“He is _but soberly_; [Footnote: But soberly--not very well, or in good
spirits.] he got the night but middling; he concaits he could not sleep
becaase he did not get a sight of your honour afore he’d settle--I tell
him ‘tis the change of beds, which always hinders a body to sleep the
first night.”
The sense of having totally forgotten the poor fellow--the contrast
between this forgetfulness and the anxiety and contrition of the two
preceding nights, actually surprised Ormond: he could hardly believe
that he was one and the same person. Then came excuses to himself:
“Gratitude--common civility--the peremptoriness of King Corny--his
passionate temper, when opposed on this tender point--the locked
door--and two to one: in short, there was an impossibility in the
circumstances of doing otherwise than what he had done. But then the
same impossibility--the same circumstances--might recur the next night,
and the next, and so on: the peremptory temper of King Corny was not
likely to alter, and the moral obligation of gratitude would continue
the same; so that at nineteen was he to become, from complaisance, what
his soul and body abhorred--an habitual drunkard? And what would become
of Lady Annaly’s interest in his fate or his improvement?”
The two questions were not of equal importance, but our hero was at this
time far from having any just proportion in his reasoning: it was well
he reasoned at all. The argument as to the obligation of gratitude--the
view he had taken of the never-ending nature of the evil, which must
be the consequence of beginning with weak complaisance--above all, the
_feeling_ that he had so lost his reason as not only to forget Moriarty,
but to have been again incapable of commanding his passions, if any
thing had occurred to cross his temper, determined Ormond to make a firm
resistance on the next occasion that should occur: it did occur the very
next night. After a dinner given to his chief tenants and the _genteel_
people of the islands--a dinner in honour and in introduction of his
_adopted son_, King Corny gave a toast “to the Prince presumptive,”
as he now styled him--a bumper toast. Soon afterwards he detected
_daylight_ in Harry’s glass, and cursing it properly, he insisted on
flowing bowls and full glasses. “What! are you Prince _presumptuous_?”
cried he, with a half angry and astonished look. “Would you resist and
contradict your father and king at his own table after dinner? Down with
the glass!”
Farther and steady resistance changed the jesting tone and half angry
look of King Corny into sullen silence, and a black portentous brow of
serious displeasure. After a decent time of sitting, the bottle passing
him without farther importunity, Ormond rose--it was a hard struggle;
for in the face of his benefactor he saw reproach and rage bursting from
every feature: still he moved on towards the door. He heard the words
“sneaking off sober!--let him sneak!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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