Good Corny’s calculations were just: the next morning the little
post-boy brought answers to various letters which he had written about
Ormond--one to Ormond from Sir Ulick O’Shane, repeating his approbation
of his ward’s going into the army, approving of all the steps Cornelius
had taken--especially of his intention of paying for the commission.
“All’s well,” Cornelius said. The next letter was from Cornelius’s
banker, saying that the five hundred pound was lodged, ready. “All
well.” The army-agent wrote, “that he had commissions in two different
regiments, waiting Mr. O’Shane’s choice and orders per return of post,
to purchase _in conformity_.”--“That’s all well.” General Albemarle’s
answer to Mr. O’Shane’s letter was most satisfactory: in terms that were
not merely _officially_ polite, but kind, “he assured Mr. O’Shane that
he should, as far as it was in his power, pay attention to the young
gentleman, whom Mr. O’Shane had so strongly recommended to his care,
and by whose appearance and manner the general said he had been
prepossessed, when he saw him some months ago at Corny Castle. There was
a commission vacant in his son’s regiment, which he recommended to Mr.
Ormond.”
“The very thing I could have wished for you, my dear boy--you shall
go off the day after to-morrow--not a moment’s delay--I’ll answer the
letters this minute.”
But Harry reminded him that the post did not go out till the next day,
and urged him not to lose this fine day--this first day of the season
for partridge shooting.
“Time enough for my business after we come home--the post does not go
out till morning.”
“That’s true: come off, then--let’s enjoy the fine day sent us; and my
gun, too--I forgot; for I do believe, Harry, I love you better even than
my gun,” said the warm-hearted Corny. “Call _Ormond_. Moriarty; let
us have him with us--he’ll enjoy it beyond all: one of the last day’s
shooting with his own Prince Harry!--but, poor fellow, we’ll not tell
him that.”
Moriarty and the dogs were summoned, and the fineness of the day, and
the promise of good sport, put Moriarty in remarkably good spirits. By
degrees King Corny’s own spirits rose, and he forgot that it was the
last day with Prince Harry, and he enjoyed the sport. After various
trials of his new fowling-piece, both the king and the prince agreed
that it succeeded to admiration. But even in the midst of his pride in
his success, and his joy in the sport, his superior fondness for Harry
prevailed, and showed itself in little, almost delicate instances of
kindness, which could hardly have been expected from his unpolished
mind. As they crossed a bog, he stooped every now and then, and plucked
different kinds of bog-plants and heaths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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