Ulick

“ I think a very high born and very rich man might be humble,’ said Ulick, so meditatively that they laughed; but Sophy said,
‘No, that is not a paradox; the real difficulty is not in willingly yielding, but in taking what we cannot help.’
‘Well,’ said Ulick, ‘I hope it is not pride not to intend working under Andrew Goldsmith.’
‘Do you consider that as your fate?’ asked Albinia.
‘Never my fate,’ said Ulick, quickly; ‘hardly even my alternative, for he would like to put up a notice, “No Irish need apply.” ”

“ When Ulick was seventeen, and a cadet at Sandhurst, he met with an accident that nearly brought his career, and his neck, to an untimely end. One raw winter afternoon the hounds were running not far from Kilmoran. It had been a grand scenting day. Sport was good, and Ulick was out on a new investment—a fine upstanding four-year-old, with grand legs and quarters, but with an ugly fiddle-head and a small pig-like eye. ”

“ There was a certain Lady Millicent, whose name Lady Norton had read from her memorandum-book among the list of guests expected at Castle Hermitage. Sir Ulick, as Ormond recollected, had pronounced her to be a charming, elegant, fascinating creature. Sir Ulick’s praise was sometimes exaggerated, and often lavished from party motives, or given half in jest and half in earnest, against his conscience. But when he did speak sincerely, no man’s taste or judgment as to female beauty, manners, and character, could be more safely trusted. ”

“ Uncle Ulick groaned. "You'll not be bidden?" he said.
"Not by an angel," Colonel John answered steadfastly. "And I've seen none this morning, but only a good man whose one fault in life is to answer to all men 'Sure, and I will!'"
Uncle Ulick started as if the words stung him. "You make a jest of it!" he said. "Heaven send we do not sorrow for your wilfulness. For my part, I've small hope of that same." He opened the door, and, turning his back upon his companion, went heavily, and without any attempt at concealment, past the pantry and up the stairs to his room. ”

“ Then, as the first violence of the storm expended itself, Esmay heard her name uttered, and realized that Ulick was holding her hand in both his own.
"Don't!" she pleaded, and drew her hand away.
Ulick's face hardened. "I might have known it," he said, bitterly. "Yet he who has been false to friendship may betray love as well."
"He is dead," she said, and Ulick started.
"Constans—dead!" he stammered.
"Hanged at the yard-arm of the Black Swan. But Quinton Edge still lives." [Pg 228]
"You loved him?" persisted Ulick, the sense of his injury still strong within him. ”

“ Is it to be Baron Castle Hermitage, or to get a riband, or a garter, or a thistle, or what?—A thistle! What asses some men are!”
What savages some men are, thought Sir Ulick: he walked to the window, and looking out, hoped that Harry Ormond would soon make his appearance. “You are doing, or undoing, a great deal here, cousin Cornelius, I see, as usual.”
“Yes, but what I am doing, stand or fall, will never be my undoing—I am no speculator. How do your silver mines go on, Sir Ulick? I hear all the silver mines in Ireland turn out to be lead.” ”

“ Christianity wanted none of such men; dessicated souls. Vases of iniquity. Vile, accursed, doomed to Gehenna. Nevertheless, with his paternal solicitude for the straying sinner, Milt placed his hand over Alfred's and smiled benignly. "Alfred," he adjured, "Alfred repent while there's time. Here is Ulick fuddling his wits with writings that are of no pith or moment. Their rhetoric it is that seduces him. The petticoats, too,—Hello! who's this? I vow if here isn't Paul Godard." Ulick groaned. Always Paul. He couldn't escape him. Nor did Alfred look overjoyed. ”

“ I pity you from my soul—I’m rash myself. Send the surgeon to me when he has seen the fellow. Depend upon me, if the worst come to the worst, there’s nothing in the world I would not do to serve you,” said Sir Ulick: “so keep up your spirits, my boy—we’ll contrive to bring you through—at the worst, it will only be manslaughter.”
Ormond wrung Sir Ulick’s hand—thanked him for his kindness; but repeated, “it will be murder—it will be murder—my own conscience tells me so! If he die, give me up to justice.”
“You’ll think better of it before morning,” said Sir Ulick, as he left Ormond. ”

“ I don't wish you to think I'm such a ninny as to fancy a young man like Ulick is without his distractions. Only keep your Doras to yourself——" "Which Ulick can't accomplish. He shares her with Paul Godard," eagerly broke in Alfred. "No scandal please," she remonstrated. "His private affairs—the private affairs of the mercurial Paul—I confess I like Paul, he is at least well-bred—do not concern me, but what does interest me is your honest opinion of Ulick Invern's character. As he is your closest friend you are bound in honour to give him a bad black eye for my special benefit. ”

“ I mean it."
"Don't mock, Ulick. Reality is stranger than rhetoric. You are at the crossroads. Decide at once. My college, as you know, is up-country. A week's retreat will therefore be hygiene for body as well as soul. And after the retreat there is to be a Novena of the Blessed Virgin. Be with us, dear brother! You will bathe in the lustral waters and become cleansed. Born anew everything will work out for the best. Your bohemian life is your undoing. You look like a man with spinal trouble. Pardon me, is it so!" Ulick shook his head but his knees shook too. Marry Mona! ”

“ A woman's heart contains treasures of affection. Don't waste them; cynicism is worse than corrosive-sublimate. It poisons, kills your higher brain-centres. Pardon my brotherly solicitude, Ulick. I'm a bore, but right is sometimes on the side of the stupid, and victory doesn't always perch on the banners of the intellectually elect. Write Mona, Ulick, and may God bless you." He was gone, his kind face happy with the idea of having accomplished good, before Ulick could gather his wits. The ending of this afternoon seance had been a great shock to the young man. ”

“ Paul was so complacently conscious of himself that he irritated Ulick. And his dilettante attitude toward life and the Seven Arts was intolerable to Invern, who, notwithstanding his philosophy of laissez-faire, was a sincere student, one who despised the slipshod method and smattering of knowledge, the vice of the other young man.
Godard never noticed Ulick's reserved manner. He bubbled over when he met the critic as he bubbled over Lilli's Isolde, as he bubbled over Otero's dancing at Koster and Bial's. Paul admired all manifestations à la mode. His judgments were Mr. Everyman's. ”

“ Constans grew sober again. "Strange that it should be the same man, Quinton Edge, for whom we are both seeking. I can see, however, that my arrow must not leave the string until first you have had speech with him."
"But that is just what I cannot do," returned Ulick, with a frown. "It is a week now that any one has seen him, and yet neither galley nor troop has left the city since the new moon."
"He must show himself in time; we have only to wait." ”

“ The Lardners, Darrells, Dartfords, vanished, and new figures were to appear in the magic lantern at Castle Hermitage. Sir Ulick thought a few preliminary observations necessary to his ward. His opinion of Ormond’s capacity and steadiness had considerably diminished, in consequence of his various mistakes of character, and sudden changes of opinion; for Sir Ulick, with all his abilities, did not discriminate between want of understanding, and want of practice. Besides, he did not see the whole: he saw the outward boyish folly—he did not see the inward manly sense ”

“ But Uncle Ulick had not the force to do this: much less had old Timothy Burke or Sir Donny. Uncle Ulick, we know, expected little good from the rising; he was prepared for any, the worst mishap; while the faith of the older men in any change for the better was not robust enough to stand alone or to resist the first blast of doubt. ”

“ On this point Sir Ulick was particularly sore, for he had the character of being one of the greatest jobbers in Ireland. With a face of much political prudery, which he well knew how to assume, he began to exculpate himself. He confessed that much public money had passed through his hands; but he protested that none of it had stayed with him. No man, who had done so much for different administrations, had been so ill paid. ”

“ He forgot the women, said Ulick. They always gabble, even on their death bed.
Ulick adored the lunar sex, minions of the moon, subject in the profoundest tides of their being to our attendant planets' influence. Apart from his studies nothing interested him like sex. Sex is the salt of life, he had declared one night in the presence of his companions. Stone growled, but Easter gave him a long, penetrating look and he went hot and cold, and was all gooseflesh in a minute. "Presently," chimed in Stone, "you will be quoting Walt Whitman's The Woman that Waits for Me." ”

“ Besides, it stands to reason that no man likes to see his own property mishandled. You don't realize, my good fellow, that you have a fist as rough as a shark-skin."
"Your property!" echoed the boy, in disdain. "Prove it."
"Easily," smiled Quinton Edge, and drew aside the lock of hair that concealed the V-shaped nick in Constans's left ear.
"Oh!" said Ulick, shortly. He had been quick to see and interpret the appeal in his prisoner's eyes. "It makes not a particle of difference," asserted Ulick, stubbornly. "He is my captive, taken in fair fight, and he belongs to me for all of his nicked ear. ”

“ The surgeon had just arrived.
“Go on, ladies, pray,” said Sir Ulick; “what stops you?”
“‘Tis I stop the way, Sir Ulick,” said Lady O’Shane, “to speak a word to the surgeon. If you find the man in any dangerous way, for pity’s sake don’t let him die at our gardener’s—indeed, the bringing him here at all I think a very strange step and encroachment of Mr. Ormond’s. It will make the whole thing so public—and the people hereabouts are so revengeful—if any thing should happen to him, it will be revenged on our whole family—on Sir Ulick in particular.” ”

“ A considerable tract of Sir Ulick’s coast estate, in consequence of this, remained untenanted. Some person in whom he could confide must be selected to inhabit the fishing-lodge, and to take care of the cabins and land till they should be relet. Sir Ulick pitched upon Moriarty Carroll for this purpose, and promised him such liberal reward, that all Moriarty’s friends congratulated him upon his “great luck in getting the appointment, against the man, too, that Mr. Marcus had proposed and favoured.” ”

“ Barky was frankly jealous of his brother’s smart soldier-like air, his knowledge of the world, his manner of speech, his well-cut clothes, and his popularity. Ulick contented himself with schooling young horses, reading, smoking, and making friends with the dogs, whom he overjoyed by taking out for many a long tramp.
One afternoon it came on to drizzle as he was approaching Foley’s corner. He turned up his collar and pulled out his pipe. Alas! he had not a match left: there was nothing for it but to run into Katty’s and ask for a sod of turf. ”

“ His last act was to cast a perfunctory glance in the direction of Arcadia House, and it seemed that his eye caught the flutter of something white. He raised the binoculars—it was true, the signal was there, a handkerchief tied to the lattice-blind of the cupola window.
Constans frowned and reflected. It was only last night that the girl had asserted her entire ability to look after herself—it was like a woman to be so soon of another mind. And there was Ulick—Ulick who would have shed the last drop in his veins to serve her. ”

“ He, Ulick, had captured him alone and unaided; surely such an exploit deserved recognition, and Ulick de [Pg 80] sired to keep the prisoner as his own property. Could he do so, no matter what claim might be urged against his right?
The old man listened, and looked at Constans indifferently. Then he spoke in the inflectionless monotone of extreme old age:
"A House-dweller and a snake, my son—crush them when you can, for the woods are full of shadows, and a man cannot always see where to plant his foot. I have lived very long, and I know." ”

“ Alfred gave him two chilly fingers. "You here"? Ulick asked. "Yes," replied Milt. "I am home for a week, the Easter holidays, you know," "And he isn't ashamed to sit in a café with his collar buttoned behind," Stoned jeered. "Now, Alfred, what nonsense. On the continent even the clergy go to public places, such as concerts, opera, and restaurants. We must eat and drink like other men. Look at Mgr. Ducey. He is a man of the world, yet an irreproachable ecclesiastic," Alfred sniffed. Ulick didn't dare to ask news of Mona. ”

“ Finite creatures must love their creator. The act of worship constitutes their salvation." Again Ulick groaned. "What has your religion to do with my projected books"? He was getting impatient at the airs of amateur omniscience assumed by the other. They went to Ulick's chamber.
Milt's eye roved over the books on a dozen shelves. "Ah! Here are your gods. Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Maurice Barrès—how I loathe that metaphysical dandy!—Nietzsche, unfortunate madman, Ibsen, Max Stirner, William Blake, another lunatic—a nice gang of mind-poisoners. ”

“ As they went away Ulick overheard Lilli say: "Yes, very effective. Cold temperament. Brilliant, but hard. She will push herself." He quickly glanced at the girl, who acted as if she hadn't heard this frank criticism. The enthusiasm which was like a halo when she had entered the presence of La Diva had quite disappeared. She was composed when she parted, after thanking Madame Lehmann for her kindness. Then and there Ulick made note that whenever anyone was polite to Easter she assumed a patronizing air. You can't have too much pride, advises Nietzsche. Ulick doubted the soundness of this axiom. ”