“Only a trifle of three hundred a year, and no provision for the education or maintenance of the boy. Ulick’s fondness for him, more than all, showed him capable of the disinterested touch; but then to belie his own heart—to abandon him he bred a favourite, just when the boy wants him most—Oh! how could he? And all for what? To please the wife he hates: that can’t be—that’s only the ostensible—but what the raal rason is I can’t guess. No matter—he’ll soon tell us.”
“Tell us! Oh! no,” said the priest, “he’ll keep his own secret.”
“He’ll let it out, I’ll engage, trying to hide it,” said Corny: “like all cunning people, he woodcocks—hides his head, and forgets his body can be seen. But hark! he is coming up. Tommy!” said he, turning to a little boy of five years old, Sheelah’s grandchild, who was playing about in the room, “hand, me that whistle you’re whistling with, till I see what’s the matter with it for you.”
King Corny seemed lost in examination of the whistle when Sir Ulick entered the room; and after receiving and seating him with proud courtesy, he again returned to the charge, blowing through the whistle, earnestly dividing his observation between Sir Ulick and little Tommy, and asking questions, by turns, about the whistle, and about all at Castle Hermitage.
“Where’s my boy? Where’s Harry Ormond?” was the first leading question Sir Ulick asked.
“Harry Ormond’s out shooting, I believe, somewhere or somehow, taking his pleasure, as I hope he will long, and always as long as he likes it, at the Black Islands; at least as long as I live.”
Sir Ulick branched off into hopes of his cousin Cornelius’s living long, very long; and in general terms, that were intended to avoid committing himself, or pinning himself to any thing, he protested that he must not be robbed of his boy, that he had always, with good reason, been jealous of Harry’s affection for King Corny, and that he could not consent to let his term of stay at the Black Islands be either as long as Harry himself should like, or during what he hoped would be the life of his cousin, Cornelius O’Shane.
“There’s something wrong, still, in this whistle. Why, if you loved him so, did you let him go when you had him?” said Corny.
“He thought it necessary, for domestic reasons,” replied Sir Ulick.
“Continental policy, that is; what I never understood, nor never shall,” said Corny. “But I don’t inquire any farther. If you are satisfied with yourself, we are all satisfied, I believe.”