a
new-made widow. It hurt Lady Lindores's tender heart that a
woman should be glad when her husband died, however unworthy
that husband might have been. She did her best now to soothe
the excited creature, who took her excitement for happiness.
"We will talk of this no more to-night, Carry: by-and-by you
will see how pitiful it all is. You will feel as I feel. But
in the mean time you are worn out. This terrible shock, even
though you may think you do not feel it, has thrown you into
a fever. You must let me put you to bed. "
"Not here," she said with a shudder, looking round the room;
"not here—I could not rest here. "
"That is natural," Lady Lindores said with a sigh. "You
must come with me, Carry. "
"Home, mother-home! Oh, if I could! - not even to Lin-
dores: to one of the old, poor places where we were so happy —”
"When we had no home," the mother said, shaking her head.
But she too got a wistful look in her eyes at the recollection.
1
I
## p. 10841 (#49) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10841
-
Those days when they were poor, wandering, of no account;
when it mattered little to any one but themselves where they
went, what the children might do, what alliances they made,—
what halcyon days those were to look back on! In those days
this miserable union, which had ended so miserably, could never
have been made. Was it worth while to have had so many
additional possessions added to them-rank and apparent ele-
vation - for such a result? But she could not permit herself
to think, with Carry sitting by, too ready to relapse into those
feverish musings which were so terrible. She put her arm round
her child and drew her tenderly away. They left the room with
the lights against the wall, and the firelight giving it a faux
air of warmth and inhabitation. Its emptiness was scarcely
less tragic, scarcely less significant, than the chill of the other
great room the state chamber-in the other wing; where, with
lights burning solemnly about him all night, the master of the
house lay dead, unwatched by either love or sorrow. There were
gloom and panic, and the shock of a great catastrophe, in the
house. There were even honest regrets; for he had not been
a bad master, though often a rough one: but nothing more ten-
der. And Carry lay down with her mother's arms round her
and slept, and woke in the night and asked herself what it was;
then lay still in a solemn happiness,—exhausted, peaceful,— feel-
ing as if she desired nothing more. She was delivered: as she
lay silent, hidden in the darkness and peace of the night, she
went over and over this one certainty, so terrible yet so sweet.
"God forgive me! God forgive me! " she said softly to herself,
her very breathing hushed with the sense of relief. She had
come out of death into life. Was it wrong to be glad? That
it was a shame and outrage upon nature was no fault of poor
Carry. Sweet tears rolled into her eyes; her jarred and thwarted
being came back into harmony. She lay and counted the dark
silent hours striking one by one, feeling herself all wrapped in
peace and ease, as if she lay in some sacred shrine. To-morrow
would bring back the veils and shrouds of outside life; the need
of concealment, of self-restraint, almost of hypocrisy; the strain
and pain of a new existence to be begun: but to-night-this one
blessed night of deliverance - was her own.
―――
―――
## p. 10842 (#50) ###########################################
10842
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
TEACHER AND PUPIL
From the Life of Edward Irving'
HEN Irving first came to Haddington," writes one of his
pupils, he was a tall, ruddy, robust, handsome youth,
cheerful and kindly disposed; he soon won the confi-
dence of his advanced pupils, and was admitted into the best
society in the town and neighborhood. " Into one house at least
he went with a more genial introduction, and under circumstances
equally interesting and amusing. This was the house of Dr.
Welsh, the principal medical man of the district; whose family
consisted of one little daughter, for whose training he enter-
tained more ambitious views than little girls are generally the
subjects of. This little girl, however, was as unique in mind
as in circumstances. She heard, with eager childish wonder, a
perennial discussion carried on between her father and mother
about her education: both were naturally anxious to secure the
special sympathy and companionship of their only child. The
doctor, recovering from his disappointment that she was a girl,
was bent upon educating her like a boy, to make up as far as
possible for the unfortunate drawback of sex; while her mother,
on the contrary, hoped for nothing higher in her daughter than
the sweet domestic companion most congenial to herself.
The child, who was not supposed to understand, listened
eagerly, as children invariably do listen to all that is intended to
be spoken over their heads. Her ambition was roused; to be
educated like a boy became the object of her entire thoughts,
and set her little mind working with independent projects of its
own. She resolved to take the first step in this awful but fasci-
nating course on her own responsibility. Having already divined
that Latin was the first grand point of distinction, she made up
her mind to settle the matter by learning Latin. A copy of the
'Rudiments' was quickly found in the lumber-room of the house,
and a tutor not much farther off in a humble student of the
neighborhood. The little scholar had a dramatic instinct: she
did not pour forth her first lesson as soon as it was acquired,
or rashly betray her secret. She waited the fitting place and
moment. It was evening, when dinner had softened out the
asperities of the day; the doctor sat in luxurious leisure in his
dressing-gown and slippers, sipping his coffee, and all the cheer-
ful accessories of the fireside picture were complete. The little
## p. 10843 (#51) ###########################################
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
10843
heroine had arranged herself under the table, under the crim-
son folds of the cover, which concealed her small person. All
was still; the moment had arrived;-"Penna, pennæ, pennam! "
burst forth the little voice in breathless steadiness. The result
may be imagined: the doctor smothered his child with kisses,
and even the mother herself had not a word to say; the victory
was complete.
After this pretty scene, the proud doctor asked Sir John
Leslie to send him a tutor for the little pupil who had made
so promising a beginning. Sir John recommended the youthful
teacher who was already in Haddington, and Edward Irving be-
came the teacher of the little girl. Their hours of study were
from six to eight in the morning,- which inclines one to imagine
that in spite of his fondness, the excellent doctor must have held
his household under Spartan discipline,- and again in the even-
ing after school hours. When the young tutor arrived in the
dark of the winter mornings, and found his little pupil, scarcely
dressed, peeping out of her room, he used to snatch her up in
his arms and carry her to the door, to name to her the stars
shining in the cold firmament hours before dawn; and when the
lessons were over, he set the child up on the table at which
they had been pursuing their studies, and taught her logic, to
the great tribulation of the household in which the little philoso-
pher pushed her inquiries into the puzzling metaphysics of life.
The greatest affection sprang up, as was natural, between the
child and her young teacher, whose heart at all times of his life
was always open to children. After the lapse of all these years,
their companionship looks both pathetic and amusing. A life-
long friendship sprang out of that early connection.
The pupil,
with all the enthusiasm of childhood, believed everything possi-
ble to the mind which gave its first impulse to her own; and
the teacher never lost the affectionate, indulgent love with which
the little woman, thus confided to his boyish care, inspired him.
Their intercourse did not have the romantic conclusion it might
have been supposed likely to end in; but as a friendship, existed
unbroken through all kinds of vicissitudes, and even through
entire separation, disapproval, and outward estrangement, to the
end of Irving's life.
When the lessons were over, it was a rule that the young
teacher should leave a daily report of his pupil's progress; when,
alas! that report was pessima, the little girl was punished. One
day he paused long before putting his sentence upon paper.
## p. 10844 (#52) ###########################################
10844
MARGARET OLIPHANT WILSON OLIPHANT
The culprit sat on the table, small, downcast, and conscious of
failure. The preceptor lingered remorsefully over his verdict,
wavering between justice and mercy. At last he looked up at
her with pitiful looks: "Jane, my heart is broken! " cried the
sympathetic tutor; "but I must tell the truth:" and with reluct-
ant pen he wrote the dread deliverance, pessima! The small
offender doubtless forgot the penalty that followed, but she has
not yet forgotten the compassionate dilemma in which truth was
the unwilling conqueror.
The youth who entered his house under such circumstances
soon became a favorite guest at the fireside of the doctor; who,
himself a man of education and intelligence, and of that dispo-
sition which makes men beloved, was not slow to find out the
great qualities of his young visitor. There are some men who
seem born to the inalienable good fortune of lighting upon the
best people,-"the most worthy," according to Irving's own ex-
pression long afterward, wherever they go. Irving's happiness
in this way began at Haddington. The doctor's wife seems to
have been one of those fair, sweet women whose remembrance
lasts longer than greatness. There is no charm of beauty more
delightful than that fragrance of it which lingers for generations
in the place where it has been an unconsciously refining and
tender influence. The Annandale youth came into a little world
of humanizing graces when he entered that atmosphere, and it
was only natural that he should retain the warmest recollection
of it throughout his life. It must have been of countless benefit
to him in this early stage of his career. The main quality in
himself which struck observers was - in strong and strange con-
tradiction to the extreme devotion of belief manifested in his lat-
ter years the critical and almost skeptical tendency of his mind,
impatient of superficial "received truths," and eager for proof
and demonstration of everything. Perhaps mathematics, which
then reigned paramount in his mind, was to blame: he was as
anxious to discuss, to prove and disprove, as a Scotch student
fresh from college is naturally disposed to be. It was a pecul-
iarity natural to his age and condition; and as his language was
always inclined to the superlative, and his feelings invariably took
part in every matter which commended itself to his mind, it is
probable that this inclination showed with a certain exaggeration
to surrounding eyes. "This youth will scrape a hole in every-
thing he is called on to believe," said the doctor; a strange proph-
ecy, looking at it by the light of events.
-
-
-
## p. 10845 (#53) ###########################################
10845
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
-
"FATHER PROUT"
(1804-1866)
BY JOHN MALONE
OR nothing is the Scythian race of Europe's westernmost island
more remarkable than for the delightful and sympathetic
character of that individual of the human species so pecul-
iar to the country's history, the Irish Parish Priest. In childhood
and in youth avid of learning, gathering its fruits as a "poor scholar »
amid the hedge-rows of his famine-oppressed
fields and pastures, he becomes in manhood
the soldier of fortune and knight-errant of
human thought. When in maturer years
he receives the message of his ministry, he
carries out the duty of his state with a dig-
nity and fervor largely interspersed with a
thousand quirks of native wit and irrepressi-
ble humor. Quick with sympathy, tender
with consolation, and strong as any bog-
trotter, with an arm ready to wield a pike
and a back ready to bear a burden, second
to none in generosity as a host or geniality
as a comrade, the power of the sag-
gart over his people is as absolute as that of
any czar, and as sweet as that of the All-Father whose human type
he is.
FRANCIS O'MAHONY
In that brilliant company assembled about a table made immortal
as that of Arthur by the genius of Maclise, there smiles, by a happy
chance, beside the grave face of our own Washington Irving, the
gracious and restless genius of him who brought that wonderful and
fascinating element into hostile English literature through the per-
sonality of our beloved friend of Watergrasshill, "Father Prout. "
Francis Sylvester O'Mahony (I beg the reader to put the accent
upon the first syllable of the patronymic) was born in a humble
family of the city of Cork in the year 1804, and was, as the first-
born, disposed to the priesthood, in accordance with the rule of Irish
## p. 10846 (#54) ###########################################
10846
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
families. He passed through the ordinary ways of education in his
own country, until he was thought sufficiently qualified to enter upon
his studies for the sacred office. With this end in view he was
placed in the College of the Jesuits at Amiens in France. After
serving under the strict rule of that order in various colleges of the
Continent for the period necessary to fulfill his novitiate, he became
attached, in the capacity of disciplinary prefect, to the college of
Clongowes Wood in his native country. The military rigor of the
Jesuit order sent him forth under marching orders, after a brief
period of service amongst his own people, and he seems to have
passed from house to house in Italy and Germany, according to the
usual plan adopted by the order for the detachment from individuals
of ties of place and comradeship. These ties seem to have been too
strongly secured to the young Irishman, for he was allowed to with-
draw from the schools of the disciples of Loyola, and to complete
his priestly equipment and ordination amongst those not bound by
the rules of monastic life. It is certain that he was made a priest
in Italy, whence he returned to his native city, where for a time he
occupied the position of curate to a gentle pastor, whose useful and
consoling ministry had never extended beyond the charm of the
sound of "Shandon Bells. "
Very little has been told of Father Prout's life while he followed
the course of studies prescribed by the Jesuit schools; but imagina-
tion affords a special delight to those who contemplate that mind
seething with the irrepressible chemistry of wit, vainly striving to
accommodate itself to the tasks imposed upon the young recruits of
that most rigorous and perfect of human institutions for the subjection
of self.
The schoolmaster from Marlborough Street, "Billy" Maginn, was
directly responsible for the introduction of "Father Prout" to the
great world.
When we reflect that the "Wizard of the North" had
so grandly set an example of anonymity to the younger generation,
it is not to be wondered at that so many gems of brilliant thought
first gleamed to the sun of Fame through the rough coating of ficti-
tious authorship, or that O'Mahony sheltered his bantlings under such
a cover.
When the supposed "Frank Cresswell" communicated to wits and
worldlings the beloved contents of Father Prout's strong chest, it was
not long before the youngsters about Grub Street realized that there
was a new pen in town; and, fully equipped as they were for the
enjoyable game of literary hide-and-seek, then so much in vogue
amongst them, they soon brought to their coterie the dearest and
best of that knightly circle of the pen, Father Frank Mahony, priest,
poet, inimitable jester, loving friend, faithful steadfast Irishman, and
## p. 10847 (#55) ###########################################
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
10847
Christian gentleman. How glorious were the days and nights of
those "Fraserians" no one can be ignorant who looks around that
circle, which, beginning with Maginn and the decanters, is carried on
by Barry Cornwall, Southey, Thackeray, Churchill, Murphy, Ainsworth,
Coleridge, Hogg, Fraser, Crofton Croker, Lockhart, Theodore Hook,
D'Orsay, and Carlyle, to Mahony and Irving. At this time Father
Prout always wrote his name, according to the English method, with-
out the "O'"; but in his last years he returned again to the use of
the dignified prefix of his ancestral family.
In Fraser he poured out the treasure of a heart full of wisdom
and odd conceits, and overflowing with brilliant translations from the
classics of old and new tongues, and rogueries of his own invention
attributed to old and famous or unknown names, for the mystification
of the jolly and mischievous crew which swarmed from royal and
noble drawing-rooms, through the lobbies of Drury Lane and Covent
Garden, to the supper-rooms and convivial resorts which filled the
neighborhood of Printing-House Square.
It was Charles Dickens's idea which made Father Mahony one of
the first, and certainly one of the best, foreign correspondents. The
two met one day as "Prout" was about to depart for Italy; and
"Boz" suggested that the priest should furnish the Daily News with
letters on the state of social affairs in Rome, during those eventful
days which closed the Pontificate of Gregory XVI. and opened that
of Pius IX. Could anything have made "Prout's" name more famous,
it must have been the recognition of his peculiar fitness for this
work, which speedily followed the publication of his letters over the
pseudonym of "Sylvester Savonarola," first given in the News, and
republished in book form under the title of 'Final Reliques of Father
Prout,' by Blanchard Jerrold.
It was during the year 1834 that, in Cork, "Father Prout" began
his literary career. It was in 1866 that, in Paris, under the direction
of Father Lefèvre of the Society of Jesus, he received the last sacra-
ments of his church, and went from the dear neighborhood of the
"New Street of the Little Fields," where he had once cozily settled
his good friends the newly married Thackerays, to the company.
of the comrades of Christ who are mustered out of active service
militant.
Jnalelone
## p. 10848 (#56) ###########################################
10848
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
FATHER PROUT
From the Reliques'
I
AM a younger son. I belong to an ancient but poor and
dilapidated house, of which the patrimonial estate was barely
enough for my elder; hence, as my share resembled what
is scientifically called an evanescent quantity, I was directed to
apply to that noble refuge of unprovided genius-the bar! To
the bar, with a heavy heart and aching head, I devoted year
after year; and was about to become a tolerable proficient in the
black letter, when an epistle from Ireland reached me in Furni-
val's Inn, and altered my prospects materially. This dispatch
was from an old Catholic aunt whom I had in that country, and
whose house I had been sent to when a child, on the speculation
that this visit to my venerable relative, who to her other good
qualities added that of being a resolute spinster, might deter-
mine her, as she was both rich and capricious, to make me her
inheritor. The letter urged my immediate presence in the dying
chamber of the Lady Cresswell; and as no time was to be lost, I
contrived to reach in two days the lonely and desolate mansion on
Watergrasshill, in the vicinity of Cork. As I entered the apart-
ment, by the scanty light of the lamp that glimmered dimly I
recognized with some difficulty the emaciated form of my gaunt
and withered kinswoman, over whose features, originally thin and
wan, the pallid hue of approaching death cast additional ghast-
liness. By the bedside stood the rueful and unearthly form of
Father Prout; and while the sort of chiaroscuro in which his
figure appeared, half shrouded, half revealed, served to impress.
me with a proper awe for his solemn functions, the scene itself,
and the probable consequences to me of this last interview
with my aunt, affected me exceedingly. I involuntarily knelt;
and while I felt my hands grasped by the long, cold, and bony
fingers of the dying, my whole frame thrilled; and her words,
the last she spoke in this world, fell on my ears with all the
effect of a potent witchery, never to be forgotten! "Frank,"
said the Lady Cresswell, "my lands and perishable riches I have
bequeathed to you, though you hold not the creed of which this
is a minister, and I die a worthless but steadfast votary: only
promise me and this holy man that, in memory of one to whom
your welfare is dear, you will keep the fast of Lent while you
## p. 10849 (#57) ###########################################
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
10849
live; and as I cannot control your inward belief, be at least in
this respect a Roman Catholic: I ask no more. " How could I
have refused so simple an injunction? and what junior member
of the bar would not hold a good rental by so easy a tenure?
In brief, I was pledged in that solemn hour to Father Prout,
and to my kind and simple-hearted aunt, whose grave is in
Rathcooney and whose soul is in heaven.
During my short stay at Watergrasshill (a wild and romantic
district, of which every brake and fell, every bog and quagmire,
is well known to Crofton Croker for it is the very Arcadia of
his fictions), I formed an intimacy with this Father Andrew Prout,
the pastor of the upland, and a man celebrated in the south of
Ireland. He was one of that race of priests now unfortunately
extinct, or very nearly so, like the old breed of wolf-dogs, in the
island: I allude to those of his order who were educated abroad,
before the French Revolution, and had imbibed, from associating
with the polished and high-born clergy of the old Gallican church,
a loftier range of thought and a superior delicacy of sentiment.
Hence, in his evidence before the House of Lords, "the glorious
Dan" has not concealed the grudge he feels towards those cler-
gymen, educated on the Continent, who having witnessed the
doings of the sans-culottes in France, have no fancy to a rehearsal
of the same in Ireland. Of this class was Prout, P. P. of Water-
grasshill: but his real value was very faintly appreciated by his
rude flock; he was not understood by his contemporaries; his
thoughts were not their thoughts, neither could he commune with
kindred souls on that wild mountain. Of his genealogy nothing
was ever known with certainty; but in this he resembled Mel-
chizedek. Like Eugene Aram, he had excited the most intense
interest in the highest quarters, still did he studiously court
retirement. He was thought by some to be deep in alchemy,
like Friar Bacon; but the gaugers never even suspected him
of distilling "potheen. " He was known to have brought from
France a spirit of the most chivalrous gallantry; still, like Féne-
lon retired from the court of Louis XIV. , he shunned the attrac-
tions of the sex, for the sake of his pastoral charge: but in the
rigor of his abstinence and the frugality of his diet he resem-
bled no one, and none kept Lent so strictly.
Of his gallantry one anecdote will be sufficient. The fashion-
able Mrs. Pepper, with two female companions, traveling through
the county of Cork, stopped for Divine service at the chapel of
XIX-679
## p. 10850 (#58) ###########################################
10850
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
Watergrasshill (which is on the high-road on the Dublin line),
and entered its rude gate while Prout was addressing his congre-
gation. His quick eye soon detected his fair visitants standing
behind the motley crowd, by whom they were totally unnoticed,
so intent were all on the discourse; when, interrupting the thread
of his homily to procure suitable accommodation for the stran-
gers, "Boys! " cried the old man, "why don't ye give three chairs
for the ladies ? » "Three cheers for the ladies! " re-echoed at once
the parish clerk. It was what might be termed a clerical, but
certainly a very natural, error: and so acceptable a proposal was
suitably responded to by the frieze-coated multitude, whose triple
shout shook the very cobwebs on the roof of the chapel! - after
which slight incident, service was quietly resumed.
He was extremely fond of angling; a recreation which, while
it ministered to his necessary relaxation from the toils of the
mission, enabled him to observe cheaply the fish diet imperative
on fast days. For this, he had established his residence at the
mountain-source of a considerable brook, which, after winding
through the parish, joins the Blackwater at Fermoy; and on its
banks would he be found, armed with his rod and wrapt in his
strange cassock, fit to personate the river-god or presiding genius
of the stream.
His modest parlor would not ill become the hut of one of
the fishermen of Galilee. A huge net in festoons curtained his
casement; a salmon-spear, sundry rods, and fishing-tackle hung
round the walls and over his bookcase, which latter was to him
the perennial spring of refined enjoyment. Still, he would sigh
for the vast libraries of France, and her well-appointed scien-
tific halls, where he had spent his youth in converse with the
first literary characters and most learned divines: and once he
directed my attention to what appeared to be a row of folio vol-
umes at the bottom of his collection, but which I found on trial
to be so many large flat stone-flags, with parchment backs, bear-
ing the appropriate title of CORNELII A LAPIDE Opera quæ extant
omnia; by which semblance of that old Jesuit's commentaries he
consoled himself for the absence of the original.
His classic acquirements were considerable, as will appear by
his Essay on Lent; and while they made him a most instruct-
ive companion, his unobtrusive merit left the most. favorable im-
pression. The general character of a Churchman is singularly
improved by the tributary accomplishments of the scholar, and
## p. 10851 (#59) ###########################################
FRANCIS SYLVESTER O'MAHONY
10851
literature is like a pure grain of Araby's incense in the golden
censer of religion. His taste for the fine arts was more genu-
ine than might be conjectured from the scanty specimens that
adorned his apartment, though perfectly in keeping with his
favorite sport: for there hung over the mantelpiece a print of
Raphael's cartoon, the Miraculous Draught'; here Tobit Res-
cued by an Angel from the Fish,' and there 'St. Anthony
Preaching to the Fishes. '
THE SHANDON BELLS
From The Rogueries of Tom Moore,' in the Reliques >
ITн deep affection
And recollection
I often think on
WITH
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
