The next morning O’Tara came to breakfast. Every person had a different question to ask him, except Dora, who was silent.
Corny asked what kind of man Black Connal was. Mademoiselle inquired whether he was most French or English; Ormond, whether he was going to be married.
To all these questions O’Tara pleaded ignorance: except with respect to the sports of the field, he had very little curiosity or intelligence.
A ray of hope again darted across the mind of Corny. From his knowledge of the world, he thought it very probable that a young officer in the French brigade would be well contented to be heir to his brother’s fortune, without encumbering himself with an Irish wife, taken from an obscure part of the country. Corny, therefore, eagerly inquired from O’Tara what became of White Connal’s property. O’Tara answered, that the common cry of the country was, that all White Connal’s profitable farms were leasehold property, and upon his own life. Poor Corny’s hopes were thus frustrated: he had nothing left to do for some days but to pity Harry Ormond, to bear with the curiosity and impatience of Mademoiselle, and with the froward sullenness of Dora, till some intelligence should arrive respecting the new claimant to her destined hand.
CHAPTER XIV
A few days afterwards, Sheelah, bursting into Dora’s room, exclaimed, “Miss Dora! Miss Dora! for the love of God, they are coming! They’re coming down the avenue, powdering along! Black Connal himself flaming away, with one in a gold hat, this big, galloping after, and all gold over, he is entirely!—Oh! what will become of us, Master Harry, now! Oh! it took the sight out of my eyes!—And yours as red as ferrets, dear!—Oh! the cratur. But come to the window and look out—nobody will mind—stretch out the body, and I’ll hold ye fast, never fear!—at the turn of the big wood do you see them behind the trees, the fir dales, glittering and flaming? Do you see them at all?”
“Too plainly,” said Dora, sighing; “but I did not expect he would come in such a grand style. I wonder—”
“Oh! so do I, greatly—mostly at the carriage. Never saw the like with the Connals, so grand—but the queer thing—”