We now return to Cooleen Bawn, who, after her separation from Reilly, retired to her own room, where she indulged in a paroxysm of deep grief, in consequence of her apprehension that she might never see him again. She also calculated upon the certainty of being obliged to sustain a domestic warfare with her father, as the result of having made him the confidant of her love. In this, however, she was agreeably disappointed; for, on meeting him the next morning, at breakfast, she was a good deal surprised to observe that he made no allusion whatsoever to the circumstance—if, indeed, an occasional muttering of some unintelligible words, sotto voce, might not be supposed to allude to it. The truth was, the old man found the promise he had made to Sir Robert one of such difficulty to his testy and violent disposition, that his language, and the restraint which he felt himself under the necessity of putting on it, rendered his conversation rather ludicrous.
“Well, Helen,” he said, on entering the breakfast-parlor, “how did you rest last night, my love? Rested sound—eh? But you look rather pale, darling. (Hang the rascal!)”
“I cannot say that I slept as well as usual, sir. I felt headache.”
“Ay, headache—was it? (heartache, rather. The villain.) Well come, let me have a cup of tea and a mouthful of that toast.”
“Will you not have some chicken, sir?”
“No, my dear—no; just what I said—a mouthful of toast, and a cup of tea, with plenty of cream in it. Thank you, love. (A good swing for him will be delightful. I'll go to see it.) Helen, my dear, I'm going to give a dinner-party next week. Of course we'll have your future—hem—I mean we'll have Sir Robert, and—let me see—who else? Why, Oxley, the sheriff”, Mr. Brown, the parson—I wish he didn't lean so much to the cursed Papists, though—Mr. Hastings, who is tarred with the same stick, it is whispered. Well, who next? Lord Deilmacare, a good-natured jackass—a fellow who would eat a jacketful of carrion, if placed before him, with as much gout as if it were venison. He went home one night, out of this, with the parson's outside coat and shovel hat upon him, and did not return them for two days.”
“Does this habit proceed from stupidity, papa?”
“Not at all; but from mere carelessness. The next two days he was out with his laborers, and if a cow or pig chanced—(the villain! we'll hang him to a certainty)—chanced, I say, to stray into the field, he would shy the shovel hat at them, without remorse. Oh! we must have him, by all means. But who next? Sir Jenkins Joram. Give him plenty to drink, and he is satisfied.”
“But what are his political principles, papa?”
“They are to be found in the bottle, Helen, which is the only creed, political or religious, to which I ever knew him to be attached; and I tell you, girl, that if every Protestant in Ireland were as deeply devoted to his Church as he is to the bottle, we would soon be a happy people, uncorrupted by treacherous scoundrels, who privately harbor Papists and foster Popery itself. (The infernal scoundrel.)”