“Be kind and indulgent to your daughter, for she'll soon make all your fortunes; an' take care of her and yourselves till I see yez again.”
As before, he gave them no further opportunity of asking for explanations, but immediately departed; and as if he had been moved by some new impulse or afterthought, he directed his steps once more to the Grange, where he saw young Henderson, with whom he had another private interview, of the purport of which our readers may probably form a tolerably accurate conjecture.
M'Gowan's mind, at this period of our narrative, was busily engaged in arranging his plans—for we need scarcely add here, that whether founded on justice or not, he had more than one ripening. Still there preyed upon him a certain secret anxiety, from which, by no effort, could he succeed in ridding himself. The disappearance of the Tobacco-box kept him so ill at ease and unhappy, that he resolved, on his way home, to make a last effort at finding it out, if it could be done; and many a time did he heartily curse his own stupidity for ever having suffered it to remain in his house or about it, especially when it was so easy to destroy it. His suspicions respecting it most certainly rested upon. Nelly, whom he now began to regard with a feeling of both hatred and alarm. Sarah, he knew, had little sympathy with him; but then he also knew that there existed less in common between her and Nelly. He thought, therefore, that his wisest plan would be to widen the breach of ill-feeling between them more and more, and thus to secure himself, if possible, of Sarah's co-operation and confidence, if not from affection or good feeling towards himself, at least from ill-will towards her step-mother. For this reason, therefore, as well as for others of equal, if not of more importance, he came to the determination of taking, to a certain extent, Sarah into his confidence, and thus making not only her quickness and activity, but her impetuosity and resentments, useful to his designs. It was pretty late that night, when he reached home; and, as he had devoted the only portion of his time that remained between his arrival and bed-time, to a description of the unsettled state of the country, occasioned by what were properly called the Famine Outrages, that were then beginning to take place, he made no allusion to anything connected with his projects, to either Nelly or his daughter, the latter of whom, by the way, had been out during the greater part of the evening. The next morning, however, he asked her to take a short stroll with him along the river, which she did; and both returned, after having had at least an hour's conversation—Sarah, with a flushed cheek and indignant eye, and her father, with his brow darkened, and his voice quivering from suppressed resentment; so that, so far as observation went, their interview and communication had not been very agreeable on either side. After breakfast, Sarah put on her cloak and bonnet, and was about to go out, when her father said—
“Pray, ma'am, where are you goin' now?”
“It doesn't signify,” she replied; “but at all events you needn't ax me, for I won't tell you.”
“What kind of answer is that to give me? Do you forget that I'm your father?”
“I wish I could; for indeed I am sorry you are.”
“Oh, you know,” observed Nelly, “she was always a dutiful girl—always a quiet good crathur. Why, you onbiddable sthrap, what kind o' an answer is that to give to your father?”
Ever since their stroll that morning, Sarah's eyes had been turned from time to time upon her step-mother with flash after flash of burning indignation, and now that she addressed her, she said—
“Woman, you don't know how I scorn you! Oh, you mane an' wicked wretch, had you no pride during all your life! It's but a short time you an' I will be undher the same roof together—an' so far as I am consarned, I'll not stoop ever to bandy abuse or ill tongue with you again. I know only one other person that is worse an' meaner still than you are—an' there, I am sorry to say, he stands in the shape of my father.”
She walked out of the cabin with a flushed check, and a step that was full of disdain, and a kind of natural pride that might almost be termed dignity. Both felt rebuked; and Nelly, whose face got blanched and pale at Sarah's words, now turned upon the Prophet with a scowl.”
“Would it be possible,” said she, “that you'd dare to let out anything to that madcap?”
“Now,” said he, “that the coast is clear, I desire you to answer me a question that I'll put to you—an' mark my words—by all that s above us, an' undher us, an' about us, if you don't spake thruth, I'll be apt to make short work of it.”
“What is it?” she inquired, looking at him with cool and collected resentment, and an eye that was perfectly fearless.
“There was a Tobaccy-Box about this house, or in this house. Do you know anything about it?”
“A tobaccy-box—is it?”
“Ay, a tobaccy-box.”
“Well, an' what about it? What do you want wid it? An ould, rusty Tobaccy-box; musha, is that what's throublin' you this mornin'?”
“Come,” said he darkening, “I'll have no humbuggin'—answer me at wanst. Do you know anything about it?”
“Is it about your ould, rusty Tobaccy-box? Arrah, what 'ud I know about it? What the sorra would a man like you do wid a Tobaccy-box, that doesn't ever smoke? Is it mad or ravin' you are? Somehow I think the stroll you had wid the vagabone gipsy of a daughter of yours, hasn't put you into the best of timper, or her aither. I hope you didn't act the villain on me: for she looks at me as if she could ait me widout salt. But, indeed, she's takin' on her own hands finely of late; she's gettin' too proud to answer me now when I ax her a question.”
“Well, why don't you ax her as you ought?”
“She was out all yesterday evenin', and when I said 'You idle sthrap, where wor you?' she wouldn't even think it worth her while to give me an answer, the vagabone.”
“Do you give me one in the manetime. What about the Box I want? Spake the truth, if you regard your health.”
“I know nothing about your box, an' I wish I could say as much of yourself. However, I won't long trouble you, that I can tell you—ay, an' her too. She needn't fear that I'll be long undher the same roof wid her. I know, any way, I wouldn't be safe. She would only stick me in one of her fits, now that she's able to fight me.”
“Now, Nelly,” said the Prophet, deliberately shutting the door, “I know you to be a hardened woman, that has little fear in your heart. I think you know me, too, to be a hardened and a determined man. There, now, I have shut an' boulted the door an' by Him that made me, you'll never lave this house, nor go out of that door a livin' woman, unless you tell me all you know about that Tobaccy-Box. Now you know my mind an' my coorse—act as you like now.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Do you think to frighten me?” she asked, laughing derisively. “Me!—oh, how much you're mistaken, if you think so! Not that I don't believe you to be dangerous, an' a man that one ought to fear; but I have no fear of you.”
“Answer me quickly,” he replied—and as he spoke, he seized the very same knife from which she had so narrowly escaped in her conflict with Sarah—“answer me, I say; an' mark, I have no reason to wish you alive.”
And as he spoke, the glare in his eyes flashed and became fearful.
“Ah,” said she, “there's your daughter's look an' the same knife, too, that was near doin' for me wanst. Well, don't think that it's fear makes me say what I'm goin' to say; but that's the same knife; an' besides I dhramed last night that I was dressed in a black cloak—an' a black cloak, they say, is death! Ay, death—an' I know I'm not fit to die, or to meet judgment, an' you know that too. Now, then, tell me what it is you want wid the Box.”
“No,” he replied, sternly and imperatively, “I'll tell you nothing about it; but get it at wanst, before my passion rises higher and deadlier.”
“Well, then, mark me, I'm not afeard of you—but I have the box.”
“An' how did you come by it?” he asked.
“Sarah was lookin' for a cobweb to stop the blood where she cut me in our fight the other day, an' it came tumblin' out of a cranny in the wall.”
“An' where is it now?”
“I'll get it for you,” she replied; “but you must let me out first.”
“Why so?”
“Because it's not in the house.”
“An' where is it? Don't think you'll escape me.”
“It's in the thatch o' the roof.”
The Prophet deliberately opened the door, and catching her by the shoulder, held her prisoner, as it were, until she should make her words good. The roof was but low, and she knew the spot too well to make any mistake about it.
“Here,” said she, “is the cross I scraped on the stone undher the place.”
She put up her hand as she spoke, and searched the spot—but in vain. There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless—it had disappeared.
The astonishment of the Prophet's wife on discovering that the Tobacco-box had been removed from the place of its concealment was too natural to excite any suspicion of deceit or falsehood on her part, and he himself, although his disappointment was dreadful on finding that it had disappeared, at once perceived that she had been perfectly ignorant of its removal. With his usual distrust and want of confidence, however, he resolved to test her truth a little further, lest by any possibility she might have deceived him.
“Now, Nelly,” said he sternly, “mark me—is this the way you produce the box? You acknowledge that you had it—that you hid it even—an' now, when I tell you I want it, an' that it may be a matther of life an' death to me—you purtend its gone, an' that you know nothing about it—I say again, mark me well—produce the box!”
“Here,” she replied, chafed and indignant as well at its disappearance as at the obstinacy of his suspicions—“here's my throat—dash your knife into it, if you like—but as for the box, I tell you, that although I did put it in there, you know as much about it now as I do.”
“Well,” said he, “for wanst I believe you—but mark me still—this box munt be gotten, an' it's to you I'll look for it. That's all—you know me.”
“Ay,” she replied, “I know you.”
“Eh—what do you mane by that?” he asked—“what do you know? come now; I say, what do you know?”
“That you're a hardened and a bad man:—oh! you needn't brandish your knife—nor your eyes needn't blaze up that way, like your daughter's,” she added, “except that you're hard an' dark, and widout one spark o' common feelin', I know nothin' particularly wicked about you—but, at the same time, I suspect enough.”
“What do you suspect, you hardened vagabond?”
“It doesn't matther what I suspect,” she answered; “only I think you'd have bad heart for anything—so go about your business, for I want to have nothing more either to do or say to you—an' I wish to glory I had been always of that way o' thinkin', a chiernah!—many a scalded heart I'd a missed that I got by you.”
She then walked into the cabin, and the Prophet slowly followed her with his fixed, doubtful and suspicious eye, after which he flung the knife on the threshold, and took his way, in a dark and disappointed mood, towards Glendhu.
It is impossible for us here to detail the subject matter of his reflections, or to intimate to our readers how far his determination to bring Condy Dalton to justice originated in repentance for having concealed his knowledge of the murder, or in some other less justifiable state of feeling. At this moment, indeed, the family of the Daltons wore in anything but a position to bear the heavy and terrible blow which was about to fail upon them. Our readers cannot forget the pitiable state in which we left them, during that distressing crisis of misery, when the strange woman arrived with the oat-meal, which the kind-hearted Mave Sullivan had so generously sent them. On that melancholy occasion her lover complained of being ill, and, unfortunately, the symptoms were, in this instance, too significant of the malady which followed them. Indeed, it would be an infliction of unnecessary pain to detail here the sufferings which this unhappy family had individually and collectively borne. Young Condy, after a fortnight's prostration from typhus fever, was again upon his legs, tottering about, as his father had been, in a state of such helplessness between want of food on the one hand, and illness on the other, as it is distressing even to contemplate. If, however, the abstract consideration of it, even at a distance, be a matter of such painful retrospect to the mind, what must not the actual endurance of that and worse have been to the thousands upon thousands of families who were obliged, by God's mysterious dispensation, to encounter these calamities in all their almost incredible and hideous reality.
At this precise period, the state of the country was frightful beyond belief; for it is well known that the mortality of the season we are describing was considerably greater than that which even cholera occasioned in its worst and most malignant ravages. Indeed, the latter was not attended by such a tedious and lingering train of miseries as that, which in so many woful shapes, surrounded typhus fever. The appearance of cholera was sudden, and its operations quick, and although, on that account, it was looked upon with tenfold terror, yet for this very reason, the consequences which it produced were by no means so full of affliction and distress, nor presented such strong and pitiable claims on human aid and sympathy as did those of typhus. In the one case, the victim was cut down by a sudden stroke, which occasioned a shock or moral paralysis both to himself and the survivors—especially to the latter—that might, be almost said to neutralize its own inflictions. In the other, the approach was comparatively so slow and gradual, that all the sympathies and afflictions were allowed full and painful time to reach the utmost limits of human suffering, and to endure the wasting series of those struggles and details which long illness, surrounded by destitution and affliction, never fails to inflict. In the cholera, there was no time left to feel—the passions were wrenched and stunned by a blow, which was over, one may say, before it could be perceived; while in the wide-spread but more tedious desolation of typhus, the heart was left to brood over the thousand phases of love and misery which the terrible realities of the one, joined to the alarming exaggerations of the other, never failed to present. In cholera, a few hours, and all was over; but in the awful fever which then prevailed, there was the gradual approach—the protracted illness—the long nights of racking pain—day after day of raging torture—and the dark period of uncertainty when the balance of human life hangs in the terrible equilibrium of suspense—all requiring the exhibition of constant attention—of the eye whose affection never sleeps—the ear that is deaf only to every sound but the moan of pain—the touch whose tenderness is felt as a solace, so long as suffering itself is conscious—the pressure of the aching head—the moistening of the parched and burning lips—and the numerous and indescribable offices of love and devotedness, which always encompass, or should encompass, the bed of sickness and of death. There was, we say, all this, and much more than the imagination itself, unaided by a severe acquaintance with the truth, could embody in its gloomiest conceptions.
In fact, Ireland during the season, or rather the year, we are describing, might be compared to one vast lazar-house filled with famine, disease and death. The very skies of Heaven were hung with the black drapery of the grave; for never since, nor within the memory of man before it, did the clouds present shapes of such gloomy and funereal import. Hearses, coffins, long funeral processions, and all the dark emblems of mortality were reflected, as it were, on the sky, from the terrible work of pestilence and famine, which was going forward on the earth beneath them. To all this, the thunder and lightning too, were constantly adding their angry peals, and flashing, as if uttering the indignation of Heaven against our devoted people; and what rendered such fearful manifestations ominous and alarming to the superstitious, was the fact of their occurrence in the evening and at night—circumstances which are always looked upon With unusual terror and dismay.
To any person passing through the country, such a combination of startling and awful appearances was presented as has probably never been witnessed since. Go where you might, every object reminded you of the fearful desolation that was progressing around you. The features of the people were gaunt, their eyes wild and hollow, and their gait feeble and tottering. Pass through the fields, and you were met by little groups bearing home on their shoulders, and that with difficulty, a coffin, or perhaps two of them. The roads were literally black with funerals, and as you passed along from parish to parish, the death-bells were pealing forth, in slow but dismal tones, the gloomy triumph which pestilence was achieving over the face of our devoted country—a country that each successive day filled with darker desolation and deeper mourning.
Nor was this all. The people had an alarmed and unsettled aspect; and whether you met them as individuals or crowds, they seemed, when closely observed, to labor under some strong and insatiable want that rendered them almost reckless. The number of those who were reduced to mendicancy was incredible, and if it had not been for the extraordinary and unparalleled exertions of the clergy of all creeds, medical, men, and local committees, thousands upon thousands would have perished of disease or hunger on the highways. Many, indeed, did so perish; and it was no unusual sight to meet the father and mother, accompanied by their children, going they knew not whither, and to witness one or other of them lying down on the road side; and well were they off who could succeed in obtaining a sheaf of straw, on which, as a luxury, to lay down their aching head, that was never more to rise from it, until borne, in a parish shell, to a shallow and hasty grave.
Temporary sheds were also erected on the road sides, or near them, containing fever-stricken patients, who had no other-home; and when they were released, at last, from their sorrows, nothing was more common than to place the coffin on the road side also, with a plate on the lid of it, in order to solicit, from those who passed, such aid as they could afford to the sick or starving survivors.
That, indeed, was the trying and melancholy period in which all the lingering traces of self-respect—all recollection of former independence—all sense of modesty was cast to the winds. Under the terrible pressure of the complex destitution which prevailed, everything like shame was forgotten, and it was well known that whole families, who had hitherto been respectable and independent, were precipitated, almost at once, into all the common cant of importunity and clamor during this frightful struggle between life and death. Of the truth of this, the scenes which took place at the public Soup Shops, and other appointed places of relief, afforded melancholy proof. Here were wild crowds, ragged, sickly, and wasted away to skin and bone, struggling for the dole of charity, like so many hungry vultures about the remnant of some carcase which they were tearing, amid noise, and screams, and strife, into very shreds; for, as we have said, all sense of becoming restraint and shame was now abandoned, and the timid girl, or modest mother of a family, or decent farmer, goaded by the same wild and tyrannical cravings, urged their claims with as much turbulent solicitation and outcry, as if they had been trained, since their very infancy, to all the forms of impudent cant and imposture.
This, our readers will admit, was a most deplorable state of things; but, unfortunately, we cannot limit the truth of our descriptions to the scenes we have just attempted to portray. The misery which prevailed, as it had more than one source, so had it more than one aspect. There were, in the first place, studded over the country, a vast number of strong farmers with bursting granaries and immense haggards, who, without coming under the odious denomination of misers or mealmongers, are in the habit of keeping up their provisions, in large quantities, because they can afford to do so, until a year of scarcity arrives, when they draw upon their stock precisely when famine and prices are both at their highest. In addition to these, there was another still viler class; we mean the hard-hearted and well known misers—men who, at every time, and in every season, prey upon the distress and destitution of the poor, and who can never look upon a promising spring or an abundant harvest, without an inward sense of ingratitude against God for his goodness, or upon a season of drought, or a failing crop, unless with a thankful feeling of devotion for the approaching calamity.
During such periods, and under such circumstances, these men—including those of both classes—and the famished people, in general, live and act under antagonistic principles. Hunger, they say, will break through stone walls, and when we reflect, that in addition to this irresistible stimulus, we may add a spirit of strong prejudice and resentment against these heartless persons, it is not surprising that the starving multitudes should, in the ravening madness of famine, follow up its outrageous impulses, and forget those legal restraints, or moral principles, that protect property under ordinary or different circumstances. It was just at this precise period, therefore, that the people, impelled by hunger and general misery, began to burst out into that excited stupefaction which is, we believe, peculiar to famine riots. And what rendered them still more exasperated than they probably would have been, was the long lines of provision carts which met or intermingled with the funerals on the public thoroughfares, while on their way to the neighboring harbors, for exportation. Such, indeed, was the extraordinary fact! Day after day, vessels laden with Irish provisions, drawn from a population perishing with actual hunger, as well as with the pestilence which it occasioned, were passing out of our ports, while, singular as it may seem, other vessels came in freighted with our own provisions, sent back through the charity of England to our relief.
It is not our business, any more than it is our inclination, to dwell here upon the state of those sumptuary enactments, which reflected such honor upon the legislative wisdom, that permitted our country to arrive at the lamentable condition we have attempted to describe. We merely mention the facts, and leave to those who possess position and ability, the task of giving to this extraordinary state of things a more effectual attention. Without the least disposition, however, to defend or justify any violation of the laws, we may be permitted to observe, that the very witnessing of such facts as these, by destitute and starving multitudes, was in itself such a temptation to break in upon the provisions thus transmitted, as it was scarcely within the strength of men, furious with famine, to resist. Be this as it may, however, it is our duty as a faithful historian to state, that at the present period of our narrative, the famine riots had begun to assume something of an alarming aspect. Several carts had been attacked and pillaged, some strong farmers had been visited, and two or three misers were obliged to become benevolent with rather a bad grace. At the head of these parties were two persons mentioned in these pages; to wit, Thomas Dalton and Red Eody Duncan, together with several others of various estimation and character; some of them, as might be naturally expected, the most daring and turbulent spirits in the neighborhood.
Such, then, was the miserable state of things in the country at that particular period. The dreadful typhus was now abroad in all his deadly power, accompanied, on this occasion, as he always is among the Irish, by a panic which invested him with tenfold terrors. The moment fever was ascertained, or even supposed to visit a family, that moment the infected persons were avoided by their neighbors and friends, as if they carried death, as they often did, about them; so that its presence occasioned all the usual interchanges of civility and good neighborhood to be discontinued. Nor should this excite our wonder, inasmuch as this terrific scourge, though unquestionably an epidemic, was also ascertained to be dangerously and fatally contagious. None, then, but persons of extraordinary moral strength, or possessing powerful impressions of religious duty, had courage to enter the houses of the sick or dead, for the purpose of rendering to the afflicted those offices of humanity which their circumstances required; if we except only their nearest relatives, or those who lived in the same family.
Having thus endeavored to give what we feel to be but a faint picture of the state of the kingdom at large in this memorable year, we beg our readers to accompany us once more to the cabin of our moody and mysterious friend, the Black Prophet.
Evening was now tolerably far advanced; Donnel Dhu sat gloomily, as usual, looking into the fire, with no agreeable aspect; while on the opposite side sat Nelly, as silent and nearly as gloomy-looking as himself. Every now and then his black, piercing eye would stray over to her, as if in a state of abstraction, and again with that undetermined kind of significance which made it doubtful whether the subject-matter of his cogitations was connected with her at all or not. In this position were they placed when Sarah entered the cabin, and throwing aside her cloak, seated herself in front of the fire, something about halfway between each. She also appeared moody; and if one could judge by her countenance, felt equally disposed to melancholy or ill-temper.
“Well, madam,” said her father, “I hope it's no offence to ask you where you have been sportin' yourself since? I suppose you went to see Charley Hanlon; or, what is betther, his masther, young Dick o' the Grange?”
“No,” she replied, “I did not. Charley Hanlon! Oh, no!”
“Well, his masther?”
“Don't vex me—don't vex me,” she replied, abruptly; “I don't wish to fight about nothing, or about thrifles, or to give bad answers; but still, don't vex me, I say.”
“There's something in the wind now,” observed Nelly; “she's gettin' fast into one o' her tantrums. I know it by her eyes; she'd as soon whale me now as cry; and she'd jist as soon cry as whale me. Oh! my lady, I know you. Here, at any rate, will you have your supper?”
The resentment which had been gathering at Nelly's coarse observations, disappeared the moment the question as to supper had been put to her.
“Oh! why don't you,” she said; “and why didn't you always spake to me in a kind voice?”
“But about young Dick,” said the suspicious prophet; “did you see him since?”
“No,” she replied, calmly and thoughtfully; but, as if catching, by reflection, the base import of the query, she replied, in a loud and piercing voice, rendered at once full and keen by indignation. “No! I say, an' don't dare to suspect me of goin' to Dick o' the Grange, or any sich profligate.”
“Hollo! there's a breeze!” After a pause, “You won't bate us, I hope. Then, madame, where were you?”
Short as was the period that had passed since her reply and the putting of this last question, she had relapsed or fallen into a mood of such complete abstraction, that she heard him not. With her naturally beautiful and taper hand under her still more finely chiseled chin, she sat looking, in apparent sorrow and perplexity, into the fire, and while so engaged, she sighed deeply two or three times.
“Never mind her, man,” said Nelly; “let her alone, an' don't draw an ould house on our heads. She has had a fight with Charley Hanlon, I suppose; maybe he has refused to marry her, if he ever had any notion of it—which I don't think he had.”
Sarah rose up and approaching her, said:
“What is that you wor saying? Charley Hanlon!—never name him an' me together, from this minute out. I like him well enough as an acquaintance, but never name us together as sweethearts—mark my words now. I would go any length to sarve Charley Hanlon, but I care nothin' for him beyond an acquaintance, although I did like him a little, or I thought I did.”
“Poor Charley!” exclaimed Nelly, “he'll break his heart. Arra what'll he do for a piece o' black crape to get into murnin'? eh—ha! ha! ha!”
“If you had made use of them words to me only yesterday,” she replied, “I'd punish you on the spot; but now, you unfortunate woman, you're below my anger. Say what you will or what you wish, another quarrel with you I will never have.”
“What does she mane?” said the other, looking fiercely at the Prophet; “I ax you, you traitor, what she manes?”
“Ay, an' you'll ax me till you're hoarse, before you get an answer,” he replied.
“You're a dark an' deep villain,” she uttered, while her face became crimson with rage, and the veins of her neck and temples swelled out as if they would burst; “however, I tould you what your fate would be, an' that Providence was on your bloody trail. Ay did I, and you'll find it true soon.”
The Prophet rose and rushed at her; but Sarah, with the quickness of lightning, flew between them.
“Don't be so mane,” she said—“don't now, father, if you rise your hand to her I'll never sleep a night undher the roof. Why don't you separate yourself from her? Oh, no, the man that would rise his hand to sich a woman—to a woman that must have the conscience she has—especially when he could put the salt seas between himself an' her—is worse and meaner than she is. As for me, I'm lavin' this house in a day or two, for my mind's made up that the same roof won't cover us.”
“The divil go wid you an' sixpence then,” replied Nelly, disdainfully—“an' then you'll want neither money nor company; but before you go, I'd thank you to tell me what has become o' the ould Tobaccy Box, that you pulled out o' the wall the other day. I know you were lookin' for it, an' I'm sure you got it—there was no one else to take it; so before you go, tell me—unless you wish to get a knife put into me by that dark lookin' ould father of yours.”
“I know nothing about your ould box, but I wish I did.”
“That's a lie, you sthrap; you know right well where it is.”
“No,” replied her father, “she does not, when she says she doesn't. Did you ever know her to tell a lie?”
“Ay—did I—fifty.”
The Prophet rushed at her again, and again did Sarah interpose.
“You vile ould tarmagint,” he exclaimed, “you're statin' what you feel to be false when you say so; right well you know that neither you nor I, nor any one else, ever heard a lie from her lips, an' yet you have the brass to say to the contrary.”
“Father,” said Sarah, “there's but one coorse for you; as for me, my mind's made up—in this house I don't stay if she does.”
“If you'd think of what I spoke to you about,” he replied, “all would soon be right wid us; but then you're so unraisonable, an' full of foolish notions, that it's hard for me to know what to do, especially as I wish to do all for the best.”
“Well,” rejoined Sarah, “I'll spake to you again, about it; at this time I'm disturbed and unaisy in my mind; I'm unhappy—unhappy—an' I hardly knows on what hand to turn. I'm afeared I was born for a hard fate, an' that the day of my doom isn't far from me. All, father, is dark before me—my heart is, indeed, low an' full of sorrow; an' sometimes I could a'most tear any one that 'ud contradict me. Any way I'm unhappy.”
As she uttered the last words, her father, considerably surprised at the melancholy tenor of her language, looked at her, and perceived that, whilst she spoke, her large black eyes were full of distress, and swam in tears.
“Don't be a fool, Sarah,” said he, “it's not a thrifle should make any one cry in sich a world as this. If Charley Hanlon and you has quarrelled, it was only the case with thousands before you. If he won't marry you, maybe as good or better will; for sure, as the ould proverb says, there's as good fish in the say as ever was catched. In the mane time think what I said to you, an' all will be right.”
Sarah looked not at him; but whilst he spoke, she hastily dried her tears, and ere half a minute had passed, her face had assumed a firm and somewhat of an indignant expression. Little, however, did her father then dream of the surprising change which one short day had brought about in her existence, nor of the strong passions which one unhappy interview had awakened in her generous but unregulated heart.
Donnel Dhu M'Gowan's reputation as a Prophecy-man arose, in the first instance, as much on account of his mysterious pretensions to a knowledge of the quack prophecies of his day—Pastorini, Kolumbkille, &c, and such stuff—as from any pretensions he claimed to foretell the future. In the course of time, however, by assuming to be a seventh son, he availed himself of the credulity and ignorance of the people, and soon added a pretended insight into futurity to his powers of interpreting Pastorini, and all the catchpenny trash of the kind which then circulated among the people. This imposture, in course of time, produced its effect, Many, it is true, laughed at his impudent assumptions, but on the other hand, hundreds were strongly impressed with a belief in the mysterious and rhapsodical predictions which he was in the habit of uttering. Among the latter class we may reckon simple-hearted Jerry Sullivan and family, all of whom, Mave herself included, placed the most religious confidence in the oracles he gave forth. It was then with considerable agitation and a palpitating heart, that on the day following that of Donnel's visit to her father's she approached the Grey Stone, where, in the words of the prophet, she should meet “the young man who was to bring her love, wealth, and happiness, and all that a woman can wish to have with a man.” The agitation she felt, however, was the result of a depression that almost amounted to despair. Her faithful heart was fixed but upon one alone, and she knew that her meeting with any other could not, so far as she was concerned, realize the golden visions of Donnel Dhu. The words, however, could not be misunderstood; the first person she met, on the right hand side of the way, after passing the Grey Stone, was to be the individual; and when we consider her implicit belief in Donnel's prophecy, contrasted with her own impressions and the state of mind in which she approached the place, we may form a tolerably accurate notion of what she must have experienced. On arriving within two hundred yards or so of the spot mentioned, she observed in the distance, about a half mile before her, a gentleman, on horseback, approaching her at rapid speed. Her heart, on perceiving him, literally sank within her, and she felt so weak as to be scarcely able to proceed.
“Oh! what,” she at length asked herself, “would I not now give but for one glance of young Condy Dalton! But it is not to be. The unfortunate murdher of my uncle has prevented that for ever; although I can't get myself to believe that any of the Daltons ever did it; but maybe that's because I wish they didn't. The general opinion is, that his father is the man that did it. May the Lord forgive them, whoever they are, that took his life—for it was a black act to me at any rate!”
Across the road, before her, ran one of those little deep valleys, or large ravines, and into this had the horseman disappeared as she closed the soliloquy. He had not, however, at all slackened his pace, but, on the contrary, evidently increased it, as she could hear by the noise of his horse's feet. At this moment she reached the brow of the ravine, and our readers may form some conception of what she felt when, on looking down it she saw her lover, young Dalton, toiling up towards her with feeble and failing steps, while pressing after him from the bottom, came young Henderson, urging his horse with whip and spur. Her heart, which had that moment bounded with delight, now utterly failed her, on perceiving the little chance which the poor young man had of being the first to meet her, and thus fulfill the prophecy. Henderson was gaining upon him at a rapid rate, and must in a few minutes have passed him, had not woman's wit and presence of mind come to her assistance. “If he cannot run up the hill,” she said to herself, “I can run to him down it”—and as the thought occurred to her, she started towards him at her greatest speed, which indeed was considerable, as her form was of that light and elastic description which betokens great powers of activity and exertion. The struggle indeed was close; Henderson now plied whip and spur with redoubled energy, and the animal was approaching at full speed. Mave, on the other hand, urged by a thousand motives, forgot everything but the necessity of exertion. Dalton was incapable of running a step, and appeared not to know the cause of the contest between the parties. At length Mave, by her singular activity and speed reached her lover, into whose arms she actually ran, just as Henderson had come within about half a dozen yards of the spot where she met him. This effort, on the part of Mave, was in perfect accordance with the simple earnestness of her character; her youthful figure, her innocence of manner, the glow of beauty, and the crowd of blushing graces which the act developed, together with the joyous exultation of her triumph on reaching her lover's arms, and thus securing to herself and him completion of so delightful a prediction—all, when taken in at one view, rendered her being so irresistibly fascinating, that her lover could scarcely look upon the incident as a real one, but for a moment almost persuaded himself that his beloved Mave had undergone some delightful and glorious transformation—such as he had seen her assume in the dreams of his late illness.
Henderson, finding himself disappointed, now pulled up his horse and addressed her:
“Upon my word, Miss Sullivan—I believe,” he added, “I have the pleasure of addressing Jeremy Sullivan's daughter—so far famed for her beauty—I say, upon my word, Miss Sullivan, your speed outstrips the wind—those light and beautiful feet of yours scarcely touch the ground—I am certain you must dance delightfully.”
Mave again blushed, and immediately extricated herself from her lover's arms, but before she did, she felt his frame trembling with indignation at the liberty Henderson had taken in addressing her at all.
“Dalton,” the latter proceeded, unconscious of the passion he was exciting, “I cannot but envy you at all events; I would myself delight to be a winning post under such circumstances.”
Dalton looked at him, and his eye, like that of his father, when enraged, glared with a deadly light.
“Pass on, sir,” he replied; “Mave Sullivan is no girl for the like of you to address. She wishes to have no conversation with you, and she will not.”
“I shan't take your word for that, my good friend,” replied Henderson, smiling; “she can speak for herself; and will, too, I trust.”
“Dear Condy,” whispered Mave, “don't put yourself in a passion; you are too weak to bear it.”
“Miss Sullivan,” proceeded young Dick, “is a pretty girl, and as such I claim a portion of her attention, and—should she so far favor me—even of her conversation; and that with every respect for your very superior judgment, my good Mr. Dalton.”
“What is your object, now, in wishin' to spake to her?” asked the latter, looking him sternly in the face.
“I don't exactly see that I'm bound to answer your catechism,” said Dick; “it is to Miss Sullivan I would address myself. I speak to you, Miss Sullivan; and, allow me to say, that I feel a very warm interest in your welfare, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to promote it by any means in my power.”
Mave was about to reply, but Dalton anticipated her.
“The only favor you can bestow upon Miss Sullivan, as you are plaised to call her, is to pass her by,” said Dalton; “she wishes to have no intimacy nor conversation of any kind with such a noted profligate. She knows your carrechter, Mr. Henderson; or if she doesn't, I do—an' that it's as much as a daicent girl's good name is worth to be seen spakin' to you. Now, I tell you again to pass on. Don't force either yourself or your conversation upon her, if you're wise. I'm here to protect her—an' I won't see her insulted for nothing.”
“Do you mean that as a threat, my good fellow?”
“If you think it a threat, don't deserve it, an' you won't get it. If right was to take place, our family would have a heavy account to settle with you and yours; and it wouldn't be wise in you to add this to it.”
“Ha! I see—oh, I understand you, I think—more threatening—eh?”
“As I said before,” replied Dalton, “that's as you may deserve it. Your cruelty, and injustice, and oppression to our family, we might overlook; but I tell you, that if you become the means of bringin' a stain—the slightest that ever was breathed—upon the fair name of this girl, it would be a thousand times betther that you never were born.”
“Ah! indeed, Master Dalton! but in the mean time, what does Miss Sullivan herself say? We are anxious to hear your own sentiments on this matter, Miss Sullivan.”
“I would feel obliged to you to pass on, sir,” she replied; “Condy Dalton is ill, and badly able to bear sich a conversation as this.”
“Here,” said Dalton, fiercely, laying his hand upon Mave's shoulder, “if you cross my path here—or lave but a shadow of a stain, as I said, upon her name, woe betide you!”
“Your wishes are commands to me, Miss Sullivan,” replied Henderson, without noticing Dalton's denunciation in the slightest degree; “and, I trust that when we meet again, you won't be guarded by such a terrible bow-wow of a dragon as has now charge of you. Good bye! and accept my best wishes until then.”
He immediately set spurs once more to his horse, and in a few minutes had turned at the cross roads, and taken that which led to his father's house.
“It was well for him,” said Dalton, immediately after he had left them, “that I hadn't a loaded pistol in my hand—but no, dear Mave,” he added, checking himself, “the hasty temper and the hasty blow is the fault of our family, an' so far as I am consarned, I'll do everything to overcome it.”
Mave now examined him somewhat more earnestly than she had done; and although grieved at his thin and wasted appearance, yet she could not help being forcibly struck by the singular clearness and manly beauty of his features. And yet this beauty filled her heart with anything but satisfaction; for on contemplating it, she saw that it was over-shadowed by an expression of such settled sorrow and dejection, as it was impossible to look upon without the deepest compassion and sympathy.
“We had betther rest a little, dear Mave,” he said; “you must be fatigued, and so am I. Turn back a little, will you, an' let us sit upon the Grey Stone; it's the only thing in the shape of a seat that is now near us. Have you any objection?”
“None in the world,” she replied; “I'll be time enough at my uncle's, especially as I don't intend to come home to-night.”
They accordingly sauntered back, and took their seat upon a ledge of the stone in question, that almost concealed them from observation; after which the dialogue proceeded as follows:
“Condy,” observed Mave, “I was glad to hear that you recovered from the fever; but I'm sorry to see you look so ill: there is a great deal of care in your face.”
“There is, dear Mave; there is,” he replied, with a melancholy smile, “an' a great deal of care in my heart. You look thin yourself, and careworn too, dear.”
“We are not without our own struggles at home,” she replied, “as, indeed, who is now? But we had more than ourselves to fret for.”
“Who?” he asked; but on putting the question, he saw a look of such tender reproach in her eye as touched him.
“Kind heart!” he exclaimed; “kindest and best of hearts, why should I ax such a question? Surely I ought to know you. I am glad I met you, Mave, for I have many things to say to you, an' it's hard to say when I may have an opportunity again.”
“I know that is true,” said she; “but I did not expect to meet you here.”
“Mave,” he proceeded, in a voice filled with melancholy and sadness, “you acknowledged that you loved me.”
She looked at him, and that look moved him to the heart.
“I know you do love me,” he proceeded, “and now, dear Mave, the thought of that fills my heart with sorrow.”
She started slightly, and looked at him again with a good deal of surprise; but on seeing his eyes filled with tears, she also caught the contagion, and asked with deep emotion:
“Why, dear Condy? Why does my love for you make your heart sorrowful?”
“Because I have no hope,” said he—“no hope that ever you can be mine.”
Mave remained silent; for she knew the insurmountable obstacles that prevented their union; but she wept afresh.
“When I saw your father last, behind your garden, the day I struck Donnel Dhu,” Dalton proceeded, “I tould him what I then believed to be true, that my father never had a hand in your uncle's death. Mave, dear, I cannot tell a lie; nor I will not. I couldn't say as much to him now; I'm afeard that his death is on my father's sowl.”
Mave started and got pale at the words. “Great God!” she exclaimed, “don't say so, Con dear. Oh, no, no—is it your father that was always so good, an' so generous to every one that stood in need of it at his hands, an' who was also so charitable to the poor?”
“Ay,” said he, “he was charitable to the poor; but of late I've heard him say things that nobody but a man that has some great crime to answer for could or would say. I believe too that what the public says is right: that it's the hand of God Himself that's upon him an' us for that murdher.”
“But maybe,” said Mave, who still continued pale and trembling; “maybe it was accidentally afther all; a chance blow, maybe; but whatever it was, dear Con, let us spake no more about it. I am not able to listen to it; it would sicken me soon.”
“Very well, dear, we'll drop it; an' I hope I'm wrong; for I can't think, afther all, that a man with such a kind and tendher heart as my father—a pious man, too; could—” he paused a moment, and then added; “oh! no; I'm surely wrong; he never did the act. However, as we said, I'll drop it; for indeed, dear Mave, I have enough that's sorrowful and heartbreakin' to spake about, over and above that unfortunate subject.”
“I hope,” said Mave, “that there's nothing worse than your own illness; an' you know, thanks be to the Almighty, you're recoverin' fast from that.”
“My poor lovin' sister Nancy,” said he, “was laid down yesterday morning with this terrible faver; she was our chief dependence; we could stand it out no longer; I could, an' can do nothing; an' my mother this mornin'”—His tears fell so fast, and his affliction was so deep, that he was not able, for a time to proceed.
“Oh! what about her?” asked Mave, participating in his grief; “oh! what about her that every one loves?”
“She was obliged to go out this mornin',” he proceeded, “to beg openly in the face of day among the neighbors! Now, Mave Sullivan, farewell!” said he rising, while his face was crimsoned over with shame; “farewell, Mave Sullivan; all, from this minute, is over between you an' me. The son of a beggar must never become your husband; will never call you his wife; even if there was no other raison against it.”
The melancholy but lovely girl rose with him; she trembled; she blushed—and again got pale; then blushed once more; at length she spoke:
“An' is that, dear Con, all that you yet know of Mave Sullivan's heart, or the love for you that's in it? Your mother! Oh! an' is it come to that with her? But—but—do you think that even that, or anything that wouldn't be a crime in yourself; or, do you think; oh! I know not what to say; I see now, dear Con, the raison for the sorrow that's in your face; the heart-break an' the care that's there; I see, indeed, how low in spirits an' how hopeless you are; an' I see that although your eye is clear still it's heavy; heavy with hard affliction; but then, what is love, Con dear, if it's to fly away when these things come on us? Is it now, then, that you'd expect me to desert you?—to keep cool with you, or to lave you when you have no other heart to go to for any comfort but mine? Oh, no! Con dear. You own Mave Sullivan is none of these. God knows it's little comfort,” she proceeded, weeping bitterly; “it's little comfort's in my poor heart for any one; but there's one thing in it, Con, dear; that, poor as I stand here this minute; an' where, oh! where is there or could' there be a poorer girl than I am; still there's one thing in it that I wouldn't exchange for this world's wealth; an' that, that, dear Con, is my love for you! That's the love, dear Con, that neither this world nor its cares, nor its shame, nor its poverty, nor its sorrow, can ever overcome or banish; that's the love that would live with you in wealth; that would keep by your side through good and through evil; that would share your sickness; that would rejoice with you; that would grieve with you; beg with you, starve with you, an', to go where you might, die by your side. I cannot bid you to throw care and sorrow away; but if it's consolation to you to know an' to feel how your own Mave Sullivan loves you, then you have that consolation. Dear Con, I am ready to marry you, an' share your distress tomorrow; ay, this day, or this minute, if it could be done.”
There was a gentle, calm, but firm enthusiasm about her manner, which carried immediate conviction with it, and as her tears fell in silence, she bestowed a look upon her lover which fully and tenderly confirmed all that her tongue had uttered.
Both had been standing; but her lover, taking her hand, sat down, as she also did; he then turned around and pressed her to his heart; and their tears in this melancholy embrace of love and sorrow both literally mingled together.
“I would be ungrateful to God, my beloved Mave,” he replied, “and unworthy of you—and, indeed, at best I'm not worthy of you—if I didn't take hope an' courage, when I know that sich a girl Joves me; as it is, I feel my heart aisier, an' my spirits lighter; although, at the same time, dear Mave, I'm very wake, and far from being well.”
“That's bekaise this disturbance of your mind is too much for you yet—but keep your spirits up; you don't know,” she continued, smiling sweetly through her tears; “what a delightful prophecy was fulfilled for us this day—ay, awhile ago, even when I met you.”
“No,” he replied, “what was it?” She then detailed the particulars of Donnel Dhu's prediction, which she dwelt upon with a very cheerful spirit, after which she added:
“And now, Con dear, don't you think that's a sign we'll be yet happy?”
Dalton, who placed no reliance whatever on Donnel Dhu's impostures, still felt reluctant to destroy the hope occasioned by such an agreeable illusion. “Well,” he replied, “although I don't much believe in anything that ould scoundrel says; I trust, for all that, that he has tould you truth for wanst.”
“But how did you happen to come here, Con?” she asked; “to be here at the very minute, too?”
“Why,” said he, “I was desired to be the first to meet you after you passed the Grey Stone—the very one we're sittin' on—if I loved you, an' wished to sarve you.”
“But who on earth could tell you this?” she asked; “bekaise I thought no livin' bein' knew of it but myself and Donnel Dhu.”
“It was Sarah, his daughter,” said Dalton; “but when I asked her why I should come to do so, she wouldn't tell me—she said if I wished to save you from evil, or at any rate from trouble. That's a strange girl—his daughter,” he added; “she makes one do whatever she likes.”
“Isn't she very handsome?” said Mave, with an expression of admiration. “I think she's without exception, the prettiest girl I ever seen; an' her beautiful figure beats all; but somehow they say every one's afraid of her, an' durstn't vex her.”
“She examined me well yesterday, at all events,” replied Con. “I thought them broad, black, beautiful eyes of hers would look through me. Many a wager has been laid as to which is the handsomest—you or she; an' I know hundreds that 'ud give a great deal to see you both beside one another.”
“Indeed, an' she has it then,” said Mave, “far an' away, in face, in figure, an' in everything.”
“I don't think so,” he replied; “but at any rate not in everything—not in the heart, dear Mave—not in the heart.”
“They say she's kind hearted, then,” replied Mave.
“They do,” said Con, “an' I don't know how it comes; but somehow every one loves her, and every one fears her at the same time. She asked me yestherday if I thought my father murdhered Sullivan.”
“Oh! for God's sake, don't talk about it,” said Mave, again getting pale; “I can't bear to hear it spoken of.”
The Grey Stone—on a low ledge of which, nearly concealed from public view, our lovers had been sitting—was, in point of size, a very large rock of irregular size. After the last words, alluding to the murder, had been uttered, an old man, very neatly but plainly dressed, and bearing a pedlar's pack, came round from behind a projection of it, and approached them. From his position, it was all but certain that he must have overheard their whole conversation. Mave, on seeing him, blushed deeply, and Dalton himself felt considerably embarrassed at the idea that the stranger had been listening, and become acquainted with circumstances that were never designed for any other ears but their own.
The old man, on making his appearance, surveyed our lovers from head to foot with a curious and inquisitive eye—a circumstance which, taken in connection with his eaves-dropping, was not at all relished by young Dalton.
“I think you will know us again,” said he in no friendly voice. “How long have you been sittin' behind the corner there?” he inquired.
“I hope I may know yez agin,” replied the pedlar, for he was one; “I was jist long enough behind the corner to hear some of what you were spakin' about last.”
“An' what was that?” said Dalton, putting him to the test.
“You were talkin' about the murdher of one Sullivan.”
“We were,” replied Dalton; “but I'll thank you to say nothing further about it; it's disagreeable to both of us—distressin' to both of us.”
“I don't understand that,” said the old pedlar; “how can it be so to either of you, if you're not consarned in it one way or other?”
“We are, then,” said Dalton, with warmth; “the man that was killed was this girl's uncle, and the man that was supposed to take his life is my father. Maybe you understand me now?”
The blood left the cheeks of the old man, who staggered over to the ledge whereon they sat, and placed himself beside them.
“God of Heaven!” said he, with astonishment, “can this be thrue?”
“Now that you know what you do know,” said Dalton, “we'll thank you to drop the subject.”
“Well, I will,” said he; “but first, for Heaven's sake, answer me a question or two. What's your name, avick?”
“Condy Dalton.”
“Ay, Condy Dalton!—the Lord be about us! An' Sullivan—Sullivan was the name of the man that was murdhered, you say?”
“Yes, Bartley Sullivan—God rest him!”
“An' whisper—tell me—God presarve us!—was there anything done to your father, avick? What was done to him?”
“Why, he was taken up on suspicion soon afther it happened; but—but—there was nothing done: they had no proof against him, an' he was let go again.”
“Is your father alive still?”
“He is livin',” replied Dalton; “but come—pass on, ould man,” he added, bitterly; “I'll give you no more information.”
“Well, thank you, dear,” said the pedlar; “I ax your pardon for givin' you pain—an' the colleen here—ay, you're a Sullivan, then—an' a purty but sorrowful lookin' crature your are, God knows. Poor things! God pity you both an' grant you a betther fate than what appears to be before you! for I did hear a thrifle of your discoorse.”
There was something singularly benevolent and kind in the old pedlar's voice, as he uttered the last words, and he had not gone many perches from the stone, when Dalton's heart relented as he reflected on his harsh and unfriendly demeanor towards him.
“That is a good ould man,” he observed, “and I am now sorry that I spoke to him so roughly—there was kindness in his voice and in his eye as he looked upon us.”
“There was,” replied Mave, “and I think him a good ould man too. I don't think he would harm any one.”
“Dear Mave,” said Dalton, “I must now get home as soon as I can; I don't feel so well as I was—there is a chill upon me, and I'm afeared I won't have a comfortable night.”
“And I can do nothing for you!” added Mave, her eyes filling with tears.
“I didn't thank you for that lock of hair you sent me by Donnel Dhu,” he added. “It is here upon my heart, and I needn't say that if anything had happened me, or if anything should happen me, it an' that heart must go to dust together.”
“You are too much cast down,” she replied, her tears flowing fast, “an' it can't surely be otherwise; but, dear Con, let us hope for better days—an' put our trust in God's goodness.”
“Farewell, dear Mave,” he replied, “an may God bless and presarve you till I see you again!”
“An' may He send down aid to you all,” she added, “an' give consolation to your breakin' hearts!”
An embrace, long, tender, and mournful, accompanied their words, after which they separated in sorrow and in tears, and with but little hope of happiness on the path of life that lay before them.