Ormond was wakened at the proper hour — went immediately to ——‘s bank. It was but just open, and beginning to do business. He had never been there before — his person was not known to any of the firm. He entered a long narrow room, so dark at the entrance from the street that he could at first scarcely see what was on either side of him — a clerk from some obscure nook, and from a desk higher than himself, put out his head, with a long pen behind his ear, and looked at Ormond as he came in. “Pray, sir, am I right? — Is this Mr. ——‘s bank?”

“Yes, sir.”

With mercantile economy of words, and a motion of his head, the clerk pointed out to Ormond the way he should go — and continued casting up his books. Ormond walked down the narrow aisle, and it became light as he advanced towards a large window at the farther end, before which three clerks sat at a table opposite to him. A person stood with his back to Ormond, and was speaking earnestly to one of the clerks, who leaned over the table listening. Just as Ormond came up he heard his own name mentioned — he recollected the voice — he recollected the back of the figure — the very bottle-green coat — it was Patrickson — Ormond stood still behind him, and waited to hear what was going on.

“Sir,” said the clerk, “it is a very sudden order for a very large sum.”

“True, sir — but you see my power — you know Mr. Ormond’s handwriting, and you know Sir Ulick O’Shane’s —”

“Mr. James,” said the principal clerk, turning to one of the others, “be so good to hand me the letters we have of Mr. Ormond. As we have never seen the gentleman sign his name, sir, it is necessary that we should be more particular in comparing.”

“Oh! sir, no doubt — compare as much as you please — no doubt people cannot be too exact and deliberate in doing business.”

“It certainly is his signature,” said the clerk.

“I witnessed the paper,” said Patrickson.

“Sir, I don’t dispute it,” replied the clerk; “but you cannot blame us for being cautious when such a very large sum is in question, and when we have no letter of advice from the gentleman.”

“But I tell you I come straight from Mr. Ormond; I saw him last Tuesday at Paris —”

“And you see him now, sir,” said Ormond, advancing.

Patrickson’s countenance changed beyond all power of control.

“Mr. Ormond! — I thought you were at Paris.”

“Mr. Patrickson! — I thought you were at Havre de Grace — what brought you here so suddenly?”

“I acted for another,” hesitated Patrickson: “I therefore made no delay.”

“And, thank Heaven!” said Ormond, “I have acted for myself! — but just in time! — Sir,” continued he, addressing himself to the principal clerk, “Gentlemen, I have to return you my thanks for your caution — it has actually saved me from ruin — for I understand —”

Ormond suddenly stopped, recollecting that he might injure Sir Ulick O’Shane essentially by a premature disclosure, or by repeating a report which might he ill-founded.

He turned again to speak to Patrickson, but Patrickson had disappeared.

Then continuing to address himself to the clerks. “Gentlemen,” said Ormond, speaking carefully, “have you heard any thing of or from Sir Ulick O’Shane lately, except what you may have heard from this Mr. Patrickson?”

“Not from but of Sir Ulick O’Shane we heard from our Dublin correspondent — in due course we have heard,” replied the head clerk. “Too true, I am afraid, sir, that his bank had come to paying in sixpences on Saturday.”

The second clerk seeing great concern in Ormond’s countenance, added, “But Sunday, you know, is in their favour, sir; and Monday and Tuesday are holidays: so they may stand the run, and recover yet.”

With the help of this gentleman’s thirty thousand, they might have recovered, perhaps — but Mr. Ormond would scarcely have recovered it.

As to the ten thousand pounds in the Three per Cents., of which Sir Ulick had obtained possession a month ago, that was irrecoverable, if his bank should break —“If.”— The clerks all spoke with due caution; but their opinion was sufficiently plain. They were honestly indignant against the guardian who had thus attempted to ruin his ward.

Though almost stunned and breathless with the sense of the danger he had so narrowly escaped, yet Ormond’s instinct of generosity, if we may use the expression, and his gratitude for early kindness, operated; he would not believe that Sir Ulick had been guilty of a deliberate desire to injure him. At all events, he determined that, instead of returning to France, as he had intended, he would go immediately to Ireland, and try if it were possible to assist Sir Ulick, without materially injuring himself.

Having ordered horses, he made inquiry wherever he thought he might obtain information with respect to the Annalys. All that he could learn was, that they were at some sea-bathing place in the south of England, and that Miss Annaly was still unmarried. A ray of hope darted into the mind of our hero — and he began his journey to Ireland with feelings which every good and generous mind will know how to appreciate.

He had escaped at Paris from a temptation which it was scarcely possible to resist. He had by decision and activity preserved his fortune from ruin — he had under his protection an humble friend, whom he had saved from banishment and disgrace, and whom he hoped to restore to his wretched wife and family. Forgetful of the designs that had been meditated against him by his guardian, to whose necessities he attributed his late conduct, he hastened to his immediate assistance; determined to do every thing in his power to save Sir Ulick from ruin, if his difficulties arose from misfortune, and not from criminality: if, on the contrary, he should find that Sir Ulick was fraudulently a bankrupt, he determined to quit Ireland immediately, and to resume his scheme of foreign travel.

The system of posting had at this time been carried to the highest perfection in England. It was the amusement and the fashion of the time, to squander large sums in hurrying from place to place, without any immediate motive for arriving at the end of a journey, but that of having the satisfaction of boasting in what a short time it had been performed; or, as it is expressed in one of our comedies, “to enter London like a meteor, with a prodigious tail of dust.”

Moriarty Carroll, who was perched upon the box with Ormond’s servant, made excellent observations wherever he went. His English companion could not comprehend how a man of common sense could be ignorant of various things, which excited the wonder and curiosity of Moriarty. Afterwards, however, when they travelled in Ireland, Moriarty had as much reason to be surprised at the impression which Irish manners and customs made upon his companion. After a rapid journey to Holyhead, our hero found to his mortification that the packet had sailed with a fair wind about half an hour before his arrival.

Notwithstanding his impatience, he learned that it was impossible to overtake the vessel in a boat, and that he must wait for the sailing of the next day’s packet.

Fortunately, however, the Lord–Lieutenant’s secretary arrived from London at Holyhead time enough for the tide; and as he had an order from the post-office for a packet to sail whenever he should require it, the intelligent landlord of the inn suggested to Ormond that he might probably obtain permission from the secretary to have a berth in this packet.

Ormond’s manner and address were such as to obtain from the good-natured secretary the permission he required; and, in a short time, he found himself out of sight of the coast of Wales. During the beginning of their voyage the motion of the vessel was so steady, and the weather so fine, that every body remained on deck; but on the wind shifting and becoming more violent, the landsmen soon retired below decks, and poor Moriarty and his English companion slunk down into the steerage, submitting to their fate. Ormond was never sea-sick; he walked the deck, and enjoyed the admirable manoeuvring of the vessel. Two or three naval officers, and some other passengers, who were used to the sea, and who had quietly gone to bed during the beginning of the voyage, now came from below, to avoid the miseries of the cabin. As one of these gentlemen walked backwards and forwards upon deck, he eyed our hero from time to time with looks of anxious curiosity — Ormond perceiving this, addressed the stranger, and inquired from him whether he had mistaken his looks, or whether he had any wish to speak to him. “Sir,” said the stranger, “I do think that I have seen you before, and I believe that I am under considerable obligations to you — I was supercargo to that vessel that was wrecked on the coast of Ireland, when you and your young friend exerted yourselves to save the vessel from plunder. After the shipwreck, the moment I found myself on land, I hastened to the neighbouring town to obtain protection and assistance. In the mean time, your exertions had saved a great deal of our property, which was lodged in safety in the neighbourhood. I had procured a horse in the town to which I had gone, and had ridden back to the shore with the utmost expedition. Along with the vessel which had been shipwrecked there had sailed another American sloop. We were both bound from New York to Bourdeaux. In the morning after the shipwreck, our consort hove in sight of the wreck, and sent a boat on shore, to inquire what had become of the crew, and of the cargo, but they found not a human creature on the shore, except myself. The plunderers had escaped to their hiding~places, and all the rest of the inhabitants had accompanied the poor young gentleman, who had fallen a sacrifice to his exertions in our favour.

“It was of the utmost consequence to my employers, that I should arrive as soon as possible at Bourdeaux, to give an account of what had happened. I therefore, without hesitation, abandoned my horse, with its bridle and saddle, and I got on board the American vessel without delay. In my hurry I forgot my great coat on the shore, a loss which proved extremely inconvenient to me — as there were papers in the pockets which might be necessary to produce before my employers.

“I arrived safely at Bourdeaux, settled with my principals to their satisfaction, and I am now on my way to Ireland, to reclaim such part of my property, and that of my employers, as was saved from the savages who pillaged us in our distress.”— This detail, which was given with great simplicity and precision, excited considerable interest among the persons upon the deck of the packet. Moriarty, who was pretty well recovered from his sickness, was now summoned upon deck. Ormond confronted him with the American supercargo, but neither of them had the least recollection of each other. “And yet,” said Ormond to the American, “though you do not know this man, he is at this moment under sentence of transportation for having robbed you, and he very narrowly escaped being hanged for your murder. A fate from which he was saved by the patience and sagacity of the judge who tried him.”

Moriarty’s surprise was expressed with such strange contortions of delight, and with a tone, and in a phraseology, so peculiarly his own, as to astonish and entertain the spectators. Among these was the Irish secretary, who, without any application being made to him, promised Moriarty to procure for him a free pardon.

On Ormond’s landing in Dublin, the first news he heard, and it was repeated a hundred times in a quarter of an hour, was that “Sir Ulick O’Shane was bankrupt — that his bank shut up yesterday.” It was a public calamity, a source of private distress, that reached lower and farther than any bankruptcy had ever done in Ireland. Ormond heard of it from every tongue, it was written in every face — in every house it was the subject of lamentation, of invective. In every street, poor men, with ragged notes in their hands, were stopping to pore over the names at the back of the notes, or hurrying to and fro, looking up at the shop-windows for “half price given here for O’Shane’s notes.” Groups of people, of all ranks, gathered — stopped — dispersed, talking of Sir Ulick O’Shane’s bankruptcy — their hopes — their fears — their losses — their ruin — their despair — their rage. Some said it was all owing to Sir Ulick’s shameful extravagance: “His house in Dublin, fit for a duke! — Castle Hermitage full of company to the last week — balls — dinners — the most expensive luxuries — scandalous!”

Others accused Sir Ulick’s absurd speculations. Many pronounced the bankruptcy to be fraudulent, and assert............