“Ah, he has the old blood of his family in his veins,” thought Dermot, “and when he comes to man’s estate, he’ll prove, I hope, the same kind-hearted, honest man that his father is.”
Well pleased with his morning visit to the castle, Dermot returned to his humble cottage. Did he ever draw a contrast between the two abodes? Yes, but he was not discontented with his lot. He loved his mother, and he knew that his mother loved him above all earthly things, and that she would not exchange him, even to dwell in that lordly castle. Still, as Dermot advanced in knowledge and in age, he could not help discovering that his mother was ignorant and prone to superstition. Indeed with pain he sometimes suspected that her mind was not altogether perfectly right. She would sit occasionally talking to herself, and now and then speak of strange events which had passed in her youth, of which she would give no explanation. He, however, quickly banished this latter idea, as too painful to be entertained. She loved him, what more could he desire? When he was anxious about her, he reflected that she had secured more than one friend in the neighbourhood. That his uncle Shane was devoted to her, and that the kind Miss O’Reilly had promised always to watch over her.
Many wild thoughts and schemes passed frequently through Dermot’s mind. He dared not at first give utterance to them, not even to himself, and he would have found it impossible to mention them to any human being.
Mr Jamieson, more than once, had spoken to him of the future, and hinted that if the way was open to him, he would scarcely fail, with the talents and application he possessed, of rising in life. It was very natural in Mr Jamieson to think this, for he knew that a fisher-boy’s existence on the west coast of Ireland was one of ill-requited toil, and of great danger. Holding this opinion, he felt that the boy would not change for the worse, and would certainly improve his position in whatever calling he might engage.
Chapter Four.
One afternoon, when it was blowing too hard to allow Dermot to put to sea in his boat, he had gone to the vicarage to obtain his usual instruction, carrying with him some fish he had caught, as a present to the vicar’s niece. After he had received his instruction and was about to take his departure, Miss O’Reilly called him back to thank him for the fish which he had brought her.
“By-the-bye!” observed Mr Jamieson, “Dermot can take the pony which I wish to send for young Lord Fitz Barry, and the cloak which he left here the other day.”
Dermot had not often ridden; but where is the Irish boy who would not undertake to mount the most fiery steed, if he was asked to do so?