“I am one,” replied he. And here our conversation ended, for we were close to the boat, which was waiting for us on the beach.
The next day a man-of-war brig arrived from England, bringing letters for the squadron on the station. I had two from my sister Ellen, which made me very uncomfortable. She stated, that my father had seen my uncle, Lord Privilege, and had had high words with him; indeed, as far as she could ascertain of the facts, my father had struck my uncle, and had been turned out of the house by the servants. That he had returned in a state of great excitement, and had been ill ever since. That there was a great deal of talk in the neighbourhood on the subject—people generally highly blaming my father’s conduct and thinking that he was deranged in his intellect,—a supposition very much encouraged by my uncle. She again expressed her hopes of my speedy return. I had now been absent nearly three years, and she had been so uncomfortable that she felt as if it had been at least ten. O’Brien also received a letter from Father McGrath, which I shall lay before the reader.
“My dear son,—Long life, and all the blessings of all the saints be upon you now and for evermore! Amen. And may you live to be married, and may I dance at your wedding, and may you never want children, and may they grow up as handsome as their father and their mother (whoever she may hereafter be), and may you die of a good old age, and in the true faith, and be waked handsomely, as your own father was last Friday s’ennight, seeing as how he took it into his head to leave this world for a better. It was a very dacent funeral-procession, my dear Terence, and your father must have been delighted to see himself so well attinded. No man ever made a more handsome corpse, considering how old, and thin, and haggard he had grown of late; and how grey his hair had turned. He held the nosegay between his fingers, across his breast, as natural as life, and reminded us all of the blessed saint Pope Gregory who was called to glory some hundred years before either you or I was born.
“Your mother’s quite comfortable; and there she sits in the ould chair, rocking to and fro all day long, and never speaking a word to nobody, thinking about heaven, I dare to say; which is just what she ought to do, seeing that she stands a very pretty chance of going there in the course of a month or so. Divil a word has she ever said since your father’s departure, but then she screamed and yelled enough to last for seven years at the least. She screamed away all her senses any how, for she has done nothing since but cough, cough, and fumble at her pater-nosters,—a very blessed way to pass the remainder of her days, seeing that I expect her to drop every minute, like an over ripe sleepy pear. So don’t think any more about her, my son, for without you are back in a jiffy, her body will be laid in consecrated ground, and her happy, blessed soul in purgatory. Pax vobiscum. Amen! Amen!
“And now having disposed of your father and your mother so much to your satisfaction, I’ll just tell you that Ella’s mother died in the convent at Dieppe, but whether she kept her secret or not I do not know; but this I do know, that if she didn’t relieve her soul by confession, she’s damned to all eternity. Thanks be to God for all his mercies. Amen! Ella Flanagan is still alive, and, for a nun, is as well as can be expected. I find that she knows nothing at all about the matter of the exchanging the genders of the babbies—only that her mother was on oath to Father O’Toole, who ought to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, instead of those poor fellows whom the government called rebels, but who were no more rebels than Father McGrath himself, who’ll uphold the Pretender, as they call our true Catholic King, as long as there’s life in his body, or a drop of whisky left in ould Ireland to drink his health wid.—Talking about Father O’Toole puts me in mind that the bishop has not yet decided our little bit of dispute, saying that he must take time to think about it. Now considering that it’s just three years since the row took place, the old gentleman must be a very slow thinker, not to have found out by this time that I was in the right, and that Father O’Toole, the baste, is not good enough to be hanged.
“Your two married sisters are steady and diligent young women, having each made three children since you last saw them. Fine boys, every mother’s son of them, with elegant spacious features, and famous mouths for taking in whole potatoes. By the powers, but the effects of the tree of the O’Briens begin to make a noise in the land, anyhow, as you would say if you only heard them roaring for their bit of suppers.
“And now, my dear son Terence, to the real purport of this letter, which is just to put to your soul’s conscience, as a dutiful son, whether you ought not to send me a small matter of money to save your poor father’s soul from pain and anguish—for it’s no joke that being in purgatory, I can tell you; and you wouldn’t care how soon you were tripped out of it yourself. I only wish you had but your little toe in it, and then you’d burn with impatience to have it out again. But you’re a dutiful son, so I’ll say no more about it—a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.
“When your mother goes, which, with the blessing of God, will be in a very little while, seeing that she has only to follow her senses, which are gone already, I’ll take upon myself to sell everything, as worldly goods and chattels are of no use to dead people: and I have no doubt but that what, with the furniture, and the two cows, and the pigs, and the crops in the ground, there will be enough to save her soul from the flames, and bury her dacently into the bargain. However, as you are the heir-at-law, seeing that the property is all your own, I’ll keep a debtor and creditor account of the whole; and should there be any over, I’ll use it all out in masses, so as to send her up to heaven by express and if there’s not sufficient, she must remain where she is till you come back and make up the deficiency. In the meanwhile I am your loving father in faith,
“Urtagh McGrath.”
Chapter Fifty Two.
Good sense in Swinburne—No man a hero to his “valet de chambre,” or a prophet in his own country—O’Brien takes a step by strategy—O’Brien parts with his friend, and Peter’s star is no longer in the ascendant.
O’Brien was sorry for the death of his father, but he could not feel as most people would have done, as his father had certainly never been a father to him. He was sent to sea to be got rid of, and ever since he had been there had been the chief support of his family: his father was very fond of whisky, and not very fond of exertion. He was too proud of the true Milesian blood in his veins, to do anything to support himself; but not too proud to live upon his son’s hard-earned gains. For his mother O’Brien felt very much; she had always been kind and affectionate, and was very fond of him. Sailors, however, are so estranged from their families, when they have been long in their profession, and so accustomed to vicissitudes, that no grief for the loss of a relation lasts very long, and, in a week, O’Brien had recovered his usual spirits, when a vessel brought us the intelligence that a French squadron had been seen off St. Domingo. This put us all on the qui vive. O’Brien was sent for by the admiral, and ordered to hasten his brig for sea with all possible despatch, as he was to proceed with despatches to England forthwith. In three days we were reported ready, received our orders, and at eight o’clock in the evening made sail from Carlisle Bay.
“Well, Mr Swinburne,” said I, “how do you like your new situation?”
“Why, Mr Simple, I like it well enough, and it’s not disagreeable to be an officer, and sit in your own cabin; but still, I feel that I should get on better, if I were in another ship. I’ve been hail fellow well met with the ship’s company so long, that I can’t top the officer over them, and we can’t get the duty done as smart as I could wish; and then, at night, I find it very lonely, stuck up in my cabin like a parson’s clerk, and nobody to talk to; for the other warrants are particular, and say that I’m only acting, and may not be confirmed, so they hold aloof. I don’t much like being answerable for all that lot of gunpowder—it’s queer stuff to handle.”