To prevent this catastrophe, our young hero ran immediately and ordered the horses: his majesty mounted, or rather was mounted, and they proceeded to one of the prettiest farms in the Black Islands. As they rode to it, he seemed pleased by Harry’s admiring, as he could, with perfect truth, the beauty of the situation. “And the land--which you are no judge of yet, but you will--is as good as it is pretty,” said King Corny, “which I am glad of for your sake, Prince Harry; I won’t have you, like that _donny_ English prince or king, they nicknamed _Lackland_.--No: you sha’n’t lack land while I have it to let or give. I called you prince--Prince of the Black Islands--and here’s your principality. Call out my prime minister, Pat Moore. I sent him across the bog to meet us at Moriarty’s. Here he is, and Moriarty along with him to welcome you. Patrick, give Prince Harry possession--with sod and twig. Here’s the kay from my own hand, and I give you joy. Nay, don’t deny me the pleasure--I’ve a right to it. No wrong to my daughter, if that’s what you are thinking of--a clear improvement of my own,--and she will have enough without it. Besides, her betrothed White Connal is a fat grazier, who will make her as rich as a Jew; and any way she is as generous as a princess herself. But if it pains you so, and weighs you down, as I see it does, to be under any obligation--you shall be under none in life. You shall pay me rent for it, and you shall give it up whenever you please. Well! we’ll settle that between ourselves,” continued his majesty; “only take possession, that’s all I ask. But I hope,” added he, “before we’ve lived a year, or whatever time it is till you arrive at years of discretion, you’ll know me well enough, and love me well enough, not to be so stiff about a trifle, that’s nothing between friend and friend--let alone the joke of king and prince, dear Harry.” The gift of this _principality_ proved a most pernicious, nearly a fatal, gift to the young prince. The generosity, the delicacy, with which it was made, a delicacy worthy of the most polished, and little to have been expected from the barbarian mock-monarch, so touched our young hero’s heart, so subjected his grateful spirit to his benefactor, that he thenceforth not only felt bound to King Corny for life, but prone to deem every thing he did or thought, wisest, fittest, best. When he was invested with his petty principality, it was expected of him to give a dinner and a dance to the island: so he gave a dinner and a dance, and every body said he was a fine fellow, and had the spirit of a prince. “King Corny, God bless him! couldn’t go astray in his choice of a favourite--long life to him and Prince Harry! and no doubt there’d be fine hunting, and shooting, and coursing continually. Well, was not it a happy thing for the islands, when Harry Ormond first set foot on them? From a boy ‘twas _a_sy to see what a man he’d be. Long may he live to _reign_ over us!”