“Thrue for you, indeed,—Mave; he always had a high spirit ever since he was intinded for the robes, and would have his own way and will in whatever he took into his head, right or wrong, as cleverly as if he had the authority for it.”
“An' so he ought, seein' he wasn't to be slavin' at the spade, like the rest o' the family. The ways o' them that have great larnin' as he has, isn't like other people's ways—they must be humored, and have their own will, otherwise what 'ud they be betther than their neighbors?”
The other arrangements laid down by Denis, touching his determination not to be addressed so familiarly by his brothers and sisters, were next discussed in this conversation, and, of course, the same prejudice in his favor was manifested by his indulgent parents. The whole code of his injunctions was subsequently disclosed to the family in all its extent and rigor. Some of them heard it with surprise, and other with that kind of dogged indignation evinced by those who are in some degree prepared for the nature of the communication about to be laid before them. Altogether, the circumstances in which it placed them were peculiar and embarrassing. The Irish peasant can seldom bear to have the tenderness of domestic affection tampered with, whether from pride, caprice, or any other motive not related to his prejudices. In this instance the strongest feelings of the O'Shaughnessys were brunted, as it were, in hostile array against each other; and although the moral force on each side was nearly equal, still the painful revulsion produced by Denis's pride, as undervaluing their affection, and substituting the cold forms of artificial life for the warmth of honest hearts like theirs, was, in the first burst of natural fervor, strongly, and somewhat indignantly expressed.
Denis had been their pride, the privileged person among them—the individual whose talents were to throw lustre upon a nameless and unknown family; the future priest—the embryo preacher of eminence—the resistless controversialist—the holy father confessor—and, perhaps, for with that vivacity of imagination peculiar to the Irish, they could scarcely limit his exaltation—perhaps the bishop of a whole diocese. Had not the Lord Primate himself been the son of as humble a man? “And who knows,” said his youngest and fairest sister, who of all the family was most devoted to him, “but Dinny might yet be a primate?” And as she spoke, the tear of affection, pride, and enthusiasm glistened in her eye. Denis, therefore, had been much, even in his youth, to their simple hearts, and far more to their hopes and expectations, than he was in all the pride of his petty polemics; but when he, before whose merits, both real and imaginary, every heart among them bowed as before the shrine of a tutelar saint, turned round, ere the destined eminence he aimed at was half attained, and laid upon their fervent affection the icy chain of pride and worldly etiquette—the act was felt keenly and unexpectedly as the acute spasm of some sudden malady. The father and mother, however, both, defended him with great warmth; and by placing his motives in that point of view which agreed best with their children's prejudices, they eventually succeeded in reconciling his brothers and sisters in some degree to the necessity of adopting the phraseology he proposed—that they might treat him with suitable respect in the eye of the world.
“It's proud of him we ought to be,” said his father, “and delighted that he has sich a risin' spirit; an' sure the more respect is paid to him the greater credit he will be to ourselves.”
“But, sure he has no right,” said his eldest brother, “to be settin' up for a gentleman till he's priested. I'm willin' enough to sir him, only that it cuts me more than I'll say, to think that I must be callin' the boy that I'd spill the dhrop of my blood for, afther I the manner of a sthranger; and besides,” he added, “I'm not clear but the neighbors will be passin' remarks upon us, as they did when you and he used to be arguin'.”
“I'd like to see them that 'ud turn it into a joke,” said his father; “I would let them know that Dinis O'Shaughnessy's dog is neither to be made or meddled wid in a disrespectful manner, let alone his son. We are not widout friends and connections that 'ud take our quarrel upon them in his defince, if there was a needcessity for it; but there will not, for didn't my heart lep the other day to my throat wid delight, when I saw Larry Neil put his hand to his hat to him, comin' up the Esker upon the mare; and may I never do an ill turn, if he didn't answer the bow to Larry, as if he was the priest of the parish already. It's the wondher of the world how he picks up a jinteel thing any how, an' ever did, since he was the hoith o' that.”
“Why,” said the mother, “what a norration yez rise about thratin' the boy as every one like him ought to be thrated. Wait till ye see him a parish priest, and then yell be comin' round him to get your daughters to keep house for him, and your sons edicated and made priests of; but now that the child takes a ginteel relish for beef and mutton, and wants to be respected, ye are mane an' low spirited enough to grumble about it.”
“No mother,” said his youngest sister, bursting into tears, “I'd beg it for him, sooner nor he should want; but I can't bear to be callin' my brother Dinny—sir—like a stranger. It looks as if I didn't love him, or as if he was forgettin' us, or carin' less about us nor he used to do.”
This, in fact, was the root and ground of the opposition which Denis's plan received at the hands of his relations; it repressed the cordial and affectionate intercourse which had hitherto subsisted between them; but the pride of life, and, what is more, the pride of an office which ought always to be associated with humility, had got into his heart; the vanity of learning, too, thin and shallow though it was, inflated him; and the effect of both was a gradual induration of feeling—an habitual sense of his own importance, and a notion of supreme contempt for all who were more ignorant than himself.