Three years had passed away before I saw him again.During the interval,however,I had frequently heard from him,so that absence had not abated the warmth of our attachment.Who could tell of the rejoicings that marked the evening of his return?The horses were removed from the chaise at the distance of a mile from the castle,while it and its contents were borne rapidly onward almost by the pressure of the multitude,like a log upon a torrent.Bonfires blared far and near--bagpipes roared and fiddles squeaked;and,amid the thundering shouts of thousands,the carriage drew up before the castle.
In an instant young O'Connor was upon the ground,crying,'Thank you,boys--thank you,boys;'while a thousand hands were stretched out from all sides to grasp even a finger of his.Still,amid shouts of 'God bless your honour--long may you reign!'and 'Make room there,boys!clear the road for the masther!'he reached the threshold of the castle,where stood his mother weeping for joy.
Oh!who could describe that embrace,or the enthusiasm with which it was witnessed?'God bless him to you,my lady--glory to ye both!'and 'Oh,but he is a fine young gentleman,God bless him!'
resounded on all sides,while hats flew up in volleys that darkened the moon;and when at length,amid the broad delighted grins of the thronging domestics,whose sense of decorum precluded any more boisterous evidence of joy,they reached the parlour,then giving way to the fulness of her joy the widowed mother kissed and blessed him and wept in turn.Well might any parent be proud to claim as son the handsome stripling who now represented the Castle Connor family;but to her his beauty had a peculiar charm,for it bore a striking resemblance to that of her husband,the last O'Connor.
I know not whether partiality blinded me,or that I did no more than justice to my friend in believing that I had never seen so handsome a young man.I am inclined to think the latter.He was rather tall,very slightly and elegantly made;his face was oval,and his features decidedly Spanish in cast and complexion,but with far more vivacity of expression than generally belongs to the beauty of that nation.
The extreme delicacy of his features and the varied animation of his countenance made him appear even younger than his years--an illusion which the total absence of everything studied in his manners seemed to confirm.Time had wrought no small change in me,alike in mind and spirits;but in the case of O'Connor it seemed to have lost its power to alter.
His gaiety was undamped,his generosity unchilled;and though the space which had intervened between our parting and reunion was but brief,yet at the period of life at which we were,even a shorter interval than that of three years has frequently served to form or DEform a character.
Weeks had passed away since the return of O'Connor,and scarce a day had elapsed without my seeing him,when the neighbourhood was thrown into an unusual state of excitement by the announcement of a race-ball to be celebrated at the assembly-room of the town of T--,distant scarcely two miles from Castle Connor.
Young O'Connor,as I had expected,determined at once to attend it;and having directed in vain all the powers of his rhetoric to persuade his mother to accompany him,he turned the whole battery of his logic upon me,who,at that time,felt a reluctance stronger than that of mere apathy to mixing in any of these scenes of noisy pleasure for which for many reasons I felt myself unfitted.He was so urgent and persevering,however,that I could not refuse;and I found myself reluctantly obliged to make up my mind to attend him upon the important night to the spacious but ill-finished building,which the fashion and beauty of the county were pleased to term an assembly-room.
When we entered the apartment,we found a select few,surrounded by a crowd of spectators,busily performing a minuet,with all the congees and flourishes which belonged to that courtly dance;and my companion,infected by the contagion of example,was soon,as I had anticipated,waving his chapeau bras,and gracefully bowing before one of the prettiest girls in the room.I had neither skill nor spirits to qualify me to follow his example;and as the fulness of the room rendered it easy to do so without its appearing singular,Idetermined to be merely a spectator of the scene which surrounded me,without taking an active part in its amusements.
The room was indeed very much crowded,so that its various groups,formed as design or accident had thrown the parties together,afforded no small fund of entertainment to the contemplative observer.There were the dancers,all gaiety and good-humour;a little further off were the tables at which sat the card-players,some plying their vocation with deep and silent anxiety--for in those days gaming often ran very high in such places --and others disputing with all the vociferous pertinacity of undisguised ill-temper.There,again,were the sallow,blue-nosed,grey-eyed dealers in whispered scandal;and,in short,there is scarcely a group or combination to be met with in the court of kings which might not have found a humble parallel in the assembly-room of T--.
I was allowed to indulge in undisturbed contemplation,for I suppose I was not known to more than five or six in the room.I thus had leisure not only to observe the different classes into which the company had divided itself,but to amuse myself by speculating as to the rank and character of many of the individual actors in the drama.