The Annals of the Parish: Or, the Chronicle of Dalmailing During the Ministry of the Rev. Micah BalwhidderGalt, John
General
The Annals of the Parish: Or, the Chronicle of Dalmailing During the Ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder
Galt, John
Clergy -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
In the putting down of the rebels Mr. Desmond and his son made their
escape to Paris, where they stayed till the treaty was signed, by which,
for several years after the return to Ireland of the grand lady and her
daughters, as Mrs. Desmond was called by our commonalty, we heard nothing
of them. The other refugees repaid Mr. Cayenne his money with
thankfulness, and, on their restoration to their homes, could not
sufficiently express their sense of his kindness. But the silence and
seeming ingratitude of the Desmonds vexed him; and he could not abide to
hear the Irish rebellion mentioned without flying into a passion against
the rebels, which every body knew was owing to the ill return he had
received from that family. However, one afternoon, just about half an
hour before his wonted dinner hour, a grand equipage, with four horses
and outriders, stopped at his door, and who was in it but Mrs. Desmond
and an elderly man, and a young gentleman with an aspect like a lord. It
was her husband and son. They had come from Ireland in all their state
on purpose to repay with interest the money Mr. Cayenne had counted so
long lost, and to express in person the perpetual obligation which he had
conferred upon the Desmond family, in all time coming. The lady then
told him, that she had been so straitened in helping the poor ladies,
that it was not in her power to make repayment till Desmond, as she
called her husband, came home; and not choosing to assign the true
reason, lest it might cause trouble, she rather submitted to be suspected
of ingratitude than to an improper thing.
Mr. Cayenne was transported with this unexpected return, and a friendship
grew up between the families, which was afterwards cemented into
relationship by the marriage of the young Desmond with Miss Caroline
Cayenne. Some in the parish objected to this match, Mrs. Desmond being a
papist: but as Miss Caroline had received an episcopalian education, I
thought it of no consequence, and married them after their family
chaplain from Ireland, as a young couple both by beauty and fortune well
matched, and deserving of all conjugal felicity.
CHAPTER XL
YEAR 1799
THERE are but two things to make me remember this year; the first was the
marriage of my daughter Janet with the reverend Dr. Kittlewood of
Swappington, a match in every way commendable; and on the advice of the
third Mrs. Balwhidder, I settled a thousand pounds down, and promised
five hundred more at my death if I died before my spouse, and a thousand
at her death if she survived me; which was the greatest portion ever
minister’s daughter had in our country side. In this year likewise I
advanced fifteen hundred pounds for my son in a concern in Glasgow,—all
was the gathering of that indefatigable engine of industry the second
Mrs. Balwhidder, whose talents her successor said were a wonder, when she
considered the circumstances in which I had been left at her death, and
made out of a narrow stipend.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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