“Hist! Master Hector! Is the Colonel gone to bed?”
“He’s safe for the night, my fair Susan. The house is all our own. Come in—shut the door, for I want to confess you.”
“And finish the godly exercise you commenced in the flower-garden! No, no, Master Hector; no more of that. Come, your mother wants to see you alone—I’ll light you to her dressing-room.”
I attended the demoiselle immediately, and was inducted to her lady’s chamber. When the door opened I found her seated at a work-table, with a book of religious exercises and a huge rosary before her. Bursting into tears, she clasped me to her bosom, and muttered in an under voice, “Sit down, Hector—many months have elapsed since we met, and many more may probably pass over before we meet again. And so they have destined you for that horrible profession—and you are going to-morrow?”
“Yes, madam, by peep of day.”
“Well, Hector, will you in one thing oblige me, and grant your mother a request?”
“Undoubtedly, madam.”
She placed a purse in my hand—and taking from the leaves of her Missal a small silken bag, opened my shirt collar, and bound it round my neck. I smiled at the ceremony, and submitted. It was, of course, some charm or reliquary; and though the one-armed commander would have laughed, at what he would have considered on my part a symptom of apostasy, I thought it was no crime to carry an inch or two of silk upon my person, when my compliance would render happy a mother who loved me so tenderly.
“Hector,” said she, after investing me with this important amulet, “promise, for my sake, that you will wear it night and day; and, until misfortune overtakes, and all other hope fails—which Heaven grant may never happen!—that you will not unclose the cover, or read the writing of the Gospel.” *
* Gospels are worn in Ireland as a protection against
diseases and “diablerie.”