Chapter 14: How Lowry Becomes Philosophical
As Lowry Looby returned to the kitchen he was met by Nelly the housemaid, who reminded him that he would he obliged to start before the potatoes could he boiled in the morning, and recommended, as a preparatory measure, that he should take his breakfast overnight. Secure of his indulging her in so reasonable a request, she had already, under Mrs. Frawley’s favour, laid on a little table before the kitchen fire, the remains of the roast ducks (so often commemorated in this narrative,) a plate of “re-heaters,” (such was Nelly’s term for potatoes suffered to cool and warmed again in the red-turf ashes,) as also a piece of pork, four inches in depth and containing no lean that was visible on a cursory inspection. This last was a dish for which Nelly knew Lowry Looby to entertain a fondness worthy of his ancient Irish descent. Indeed on all occasions Nelly was observed to take an interest in consulting the inclinations of this long-legged person; a kindness upon her part which the ungrateful Lowry seemed little inclined to appreciate.
The present proposal however harmonized so sweetly with his own feelings, at the moment, that he signified a speedy compliance, and followed the nymph into her culinary retreat. The kitchen presented a scene no less drowsy than the parlour. Mrs. Frawley was saying her prayers by the fire-side, with a string of beads that hung down to the ground, now and then venting a deep sigh, then “running her godly race,” through a fit of yawning, and anon casting a glance over her shoulder at the proceedings of the two domestics, while every new distraction was followed by a succession of more audible groans, and more vehement assaults with the closed hand upon her bosom. Danny Mann was sleeping heavily on the other side of the fire, with his red woollen comforter drying on his knee. In order to avoid disturbing either the slumbers of the one, or the devotions of the other, Nelly and her swain were obliged to carry on their conversation in a low whispering voice which gave additional effect to the sleepy tone of the entire scene. The shadows of the whole party, like the fame of genius magnified by distance, were thrown in gigantic similitude upon the surrounding walls. There Mrs. Frawley dilated to the dimensions of an ogre’s wife, and here Danny Mann’s hunch became to the original as Ossa to Knock Patrick. Looby’s expanded mouth showed like the opening to Avernus, and the tight little Nelly herself, as she sat opposite, assumed the stature of Mr. Salt’s black breccia Memnon, which any reader, who is curious about Nelly’s personal outline, may behold in the ninth room of the British Museum.
 While Lowry consoled himself with the greasy pork, swallowing it with as lively a relish as if it were the green fat of a Gallipagus turtle, he gave Nelly a history of the day’s adventures, not forgetting his own triumph at the staggeen race, and the disappearance of Eily O’Connor. Nelly was the better pleased with his account of these transactions, as he thought fit to abstain, in the first instance, from all mention of Syl Carney; and, in speaking of the rope-maker’s daughter, to omit those customary eulogies which he dealt forth whenever her name was brought in question. Emboldened by this circumstance, Nelly did not hesitate to throw out some plain insinuations as to the probable cause of the mystery, which did not much redound to the honour of the charming fugitive, and she became still more impassioned in her invective, after Mrs. Frawley had relieved them from the restraint of her presence, and retired to her sleeping room.
 “Often an’ often I told you, Lowry, that it wasn’t for you to be looken’ afther a girl o’ that kind, that thought herself as good as a lady. Great business, indeed, a poor man o’ your kind would have of one like her, that would be too grand to put a leg in a skeogh* to wash the potaties, or lay a hand on the pot-hooks to sthrain ’em if they wor broke to tathers.”
 “That I may never die in sin if ever I had a thought of her, Nelly, only just divarten’ at Batt Coonerty’s.”
 “What a show the house would be with ye!” continued Nelly still following up the matrimonial picture, an you a hard-worken’ boy, obleest to be up early and late at other people’s bidden’. I’ll be bound that isn’t the girl that would be up with the lark an’ have a fire made, an’ a griddle o’ bread down in the morning before you, an’ you going a long road; or have the hearth swep, an’ your supper ready, an’ every thing nate about the place for you, when you’d be coming back at night. But I believe there s a chimæra* before the boys’ eyes that they don’t know what’s good for ’em.”
 “Look!” exclaimed Lowry, while he broke a potatoe between his fingers, swallowed one half at a mouthful, and tossed the crisped peel upon the table. “That I may be happy, if she was offered to me this minute if I’d take her. Sure I know I’d have no more business of such a girl upon my floore than I would of Miss Chute herself. But there’s no raison for all why I wouldn’t be sorry for ould Mihil’s trouble. He’s gone westwards, Foxy Dunat the hair-cutter tells me, to Castle-island, to his brother, Father Ned, I suppose to get him to publish her from the altar or something. They think ’tis westwards she went.”
 Happening at this moment to cast his eyes upon Danny Mann, Lowry perceived, with a sensation of disagreeable surprise, that he was awake, and peering curiously upon him from below the hal£raised lids. The red fire-light which gleamed on the eye-balls gave them a peculiar and equivocal lustre, which added force to their native sharpness of expression. Danny felt the ill effect he had produced, and carried it off with a fit of yawning and stretching, asking Lowry at the same time, with a drowsy air, if he meant to go to bed at all?
 “To be sure I do,” said Lowry, “when its pleasing to the company to part. There’s a time for all things, as they say in the Reading-made-asy.”
 “Surely, surely,” returned Danny with a yawn, “Dear knows, den, the Readen-made-asy time is come now, for ’tit a’most mornen’.”
 “I always, mostly, smoke a drass before I go to bed of a night,” said Lowry, turning towards the fire, and clearing the bowl of his pipe by knocking it gently against the bar of the grate, “I like to be smoaken’ an’ talken’ when the company is agreeable, and I see no rason for bein’ in a hurry to-night above all others. Come, Nelly,” he added, while he chopped up a little tobacco, and pressed it into the bowl with the tip of his little finger, “Come here, an’ sit near me, I want to be talken’ to you.”
 Saying this, he took a half-burnt sod from the fire, crushed the bowl into the burning portion, and after offering it in vain to Danny, placed it in the corner of his mouth. He then remained for some moments, with his eyes half closed, drawing in the fire with his breath, and coaxing it with hitsfinger, until the vapour flowed freely through the narrow tube, and was emitted at intervals, at the opposite corner of his mouth, in a dense and spiry stream.
 “An’ what do you want to be saying?” said Nell, taking her seat between Lowry and the Lord, “I’ll engage you have nothing to say to me afther all.”
 “Come a little nearer,” said Lowry, without changing his position.
 “Well,, there why,” returned Nelly, moving her chair a little closer, “will that do?’
 “No, it won’t. ’Tis a whisper I have for you. Misther Mann would hear me if I told it to you where you are.”
 “Oh, a whisper! Well, now I’m close enough any way,” she said, placing her chair in contact with that of Lowry.
 The latter took the pipe from his mouth, and advanced his face to close to that of the expectant house-maid, that she feared he was about to snatch a kiss. Perhaps it was in mere curiosity, to satisfy herself whether in fact he could possess so much audacity, that Nelly did not avoid that danger by moving her head aside; but greatly to her surprise, and doubtless, likewise to her satisfaction, the honest man proved that he had no such insolent intention. When he had attained a convenient proximity, he merely parted his lips a little, and puffed a whole volume of smoke into her eyes. Nelly uttered a gentle scream and covered her face with her hands, while Danny and Lowry exchanged a broad grin of satisfaction.
 “Well, Lowry,” exclaimed the girl with much good humour, “you’re the greatest rogue going, and that’s your name this night.” Lowry appeared to muse for a few moments while he continued the enjoyment of his pipe. In a little time he once more took it from his lips, puffed forth the last whiff, and said, Misther Mann, they may say this and that of the world; an’ of poverty and riches, an’ humility an’ gentility, and every thing else they like, but here’s my word, ever. If I was a king upon a throne this minute, an’ I wanted to have a smoke for myself by the fire-side, why if I was to do my best, what could I smoke but one pen’orth o’ tobacco in the night afther all? An’ can’nt I have that, at it is, just as asy? If I was to have a bed with down feathers upon it, what could I do more than sleep there? An’ sure I can do that in the settle-bed above? If I was able to buy the whole market out an’ out, what could I ate of it more than I did to-night of that pork upon the table? Do you tee now, Misther Mann? Do you tee Nelly? Unless he could smoke two pipes of a night instead of one, or sleep more, or ate more without hurt, I don’t say what’s the advantage a king has over a poor man like myself.”
 “A’ sure, you know that’s foolish talk, Lowry. Sure the King could buy and sell you at the fair if he liked.”
 “He couldn’t without the Jury,” returned Lowry, “the Judge and Jury ever. He couldn’t lay a wet finger on me, without the Jury, be coorse of law. The round o’ the world is as free to me as it is to him, if the world be round in airnest, as they say it is.”
 “Round, ayeh?” said Nell.
 “Iss, to be sure.”
 Danny Mann looked at him for a moment. “Is it the world we’re walkin’ on?” he asked in some surprize.
 “To be sure, what else?”
 “A’ don’t be talking,” returned Danny, turning his head away in perfect scorn of the hypothesis.
 “Faix, I tell you no lie,” said Lowry, “’tis printed in all the books in Europe. They say that if it wasn’t round, we’d soon be done for. We couldn’t keep our hoult upon it at all, only to go flyin’ through the elements, the Lord save us!”
 “Oh, vo! vo!” said Nelly, “well, that bates Ireland.”
 “Sure there’s more says that it isn’t the sun above do be moven at all, only we goin’ round it.”
 “That the sun doesn’t stir?”
 “Not a peg.
 “Well, now you may hould your tongue, after dat,” said Danny, “after wantin’ to take de eye-sight from us. Sure the whole world sees the sun goin’, any way.
 “I wouldn’t b’lieve that,” said Nelly, “if they were to put their eyes upon sticks.”
 “I wouldn’t be so,” returned Lowry, “what business would a poor boy o’ my kind have goin’ again men that are able to write books, let alone readen ’em. But ’tis the foolishness of the women,” he continued, fixing upon Nell” as the least pugnacious opponent, “women are always for foolishness. They’ll b’lieve or not b’lieve, just as they like themselves. Equal to Dan Dawley’s second wife, - Did you ever hear o’ that business, Misther Mann?”
 “Not as I know.”
 “Well, stir up the fire, Nelly, an’ put down a couple o’ sods, an’ I’ll tell it while I am finishing my pipe, and then we’ll all be off to bed. Dan Dawley was married the second time to a very nice girl, one Jug Minaham (he’s the steward at Cattle-Chute, behind.) Well, he was out of a day at work, an’ his wife was setten’ alone by the fire, a few weeks afther they being married. Now there was one o’ the stones in the chimney (as it might be that stone there,) an’ it stood out loose from the morthar a dale beyond the rest. Well, she sat looking at it for a while, and the thought come in her head, ’If I had a child now,’ says the, ’an’ he was standing a-near that stone, may be ’twould fall out and brain him on me.’ An’ with the thought o’ that, she began roaring and bawling equal to any thing ever you hear.”
 “Oh, then, she was a foolish girl,” said Nelly.”
 “Dear knows that was her name,” said Danny.
 “Well, her old Mother heerd her bawling, an’ she came in the greatest hurry. ‘A’ what ails you, Jug?’ says she. So Jug up and told her her thought about the stone, an began bawling worse than ever. An’ if she did, the mother joined her, and such a pillilu as they raised between ’em was never known. That was well an’ good. Well, Dan was abroad in the potatie-garden, an’ he heard the work goin’ on in his house, crying equal to a funeral. ‘What’s this about?’ says Dan, ‘there’s somebody murthered, surely.’ So he made for the doore, an’ in he walked, an’ there he found the pair o’ ladies. ‘A’ what ails you, mother?’ said he, ‘Jug will tell you, agra,’ says the mother. So he looked at Jug. ‘Thinken’ I was,’ says she, still crying, ‘that if the child was born, an’ if that stone there fell upon him, ‘twould brain him on me.’ Well, Dan stood for a while looken’ at her, ‘If the sky fell,’ says he ’we’d catch larks. An’ is that all that happened you?’ ‘Isn’t it enough?’ says she again. Well, he stopped a long while thinking in his mind, and then he reached out a hand to her. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘that’s the foolishest thing I ever knew in my life, an’ I’ll tell you what it is, I never’ll take a day with you from this hour, until I’ll find a woman,’ says he, ‘that’s foolisher than yourself.’ No sooner said than done, out he walked, laving ’em after him to do as they plased. Well, there was a long day before him, an’ he walked a dale before night-fall, an’ he didn’t know where he’d turn to for his bed and dinner. ‘But sure I’m asy about it,’ says he, ‘sure while there’s fools of women in the place, I’ll engage I needn’t starve.’ Well, he called a gorsoon that was going the road. ‘Whose farm-house,’ says he, ‘is that I see over there?’ ’Its belongin’ to a widow woman, sir,’ said the boy. ‘What sort of a man was her husband?’ says Dan. ‘A small, dark man, an’ wearing top boots,’ says the boy. Well became Dan, he made for the house, an’ axed for the lone woman. She was standen on the lawn looking at her cows milking, when Dan made towards her. ‘Well, where do you come from?’ says the widow-woman, ‘From heaven, ma’am,’ says Dan, making a bow. ‘From heaven?’ says she, looking at him with her eyes open. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ says he, ‘for a little start. An’ I seen your husband there too, ma’am.’ ‘My husband, inagh,’* says she, looking at him very knowing, ‘can you tell me what sort of a man he was?’ ‘A small dark man,’ says Dan, ’an’ wearing top boots.’ ‘I give it in to you,’ says she, ‘that’s the man. Come this way, an’ tell me what did he say to you, or did he give any message to me?’ Well, Dan put no bounds to his tongue, just to thry her. ‘He bid me tell you,’ says he ‘that he’s very badly off for want o’ victuals; an’ he’d like to have the young grey horse to be ridin’ for himself, an’ he’d do as much if you could send ’em to him.’ ‘Why then I’ll do that,’ says the widow, ‘for he was a good husband to me when he lived. What time will you be going back?’ ‘To-morrow or afther,’ says Dan, ‘afther I see my people.’ ‘Well, stay here tonight,’ says she, ‘an’ I’ll give you something to take to him in the morning.’ Well became her, she brought him in, and trated him like a prince that night, with music an’ dancing; an’ in the morning she had the grey horse at the doore with a bag o’ flour, and a crock o’ butter, an’ a round o’ corned beef. Well, Dan mounted the horse, an’ away with him home to his wife. ‘Well, Jug,’ says he, ‘I’ll take with you all my days, for as bad as you are there’s more that’s twice worse; an’ I believe if I went farther ’tis worse an worse I’d be getting to the world’s end.’ So he up an’ told ’em the whole business, an’ they had a merry supper that night, and for weeks afther, on what Dan brought home with him.”
 “He was a rogue, for all,” said Nelly, “to keep the poor woman’s horse upon her.”
 “She deserved it,” says Danny, an worse. I never hear o’ such a fool. Well, Lowry, will you go to bed now at last?”
 The question was answered in the affirmative; and Danny was at the same time pressed to take a share of the sweets of the table, which he resolutely refused. Soon after, the careful Nelly, having made Lowry turn his head another way, ascended by a ladder to her pallet, on a loft over the parlour; while Lowry and the little lord rolled into the settle-bed together, the one to dream of breakers, raw onions, whiskey, and “Misther Hardress;” the other, of Foxy Dunat’s mare, and the black eyes of Syl Carney.

Chapter 15: How Hardress Spent His Time While Kyrle Daly Was Asleep
All were now asleep, except the two strangers, and the silence, which reigned throughout the little cottage, showed Hardress that no ear was capable of detecting his movements. He opened his room door softly, slipped his shoes from his feet, and leaving the light burning on his table, trusted to the famous sixth sense of the German physiologists, for a chance of finding his way among the chairs and tables in the dark. He reached the door without a stumble; and perceived by the light, which streamed through the keyhole and under the door of his fair friend’s apartment, that she still expected him.
Their meeting, though silent, was impassioned and affectionate. Hardress enquired, with the tender and sedulous attention of a newly married man, whether she felt any injurious effects from the storm - whether she had changed her dress, and taken some refreshment - whether, in fine, her situation was in any way inconvenient to her?
 “In no way at all, Mr. Hardress, as to any of these things you mention,” she replied in a low voice, for she was fearful of waking Mrs. Frawley in the next room. “But as to the mind! - May heaven never give you the affliction of spending two such hours as I have done since I entered this room!”
 “My life, why will you speak so? What other course remained for our adoption? You know your father’s temper, he would as soon have died as sanctioned a private marriage, such as ours must be for some time longer. It would be absolute ruin to me if my mother knew of my having contracted such an engagement without consulting her wishes - and my father, as I have before told you, will act exactly as she desires. And why, now, my love, will you indulge those uneasy humours? Are you not my bride, my wife, the chosen of my heart, and the future partner of my fortunes? Do you really think that I would forget my little angel’s feelings, so far as to omit any thing in my power that might set her mind at rest? If you do, I must tell you that I love you more than you imagine.”
 “Oh, Mr. Hardress! oh, don’t say that at all, sir,” said the young woman with frankness and ready warmth of manner. “Only I was just thinking, an’ I sitting by the fire, what a heartbreak it would be to my father, if anybody put it into his head that the case was worse than it is,” (here she hung down her head) “and no more would be wanting but just a little word on a scrap o’ paper, to let him know that he needn’t be uneasy, and that he’d know all in time.”
 This suggestion appeared to jar against the young gentleman’s inclinations. “If you wish,” said he, with a little earnestness of voice, “I will return with you to Garryowen to-morrow, and have our marriage made public from the altar of John’s Gate Chapel. I have no object in seeking to avoid my own ruin, greater than that of preventing you from sharing it. But if you will insist upon running the hazard - hazard? I mean, if you are determined on certainly destroying our prospects of happiness, your will shall be dearer to me than fortune or friends either. If you have a father to feel for, you will not forget, my love, that I have a mother whom I love as tenderly, and whose feelings deserve some consideration at my hands.”
 The gentle girl seemed affected, but not hurt, by this speech. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said, laying her hand affectionately on his shoulder, “don’t be angry, Mr. Hardress. I know I have a very bad head, and can’t see into every thing at once; but one word from you (and it needn’t be an angry one either) is enough to open my eyes. Insist, do you say, Mr. Hardress? Indeed, sir, I was never made to insist upon any thing. But when a thought, foolish as it is, once comes into my head, I long to speak of it, to know what you will say, to know if it is wrong or right. You wouldn’t wish that I should keep it from you, sir?”
 “Never, oh, never! Do not think of that.”
 “I never will practice it long, any way, for such thoughts as those, if I were to hide them, would kill me before a month. But keep always near me, my dear, dear Mr. Hardress, for though you showed me that there is nothing very criminal in what I have done, yet when you leave me long alone, the reasons go out of my head, and I only think of what the neighbours are saying about me, this way, and of what my father must feel, listening to them. Don’t think, now, sir, that I am going to question what you tell me (for I trust in you next to heaven) but if I am not so much to blame, why is it that my mind is not at ease? The storm, sir - oh, that storm! When the waves rose, and the boat rocked, and the wind howled about me, how my feelings changed on a sudden! I strove to look quiet before you, but my heart was leaping for fear within me. When we sank down in the darkness and rose in the light, when the waves were dashen’ in over the side, and the sails were dippen’ in the water, I thought of my father’s fire-side, and I was sure that it was the anger of the Almighty, hunting the disobedient child over the dark waters. I thought I never would walk the land again - and how will it be, says I, if the boat breaks under us, and my father is told that his daughter was washed ashore a corpse, with a blot upon her name, and no one living that can clear it? ... But, I give thanks to Heaven!” the poor girl continued, clasping her hands, and looking upward with tears in her eyes - “that judgment has been spared; not for my merit, I am sure, but for its own mercy.”
 “And is not that a quieting remembrance, Eily?” said her husband. “Oh, that is not all,” said Eily, “that is not the worst. Every moment that I make seems to bring down the anger of heaven, since I first thought of deceiving my father. Do you remember the morning of our marriage?” she added with a slight shudder, “I never can put that frightful morning out of my mind. ’Tis always before my eyes. The little room inside the sacristy, and the candles burning on the small table, and the grey dawn just breaking through the window! We did not marry as other people do, in their families, or in the open daylight. We married in secret, like criminals in prison, without preparation, without confession, or communion, or repentance. We chose a priest that was disgraced by his Bishop, to give us that great sacrament, for money. May heaven forgive him! how soon and suddenly he was called to judgment for that act!”
 Hardress, who had himself been struck by the circumstance last alluded to, remained silent for a moment, while his eyes were fixed upon the earth.
 “Why did you go back to the chapel that time, Eily,” he said at length, “after I parted from you at the door?”
 “Every thing looked bad and disheartening,” said the young woman, “I was just going to lift the latch of my father’s door, when I found that I had forgot the priest’s certificate. I went back to the chapel as fast as I could walk. I passed through the sacristy and into the little room. The certificate was there upon the table, the candles were burning, and the clergyman was sitting upright in his chair - a dead man! Oh, I can no more tell you how I felt that moment than if I was dumb. I thought the world was coming to an end, and that I had no more hold of life, than of the wind that was going by me. I ran out into the chapel and strove to pray, but my blood was boiling out at my fingers’ ends. While I was on my knees, I heard the people running to and fro in the sacristy, and I hurried out of the chapel for fear I’d be questioned.”
 “And did you go home at once?”
 “No; I took a walk first, to quiet my mind a little, and when I did go home, I found my father was up and getting the breakfast ready before me. Ah, he deserved a better daughter than Eily!”
 “Come, come!” said her husband kindly, “you will be a good daughter to him yet.”
 “I hope so, sir,” said Eily, in a mournful voice. “There’s one thing, at all events. He loves me very well, and whenever I return, I am sure of being easily forgiven.”
 “And can you find no encouragement in that?” Hardress said, while he took her hand in his, and pressed it in a soothing manner. “You say that you have confidence in me - and the few happy weeks that we have counted since our marriage have furnished me with no occasion for complaint on that subject. Continue yet a little longer to trust in your own Hardress, and the time will shortly come when you shall find that it was not bestowed in vain. Come, now, let me dry those sweet eyes, while I tell you shortly what my plans shall be. You have heard me speak of Danny Mann’s sister, Naughten, who lives on the side of the Purple Mountain, in the Gap of Dunlough - (you don’t know those places now, but you’ll be enchanted with them by and by.) She is a good natured creature, though somewhat violent; and is, moreover, entirely at my command. I have had two neat rooms fitted up for you in her cottage, where you can have some books to read, a little garden to amuse you, and a Kerry pony to ride over the mountains, and see all that is to be seen about the lakes. In the meantime I will steal a visit now and then to my mother, who spends the autumn in the neighbourhood. She loves me, I know, as well as I love her; and that is very well. I will gradually let her into my secret, and obtain her forgiveness - I am certain she will not withhold it - and my father’s will follow as a matter of course - for he has the greatest respect for her opinions.” (If Hardress had not been Barny Cregan’s son, he would have given this respect another name.) “I shall then present you to my mother, she will commend your modesty and gentleness to my father, who will rap out an exclamation on your beauty; we shall send for your father and priest O’Connor to the hauling-home, and then where is the tongue that shall venture to wag against the fame of Eily Cregan? If such a one there be, it shall never sting again, for I will cut the venom out of it with my small-sword.”
 “Hush! hush, sir! Do not speak so loud,” cried the young woman in some alarm - “there’s one asleep in the next room. “Who is it? Mrs. Frawley?”
 “The fat, good old woman that got dinner ready for me.”
 “Never fear her. She is a hard-working diligent woman, that always minds the business she has in hand. It was not to lie awake and make use of her ears that she got between the blankets. Hark! - There is a clearer proof still that she is asleep. She must be dreaming of a hunt, she imitates the horn of chase so finely. Well, Eily, be ready to start for Ballybunion at sunrise in the morning. You must contrive to slip down to the shore without being seen by Lowry, or any body else, if possible.”
 The creaking of the bed, which sustained the ponderous Mrs. Frawley, here startled the young and passionate, though most ill-sorted, pair. After a hurried good night, Hardress returned to his room just in time to escape the observation of the good dairy-woman, who had been awaked out of a dream of pecks and keelers and fresh prints by the sound of voices in the stranger’s room. On opening the door, however, she was a little astonished to observe the lovely guest in the attitude of devotion. Deprived, by this circumstance, of the opportunity of putting any awkward questions, Mrs. Frawley, after yawning once or twice, and shaking her shoulders as often, tumbled into bed again, and speedily resumed the same tone upon the horn which had excited the admiration of Hardress.
 Reader, I desire you not to think that this speedy fit of devotion was a manœuvre of the gentle Eily. The sin, assuredly, was not done with reflection. But if the case appears suspicious, go down upon your knees and pray that as (alas, the while!) it has not been the first, it may be the last instance in which religion shall be made subservient to human and terrestrial purposes!
 There was a slight feeling of chagrin mingled with the happier emotions of the young husband as he prepared for slumber. Gifted, as he was, with a quick perception and keen feeling of the beautiful and worthy, the passion he had conceived for the gentle Eily had been as sudden as it was violent. The humility of her origin, at a period when pride of birth was more considered in matrimonial alliances than it is at present, might, it is true, have deterred him from contravening the wishes of his friends, if the impression made on his imagination had been less powerful; but his extreme youth, and the excelling beauty of his bride, were two circumstances that operated powerfully in tempting him to overlook all other counsels than those which love suggested. He thought, nevertheless, that he had acted towards Eily O’Connor with a generosity which approached a species of magnanimity, in preferring her before the whole world and its opinions; and perhaps, too, he entertained a little philosophical vanity in the conceit that he had thus evinced an independent reliance on his own mental resources, and shown a spirit superior to the ordinary prejudices of society. He felt therefore, a little chagrined at Eily’s apparent slowness in appreciating so noble an effort, for indeed she did him the justice to believe that it was a higher motive than the love of self-adulation which induced him to bestow upon her his hand and his affections. But the reader is yet only partially acquainted with the character of Hardress, and those early circumstances which fashioned it to its present state of irregular and imperfect virtue; we will, therefore, while that fiery heart lies quenched in slumber, employ those hours of inaction in a brief and comprehensive view of the natural qualities and acquirements of our hero.
 While Hardress Cregan was yet a child, he displayed more symptoms of precocious ability, than might have shed a lustre on the boyhood of many a celebrated genius. He obtained, even in his school days, the sobriquet of “Counsellor” from his fondness for discussion, and the childish eloquence which he displayed in maintaining a favourite position. His father liked him for a certain desperation of courage which he was apt to discover on occasions of very inadequate provocation. His mother, too, doated on him for a mother’s own, best reason; that he was her child. Indulgent she was, even to a ruinous extent; and proud she was, when her sagacious acquaintances, after hearing her relate some wonderful piece of wit in little Hardress, would compress their lips, shake their heads with much emphasis, and prophecy that “that boy would shine one day or another.” His generosity too (a quality in which Mrs. Cregan was herself preeminent) excited his mother’s admiration, and proved indeed that Hardress was not an ordinary child.
 And yet he was not without the peculiar selfishness of genius, that selfishness which consists not in the love of getting, or the love of keeping, in cupidity or avarice; but in a luxurious indulgence of all one’s natural inclinations, even to an effeminate degree. His very generosity was a species of self-seeking, of that vulgar quality which looks to nothing more than the gratification of a suddenly awakened impulse of compassion, or, perhaps, has a still meaner object for its stimulus, the gratitude of the assisted, and the fame of an open hand. If this failing were in Hardress, as in Charles Surface, the result of habitual thoughtlessness and dissipation, it might challenge a gentler condemnation, and awaken pity rather than dislike; but young Cregan was by no means incapable of appreciating the high merit of a due self-government even in the exercise of estimable dispositions. He admired, in Kyrle Daly, that noble and yet unaffected firmness of principle which led him, on many occasions, to impose a harsh restraint upon his own feelings, when their indulgence was not in accordance with his notions of justice. But Hardress Cregan, with an imagination which partook much more largely of the national luxuriance, and with a mind which displayed, at intervals, bursts of energy which far surpassed the reach of his steady friend, was yet the less estimable character of the two. They were, nevertheless, well calculated for a lasting friendship; for Kyrle Daly liked and valued the surpassing talent of Hardress, and Hardress was pleased with the even temper and easy resolution of his school-fellow.
 Seldom, indeed, it was, that esteem formed any portion in the leading motive of Hardress Cregan’s attachments. He liked for liking’s sake, and as long only as his humour lasted. It required but a spark to set him all on fire, but the flame was often as prone to smoulder, and become extinct, as it was hasty to kindle. The reader is already aware that he had formed during his boyhood, a passion for Anne Chute, who was then a mere girl, and on a visit at Dinis Cottage. His mother, who, from his very infancy had arranged this match within her own mind, was delighted to observe the early attachment of the children, and encouraged it by every means in her power. They studied, played, and walked together, and all his recollections of the magnificent scenery of those romantic mountain lakes were blended with the form, the voice, the look and manner of his childish love. The long separation, however, which ensued when he was sent to school, and from thence to college, produced a total alteration in his sentiments; and the mortification which his pride experienced on finding himself, as he imagined, utterly forgotten by her, completely banished even the wish to renew their old familiar life. Still, however, the feeling with which be regarded her was rather one of resentment than indifference, and it was not without a secret creeping of the heart, that he witnessed what he thought the successful progress of Kyrle Daly’s attachment.
 It was under these circumstances, that he formed his present hasty union with Eily O’Connor. His love for her was deep, sincere, and tender. Her entire and unbounded confidence, her extreme beauty, her simplicity and timid deference to his wishes, made a soothing compensation to his heart for the coldness of the haughty, though superior, beauty, whose inconstancy had raised his indignation.
 “Yes,” said Hardress to himself as be gathered the blankets about his shoulders, and disposed himself for sleep. “Her form and dispositions are perfect. Would that education had been to her as kind as nature! Yet she does not want grace nor talent; - but that brogue! Well, well! the materials of refinement are within and around her, and it must be my task, and my delight, to make the brilliant shine out that is yet dark in the ore. I fear Kyrle Daly is, after all, correct in saying that I am not indifferent to those external allurements.” (Here his eyelids drooped.) “The beauties of our mountain residence will make a mighty alteration in her mind, and my society will - will - gradually - beautiful - Anne Chute - Poll Naughten - independent ...”
 The ideas faded on his imagination, a cloud settled on his brain, a delicious languor crept through all his limbs, he fell into a profound repose.