United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hastings had heard enough, and too much; and, as the sentence was pronounced, she instantly withdrew; but how to convey the melancholy tidings to the Cooleen Bawn she knew not. In the meantime the foreman, who had not fully delivered himself of the verdict, added, after two or three desperate hiccups "on the second count."
"Well," returned the Rapparee, with a smile of scorn, "I'm not a man as I suppose you may know that ever feared either of them much God forgive me for the one, I don't ask his forgiveness for the other. No, Squire Folliard, it was the goodness, the kindness, the generosity, and the charity of the Cooleen Bawn, your lovely daughter, that held my hand.
"Well, then, fill your bumper. Here's to her that got me this room, and had it furnished as you see, in order that I might be at my aise in it for the remaindher o' my life I mane the Cooleen Bawn the Lily of the Plains of Boyle. Come, now, off with it; and if you take it from your lantern jaws! till it's finished, divil a wet lip ever I'll give you."
Ellen Connor was a girl by no means deficient in education thanks to the care and kindness of the Cooleen Bawn, who had herself instructed her. 'Tis true, she had in ordinary and familiar conversation a touch of the brogue; but, when excited, or holding converse with respectable persons, her language was such as would have done no discredit to many persons in a much higher rank of life.
At this stage of our story, Reilly, who was, as we have said, in consequence of his gentlemanly manners and liberal principles, a favorite with all classes and all parties, and entertained no apprehensions from the dominant party, took his way homewards deeply impressed with the generous affections which his Cooleen Bawn had expressed for him.
"Most sincerely do I thank you, Lanigan; he will arrange with you when and where to see me again. Farewell, Reilly farewell; rely upon my constancy;" and so they parted, Reilly to the kitchen, and the Cooleen Bawn to her own room. "Come into the pantry, poor man," said good-natured Lanigan, addressing our hero, "till I give you' something to eat and drink."
"Come, baronet," said he, "here's my arm. I am the old man, and you are the old lady; and now for dinner." In the meantime Reilly and the Cooleen Bawn had gone far enough in advance to be in a condition to speak without being heard.
"Ah," replied Fergus, "it's I that knows that well; but, unfortunately, I have no hope there." "No hope; how is that? I thought your affection was mutual." "So it is, sir or, rather, so it was; but she has affection for nobody now, barring the Cooleen Bawn." Reilly paused, and appeared deeply moved by this. "What," said he, "will she not leave her? But I am not surprised at it."
In the meantime the loves of Willy Reilly and the far-famed Cooleen Bawn had gone abroad over the whole country; and the natural result was that a large majority among those who were anxious to exterminate the Catholic Church by the rigor of bigoted and inhuman laws, looked upon the fact of a tolerated Papist daring to love a Protestant heiress, and the daughter of a man who was considered such a stout prop of the Establishment, as an act that deserved death itself.
Reilly's affection for the Cooleen Bawn was considered, therefore, not only daring but treasonable.
Word Of The Day