"Tout cela bien souvent faisoit crier miracle!
Enfin quoique ignorant à vingt et trois carats,
Elle passoit pour un oracle!"
In their last conference Judy Stewart had given Miss Fitzcarril the following enigma:—A rose rudely drawn, followed by the words "of vargins,"—then, a ship in full sail—then, three suns—and lastly, a man, four times as big as the ship, holding a candle in one hand, and a ring in the other. The exposition Barny and the curious spinster gave of this was as follows:—"The flower of virgins," that is, the eldest daughter of the direct branch of the O'Sullivan family, was coming from beyond sea, and would arrive at Ballinamoyle, as soon as the sun had risen three times, bringing in her train a great personage (expressed by his extraordinary size,) who would, in winter, designated by the candle, bestow the wedding ring on the fair Theresa Fitzcarril. Judy Stewart's credit was luckily saved by the horses, which our travellers so unexpectedly procured at Tuberdonny, fulfilling the first part of the prediction; and in Mr. Webberly the credulous maiden saw the hero, who was to accomplish that part which related to herself.
Extremes are popularly said to meet, which, we suppose, may naturally account for the Connaught sibyls' most zealous friend and powerful enemy residing at Ballinamoyle. The latter was the reverend father Dermoody, who filled the office of spiritual guide to its owner. He was well informed in mind, and gentlemanly in manners; two circumstances but rarely united in the Irish priests, who are generally taken from a low order in society, and do not usually carry an appearance impressive of the respect, to which most of them are entitled by their real worth. Mr. Dermoody was a relation of the late Mrs. O'Sullivan, and had embraced the priesthood from the influence of early disappointment, which had disgusted him with the world, and led him to devote himself to a religious life for consolation. He pursued his theological studies in one of the French colleges, and was deliberating on entering into a monastic order of great austerity, when he received a letter from his present patron, acquainting him with his marriage, and offering him the situation of chaplain to his family, which Dermoody's better stars induced him to accept. For many years he bestowed on the education of his relative's lovely daughter all of his time and thoughts, which were not devoted to his sacred functions; and, since her death, he had been the consolation of her desolate father, and a blessing to the poor of the vicinity. As he however avoided society in general, he was not introduced to our travellers on the night of their arrival, but they then made acquaintance with Miss Fitzcarril's constant and obsequious attendant, Captain Cormac, so called by common consent, though he had never risen in the army higher than a lieutenant, the half pay of which rank was his only subsistence, independent of Mr. O'Sullivan's bounty. Though of a different religious persuasion, his family had long been tenants and retainers of that at Ballinamoyle; and this member of it, on the strength of his red coat, was considered a gentleman, and, as such, was every day admitted to Mr. O'Sullivan's table, and made up his card party in the winter's evenings, generally returning at night to the house of a better sort of steward, living on the demesne, who managed the Ballinamoyle property, its owner charging himself with the expenses there incurred by Captain Cormac.
This son of Mars, conscious of the deficiency of his pedigree, very unknowingly endeavoured to prove his title to the character of a gentleman, by paying the most anxious and unremitting attention to the fair sex in general, and to Miss Fitzcarril in particular; for, in consequence of his living in this sequestered situation, he was totally unsuspicious of the improvements in modern manners, which lead so many of our youth to suppose, that a neglect of the ladies they associate with, not unfrequently amounting almost to rudeness, is an indispensable requisite in the deportment of every fashionable beau; but perhaps some of our readers will suggest an excuse for Captain Cormac's ignorant simplicity, by acknowledging that beau and gentleman are not always synonymous terms. Mr. O'Sullivan for instance, was certainly no beau, though perfectly a gentleman. As this word, in our humble opinion, conveys a character that is almost all "that the eye looks for," or "the heart desires" in man, we will not weaken its inexpressible worth by paraphrase, but hope the actions of the person it has here been applied to will establish his claim to the most noble appellation the English language boasts of.
CHAPTER II.
O! live—and deeply cherish still
The sweet remembrance of the past;
Rely on Heav'n's unchanging will
For peace at last!
Montgomery.
On the morning after her arrival at Ballinamoyle, Adelaide was forcibly struck with the strange coincidence of circumstances that had conducted her to this place, so remote from the scenes in which she had once expected to have passed her life. That day two years, she had no expectation of becoming an inhabitant of the British isles; and one fortnight had just elapsed since she received Mrs. O'Sullivan's letter, announcing her intention of undertaking the journey they had accomplished. Her meeting with Colonel Desmond seemed like seeing an inhabitant of another world, who could dive into thoughts, and was acquainted with occurrences unknown to those she was surrounded by. Though but four years had revolved since they last met, from the unexpected nature of the events that had marked them, they seemed, to memory, longer in duration than all those which had smoothly rolled away, ere their giant days rose on the wheel of fate, robed in the strongest hues of joy or sorrow. She felt grieved her journey was now at an end, as she had derived much amusement from it, and knew she should, in future, associate much less with Colonel Desmond. "I wonder, (thought she,) what description of being this Mr. O'Sullivan is, we have come so far to see—Poor little Caroline! I hope he will be more affectionate to her than her mother and sisters are."