“A hundred, my dear boy,” cried the Knight, “if they would serve you; but Helen's one is worth them all.”
“Miss Darcy, dare I hope? Helen, dearest!” added he, in a whisper, as, taking her hand, he led her towards a window.
“My Lord, the carriage is ready,” said his servant, throwing wide the door.
“You may order the horses back again,” said Daly, dryly; “my Lord is not going this evening.”
Has our reader ever made a long voyage? Has he ever experienced in himself the strange but most complete alteration in all his sentiments and feelings when far away from land,—on the wild, bleak waters,—and that same “himself,” when in sight of shore, with seaweed around the prow, and land-breezes on his cheek? But a few hours back and that ship was his world; he knew her from “bow to taffrail;” he greeted the cook's galley as though it were the “restaurant” his heart delighted in; he even felt a kind of friendship for the pistons as they jerked up and down into a bowing acquaintance. But now how changed are his sentiments, how fixedly are his eyes turned to the pier of the harbor, and how impatient is he at those tacking zigzag approaches by which nautical skill and care approximate the goal!
Already landed in imagination, the cautious manouvres of the crew are an actual martyrdom; he has no bowels for anything save his own enfranchisement, and he cannot comprehend the tiresome detail of preparations, which, after all, perhaps, are scarcely five minutes in endurance. At last, the gangway launched, see him, how he elbows forward, fighting his way, carpet-bag in hand, regardless of passport-people, police, and porters; he'll scarce take time to mutter a “Good-bye, Captain,” in the haste to leave a scene all whose interest is over, whose adventure is past.
Such is the end of a voyage; and such, or very nearly such, the end of a novel! You, most amiable reader, are the passenger, we the skipper. A few weeks ago you deemed us tolerable company, faute de mieux, perhaps. We 'll not ask why, at all events. We had you out on the wide, wild waters of uncertainty, free to sail where'er our fancy listed. In our very waywardness there was a mock semblance of power, for the creatures we presented to you were our own, their lives and fortunes in our hands. Now all that is over,—we have neared the shore, and all our hold on you is bygone.
How can we hope to excite interest in events already accomplished? Why linger over details which you have already filled up? Of course, say you, all ends happily now. Virtue is rewarded—as novelists understand rewarding—by matrimony, and vice punished in single blessedness. The hero marries the heroine; and if they don't live happy, etc.
But what became of Bagenal Daly? says some one who would compliment us by expressing so much of interest. Bagenal, then, only waited to see the Knight restored to his own, to retire with his sister to “The Corvy,” where, attended by Sandy, he passed the remainder of his days in peace and quietude; his greatest enjoyment being to seize on a chance tourist to the Causeway, and make him listen to narratives of his early life, but which age had now so far commingled that the merely strange became actually marvellous.
Paul Dempsey grieved for a week, but consoled himself on hearing that his rival had been a “lord;” and subsequently, in a “moment of enthusiasm,” he married Mrs. Fumbally. The Hickmans left Ireland for the Continent, where they are still to be found, rambling about from city to city, and expressing the utmost sympathy with their country's misfortunes, but, to avoid any admixture of meaner feeling, suffering no taint of lucre to mingle with their compassion.