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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine

by William Carleton · English · Gutenberg #16018 · 801,639 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine

Author: William Carleton

Illustrator: M. L. Flanery


        
Release date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16018]
                Most recently updated: December 9, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16018

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK PROPHET: A TALE OF IRISH FAMINE ***




Produced by David Widger





THE BLACK PROPHET:

A TALE OF IRISH FAMINE.


By William Carleton




CHAPTER I. -- Glendhu, or the Black Glen; Scene of Domestic Affection.


Some twenty and odd years ago there stood a little cabin at the foot
of a round hill, that very much resembled a cupola in shape, and which,
from its position and height, commanded a prospect of singular beauty.
This hill was one of a range that ran from north to southwest; but in
consequence of its standing, as it were, somewhat out of the ranks, its
whole appearance and character as a distinct feature of the country were
invested with considerable interest to a scientific eye, especially
to that of a geologist. An intersection or abrupt glen divided it from
those which constituted the range or group alluded to; through this, as
a pass in the country, and the only one for miles, wound a road into an
open district on the western side, which road, about half a mile after
its entering the glen, was met by a rapid torrent that came down from
the gloomy mountains that rose to the left. The foot of this hill, which
on the southern side was green and fertile to the top, stretched off and
was lost in the rich land that formed the great and magnificent valley
it helped to bound, and to which the chasm we have described was but an
entrance; the one bearing to the other, in size and position, much the
same relation that a small bye-lane in a country town bears to the great
leading street which constitutes its principal feature.

Noon had long passed, and the dim sun of a wet autumnal day was sloping
down towards the west through clouds and gloom, when a young girl of
about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age came out of the cabin we
have mentioned, and running up to the top of a little miniature hill or
knob that rose beside it, looked round in every direction, as if anxious
to catch a glimpse of some one whom she expected. It appeared, however,
that she watched in vain; for after having examined the country in every
direction with an eye in which might be read a combined expression of
eagerness, anger and disappointment, she once more returned to the cabin
with a slow and meditating step. This she continued to do from time
to time for about an hour and a half, when at length a female appeared
approaching, whom she at once recognized.

The situation of this hovel, for such, in fact, it must be termed,
was not only strikingly desolate, but connected also with wild and
supernatural terrors. From the position of the glen itself, a little
within which it stood, it enjoyed only a very limited portion of the
sun's cheering beams. As the glen was deep and precipitous, so was the
morning light excluded from it by the northeastern hills, as was that of
evening by those which rose between it and the west. Indeed, it would
be difficult to find a spot marked by a character of such utter solitude
and gloom. Naturally barren, it bore not a single shrub on which a bird
could sit or a beast browse, and little, of course, was to be seen in
it but the bare gigantic projections of rock which shot out of its steep
sides in wild and uncouth shapes, or the grey, rugged expanses of which
it was principally composed. Indeed, we feel it difficult to say whether
the gloom of winter or the summer's heat fell upon it with an air of
lonelier desolation. It mattered not what change of season came, the
place presented no appearance of man or his works. Neither bird or beast
was seen or heard, except rarely, within its dreary bosom, the only
sounds it knew being the monotonous murmurs of the mountain torrent, or
the wild echoes of the thunder storms that pealed among the hills about
it. Silence and solitude were the characteristics which predominated in
it and it would not be easy to say whether they were felt more during
the gloom of November or the glare of June.

In the mouth of this glen, not far from the cabin we have described, two
murders had been committed about twenty years before the period of our
narrative, within the lapse of a month. The one was that of a carman,
and the other of a man named Sullivan, who also had been robbed, as it
was supposed the carman had been, for the bodies of both had been made
way with and were never found. This was evident--in the one case by the
horse and cart of the carman remaining by the grey stone in question,
on which the traces of blood were long visible; and in the other by the
circumstance of Sullivan's hat and part of his coat having been found
near the cabin in question on the following day, in a field through
which his path home lay, and in which was a pool of blood, where his
foot-marks were deeply imprinted, as if in a struggle for life and
death. For this latter murder a man named Dalton had been taken up,
under circumstances of great suspicion, he having been the last person
seen in the man's company. Both had been drinking together in the
market, a quarrel had originated between them about money matters, blows
had been exchanged, and Dalton was heard to threaten him in very strong
language. Nor was this all. He had been observed following or rather
dogging him on his way home, and although the same road certainly led
to the residence of both, yet when his words and manner were taken into
consideration, added to the more positive proof that the footmarks left
on the place of struggle exactly corresponded with his shoes, there
could be little doubt that he was privy to Sullivan's murder and
disappearance, as well probably as to his robbery. At all events the
glen was said to be haunted by Sullivan's spirit, which was in the
habit, according to report, of appearing near the place of murder, from
whence he was seen to enter this chasm--a circumstance which, when taken
in connection with its dark and lonely aspect, was calculated to impress
upon the place the I reputation of being accursed, as the scene of
crime and supernatural appearances. We remember having played in it
when young, and the feeling we experienced was one of awe and terror, to
which might be added, on contemplating the “dread repose” and solitude
around us, an impression that we were removed hundreds of miles from
the busy ongoings and noisy tumults of life, to which, as if seeking
protection, we generally hastened with a strong sense of relief, after
having tremblingly gratified our boyish curiosity.

The young girl in question gave the female she had been expecting any
thing but a cordial or dutiful reception. In personal appearance
there was not a point of resemblance between them, although the _tout
ensemble_ of each was singularly striking and remarkable. The girl's
locks were black as the raven's wing: her figure was tall and slender,
but elastic and full of symmetry. The ivory itself was not more white
nor glossy than her skin; her teeth were--bright and beautiful, and her
mouth a perfect rosebud. It is unnecessary to say that her eyes
we're black and brilliant, for such ever belong to her complexion and
temperament; but it in necessary to add, that they were piercing and
unsettled, and you felt that they looked into you rather than at you or
upon you. In fact, her features were all perfect, yet it often happened
that their general expression was productive of no agreeable feeling on
the beholder. Sometimes her smile was sweet as that of an angel, but let
a single impulse or whim be checked, and her face assumed a character of
malignity that made her beauty appear like that which we dream of in an
evil spirit.

The other woman, who stood to her in the relation of step-mother, was
above the middle size. Her hair was sandy, or approaching to a pale red;
her features were coarse, but regular; and her whole figure that of
a well-made and powerful woman. In her countenance might be read a
peculiar blending of sternness and benignity, each evidently softened
down by an expression of melancholy--perhaps of suffering--as if some
secret care lay brooding at her heart. The inside of the hovel itself
had every mark of poverty and destitution about it. Two or three stools,
a pot or two, one miserable standing bed, and a smaller one gathered up
under a rug in the corner, were almost all that met the eye on entering
it; and simple as these meagre portions of furniture were, they bore no
marks of cleanliness or care. On the contrary, everything appeared to be
neglected, squalid and filthy--such, precisely, as led one to see at a
glance that the inmates of this miserable hut were contented with their
wretched state of life, and had no notion whatsoever that any moral or
domestic duty existed, by which they might be taught useful notions of
personal comfort and self-respect.

“So,” said the young woman, addressing her step-mother, as she entered,
“you're come back at last, an' a purty time you tuck to stay away!”

“Well,” replied the other, calmly, “I'm here now at any rate; but I see
you're in one of your tantrums, Sally, my lady. What's wrong, I say? In
the mean time don't look as if you'd ait us widout salt.”

“An' a bitter morsel you'd be,” replied the younger, with a flashing
glance--“divil a more so. Here am I, sittin', or running out an' in,
these two hours, when I ought to be at the dance in Kilnahushogue,
before I go to Barny Gormly's wake; for I promised to be at both. Why
didn't you come home in time?”

“Bekaise, achora, it wasn't agreeable to me to do so. I'm beginnin' to
got ould an' stiff, an' its time for me to take care of myself.”

“Stiffer may you be, then, soon, an' oulder may you never be, an' that's
the best I wish you!”

“Aren't you afeard to talk to me in that way?” said the elder of the
two.

“No--not a bit. You won't flake me now as you used to do. I am able an'
willin' to give blow for blow at last, thank goodness; an' will, too, if
ever you thry that thrick.”

The old woman gazed at her angrily, and appeared for a moment to
meditate an assault. After a pause, however, during which the brief but
vehement expression of rising fury passed from her countenance, and her
face assumed an expression more of compassion than of anger, she simply
said, in a calm tone of voice--

“I don't know that I ought to blame you so much for your temper, Sarah.
The darkness of your father's sowl is upon yours; his wicked spirit is
in you, an' may Heaven above grant that you'll never carry about with
you, through this unhappy life, the black an' heavy burden that weighs
down his heart! If God hasn't said it, you have his coorse, or something
nearly as bad, before you. Oh! go to the wake as soon as you like,
an' to the dance, too. Find some one that'll take you off of my hands;
that'll put a house over your head--give you a bit to ait, an' a rag to
put on you; an' may God pity him that's doomed to get you! If the woeful
state of the country, an' the hunger an' sickness that's abroad, an'
that's comin' harder an' faster on us every day, can't tame you or keep
you down, I dunna what will. I'm sure the black an' terrible summer
we've had ought to make you think of how we'll get over all that's
before us! God pity you, I say again, an' whatever poor man is to be
cursed wid you!”

“Keep your pity for them that wants it,” replied the other, “an' that's
not me. As for God's pity, it isn't yours to give, and even if it was,
you stand in need of it yourself more than I do. You're beginning
to praich to us now that you're not able to bait us; but for your
praichments an' your baitins, may the divil pay you for all alike!--as
he will--an' that's my prayer.”

A momentary gush of the step-mother's habitual passion overcame her; she
darted at her step-daughter, who sprung to her limbs, and flew at her
in return. The conflict at first was brief, for the powerful strength of
the elder female soon told. Sarah, however, quickly disengaged herself,
and seizing an old knife which lay on a shell that served as a dresser,
she made a stab at the very heart of her step-mother, panting as she did
it with an exulting vehemence of vengeance that resembled the growlings
which a savage beast makes when springing on its prey.

“Ha!” she exclaimed, “you have it now--you have it! Call on God's pity
now, for you'll soon want it. Ha! ha!”

The knife, however, owing to the thick layers of cloth with which the
dress of the other was patched, as well as to the weakness of the thin
and worn blade, did not penetrate her clothes, nor render her any injury
whatsoever. The contest was again resumed. Sarah, perceiving that she
had missed her aim, once more put herself into a posture to renew the
deadly attempt; and the consequence was, that a struggle now took place
between them which might almost be termed one for life and death. It was
indeed a frightful and unnatural struggle. The old woman, whose object
was, if possible, to disarm her antagonist, found all her strength--and
it was great--scarcely a match for the murderous ferocity which was now
awakened in her. The grapple between them consequently became furious;
and such was the terrible impress of diabolical malignity which passion
stamped upon the features of this young tigress, that her step-mother's
heart, for a moment quailed on beholding it, especially when associated
with the surprising activity and strength which she put forth., Her dark
and finely-pencilled eye-brows were fiercely knit, as it were, into one
dark line; her lips were drawn back, displaying her beautiful teeth,
that were now ground together into what resembled the lock of death: her
face was pale with over-wrought with resentment, and her deep-set eyes
glowed with a wild and flashing fire that was fearful, while her
lips were encircled with the white foam of revengeful and deadly
determination; and what added most to the terrible expression on her
whole face was the exulting smile of cruelty which shed its baleful
light over it, resolving the whole contest, as it were, and its
object--the murder of her step-mother--into the fierce play of some
beautiful vampire that was ravening for the blood of its awakened
victim.

After a struggle of some two or three minutes, the strength and coolness
of the step-mother at length prevailed, she wrested the knife out of
Sarah's hands and, almost at the same moment, stumbled and fell. The
other, however, was far from relaxing her hold. On the contrary, she
clung to her fiercely, shouting out--

“I won't give you up yet--I love you too well for that--no, no, it's
fond of you I'm gettin'. I'll hug you, mother, dear; ay will I, and kiss
you too, an' lave my mark behind me!” and, as she spoke, her step-mother
felt her face coming in savage proximity to her own.

“If you don't keep away, Sarah,” said the other, “I'll stab you. What do
you mane, you bloody devil? It is going to tear my flesh with your teeth
you are? Hould off! or, as heaven's above us, I'll stab you with the
knife.”

“You can't,” shouted the other; “the knife's bent, or you'd be done for
before this. I'll taste your blood for all that!” and, as the words were
uttered, the step-mother gave a sudden scream, making at the same time a
violent effort to disentangle herself, which she did.

Sarah started to her feet, and flying towards the door, exclaimed with
shouts of wild triumphant laughter--

“Ha, ha, ha! do you feel anything? I was near havin' the best part of
one of your ears--ha, ha, ha!--but unfortunately I missed it; an' now
look to yourself. Your day is gone, an' mine is come. I've tasted-your
blood, an' I like it--ha, ha, ha!--an' if as you say it's kind father
for me to be fond o' blood, I say you had better take care of yourself.
And I tell you more: we'll take care of your fair-haired beauty for
you--my father and myself will--an' I'm told to act against her, an' I
will too; an' you'll see what we'll bring your pet, _Gra Gal_ Sullivan,
to yet! There's news for you!”

She then went down to the river which flowed past, in whose yellow and
turbid waters--for it was now swollen with rain--she washed the blood
from her hands and face with an apparently light heart. Having meditated
for some time, she fell a laughing at the fierce conflict that had just
taken place, exclaiming to herself--

“Ha, ha, ha! Well now if I had killed her--got the ould knife into her
heart--I might lave the counthry. If I had killed her now, throth it 'ud
be a good joke, an' all in a fit of passion, bekase she didn't come home
in time to let me meet him. Well, I'll go back an' spake soft to her,
for, afther all, she'll give me a hard life of it.”

She returned; and, having entered the hut, perceived that the ear and
cheek of her step-mother were still bleeding.

“I'm sorry for what I did,” she said, with the utmost frankness and good
nature. “Forgive me, mother; you know I'm a hasty devil--for a devil's
limb I am, no doubt of it. Forgive me, I say--do now--here, I'll get
something to stop the blood.”

She sprang at the moment, with the agility of a wild cat, upon an old
chest that stood in the corner of the hut, exhibiting as she did it, a
leg and foot of surpassing symmetry and beauty. By stretching herself
up to her full length, she succeeded in pulling down several old cobwebs
that had been for years in the corner of the wall; and in the act of
doing so, disturbed some metallic substance, which fell first upon the
chest, from which it tumbled off to the ground, where it made two or
three narrowing circles, and then lay at rest.

“Murdher alive, mother!” she exclaimed, “what is this? Hallo! a
tobaccy-box--a fine round tobaccy-box of iron, bedad--an what's this on
it!--let me see; two letthers. Wait till I rub the rust off; or stay,
the rust shows them as well. Let me see--P. an' what's the other? ay,
an' M. P. M.--arra, what can that be for? Well, devil may care! let it
lie on the shelf there. Here now--none of your cross looks, I say--put
these cobwebs to your face, an' they'll stop the bleedin'. Ha, ha,
ha!--well--ha, ha, ha!--but you are a sight to fall in love wid this
minute!” she exclaimed, laughing heartily at the blood-stained visage
of the other. “You won't spake, I see. Divil may care then, if you don't
you'll do the other thing--let it alone: but, at any rate, there's the
cobwebs for you, if you like to put them on; an' so _bannatht latht_,
an' let that be a warnin' to you not to raise your hand to me again.

     'A sailor courted a farmer's daughter
     That lived contageous to the isle of Man,'” &c.

She then directed her steps to the dance in Kilnahushogue, where one
would actually suppose, if mirth, laughter, and extraordinary buoyancy
of spirits could be depended on, that she was gifted, in addition to her
remarkable beauty, with the innocent and delightful disposition of an
angel.

The step-mother having dressed the wound as well as she could, sat down
by the fire and began to ruminate on the violent contest which had just
taken place, and in which she had borne such an unfortunate part. This
was the first open and determined act of personal resistance which she
had ever, until that moment, experienced at her step-daughter's hands;
but now she feared that, if they were to live, as heretofore, under
the same roof, their life would be one of perpetual strife--perhaps
of ultimate bloodshed--and that these domestic brawls might unhappily
terminate in the death of either. She felt that her own temper was none
of the best, and knew that so long as she was incapable of restraining
it, or maintaining her coolness under the provocations to which the
violent passions of Sarah would necessarily expose her, so long must
such conflicts as that which had just occurred take place between them.
She began now to fear Sarah, with whose remorseless disposition she
was too well acquainted, and came to the natural conclusion, that a
residence under the same roof was by no means compatible with her own
safety.

“She has been a curse to me!” she went on, unconsciously speaking aloud;
“for when she wasn't able to bate me herself, her father did it for her.
The divil is said to be fond of his own; an' so does he dote on her,
bekase she's his image in everything that's bad. A hard life I'll lead
between them from this out, espeshially now that she's got the upper
hand of me. Yet what else can I expect or desarve? This load that is on
my conscience is worse. Night and day I'm sufferin' in the sight of God,
an' actin' as if I wasn't to be brought in judgment afore him. What am
I to do? I wish I was in my grave! But then, agin', how am I to face
death?--and that same's not the worst; for afther death comes judgment!
May the Lord prepare me for it, and guide and direct me how to act! One
thing, I know, must be done--either she or I will lave this house; for
live undher the same roof wid her I will not.”

She then rose up, looked out of the door a moment, and, resuming her
seat, went on with her soliloquy--

“No; he said it was likely he wouldn't be home to-night. Wanst he gets
upon his ould prophecies, he doesn't care how long he stays away; an'
why he can take the delight he does in prophesyin' and foretellin'
good or evil, accordin' as it sarves his purpose, I'm sure I don't
know--espeshially when he only laughs in his sleeve at the people
for believin' him; but what's that about poor _Gra Gal_ Sullivan? She
threatened her, and spoke of her father, too, as bein' in it. Ah, ah! I
must watch him there; an' you, too, my lady divil--for it 'ill go
hard wid me if either of you injure a hair of her head. No, no, plaise
God!--none of your evil doins or unlucks prophecies for her, so long,
any way, as I can presarve her from them. How black the evenin' is
gatherin', but God knows that it's the awful saison all out for the
harvest--it is that--it is that!”

Having given utterance to these sentiments, she took up the tobacco-box
which Sarah had, in such an accidental manner, tumbled out of the wall,
and surveying it for some moments, laid it hastily on the chest, and,
clasping her hands exclaimed--

“Saviour of life! it's the same! Oh, merciful God, it's thrue! it's
thrue!--the very same I seen wid him that evenin': I know it by the
broken hinge and the two letthers. The Lord forgive me my sins!--for I
see now that do what we may, or hide it as we like, God is above all!
Saviour of life, how will this end? an' what will I do?--or how am I to
act? But any way, I must hide this, and put it out of his reach.”

She accordingly went out, and having ascertained that no person saw her,
thrust the box up under the thatch of the roof, in such a way that it
was impossible to suspect, by any apparent disturbance of the roof, that
it was there; after which, she sat down with sensations of dread that
were new to her, and that mingled themselves as strongly with her
affections as it was possible for a woman of a naturally firm and
undaunted character to feel them.




CHAPTER II. -- The Black Prophet Prophesies.


At a somewhat more advanced period of the same evening, two men were on
their way from the market-town of Ballynafail, towards a fertile portion
of the country, named Aughamuran, which lay in a southern direction
from it. One of them was a farmer, of middling, or rather of struggling,
circumstances, as was evident from the traces of wear and tear that were
visible upon a dress that had once been comfortable and decent, although
now it bore the marks of careful, though rather extensive repair. He
was a thin placid looking man, with something, however, of a careworn
expression in his features, unless when he smiled, and then his face
beamed with a look of kindness and goodwill that could not readily be
forgotten. The other was a strongly-built man, above the middle size,
whose complexion and features were such as no one could look on with
indifference, so strongly were they indicative of a twofold character,
or, we should rather say, calculated to make a twofold impression.
At one moment you might consider him handsome, and at another his
countenance filled you with an impression of repugnance, if not of
absolute aversion; so stern and inhuman were the characteristics which
you read in it. His hair, beard, and eye-brows were an ebon black, as
were his eyes; his features were hard and massive; his nose, which was
somewhat hooked, but too much pointed, seemed as if, while in a plastic
state, it had been sloped by a trowel towards one side of his face, a
circumstance which, while taken in connection with his black whiskers
that ran to a point near his mouth, and piercing eyes, that were too
deeply and narrowly set, gave him, aided by his heavy eyebrows, an
expression at once of great cruelty and extraordinary cunning. This
man, while travelling in the same direction with the other, had suffered
himself to be overtaken by him: in such a manner, however, that their
coming in contact could not be attributed to any particular design on
his part.

“Why, then, _Donnel Dhu_,” said the farmer, “sure it's a sight for sore
eyes to see you in this side of the country; an' now that I do see you,
how are you?”

“Jist the ould six-an'-eight-pence, Jerry; an' how is the Sullivan
blood in you, man alive? good an' ould blood it is, in troth; how is the
family?”

“Why we can't--hut, what was I goin' to say?” replied his companion; “we
can't--complain--ershi--mishi!--why, then, God help us, it's we that can
complain, Donnel, if there was any use in it; but, mavrone, there isn't;
so all I can say is, that we're jist mixed middlin', like the praties in
a harvest, or hardly that same, indeed, since this woful change that has
come on us.”

“Ay, ay,” replied the other; “but if that change has come on you, you
know it didn't come without warnin' to the counthry; there's a man
livin' that foretould as much--that seen it comin'--ay, ever since
the pope was made prisoner, for that was what brought Bonaparte's
fate--that's now the cause of the downfall of everything upon him.”

“An' it was the hard fate for us, as well as for himself,” replied
Sullivan, “little he thought, or little he cared, for what he made us
suffer, an' for what he's makin' us suffer still, by the come-down that
the prices have got.”

“Well, but he's sufferin' himself more than any of us,” replied Donnel;
“however, that was prophesied too; it's read of in the ould Chronicles.
'An eagle will be sick,' says St. Columbkill, 'but the bed of the sick
eagle is not a tree, but a rock; an' there, he must suffer till the
curse of the Father* is removed from him; an' then he'll get well, an'
fly over the world.'”

     * This is--the Pope, in consequence of Bonaparte having
     imprisoned him.

“Is that in the prophecy, Donnel?”

“It's St. Columbian's words I'm spakin'.”

“Throth, at any rate,” replied Sullivan, “I didn't care we had back the
war prices again; aither that, or that the dear rents were let down to
meet the poor prices we have now. This woeful saison, along wid the low
prices and the high rents, houlds out a black and terrible look for the
counthry, God help us!”

“Ay,” returned the Black Prophet, for it was he, “if you only knew it.”

“Why, was that, too, prophesied?” inquired Sullivan.

“Was it? No; but ax yourself is it. Isn't the Almighty in his wrath,
this moment proclaimin' it through the heavens and the airth? Look
about you, and say what is it you see that does not foretel
famine--famine--famine! Doesn't the dark wet day, an' the rain, rain,
rain, foretel it? Doesn't the rotten' crops, the unhealthy air, an' the
green damp foretel it? Doesn't the sky without a sun, the heavy clouds,
an' the angry fire of the West, foretel it? Isn't the airth a page of
prophecy, an' the sky a page of prophecy, where every man may read of
famine, pestilence, an' death? The airth is softened for the grave,
an' in the black clouds of heaven you may see the death-hearses movin'
slowly along--funeral afther funeral--funeral afther funeral--an'
nothing to folly them but lamentation an' wo, by the widow an'
orphan--the fatherless, the motherless, an' the childless--wo an'
lamentation--lamentation an' wo.”

Donnel Dhu, like every prophecy man of his kind--a character in Ireland,
by the way, that has nearly, if not altogether, disappeared--was
provided with a set of prophetic declamations suited to particular
occasions and circumstances, and these he recited in a voice of high and
monotonous recitative, that caused them to fall with a very impressive
effect upon the minds and feeling of his audience. In addition to this,
the very nature of his subject rendered a figurative style and suitable
language necessary, a circumstance which, aided by a natural flow of
words, and a felicitious illustration of imagery--for which, indeed, all
prophecy-men were remarkable--had something peculiarly fascinating and
persuasive to the class of persons he was in the habit of addressing.
The gifts of these men, besides, were exercised with such singular
delight, that the constant repetition of their oracular exhibitions by
degrees created an involuntary impression on themselves, that ultimately
rose to a kind of wild and turbid enthusiasm, partaking at once of
imposture and fanaticism. Many of them were, therefore, nearly as
much the dupes of the delusions that proceeded from their own heated
imaginations as the ignorant people who looked upon them as oracles;
for we know that nothing at all events so much generates imposture as
credulity.

“Indeed, Donnel,” replied Sullivan, “what you say is unfortunately too
thrue. Everything we can look upon appears to have the mark of God's
displeasure on it; but if we have death and sickness now, what'll become
of us this time twelve months, when we'll feel this failure most?”

“I have said it,” replied the prophet; “an' if my tongue doesn't tell
truth, the tongue that never tells a lie will.”

“And what tongue is that?” asked his companion.

“The tongue of the death-bell will tell it day afther day to every
parish in the land. However, we know that death's before us, an' the
grave, afther all, is our only consolation.”

“God help us,” exclaimed Sullivan, “if we hadn't betther and brighter
consolation than the grave. Only for the hopes in our Divine Redeemer
an' his mercy, it's little consolation the grave could give us. But
indeed, Donnel, as you say, everything about us is enough to sink
the heart within one--an' no hope at all of a change for the betther.
However, God is good, and, if it's His will that we should suffer, it's
our duty to submit to it.”

The prophet looked around him with a gloomy aspect, and, truth to say,
the appearance of everything on which the eye could rest, was such as
gave unquestionable indications of wide-spread calamity to the country.

The evening, which was now far advanced, had impressed on it a character
of such dark and hopeless desolation as weighed down the heart with a
feeling of cold and chilling gloom that was communicated by the dreary
aspect of every thing around. The sky was obscured by a heavy canopy of
low, dull clouds that had about them none of the grandeur of storm, but
lay overhead charged with those wintry deluges which we feel to be so
unnatural and alarming in autumn, whose bounty and beauty they equally
disfigure and destroy. The whole summer had been sunless and wet--one,
in fact, of ceaseless rain which fell, day after day, week after week,
and month after month, until the sorrowful consciousness had arrived
that any change for the better must now come too late, and that nothing
was certain but the terrible union of famine, disease, and death
which was to follow. The season, owing to the causes specified, was
necessarily late, and such of the crops as were, ripe had a sickly and
unthriving look, that told of comparative failure, while most of the
fields which, in our autumns, would have been ripe and yellow, were now
covered with a thin, backward crop, so unnaturally green that all hope
of maturity was out of the question. Low meadows were in a state of
inundation, and on alluvial soils the ravages of the floods Were
visible in layers of mud and gravel that were deposited over many of the
prostrate corn fields. The peat turf lay in oozy and neglected heaps,
for there had not been sun enough to dry it sufficiently for use, so
that the poor had want of fuel, and cold to feel, as well as want of
food itself. Indeed, the appearance of the country, in consequence of
this wetness in the firing, was singularly dreary and depressing. Owing
to the difficulty with which it burned, or rather wasted away, without
light or heat, the eye, in addition to the sombre hue which the absence
of the sun cast over all things, was forced to dwell upon the long black
masses of smoke which trailed slowly over the whole country, or hung,
during the thick sweltering calms, in broad columns that gave to
the face of nature an aspect strikingly dark and disastrous, when
associated, as it was, with the destitution and suffering of the great
body of the people. The general appearance of the crops was indeed
deplorable. In some parts the grain was beaten down by the rain; in
airier situations it lay cut but unsaved, and scattered over the fields,
awaiting an occasional glance of feeble sunshine; and in other and
richer soils, whole fields, deplorably lodged, were green with the
destructive exuberance of a second growth. The season, though wet, was
warm; and it is unnecessary to say that the luxuriance of all weeds
and unprofitable production was rank and strong, while an unhealthy
fermentation pervaded every thing that was destined for food. A brooding
stillness, too, lay over all nature; cheerfulness had disappeared, even
the groves and hedges were silent, for the very birds had ceased
to sing, and the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching
calamity, as well as for that which had been already felt. The whole
country, in fact, was weltering and surging with the wet formed by the
incessant overflow of rivers, while the falling cataracts, joined to a
low monotonous hiss, or what the Scotch term _sugh_, poured their faint
but dismal murmurs on the gloomy silence which otherwise prevailed
around.

Such was the aspect of the evening in question: but as the men advanced,
a new element of desolation soon became visible. The sun, ere he sank
among the dark western clouds, shot out over this dim and miserable
prospect a light so angry, yet so ghastly, that it gave to the whole
earth a wild, alarming, and spectral hue, like that seen in some feverish
dream. In this appearance there was great terror and sublimity, for as
it fell on the black shifting clouds, the effect was made still more
awful by the accidental resemblance which they bore to coffins, hearses,
and funeral processions, as observed by the prophecy-man, all of which
seemed to have been lit up against the deepening shades of evening
by some gigantic death-light that superadded its fearful omens to the
gloomy scenes on which it fell.

The sun, as he then appeared, might not inaptly be compared to some
great prophet, who, clothed with the majesty and terror of I an
angry God, was commissioned to launch! his denunciations against the
iniquities of nations, and to reveal to them, as they lay under the
shadow of his wrath, the terrible calamities with which he was about to
visit their transgressions.

The two men now walked on in silence for some time, Donnel Dhu having
not deemed it necessary to make any reply to the pious and becoming
sentiments uttered by Sullivan.

At length the latter spoke.

“Barrin' what we all know, Donnel, an' that's the saison an' the
sufferin' that's in it, is there no news stirrin' at all? Is it thrue
that ould Dick o' the Grange is drawin' near to his last account?”

“Not so bad as that; but he's still complainin'. It's one day up and
another day down wid' him--an' of coorse his laise of life can't be long
now.”

“Well, well,” responded Sullivan, “it's not for us to pass judgment on
our fellow-creatures; but by all accounts he'll have a hard reckonin'.”

“That's his own affair, you know,” said Donnel Dhu; “but his son, master
Richard, or 'Young Dick,' as they call him, will be an improvement upon
the ould stock.”

“As to that, some says ay, an' some says no; but I believe myself, that
he has, like his father, both good and bad in him; for the ould man, if
the maggot bit him, or that if he took the notion, would do one a good
turn; an' if he took a likin' to you, he'd go any lin'th to sarve you;
but, then, you were never sure of him--nor he didn't himself know this
minute what he'd do the next.”

“That's thrue enough,” replied Donnel Dhu; “but lavin' him to shift for
himself, I'm of opinion that you an' I are likely to get wet jackets
before we're much oulder. Ha! Did you see that lightnin'? God presarve
us! it was terrible--an'--ay, there it is--the thundher! God be about
us, thundher at this hour is very fearful. I would give a thrifle to be
in my own little cabin, an' indeed I'm afeard that I won't be worth the
washin' when I get there, if I can go back sich a night as it's goin' to
be.”

“The last few years, Donnel, has brought a grievous change,upon me and
mine,” replied Sullivan. “The time was, an' it's not long since, when I
could give you a comfortable welcome as well as a willin' one; however,
thank God, it isn't come to sich a hard pass wid me yet that I haven't
a roof an' a bit to ait to offer you; an' so to sich as it is you're
heartily welcome. Home! oh, you mustn't talk of home this night. Blood,
you know, is thicker than wather, an' if it was only on your wife
Nolly's account, you should be welcome. Second an' third cousins by the
mother's side we are, an' that's purty strong. Oh, no, don't talk of
goin' home this night.”

“Well,” replied the other, “I'm thankful to you, Jerry, an' indeed as
the night's comin' on so hard and stormy, I'll accept your kind offer;
a mouthful of any thing will do me, an' a dry sate at your hearth till
mornin'.”

“Unfortunately, as I said,” replied Sullivan, “it's but poor an' humble
treatment I can give you; but if it was betther you should be jist as
welcome to it, an' what more can I say?”

“What more can you say, indeed! I know your good heart, Jerry, as who
doesn't? Dear me, how it's poorin' over there towards the south--ha,
there it is again, that thundher! Well, thank goodness, we haven't far
to go, at any rate, an' the shower hasn't come round this far yet. In
the mean time let us step out an' thry to escape it if we can.”

“Let us cross the fields, then,” said Sullivan, “an' get up home by the
Slang, an' then behind our garden: to be sure, the ground is in a sad
plash, but then it will save a long twist round the road, an' as you
say, we may escape the rain yet.”

Both accordingly struck off the highway, and took a short path across
the fields, while at every step the water spurted up out of the spongy
soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to their knees, so thoroughly
saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen.
After toiling thro' plashy fields, they at length went up, as Sullivan
had said, by an old unfrequented footpath, that ran behind his garden,
the back of which consisted of a thick elder hedge, through which
scarcely the heaviest rain could penetrate. At one end of this garden,
through a small angle, forming a _cul de sac_, or point, where the
hedge was joined by one of white thorn, ran the little obsolete pathway
alluded to, and as another angle brought them at once upon the spot we
are describing, it would so happen that if any one had been found there
when they appeared, it would be impossible to leave it if they wished
to do so, without directly meeting them, there being no other mode of
egress from it except by the footpath in question.

In that sheltered nook, then, our travellers found a young man about two
or three and twenty, holding the unresisting hand of a very beautiful
and bashful-looking girl, not more than nineteen, between his. From
their position, and the earnestness with which the young peasant
addressed her, there could be but little doubt as to the subject matter
of their conversation. If a bolt from the thunder which had been rolling
a little back among the mountains, and which was still faintly heard in
the distance, had fallen at the feet of the young persons in question,
it could not have filled them with more alarm than the appearance of
Sullivan and the prophet. The girl, who became pale and red by turns,
hung her head, then covered her face with her hands; and after a short
and ineffectual struggle, burst into tears, exclaiming--

“Oh, my God, it is my father!”

The youth, for he seemed scarcely to have reached maturity, after a
hesitating glance at Sullivan, seemed at once to have determined the
course of conduct he should pursue. His eye assumed a bold and resolute
look--he held himself more erect--and, turning towards the girl, without
removing his gaze from her father, he said in a loud and manly tone--

“Dear Mave, it is foolish to be frightened. What have you done that
ought to make you aither ashamed or afeared? If there's blame anywhere,
it's mine, not yours, and I'll bear it.”

Sullivan, on discovering this stolen interview--for such it was--felt
precisely as a man would feel, who found himself unexpectedly within the
dart of a rattlesnake, with but one chance of safety in his favor and
a thousand against him. His whole frame literally shook with the
deadly depth of his resentment; and in a voice which fully betrayed its
vehemence, he replied--

“Blame! ay, shame an' blame--sin an' sorrow there is an' ought to rest
upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin'! Blame! surely, an' as
I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be
a just God in Heaven, if she's not yet punished for holdin' this
guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle's blood--my
brother's blood--on his hand of murdher--”


[Illustration: PAGE 785-- “It's false,” replied the young fellow]


“It's false,” replied the young fellow, with kindling eye; “it's
false, from your teeth to your marrow. I know my father's heart an'
his thought--an' I say that whoever charges him with the murder of your
brother, is a liar--a false and damnable li--”

He checked himself ere he closed the sentence.

“Jerry Sullivan,” said he, in an altered voice, “I ax your pardon for
the words---it's but natural you should feel as you do; but if it was
any other man than yourself that brought the charge of blood against my
father, I would thramp upon him where he stands.”

“An' maybe murdher him, as my poor brother was murdhered. Dalton, I see
the love of blood in your eye,” replied Sullivan, bitterly.

“Why,” replied the other, “you have no proof that the man was murdered
at all. His body was never found; and no one can say what became of him.
For all that any one knows to the contrary, he may be alive still.”

“Begone, sirra,” said Sullivan, in a burst of impetuous resentment which
he could not restrain, “if I ever know you to open your lips to that
daughter of mine--if the mane crature can be my daughter--I'll make it
be the blackest deed but one that ever a Dalton did; and as for you--go
in at wonst--I'll make you hear me by and by.”

Dalton looked at him once more with a kindling but a smiling eye.

“Speak what you like,” said he--“I'll curb myself. Only, if you wish
your daughter to go in, you had better leave the way and let her pass.”

Mave--for such was her name--with trembling limbs, burning blushes and
palpitating heart, then passed from the shady angle where they stood;
but ere she did, one quick and lightning glance was bestowed upon her
lover, which, brief though it was, he felt as a sufficient consolation
for the enmity of her father.

The prophet had not yet spoken; nor indeed had time been given him to do
so, had he been inclined. He looked on, however, with' surprise, which
soon assumed the appearance, as well as the reality, of some malignant
satisfaction which he could not conceal.

He eyed Dalton with a grin of peculiar bitterness.

“Well,” said he, “it's the general opinion that if any one knows or
can tell what the future may bring about, I can; an', if my knowledge
doesn't desave me, Dalton, I think, while you're before me, that I'm
lookin' at a man that was never born to be drowned at any rate. I
prophecy that, die when you may, you'll live to see your own funeral.”

“If you're wise,” replied the young man, “you'll not provoke me now
Jerry Sullivan may say what he wishes--he's safe, an he knows why; but I
warn you, Donnel Dhu, to take no liberty with me; I'll not bear it.

“Troth, I don't blame Jerry Sullivan,” rejoined the prophet. “Of coorse
no man would wish to have a son-in-law hanged. It's in the prophecy that
you'll go to the surgeons yet.”

“Did you foresee in your prophecies this mornin' that you'd get yourself
well drubbed before night?” asked Dalton, bristling up.

“No,” said the other; “my prophecy seen no one able to do it.”

“You and your prophecy are liars, then,” retorted the other: “an' in
the doom you're kind enough to give me, don't be too sure but you meant
yourself. There's more of murdher an' the gallows in your face than
there is in mine. That's all I'll say, Donnel. Anything else you'll get
from me will be a blow; so take care of yourself.”

“Let him alone, Donnel,” said Sullivan; “it's not safe to meddle with
one of his name. You don't know what harm he may do you.”

“I'm not afeard of him,” said the prophet, with a sneer; “he'll find
himself a little mistaken, if he tries his hand. It won't be for me
you'll hang, my lad.”

The words were scarcely uttered when a terrific blow on the eye, struck
with the rapidity of lightning, shot him to the earth, where he lay for
about half a minute, apparently insensible. He then got up, and after
shaking his head, as if to rid himself of a sense of confusion and
stupor, looked at Dalton for some time.

“Well,” said he, “it's all over now--but the truth is, the fault was my
own. I provoked him too much, an' without any occasion. I'm sorry
you struck me, Condy, for I was only jokin' all the time. I never had
ill-will against you; an' in spite of what has happened, I haven't now.”

A feeling of generous regret, almost amounting to remorse, instantly
touched Dalton's heart; he seized the hand of Donnel, and expressed his
sorrow for the blow he had given him.

“My God,” he exclaimed, “why did I strike you? But sure no one could for
a minute suppose that you weren't in earnest.”

“Well, well,” said the other, “let it be a warnin' to both of us; to me,
in the first place, never to carry a joke too far; and to you, never to
allow your passion to get the betther of you, afaird that you might give
a blow in anger that you'd have cause to repent of all the days of your
life. My eye and cheek is in a frightful state; but no matther, Condy, I
forgive you, especially in the hope that you'll mark my advice.”

Dalton once more asked his pardon, and expressed his unqualified sorrow
at what had occurred; after which he again shook hands with Dalton and
departed.

Sullivan felt surprised at this rencontre, especially at the nature of
its singular termination; he seemed, however, to fall into a meditative
and gloomy mood, and observed when Dalton had gone--

“If I ever had any doubt, Donnel, that my poor brother owed his death to
a Dalton, I haven't it now.”

“I don't blame you much for sayin' so,” replied Donnel. “I'm sorry
myself for what has happened, and especially as you were present. I'm
afeard, indeed', that a man's life would be but little in that boy's
hands under a fit of passion. I provoked him too much, though.”

“I think so,” said Sullivan. “Indeed, to tell you the truth, I had as
little notion that you wore jokin' as he had.”

“That's my drame out last night, at all events,” said Donnel.

“How is that?” asked Sullivan, as they approached the door.

“Why,” said he, “I dreamed that I was lookin' for a hammer at your
house, an' I thought that you hadn't one to give me; but your daughter
Mave came to me, and said, 'here's a hammer for you, Donnel, an' take
care of it, for it belongs to Condy Dalton.' I thought I took it, an'
the first thing I found myself doin' was drivin' a nail in what appeared
to be my own coffin. The same dhrame would alarm me but that I know that
dhrames goes by contrairies, as I've reason to think this will.”

“No man understands these things better than yourself, Donnel,” said
Sullivan; “but, for my part, I think there's a dangerous kick in the boy
that jist left us; and I'm much mistaken or the world will hear of it
an' know it yet.”

“Well, well,” said Donnel Dhu, in a very Christian-like spirit, “I fear
you're right, Jerry; but still let us hope for the best.”

And as he spoke, they entered the house.




CHAPTER III. -- A Family on the Decline--Omens.


Jerry Sullivan's house and place had about them all the marks and tokens
of gradual decline. The thatch on the roof had begun to get black, and
in some places was sinking into rotten ridges; the yard was untidy and
dirty; the walls and hedges were broken and dismantled; and the gates
were lying about, or swinging upon single hinges. The whole air of the
premises was uncomfortable to the spectator, who could not avoid feeling
that there existed in the owner either wilful neglect or unsuccessful
struggle. The chimneys, from which the thatch had sank down, stood
up with the incrustations of lime that had been trowelled round their
bases, projecting uselessly out from them; some of the quoins had fallen
from the gable; the plaster came off the walls in several places, and
the whitewash was sadly discolored.

Inside, the aspect of everything was fully as bad, if not worse.
Tables and chairs, and the general furniture of the house, had all that
character of actual cleanliness and apparent want of care which poverty
superinduces upon the most strenuous efforts of industry. The floor
was beginning to break up into holes; tables and chairs were crazy; the
dresser, though clean, had a cold, hungry, unfurnished look; and, what
was unquestionably the worst symptom of all, the inside of the chimney
brace, where formerly the sides and flitches of deep, fat bacon, grey
with salt, were arrayed in goodly rows, now presented nothing but the
bare and dust-covered hooks, from which they had depended in happier
times. About a dozen of herrings hung at one side of a worn salt-box,
and at the other a string of onions that was nearly Stripped, both
constituting the principal kitchen, varied, perhaps, with a little
buttermilk,--which Sullivan's family were then able to afford themselves
with their potatoes.

We cannot close our description here, however; for sorry we are to
say, that the severe traces of poverty were as visible upon the inmates
themselves as upon the house and its furniture. Sullivan's family
consisted of his eldest daughter, aged nineteen, two growing boys, the
eldest about sixteen, and several younger children besides. These last
were actually ragged--all of them were scantily and poorly clothed; and
if any additional proof were wanting that poverty, in one of its most
trying shapes, had come among them, it was to be found in their pale,
emaciated features, and in that languid look of care and depression,
which any diminution in the natural quantity of food for any length of
time uniformly impresses upon the countenance. In fact, the whole group
had a sickly and wo-worn appearance, as was evident from the unnatural
dejection of the young, who, instead of exhibiting the cheerfulness
and animation of youth, now moped about without gayety, sat brooding in
corners, or struggled for a warm place nearest to the dull and cheerless
fire.

“The day was, Donnel,” said Sullivan, whilst he pointed, with a sigh,
to the unfurnished chimney, “when we could give you--as I said awhile
agone--a betther welcome--in one sense--I mane betther tratement--than
we can give you now; but you know the times that is in it, an' you know
the down-come we have got, an' that the whole country has got--so you
must only take the will for the deed now--to such as we have you're
heartily welcome. Get us some dinner, Bridget,” he added, turning to his
wife; “but, first and foremost, bring that girl into the room here till
she hears what I have to say to her; and, Donnel, as you wor a witness
to the disgraceful sight we seen a while agone, come in an' hear, too,
what I'm goin' to say to her. I'll have no black thraisin in my own
family against my own blood, an' against the blood of my loving brother,
that was so traicherously shed by that boy's father.”

The persons he addressed immediately passed into the cold, damp room as
he spoke--Mave, the cause of all this anxiety, evidently in such a state
of excitement as was pitiable. Her mother, who, as well as every
other member of the family, had been ignorant of this extraordinary
attachment, seemed perfectly bewildered by the language of her husband,
at whom, as at her daughter, she looked with a face on which might be
read equal amazement and alarm.

Mave Sullivan was a young creature, shaped with extraordinary symmetry,
and possessed of great natural grace. Her stature was tall, and all
her motions breathed; unstudied ease and harmony. In color, her long,
abundant hair was beautifully fair--precisely of that delightful shade
which generally accompanies a pale but exquisitely clear and almost
transparent complexion. Her face was oblong, and her features so replete
with an expression of innocence and youth, as left on the beholder a
conviction that she breathed of utter guilelessness and angelic purity
itself. This was principally felt in the bewitching charm of her smile,
which was irresistible, and might turn the heart of a demon into love.
All her motions were light and elastic, and her whole figure, though not
completely developed, was sufficiently rounded by the fulness of health
and youth to give promise of a rich and luxurious maturity. On this
occasion she became deadly pale, but as she was one of those whose
beauty only assumes a new phase of attraction at every change, her
paleness now made her appear, if possible, an object of greater
interest.

“In God's name, Jerry,” asked her mother, looking from father to
daughter in a state of much distress, “what is wrong, or what has
happened to put you in such a condition? I see by the anger in your eye
an' the whiteness of your cheeks, barrin' the little red spot in the
middle, that something out o' the way all out has happened to vex you.”

“You may well say so, Bridget,” he replied; “but when I tell you that
I came upon that undutiful daughter of ours coortin' wid the son of the
man that murdhered her uncle--my only brother--you won't be surprised
at the state you see me in--coortin' wid a fellow that Dan M'Gowan here
knows will be hanged yet, for he's jist afther tellin' him so.”

“You're ravin', Jerry,” exclaimed his wife, who appeared to feel the
matter as incredible; “you don't mane to tell me that she'd spake to, or
know, or make any freedoms whatsomever wid young Condy Dalton, the
son of her uncle's murdherer? Hut, no, Jerry, don't say that, at all
events--any disgrace but that--death, the grave--or--or anything--but
sich an unnatural curse as that would be.”

“I found them together behind the garden not many minutes ago,” replied
Sullivan. “Donnel here seen them as well as I did--deny it she can't;
an' now let her say what brought her there to meet him, or rather what
brought him all the way to meet her? Answer me that, you disgrace to the
name--answer me at wanst!”

The poor girl trembled and became so weak as to be scarcely able to
stand: in fact, she durst not raise her eye to meet that of either
parent, but stood condemned and incapable of utterance.

The night had now nearly set in, and one of her little sisters entered
with a rush candle in her hand, the light of which, as it fell dimly
and feebly on the group, gave to the proceedings a wild and impressive
appearance. The prophecy-man, with his dark, stern look, peculiar nose,
and black raven hair that fell thickly over his shoulders, contrasted
strongly with the fair, artless countenance and beautiful figure of
the girl who stood beside him, whilst over opposite them were Sullivan
himself and his wife, their faces pale with sorrow, anxiety, and
indignation.

“Give me the candle,” proceeded her father; “hand it to me, child, and
leave the room; then,” he proceeded, holding it up to a great-coat of
frieze which hung against the wall--“there's his coat--there's my lovin'
brother's coat; look upon it now, an' ax yourself what do you desarve
for meeting against our will an' consint the son of him that has the
murdher of the man that owned it on his hands an' on his heart? What do
you desarve, I say?”

The girl spoke not, but the black prophet, struck by the words and the
unexpected appearance of the murdered man's coat, started; in a moment,
however, he composed himself, and calmly turned his eyes upon Sullivan,
who proceeded to address his daughter.

“You have nothing to say, then? You're guilty, an' of coorse you have
no excuse to make; however, I'll soon put an end to all this. Bring me a
prayerbook. If your book oath can bind you down against ever----”

He could proceed no further. On uttering the last words, his daughter
tottered, and would have fallen to the ground, had not Donnel Dhu caught
her in his arms. She had, in fact, become almost insensible from excess
of shame and over excitement, and, as Donnel carried her towards a bed
that was in the corner of the room, her head lay over against his face.

It is unnecessary to say that Sullivan's indignation was immediately
lost in alarm. On bringing the candle near her, the first thing they
observed were streaks of blood upon Donnel Dhu's face, that gave to it,
in connection with the mark of the blow he had received, a frightful and
hideous expression.

“What is this?” exclaimed her mother, seizing the candle and holding it
to the beautiful features of her trembling daughter, which were now also
dabbled with blood. “In God's name, what ails my child? O Mave, Mave,
my darlin', what's come over you? Blessed mother of marcy, what blood is
this? _Achora, machree_, Mave, spake to! me--to the mother that 'ud
go distracted, an' that will, too, if anything's wrong wid you. It was
cruel in you, Jerry, to spake to; her so harsh as you did, an' to take
her to task before a sthranger in such a cuttin' manner. Saiver of
Airth, Mave, darlin', won't you spake to me, to your own mother?”'

“Maybe I did spake to her too severely,” said the father, now relenting,
“an' if I did, may God forgive me; for sure you know, Bridget, I
wouldn't injure a hair of my darlin's head. But this blood! this blood!
oh, where did it come from?”

Her weakness, however, proved of but short duration, and their
apprehension was soon calmed. Mave looked around her rather wildly, and
no sooner had her eyes rested on Donnel Dhu than she shrieked aloud, and
turning her face away from him, with something akin to fear and horror,
she flung herself into her mother's arms, exclaiming, as she hid her
face in her bosom: “Oh save me from that man; don't let! him near me;
don't let him touch me. I can't tell why, but I'm deadly afraid of him.
What blood is that upon his face? Father, stand between us!”

“Foolish girl!” exclaimed her father, “you don't know what you're
sayin'. Of coorse, Donnel, you'll not heed her words for, indeed, she
hasn't come to herself yet. But, in God's name, where did this blood
come from that's upon you and her?”

“You can't suppose, Jerry,” said Donnel, “that the poor girl's words
would make me take any notice of them. She has been too much frightened,
and won't know, maybe in a few minutes, that she spoke them at all.”

“That's thrue,” said her mother; “but with regard to the blood----”

She was about to proceed, when Mave rose up, and requested to be taken
out of the room.

“Bring me to the kitchen,” said she, “I'm afraid; and see this blood,
mother.”

Precisely as she spoke, a few drops of blood fell from her nose, which,
of course, accounted for its appearance on Donnel's face, and probably
for her terror also at his repulsive aspect.

“What makes you afeard of poor Donnel, asthore?” asked her mother--“a
man that wouldn't injure a hair of your head, nor of one belongin' to
you, an' never did.”

“Why, when my father,” she returned, “spoke about the coat there, an'
just as Donnel started, I looked at it, an' seen it movin', I don't know
why, but I got afeard of him.”

Sullivan held up the candle mechanically, as she spoke, towards the
coat, upon which they all naturally gazed; but, whether from its dim
flickering light, or the force of imagination, cannot be determined,
one thing was certain, the coat appeared actually to move again, as if
disturbed by some invisible hand. Again, also, the prophet involuntary
started, but only for a single moment.

“Tut,” said he, “it's merely the unsteady light of the candle; show it
here.”

He seized the rushlight from Sullivan, and approaching the coat, held
it so close to it, that had there been the slightest possible motion, it
could not have escaped their observation.

“Now,” he added, “you see whether it moves or not; but, indeed, the
poor girl is so frightened by the great scowldin' she got, that I don't
wondher at the way she's in.”

Mrs. Sullivan kept still gazing at the coat, in a state of terror almost
equal to that of her daughter.

“Well,” said she, “I've often heard it said that one is sometimes to
disbelieve their own eyes; an' only that I known the thing couldn't
happen, I would swear on the althar that I seen it movin'.”

“I thought so myself, too,” observed Sullivan, who also seemed to have
been a good deal perplexed and awed by the impression; “but of coorse I
agree wid Donnel, that it was the unsteady light of the rush that made
us think so; howaniver, it doesn't matther now; move or no move, it
won't bring him that owned it back to us, so God rest him!--and now,
Bridget, thry an' get us some-thin' to ait.”

“Before the girl leaves the room,” said the prophecy man, “let me spake
what I think an' what I know. I've lost many a weary day an' night in
studyin' the further, an' in lookin' into what's to come. I must spake,
then, what I think an' what I know, regardin' her. I must; for when the
feelin' is on me, I can't keep the prophecy back.”

“Oh! let me go, mother,” exclaimed the alarmed girl; “let me go; I can't
bear to look at him.”

“One minute, acushla, till you hear what he has to say to you,” and she
held her back, with a kind of authoritative violence, as Mave attempted
to leave the room.

“Don't be alarmed my purty creature,” spoke the prophet; “don't be
alarmed at what I'm goin' to say to you, an' about you, for you needn't.
I see great good fortune before you. I see a grand an' handsome husband
at your side, and a fine house to live in. I see stairs, an' carpets,
an' horses, an' hounds, an' yourself, with jewels in your white little
ears, an' silks, an' satins on your purty figure. That's a wakin' dhrame
I had, an' you may all mark my words, if it doesn't come out thrue; it's
on the leaf, an' the leaf was open to me. Grandeur an' wealth is before
her, for her beauty an' her! goodness will bring it all about, an' so I
read it.”

“An' what about the husband himself?” asked the mother, whose affections
caused! her to feel a strong interest in anything that might concern
the future interest of her daughter; “can you tell us nothing about his
appearance, that we might give a guess at him?”

“No,” replied M'Gowan, for such was the prophet's name, “not to you; to
none but herself can I give the marks an' tokens that will enable her
to know the man that is to be her husband when she sees him; and to
herself, in the mornin', I will, before I go that is if she'll allow
me--for what is written in the dark book ought to be read and expounded.
Her beauty an' her goodness will do it all!”

The man's words were uttered m a voice so replete with those soft and
insinuating tones that so powerfully operate upon the female heart; they
breathed, too such an earnest spirit of good will, joined to an evident
admiration of the beauty and goodness he alluded to, that the innocent
girl, not-withstanding her previous aversion, felt something like
gratification at what he said, not on account ol the prospects held out
to her, but because of the singular charm and affectionate spirit
which breathed in his voice; or, might it not have been that delicate
influence of successful flattery which so gently pervades the heart of
woman, and soothes that vanity which unconsciously lurks in the very
purest and most innocent of the sex? So far from being flattered by
his predictions, she experienced a strong sensation of disappointment,
because she knew where her affections at that moment rested, and felt
persuaded that if she were destined to enjoy the grandeur shadowed out
for her, it never could be with him whom she then loved. Notwithstanding
all this, she felt her repugnance against the prophet strongly
counterbalanced by the strange influence he began to exercise over her;
and with this impression she and they passed to the kitchen, where in a
few minutes she was engaged in preparing food for him, with a degree of
good feeling that surprised herself.

There is scarcely anything so painful to hearts naturally generous, like
those of the Sullivans, as the contest between the shame and exposure of
the conscious poverty on the one hand, and the anxiety to indulge in a
hospitable spirit on the other. Nobody unacquainted with Ireland could
properly understand the distress of mind which this conflict almost
uniformly produces. On the present occasion it was deeply felt by
this respectable but declining family, and Mave, the ingenuous and
kind-hearted girl, felt much of her unaccountable horror of this man
removed by its painful exercise. Still her aversion was not wholly
overcome, although much diminished; for, ever as she looked at his
swollen and disfigured face, and thought of the mysterious motions of
the murdered man's coat, she could not avoid turning away her eyes, and
wishing that she had not seen him that evening. The scanty meal was at
length over; a meal on which many a young eye dwelt with those yearning
looks that take their character from the hungry and wolfish spirit which
marks the existence of a “hard year,” as it is called in our unfortunate
country, and which, to a benevolent heart, forms such a sorrowful
subject for contemplation. Poor Bridget Sullivan did all in her power to
prevent this evident longing from being observed by M'Gowan, by looking
significantly, shaking' her head, and knitting her brows, at the
children; and when these failed she had recourse to threatening
attitudes, and all kinds of violent gestures: and on these proving also
unsuccessful, she was absolutely forced to speak aloud--

“Come, childhre, start out now, an' play yourselves; be off, I say, an'
don't stand ready to jump down the daicent man's throat wid every bit he
aits.”

She then drove them abroad somewhere, but as the rain fell heavily the
poor creatures were again forced to return, and resume their pitiable
watch until the two men had finished their scanty repast.

Seated around the dull and uncomfortable fire, the whole family now
forgot the hunger and care for a time, in the wild legends with which
M'Gowan entertained them, until the hour of rest.

“We haven't the best bed in the world,” observed Sullivan, “nor the best
bed-clothes aither, but, as I said before, I wish, for all our sakes,
they were betther. You must take your chance with these two slips o'
boys to-night as well as you can. If you wish to tumble in now you may;
or, may be you'd join us in our prayers. We sthrive, God! help us, to
say a Rosary every night; for, afther all, there's nothin' like puttin'
oneself! undher the holy protection of the Almighty, blessed be His
name! Indeed, this sickness that's goin' is so rife and dangerous that
it's good to sthrive to be prepared, as it is indeed, whatever comes,
whether hunger or plenty, sickness or health; an' may God keep us
prepared always!”

M'Gowan seemed for a moment at a loss, but almost immediately said in
reply--

“You are right, Jerry, but as for me, I say whatever prayers I do say,
always by myself; for I can then get my mind fixed upon them betther.
I'll just turn into bed, then, for troth I feel a little stiff and
tired; so you must only let me have my own way to-night. To-morrow night
I'll pray double.” He then withdrew to his appointed place of rest,
where, after having partially undressed himself, he lay down, and for
some time could hear no other sound than the solemn voices of this
struggling and afflicted little fold, as they united in offering up
their pious and simple act of worship to that Great Being, in whose
providential care they felt such humble and confiding trust.

When their devotions were concluded, they quietly, and in a spirit
at once of resignation and melancholy, repaired to their respective
sleeping places, with the exception of old Sullivan himself, who, after
some hesitation, took down the great coat already so markedly alluded
to--and exclaiming, partly to those within hearing--

“I don't know--but still there can't be any harm in it; sure it's
betther that it should be doin' some good than hangin' up there idle,
against the wall, such a night as this. Here, Dan, for the first time
since I put it up wid my own hands, except to shake the dust off of it,
I'm goin' to turn this big coat to some use. There,” he added, spreading
it over them; “let it help to keep you warm to-night--for God knows, you
want it, you an' them poor gorsoons. Your coverin' is but light, an'
you may hear the downpowrin' of rain that's in it; an' the wind, too,
is risin' fast, every minute--gettin' so strong, indeed, that I doubt it
'ill be a storm before it stops; an' Dan, if it 'udn't be too much, may
be you'd not object to offer up one pather an' avy for the poor sowl of
him that owned it, an' that was brought to his account so suddenly and
so terribly. There,” he added, fixing it upon them; “it helps to keep
you warm at any rate; an' it's surely betther to have it so employed
than hangin' idle, as I said, against the wall.”

M'Gowan immediately sat up in the bed, and putting down his hands,
removed the coat.

“We don't want it at all,” he replied; “take it away, Jerry--do, for
heaven's sake. The night's not at all so cowld as you think, an' we'll
keep one another warm enough wid-out it, never fear.”

“Troth you do want it,” said Sullivan; “for fareer gair, it's the light
coverin' that's over you an' them, poor boys. Heighho, Dan, see what
innocence is--poor things, they're sound already--an' may God pity them
an' provide for them, or enable me to do it!” And as he looked down upon
the sleeping lads, the tears came so abundantly to his eyes, that he was
forced to wipe them away. “Keep the coat, Dan,” he added; “you do want
it.”

“No,” replied the other. “The truth is, I couldn't sleep under it. I'm
very timersome, an' a little thing frightens me.”

“Oh,” said Sullivan, “I didn't think of that: in troth, if you're
timersome, it's more than the world b'lieves of you. Well, well--I'll
hang it up again; so good night, an' a sound sleep to you, an' to every
man that has a free conscience in the sight of God!”

No response was given to this prayer, and his words were followed by a
deep and solemn silence, that was only broken occasionally by the heavy
pattering of the descending rain, and the fitful gusts of the blast, as
they rushed against the house, and sung wildly among the few trees by
which it and the garden were enclosed.

Every one knows that a night of wind and storm, if not rising actually
to a tempest or hurricane, is precisely that on which sleep is with
its deepest influence upon men. Sullivan's family, on that which we are
describing, were a proof of this; at least until about the hour of
three o'clock, when they were startled by a cry for help, so loud and
frightful, that in a moment he and the boys huddled on their dress, and
hurried to the bed in which the prophet lay. In a minute or two they
got a candle lit; and truly the appearance of the man was calculated to
drive fear and alarm into their hearts. They found him sitting in the
bed, with his eyes so wild and staring that they seemed straining out
of their sockets. His hair was erect, and his mouth half open, and drawn
back; while the perspiration poured from him in torrents. His hands
were spread, and held up, with their palms outwards, as if in the act of
pushing something back that seemed to approach him. “Help,” he shouted,
“he is comin' on me--he will have me powerless in a minute. He is
gaspin' now, as he--Stay back, stay back--here--here, help; it's the
murdhered man--he's upon me. Oh!--Oh, God! he's comin' nearer and
nearer. Help me--save me!”

Sullivan on holding the candle to his face, perceived that he was still
asleep; and suspecting the nature of his dream, he awoke him at once. On
seeing a portion of the family about him, he started again, and looked
for a moment so completely aghast that he resembled horror personified.

“Who--what--what are you? Oh,” he exclaimed, recovering, and striving to
compose himself, “ha--Good God! what a frightful drame I had. I thought
I was murdherin' a man; murdherin' the”--he paused, and stared wildly
about him.

“Murdherin' who?” asked Jerry.

“Murdherin'! eh--ha--why, who talks about murdherin'?”

“Compose yourself,” added Sullivan; “you did; but you're frightened. You
say you thought you were murdherin' some one; who was it?”

“Yes, yesr” he replied; “it was myself. I thought the murdhered man
was--I mean, that the man was murdherin' myself.” And he looked with a
terrible shudder of fear towards the great coat.

“Hut,” said Sullivan, “it was only a drame; compose yourself; why
should you be alarmed?--your hand is free of it. So, as I said, compose
yourself; put your trust in God, an' recommend yourself to his care.”

“It was a terrible drame,” said the other, once more shuddering; “but
then it was a drame. Good God; yes! However, I ax pardon for disturbin'
you all, an' breaking in upon your sleep. Go to bed now; I'm well
enough; only jist set that bit of candle by the bed-side for awhile,
till I recover, for I did get a fearful fright.”

He then laid himself down once more, and having wiped the perspiration
from his forehead, which was now cadaverous, he bade them good night,
and again endeavored to compose himself to rest. In this he eventually
succeeded, the candle burning itself out; and in about three-quarters
of an hour the whole family were once more wrapped in sound and
uninterrupted repose.

The next morning the Sullivan family rose to witness another weary and
dismal day of incessant rain, and to partake of a breakfast of
thin stirabout, made and served up with that woful ingenuity, which
necessity, the mother of invention in periods of scarcity, as well as
in matters of a different character, had made known to the benevolent
hearted wife of Jerry Sullivan. That is to say, the victuals were made
so unsubstantially thin, that in order to impose, if possible, on the
appetite, it was deemed necessary to deceive the eye by turning the
plates and dishes round and round several times, while the viands
were hot, so as by spreading them over a larger surface, to give the
appearance of a greater quantity. It is, heaven knows, a melancholy
cheat, but one with which the periodical famines of our unhappy
country have made our people too well acquainted. Previous, however, to
breakfast, the prophet had a private interview with Mave, or the _Gra
Gal_, as she was generally termed to denote her beauty and extraordinary
power of conciliating affection; _Gra Gal_ signifying the fair love, or
to give the more comprehensive meaning which it implied, the fair-haired
beauty whom all love, or who wins all love. This interview lasted, at
least, a quarter of an hour, or it might be twenty minutes, but as the
object of it did not then transpire, we can only explain the appearances
which followed it, so far at least, as the parties themselves were
concerned. The _Gra Gal_, as we shall occasionally call her, seemed
pleased, if not absolutely gratified, by the conversation that passed
between them. Her eye was elated, and she moved about like one who
appeared to have been relieved from some reflection that had embarrassed
and depressed her; still it might have been observed that this sense of
relief had nothing in it directly affecting the person of the prophet
himself, on whom her eyes fell from time to time with a glance that
changed its whole expression of satisfaction to one of pain and dislike.
On his part there also appeared a calm sedate feeling of satisfaction,
under which, however, an eye better acquainted with human nature
might easily detect a triumph. He looked, to those who could properly
understand him, precisely as an able diplomatist would who had succeeded
in gaining a point.

When breakfast was over, and previous to his departure, he brought Jerry
Sullivan and his wife out to the barn, and in a tone and manner of much
mystery, assuming at the same time that figurative and inflated style so
peculiar to him, and also to his rival the Senachie, he thus addressed
them--

“Listen,” said he, “listen, Jerry Sullivan, and Bridget, his wife; a
child was born, and a page was written--the moon saw it, and the stars
saw it; but the sun did not, for he is dark to fate an' sees nothing
but the face of nature. Do you understand that, Jerry Sullivan, an' you
Bridget, his wife?”

“Well, troth we can't say we do yet, at all events,” they replied; “but
how could we, ye know, if it's regardin' prophecy you're spakin'.”

“Undherstand it!” he replied, contemptuously, “you undherstand it!--no
nor Father Philemy Corcoran himself couldn't undherstand it, barrin' he
fasted and prayed, and refrained from liquor, for that's the way to get
the ray o' knowledge; at laist it's, the way I got it first--however,
let that pass. As I was sayin' a child was born and a page was
written--and an angel from heaven was sent to Nebbychodanazor,
the prophet, who was commanded to write. What will I write? says
Nebbychodanazor, the prophet. Write down the fate of a faymale child, by
name Mave Sullivan, daughter to Jerry Sullivan and his wife Bridget, of
Aughnmurrin. Amin, says the prophet; fate is fate, what's before is not
behind, neither is what's behind before, and every thing will come to
pass that's to happen. Amin, agin, says the prophet, an' what am I
to write? Grandeur an' wealth--up stairs and down stairs--silks-an'
satins--an inside car--bracelets, earrings, and Spanish boots, made of
Morroccy leather, tanned at Cordovan. Amin, agin, says Nebbychodanazor,
the prophet; this is not that, neither is that the other, but every is
everything--naither can something be nothing, nor nothing something, to
the end of time; and time itself is but cousin jarmin to eternity--as is
recorded in the great book of fate, fortune and fatality. Write again,
says the angel. What am I to write? At the name of Mabel Sullivan place
along wid all the rest, two great paragons of a woman's life, Marriage
and Prosperity--write marriage happy, and prosperity numerous--and so
the child's born, an' the page written--beauty and goodness, a happy
father, and a proud mother--both made wealthy through her means.”

“And so,” he proceeded, dropping the recitative, and resuming his
natural voice--

“Be kind and indulgent to your daughter, for she'll yet live to make all
your fortunes. Take care of her and yourself till I sees yez again.”

And without adding another word he departed.




CHAPTER IV. -- A Dance, and Double Discovery.


The dance to which Sarah M'Gowan went after the conflict with her
step-mother, was but a miserable specimen of what a dance usually is in
Ireland. On that occasion, there were but comparatively few assembled;
and these few, as may be guessed, consisted chiefly of those gay and
frolicsome spirits whom no pressure of distress, nor anything short of
sickness or death, could sober down into seriousness. The meeting, in
fact, exhibited a painful union of mirth and melancholy. The season
brought with it none of that relief to the peasantry which usually makes
autumn so welcome. On the contrary, the failure of the potato crop,
especially in its quality, as well as that in the grain generally, was
not only the cause of hunger and distress, but also of the sickness
which prevailed. The poor were forced, as they too often are, to dig
their potatoes before they were fit for food; and the consequences were
disastrous to themselves in every sense. Sickness soon began to appear;
but then it was supposed that as soon as the new grain came in, relief
would follow. In this expectation, however, they were, alas! most
wofully disappointed. The wetness of the summer and autumn had soured
and fermented the grain so lamentably, that the use of it transformed
the sickness occasioned by the unripe and bad potatoes into a terrible
and desolating epidemic. At the period we are treating of, this awful
scourge had just set in, and was beginning to carry death and misery in
all their horrors throughout the country. It was no wonder, then, that,
at the dance we are describing, there was an almost complete absence of
that cheerful and light-hearted enjoyment which is, or at least which
was, to be found at such meetings. It was, besides, owing to the
severity of the evening, but thinly attended. Such a family had two
or three members of it sick; another had buried a fine young woman; a
third, an only son; a fourth, had lost the father, and the fifth, the
mother of a large family. In fact, the conversation on this occasion was
rather a catalogue of calamity and death, than that hearty ebullition of
animal spirits which throws its laughing and festive spirits into such
assemblies. Two there were, however, who, despite of the gloom which
darkened both the dance and the day, contrived to sustain our national
reputation for gayety and mirth. One of these was our friend, Sarah,
or, as she was better known, Sally M'Gowan, and the other a young fellow
named Charley Hanlon, who acted as a kind of gardener and steward to
Dick o' the Grange. This young fellow possessed great cheerfulness, and
such an everlasting fund of mirth and jocularity, as made him the life
and soul of every dance, wake, and merry-meeting in the parish. He was
quite a Lothario in his sphere--a lady-killer--and so general an admirer
of the sex, that he invariably made I love to every pretty girl he met,
or could lure into conversation. The usual consequences followed. Nobody
was such a favorite with the sex in general, who were ready to tear each
other's caps about him, as they sometimes actually did; and indeed this
is not at all to be wondered at. The fellow was one of the most open,
hardy liars that ever lived. Of shame he had heard; but of what it
meant, no earthly eloquence could give him the slightest perception;
and we need scarcely add, that his assurance was boundless, as were
his powers of flattery. It is unnecessary to say, then, that a man so
admirably calculated to succeed with the sex, was properly appreciated
by them, and that his falsehood, flattery, and assurance were virtues
which enshrined the vagabond in their hearts. In short, he had got the
character of being a rake; and he was necessarily obliged to suffer
the agreeable penalty of their admiration and favor in consequence. The
fellow besides, was by no means ill-looking, nor ill-made, but just had
enough of that kind of face and figure which no one can readily either
find fault with or praise.

This gallant and Sally M'Gowan, were in fact, the life of the meeting;
and Sally, besides, had the reputation of being a great favorite with
him--a circumstance which considerably diminished her popularity with
her own sex. She herself felt towards him that kind of wild, indomitable
affection, which is as vehement as it is unregulated in such minds as
hers. For instance, she made no secret of her attachment to him, but on
the contrary, gloried in it, even to her father, who, on this subject,
could exercise no restraint whatsoever over her. It is not our intention
to entertain our readers with the history of the occurrences which took
place at the dance, as they are, in fact, not worth recording. Hanlon,
at its close, prepared to see Sally home, as is usual.

“You may come with me near home,” she replied; “but I'm not goin' home
to-night.”

“Why, where the dickens are you goin' then?” he asked.

“To Barny Gorrnly's wake; there 'ill be lots of fun there, too,” she
replied. “But come--you can come wid me as far as the turn-up to the
house; for I won't go in, nor go home neither, till afther the berril,
tomorrow.”

“Do you know,” said he, rather gravely, “the Grey Stone that's at the
mouth of the Black Glen?”

“I ought,” said she; “sure that's where the carman was found murdhered.”

“The same,” added Hanlon. “Well, I must go that far to-night,” said he.

“And that's jist where I turn off to the Gormly's.”

“So far, then, we'll be together,” he replied.

“But why that far only, Charley--eh?”

“That's what you could never guess,” said he, “and very few else aither;
but go I must, an' go I will. At all events, I'll be company for you in
passin' it. Are you never afeard at night, as you go near it?”

“Divil a taste,” she replied; “what 'ud I be afeard of? my father laughs
at sich things; although,” she added, musing, “I think he's sometimes
timorous for all that. But I know he's often out at all hours, and he
says he doesn't care about ghosts--I know I don't.”

The conversation now flagged a little, and Hanlon, who had been all the
preceding part of the evening full of mirth and levity, could scarcely
force himself to reply to her observations, or sustain any part in the
dialogue.

“Why, what the sorra's comin' over you?” she asked, as they began to
enter into the shadow of the hill at whose foot her father's cabin
stood, and which here, for about two hundred yards, fell across the
road. “It is gettin' afeard you are?”

“No,” he replied; “but I was given to undherstand last night, that if
I'd come this night to the Grey Stone, I'd find out a saicret that I'd
give a great deal to know.”

“Very well,” she replied, we'll see that; an' now, raise your spirits.
Here we're in the moonlight, thank goodness, such as it is. Dear me,
thin, but it's an awful night, and the wind's risin'; and listen to the
flood, how it roars in the glen below, like a thousand bulls!”

“It is,” he replied; “but hould your tongue now for a little, and as
you're here stop wid me for a while, although I don't see how I'm likely
to come by much knowledge in sich a place as this.”

They now approached the Grey Stone, and as they did the moon came out
a little from her dark shrine of clouds, but merely with that dim and
feeble light which was calculated to add ghastliness and horror to the
wildness and desolation of the place.

Sally could now observe that her companion was exceedingly pale and
agitated, his voice, as he spoke, became disturbed and infirm; and as he
laid his hand upon the Grey Stone he immediately withdrew it, and taking
off his hat he blessed himself, and muttered a short prayer with an
earnestness and solemnity for which she could not account. Having
concluded it, both stood in silence for a short time, he awaiting the
promised information--for which on this occasion he appeared likely to
wait in vain;--and she without any particular purpose beyond her natural
curiosity to watch and know the event.

The place at that moment was, indeed, a lonely one, and it was by no
means surprising that, apart from the occurrence of two murders, one on,
and the other near, the spot where they stood, the neighboring peasantry
should feel great reluctance in passing it at night. The light of the
moon was just sufficient to expose the natural wildness of the adjacent
scenery. The glen itself lay in the shadow of the hill, and seemed to
the eye so dark that nothing but the huge outlines of the projecting
crags, whose shapes appeared in the indistinctness like gigantic
spectres, could been seen; while all around, and where the pale light
of! the moon fell, nothing was visible but the muddy gleams of the
yellow flood as it rushed, with its hoarse and incessant roar, through
a flat country on whose features the storm and the hour had impressed
a character of gloom, and the most dismal desolation. Nay, the still
appearance of the Grey Stone, or rock, at which they stood, had, when
contrasted with the moving elements about them, and associated with
the murder committed at its very foot, a solemn appearance that was
of itself calculated to fill the mind with awe and terror. Hanlon felt
this, as, indeed, his whole manner indicated.

“Well,” said his companion, alluding to the short prayer he had just
concluded, “I didn't expect to see you at your prayers like a voteen
this night at any rate. Is it fear that makes you so pious upon our
hands? Troth, I doubt there's a white feather,--a cowardly dhrop--in
you, still an' all.”

“If you can be one minute serious, Sally, do, I beg of you. I am very
much disturbed, I acknowledge, an' so would you, mabe, if you knew as
much as I do.”

“You're the color of death,” she replied putting her fingers upon his
cheek; “--an, my God! is it paspiration I feel such a night as this? I
declare to goodness it is. Give me the white pocket-handkerchy that you
say Peggy Murray gave you. Where is it?” she proceeded, taking it out of
his pocket. “Ah, ay, I have it; stoop a little; take care of your hat;
here now,” and while speaking she wiped the cold perspiration from
his forehead. “Is this the one she made you a present of, an' put the
letthers on?”

“It is,” he replied, “the very same--but she didn't make me a present of
it, she only hemmed it for me.”

“That's a lie of you,” she replied, fiercely; “she bought it for you out
of her own pocket. I know that much. She tould Kate Duffy so herself,
and boasted of it: but wait.”

“Well,” replied Hanlon, anxious to keep down the gust of jealousy which
he saw rising, “and if she did, how could I prevent her?”

“What letthers did she put on it?”

“P. and an M.,” he replied, “the two first letthers of my name.”

“That's another lie,” she exclaimed; “they're not the two first letthers
of your name, but of her own; there's no M in Hanlon. At any rate,
unless you give the same handkerchy to me, I'll make it be a black
business to her.”

“Keep it, keep it, wid all my heart,” he replied, glad to get rid of a
topic which at that moment came on him so powerfully and unseasonably.
“Do what you like wid it.”

“You say so willingly, now--do you?”

“To be sure I do; an' you may tell the whole world that I said so, if
you like.”

“P. M.--oh, ay, that's for Peggy Murray--maybe the letthers I saw on the
ould tobaccy-box I found in the hole of the wall to-day were for Peggy
Murray. Ha! ha! ha! Oh, may be I won't have a brag over her!”

“What letthers?” asked Hanlon eagerly; “a tobaccy-box, did you say?”

“Ay did I--a tobaccy-box. I found it in a hole in the wall in our
house to-day; it tumbled out while I was gettin' some cobwebs to stop a
bleedin'.”

“Was it a good one?” asked Hanlon, with apparent carelessness, “could
one use it?”

“Hardly; but no, it's all rusty, an' has but one hinge.”

“But one hinge!” repeated the other, who was almost breathless with
anxiety; “an' the letthers--what's this you say they wor?”

“The very same that's on your handkerchy,” she replied--“a P. an' an M.”

“Great God!” he exclaimed, “is this possible! Heavens! What is that? Did
you hear anything?”

“What ails you?” she enquired. “Why do you look so frightened?”

“Did you hear nothing?” he again asked.

“Ha! ha!--hear!” she replied, laughing--“hear; I thought I heard
something like a groan; but sure 'tis only the wind. Lord! what a night!
Listen how the wind an' storm growls an' tyrannizes and rages down in
the glen there, an' about the hills. Faith there'll be many a house
stripped this night. Why, what ails you? Afther all, you're but a
hen-hearted divil, I doubt; sorra thing else.”

Hanlon made her no reply, but took his hat off, and once more offered up
a short prayer, apparently in deep and most extraordinary excitement.

“I see,” she observed, after he had concluded, “that you're bent on your
devotions this night; and the devil's own place you've pitched upon for
them.”

“Well, now,” replied Hanlon, “I'll be biddin' you good-night; but before
you go, promise to get me that tobaccy-box you found; it's the least you
may give it to me for Peggy Murray's handkerchy.”

“Hut,” returned Sally, “it's not worth a thraneen; you couldn't use it
even if you had it; sure it's both rusty and broken.”

“No matther for that,” he replied; “I want to play a thrick on Peggy
Murray wid it, so as to have a good laugh against her--the pair of
us--you wid the handkerchy, and me wid the tobaccy-box.”

“Very well,” she replied. “Ha! ha! ha!--that'll be great. At any rate,
I've a crow to pluck wid the same Peggy Murray. Oh, never you fear, you
must have it; the minnit I get my hands on it, I'll secure it for you.”
 After a few words more of idle chat they separated; he to his master's
house, which was a considerable distance off; and this extraordinary
creature--unconscious of the terrors and other weaknesses that render
her sex at once so dependent on and so dear to man--full only of delight
at the expected glee of the wake--to the house of death where it was
held.

In the country parts of Ireland it is not unusual for those who come to
a wake-house from a distance, to remain there until the funeral takes
place: and this also is frequently the case with the nearest door
neighbors. There is generally a solemn hospitality observed on the
occasion, of which the two classes I mention partake. Sally's absence,
therefore, on that night, or for the greater portion of the next day,
excited neither alarm nor surprise at home. On entering their miserable
sheiling, she found her father, who had just returned, and her
step-mother in high words; the cause of which, she soon learned, had
originated in his account of the interview between young Dalton and Mave
Sullivan, together with its unpleasant consequences to himself.

“What else could you expect,” said his wife, “but what you got? You're
ever an' always too ready wid your divil's grin an' your black prophecy
to thim you don't like. I wondher you're not afeard that some of them
might come back to yourself, an' fall upon your own head. If ever a man
tempted Providence you do.”

“Ah, dear me!” he exclaimed, with a derisive sneer, rendered doubly
repulsive by his own hideous and disfigured face, “how pious we are!
Providence, indeed! Much I care about Providence, you hardened jade, or
you aither, whatever puts the word into your purty mouth. Providence!
oh, how much we regard it, as if Providence took heed of what we do.
Go an' get me somethin' to put to this swellin', you had betther; or
if it's goin' to grow religious you are, be off out o' this; we'll have
none of your cant or pishthrougues here.”

“What's this?” inquired Sarah, seating; herself on a three legged stool,
“the ould work, is it? bell-cat, bell-dog. Ah, you're a blessed pair an'
a purty pair, too; you, wid your swelled face an' blinkin' eye. Arrah,
what dacent man gave you that? An' you,” she added, turning to her
step-mother, “wid your cheeks poulticed, an' your eye blinkin' on the
other side--what a pair o' beauties you are, ha! ha! ha! I wouldn't be
surprised if the divil an' his mother fell in consate wid you both!--ha!
ha!”

“Is that your manners, afther spendin' the night away wid yourself?”
 asked her father, angrily. “Instead of stealin' into the house
thremblin' wid fear, as you ought to be, you walk in wid your brazen
face, ballyraggin' us like a Hecthor.”

“Devil a taste I'm afeard,” she replied, sturdily; “I did nothin' to be
afeard or ashamed of, an' why should I?”

“Did you see Mr. Hanlon on your travels, eh?”

“You needn't say eh about it,” she replied, “to be sure I did; it was to
meet him that I went to the dance; I have no saicrets.”

“Ah, you'll come to a good end yet, I doubt,” said her father.

“Sure she needn't be afeard of Providence, any how,” observed his wife.

“To the divil wid you, at all events,” he replied; “if you're not off
out o' that to get me somethin' for this swellin' I'll make it worse for
you.”

“Ay, ay, I'll go,” looking at him with peculiar bitterness, “an wid the
help of the same Providence that you laugh at, I'll take care that the
same roof won't cover the three of us long. I'm tired of this life, and
come or go what may, I'll look to my sowl an' lead it no longer.

“Do you mane to break our hearts?” he replied, laughing; “for sure we
couldn't do less afther her, Sally; eh, ha! ha! ha! Before you lave us,
anyhow,” he added, “go and get me some Gaiharrawan roots to bring down
this swellin'; I can't go to the Grange wid sich a face as this on me.”

“You'll have a blacker an' a worse one on the day of judgment,” replied
Nelly, taking up an old spade as she spoke, and proceeding to look for
the Casharrawan (Dandelion) roots he wanted.

When she had gone, the prophet, assuming that peculiar sweetness of
manner, for which he was so remarkable when it suited his purpose,
turned to his daughter, and putting his hand into his waistcoat pocket,
pulled out a tress of fair hair, whose shade and silky softness were
exquisitely beautiful.

“Do you see that,” said he, “isn't that pretty?”

“Show,” she replied, and taking the tress into her hand, she looked at
it.

“It is lovely; but isn't that aquil to it?” she continued, letting loose
her own of raven black and equal gloss and softness--“what can it brag
over that? eh,” and as she compared them her black eye flashed, and her
cheek assumed a rich glow of pride and conscious beauty, that made her
look just such a being as an old Grecian statuary would have wished to
model from.

“It is aiquil to hers any day,” replied her father, softening into
affection as he contemplated her; “and indeed, Sally, I think you're her
match every way except--except--no matter, troth are you.”

“What are you going to do wid it?” she asked; “is it to the Grange it's
goin'?”

“It is an' I want you to help me in what I mentioned to you. If I get
what I'm promised, we'll lave the country, you and I, and as for
that ould vagabond, we'll pitch her to ould Nick. She's talking about
devotion and has nothing but Providence in her lips.”

“But isn't there a Providence?” asked his daughter, with a sparkling
eye.

“Devil a much myself knows or cares,” he replied, with indifference,
“whether there is or not.”

“Bekase if there is,” she said, pausing--“if there is, one might as
well--”

She paused again and her fine features assumed an intellectual
meaning--a sorrowful and meditative beauty, that gave a new and more
attractive expression to her face than her father had ever witnessed on
it before.

“Don't vex me, Sarah,” he replied, snappishly. “Maybe it's goin' to
imitate her you are. The clargy knows these things maybe--an' maybe they
don't. I only wish she'd come back with the caaharrawan. If all goes
right, I'll pocket what'll bring yourself an' me to America. I'm
beginnin' somehow to get unaisy; an' I don't wish to stay in this
country any longer.”

Whilst he spoke, the sparkling and beautiful expression which had lit
up his daughter's countenance passed away, and with it probably the
moment in which it was possible to have opened a new and higher destiny
to her existence.

Nelly, in the meantime, having taken an old spade with her to dig the
roots she went in quest of, turned up Glendhu, and kept searching for
some time in vain, until at length she found two or three bunches of the
herb growing in a little lonely nook that lay behind a projecting ledge
of rock, where one would seldom think of looking for herbage at all.
Here she found a little, soft, green spot, covered over with dandelion;
and immediately she began to dig it up. The softness of the earth and
its looseness surprised her a good deal; and moved by an unaccountable
curiosity, she pushed the spade further down, until it was met by some
substance that felt rather hard. From this she cleared away the earth as
well as she could, and discovered that the spade had been opposed by a
bone; and on proceeding to examine still further, she discovered that
the spot on which the dandelions had grown, contained the bones of a
full grown human body.




CHAPTER V. -- The Black Prophet is Startled by a Black Prophecy.


Having satisfied herself that the skeleton was a human one, she
cautiously put back the earth, and covered it up with the green sward,
as graves usually are covered, and in such a way that there should
exist, from the undisturbed appearance of the place, as little risk as
possible of discovery. This being-settled, she returned with the herbs,
laying aside the spade, from off which she had previously rubbed the red
earth, so as to prevent any particular observation; she sat down, and
locking her fingers into each other, swayed her body backwards and
forwards in silence, as a female does in Ireland when under the
influence of deep and absorbing sorrow, whilst from time to time she
fixed her eyes on the prophet, and sighed deeply.

“I thought,” said he, “I sent you for the dandelion; where is it?”

“Oh,” she replied, unrolling it from the corner of her apron, “here
it is--I forgot it--ay, I forgot it--and no wondher--oh, no wondher,
indeed!--Providence! You may blaspheme Providence as much as you like;
but he'll take his own out o' you yet; an' indeed, it's comin' to
that--it is, Donnel, an' you'll find it so.”

The man had just taken the herbs into his hand and was about to shred
them into small leaves for the poultice, when she uttered the last
words. He turned his eyes upon her; and in an instant that terrible
scowl, for which he was so remarkable, when in a state of passion, gave
its deep and deadly darkness to his already disfigured visage. His eyes
blazed, and one half of his face became ghastly with rage.

“What do you mane?” he asked; “what does she mane, Sarah? I tell you,
wanst for all, you must give up ringing Providence into my ears, unless
you wish to bring my hand upon you, as you often did! mark that!”

“Your ears,” she replied, looking at him calmly, and without seeming to
regard his threat; “oh, I only wish I could ring the fear of Providence
into your heart--I wish I I could; I'll do for yourself what you often
pretend to do for others: but I'll give you warnin'. I tell you now,
that Providence: himself is on your track--that his judgment's hangin'
over you--and that it'll fall upon! you before long. This is my
prophecy, and; a black one you'll soon find it.”

That Nelly had been always a woman of some good nature, with gleams of
feeling and humanity appearing in a character otherwise apathetic, hard,
and dark, M'Gowan well knew; but that she was capable of bearding him
in one of his worst and most ferocious moods, was a circumstance which
amazed and absolutely overcame him. Whether it was the novelty or the
moral elevation of the position she so unexpectedly assumed, or some
lurking conviction within himself which echoed back the truth of her
language, it is difficult to say. Be that, however, as it might, he
absolutely quailed before her; and instead of giving way to headlong
violence or outrage, he sat down, and merely looked on her in silence
and amazement.

Sarah thought he was unnecessarily tame on the occasion, and that
her prophecy ought not to have been listened to in silence. The utter
absence of all fear, however, on the part of the elder female, joined to
the extraordinary union of determination and indifference with which
she spoke, had something morally impressive in it; and Sarah, who
felt, besides, that there seemed a kind of mystery in the words of the
denunciation, resolved to let the matter rest between them, at least for
the present.

A silence of some time now ensued, during which she looked from the one
to the other with an aspect of uncertainty. At length, she burst into a
hearty laugh--

“Ha, ha, ha!--well,” said she, “it's a good joke at any rate to see my
father bate with his own weapons. Why, she has frightened you more wid
her prophecy than ever you did any one wid one of your own. Ha, ha, ha!”

To this Sally neither replied, nor seemed disposed to reply.

“Here,” added Sarah, handing her stepmother a cloth, “remimber you have
to go to Darby Skinadre's for meal. I'd go myself, an' save you in the
journey, but that I'm afraid you might fall in love wid one another
in my absence. Be off now, you ould stepdivle, an' get the meal; or if
you're not able to go, I will.”

After a lapse of a few minutes, the woman rose, and taking the cloth,
deliberately folded it up, and asked him for money to purchase the meal
she wanted.

“Here,” said he, handing her a written paper, “give him that, an' it
will do as well as money. He expects Master Dick's interest for Dalton's
farm, an' I'll engage he'll attend to that.”

She received the paper, and looking at it, said--

“I hope this is none of the villainy I suspect.”

“Be off,” he replied, “get what you want, and that's all you have to
do.”

“What's come over you?” asked Sarah of her father, after the other had
gone. “Did you get afeard of her?”

“There's something in her eye,” he replied, “that I don't like, and that
I never seen there before.”

“But,” returned the other, a good deal surprised, “what can there be in
her eye that you need care about? You have nobody's blood on your hands,
an' you stole nothing. What made you look afeard that time?”

“I didn't look afeard.”

“But I say you did, an' I was ashamed of you.”

“Well, never mind--I may tell you something some o' these days about
that same woman. In the meantime, I'll throw myself on the bed, an' take
a sleep, for I slept but little last night.”

“Do so,” replied Sarah; “but at any rate, never be cowed by a woman. Lie
down, an' I'll go over awhile to Tom Cassidy's. But first, I had better
make the poultice for your face, to take down the ugly swellin'.”

Having made and applied the poultice, she went off, light-hearted as a
lark, leaving her worthy father to seek some rest if he could.

She had no sooner disappeared than the prophet, having closed and
bolted the door, walked backwards and forwards, in a moody and unsettled
manner.

“What,” he exclaimed to himself, “can be the matther with that woman,
that made her look at me in sich a way a while agone? I could not
mistake her eye. She surely knows more than I thought, or she would not
fix her eye into mine as she did. Could there be anything in that dhrame
about Dalton an' my coffin? Hut! that's nonsense. Many a dhrame I had
that went for nothin'. The only thing she could stumble on is the Box,
an' I don't think she would be likely to find that out, unless she
went to throw down the house; but, anyhow, it's no harm to thry.” He
immediately mounted the old table, and, stretching up, searched the
crevice in the wall where it had been, but, we need not add, in vain. He
then came down again, in a state of dreadful alarm, and made a general
search for it in every hole and corner visible, after, which his
agitation became wild and excessive.

“She has got it!” he exclaimed--“she has stumbled on it, aided by the
devil'--an' may she soon be in his clutches!--and it's the only thing
I'm afeard of! But then,” he added, pausing, and getting somewhat
cool--“does she know it might be brought against me, or who owned it?
I don't think she does; but still, where can it be, and what could she
mane by Providence trackin' me out?--an' why did she look as if she:
knew something? Then that dhrame I can't get it out o' my head this
whole day--and the terrible one I had last night, too! But that last is
aisily 'counted for. As it is, I must only wait, and watch her; and if I
find she can be dangerous, why--it'll be worse for her--that's all!”

He then threw himself on the wretched bed, and, despite of his
tumultuous reflections, soon fell asleep.




CHAPTER VI. -- A Rustic Miser and His Establishment


There is to be found in Ireland, and, we presume, in all other
countries, a class of hardened wretches, who look forward to a period
of dearth as to one of great gain and advantage, and who contrive, by
exercising the most heartless and diabolical principles, to make
the sickness, famine, and general desolation which scourge their
fellow-creatures, so many sources of successful extortion and rapacity,
and consequently of gain to themselves. These are Country Misers or
Money-lenders, who are remarkable for keeping meal until the arrival of
what is termed a hard year, or a dear summer, when they sell it out at
an enormous or usurious prices, and who, at all times, and under all
circumstances, dispose of it only at terms dictated by their own griping
spirit and the crying necessity of the unhappy purchasers.

The houses and places of such persons are always remarkable for a
character in their owners of hard and severe saving, which at a first
glance has the appearance of that rare virtue in our country, called
frugality--a virtue which, upon a closer inspection, is found to
be nothing with them but selfishness, sharpened up into the most
unscrupulous avarice and penury.

About half a mile from the Sullivan's, lived a remarkable man of this
class, named Darby Skinadre. In appearance he was lank and sallow,
with a long, thin, parched looking face, and a miserable crop of yellow
beard, which no one could pronounce as anything else than “a dead
failure;” added to this were two piercing ferret eyes, always sore and
with a tear standing in each, or trickling down his fleshless cheeks; so
that, to persons disposed to judge only by appearances, he looked very
like a man in a state of perpetual repentance for his transgressions,
or, what was still farther from the truth, who felt a most Christian
sympathy with the distresses of the poor. In his house, and about it,
there was much, no doubt, to be commended, for there was much to mark
the habits of the saving man. Everything was neat and clean, not so
much from any innate love of neatness and cleanliness, as because
these qualities were economical in themselves. His ploughs and farming
implements were all snugly laid up, and covered, lest they might be
injured by exposure to the weather; and his house was filled with large
chests and wooden hogsheads, trampled hard with oatmeal, which, as they
were never opened unless during a time of famine, had their joints
and crevices festooned by innumerable mealy-looking cobwebs, which
description of ornament extended to the dresser itself, where they
might be seen upon most of the cold-looking shelves, and those neglected
utensils, that in other families are mostly used for food. His haggard
was also remarkable for having in it, throughout all the year, a
remaining stack or two of oats or wheat, or perhaps one or two large
ricks of hay, tanned by the sun of two or three summers into tawny
hue--each or all kept in the hope of a failure and a famine.

In a room from the kitchen, he had a beam, a pair of scales, and a set
of weights, all of which would have been vastly improved by a visit from
the lord-mayor, had our meal-monger lived under the jurisdiction of that
civic gentleman. He was seldom known to use metal weights when disposing
of his property; in lieu of these he always used round stones, which,
upon the principle of the Scottish proverb, that “many a little makes
a muckle,” he must have found a very beneficial mode of transacting
business.

If anything could add to the iniquity of his principles, as a plausible
but most unscrupulous cheat, it was the hypocritical prostitution of the
sacred name and character of religion to his own fraudulent impositions
upon the poor and the distressed. Outwardly, and to the eye of men,
he was proverbially strict and scrupulous in the observation of its
sanctions, but outrageously severe and unsparing upon all who appeared
to be influenced either by a negligent or worldly spirit, or who omitted
the least tittle of its forms. Religion and its duties, therefore, were
perpetually in his mouth but never with such apparent zeal and sincerity
as when enforcing his most heartless and hypocritical exactions upon
the honest and struggling creatures whom necessity or neglect had driven
into his meshes.

Such was Darby Skinadre; and certain we are that the truth of the
likeness we have given of him will be at once recognized by our readers
as that of the roguish hypocrite, whose rapacity is the standing curse
of half the villages of the country, especially during the seasons of
distress, or failure of crops.

Skinadre on the day we write of, was reaping a rich harvest from the
miseries of the unhappy people. In a lower room of his house, to the
right of the kitchen as you entered it, he stood over the scales,
weighing out with a dishonest and parsimonious hand, the scanty pittance
which poverty enabled the wretched creatures to purchase from him;
and in order to give them a favorable impression of his piety, and
consequently of his justice, he had placed against the wall a delf
crucifix, with a semi-circular receptacle at the bottom of it for
holding holy water This was as much as to say “how could I cheat you,
with the image of our Blessed Redeemer before my eyes to remind me of my
duty, and to teach me, as He did, to love my fellow-creatures?” And
with many of; the simple people, he actually succeeded in making the
impression he wished; for they could not conceive it possible, that any
principle, however rapacious, could drive a man to the practice of such
sacrilegious imposture.

There stood Skinadre, like the very Genius of Famine, surrounded by
distress, raggedness, feeble hunger, and tottering disease, in all the
various aspects of pitiable suffering, hopeless desolation, and that
agony of the heart which impresses wildness upon the pale cheek, makes
the eye at once dull and eager, parches the mouth and gives to the voice
of misery tones that are hoarse and hollow. There he stood, striving to
blend consolation with deceit, and in the name of religion and charity
subjecting the helpless wretches to fraud and extortion. Around him
was misery, multiplied into all her most appalling shapes. Fathers of
families were there, who could read in each other's faces too truly the
gloom and anguish that darkened the brow and wrung the heart. The
strong man, who had been not long-before a comfortable farmer, now stood
dejected and apparently broken down, shorn of his strength, without a
trace of either hope or spirit; so wofully shrunk away too, from his
superfluous apparel, that the spectators actually wondered to think that
this was the large man, of such powerful frame, whose feats of strength
had so often heretofore filled them with amazement. But, alas! what will
not sickness and hunger do? There too was the aged man--the grand-sire
himself--bent with a double weight of years and sorrow--without food
until that late hour; forgetting the old pride that never stooped
before, and now coming with, the last feeble argument, to remind the
usurer that he and his father had been schoolfellows and friends,
and that although he had refused to credit his son and afterwards his
daughter-in-law, still, for the sake of old times, and of those who were
now no more, he hoped he would not refuse his gray hairs and tears, and
for the sake of the living God besides, that which would keep his son,
and his daughter-in-law, and his famishing grandchildren, who had not
a morsel to put in their mouths, nor the means of procuring it on
earth--if he failed them.

And there was the widower, on behalf of his motherless children, coming
with his worn and desolate look of sorrow, almost thankful to God that
his Kathleen was not permitted to witness the many-shaped miseries of
this woful year; and yet experiencing the sharp and bitter reflection
that now, in all their trials--in his poor children's want and
sickness--in their moanings by day and their cries for her by night,
they have not the soft affection of her voice nor the tender touch of
her hand to soothe their pain--nor has he that smile, which was ever
his, to solace him now, nor that faithful heart to soothe him with its
affection, or to cast its sweetness into the bitter cup of affliction.
Alas! no; he knows that her heart will beat for him and them no more;
that that eye of love will never smile upon them again; and so he feels
the agony of her loss superadded to all his other sufferings, and in
this state he approaches the merciless usurer.

And the widow--emblem of desolation and dependence--how shall she meet
and battle with the calamities of this fearful season? She out of whose
heart these very calamities draw forth the remembrances of him she has
lost, with such vividness that his past virtues are added to her
present sufferings; and his manly love as a husband--his tenderness as
a parent--his protecting hand and ever kind heart, crush her solitary
spirit by their memory, and drag it down to the utmost depths of
affliction. Oh! bitter reflection!--“if her Owen wore now alive, and
in health, she would not be here; but God took him to Himself, and now
unless he--the miser--has compassion on her, she and her children--her
Owen's children--must lie down and die! If it were not for their sakes,
poor darlings, she would I wish to follow him out of such a world; but
now she and the Almighty are all that they have to look to, blessed be
His name!”

Others there were whose presence showed; how far the general destitution
had gone into the heart of society, and visited many whose circumstances
had been looked upon as beyond its reach. The decent farmer, for
instance, whom no one had suspected of distress, made his appearance
among them with an air of cheerfulness that was put on to baffle
suspicion. Sometimes he laughed as if his heart were light, and again
expressed a kind of condescending sympathy with some poor person or
other, to whom he spoke kindly, as a man would do who knew nothing
personally of the distress which he saw about him, but who wished to
encourage those who did with the cheering hope that it must soon pass
away. Then affecting the easy manner of one who was interesting himself
for another person, he asked to have some private conversation with the
usurer, to whom he communicated the immediate want that pressed upon him
and his family.

It is impossible, however, to describe the various aspects and claims of
misery which presented themselves at Skinadre's house. The poor
people flitted to and fro silently and dejectedly, wasted, feeble, and
sickly--sometimes in small groups of twos and threes, and sometimes a
solitary individual might be seen hastening with earnest but languid
speed, as if the life of some dear child or beloved parent, of a husband
or wife, or perhaps, the lives of a whole farcify, depended upon his or
her arrival with food.




CHAPTER VII. -- A Panorama of Misery.


Skinadre, thin and mealy, with his coat off, but wearing a waistcoat to
which were attached flannel sleeves, was busily engaged in his agreeable
task of administering to their necessities. Such was his smoothness
of manner, and the singular control which a long life of hypocrisy had
given him over his feelings, that it was impossible to draw any correct
distinction between that which he only assumed, and that which he really
felt. This consequently gave him an immense advantage over every one
with whom he came in contact, especially the artless and candid, and
all who were in the habit of expressing what they thought. We shall,
however, take the liberty of introducing him to the reader, and allow
honest Skinadre to speak for himself.

“They're beggars--them three--that woman and her two children; still my
heart bleeds for them, bekase we should love our neighbors as ourselves;
but I have given away as much meal in charity, an' me can so badly
afford it, as would--I can't now, indeed, my poor woman! Sick--troth
they look sick, an' you look sick yourself. Here, Paddy Lenahan, help
that woman an' her two poor children out of that half bushel of meal
you've got; you won't miss a handful for God's sake.”

This he said to a poor man who had just purchased some oat-meal from
him; for Skinadre was one of those persons who, however he might have
neglected works of mercy himself, took great delight in encouraging
others to perform them.

“Troth it's not at your desire I do it, Darby,” replied the man; “but
bekase she an' they wants it, God help them. Here, poor creature, take
this for the honor of God: an' I'm only sorry, for both our sakes, that
I can't do more.”

“Well, Jemmy Duggan,” proceeded the miser, addressing a new-comer,
“what's the news wid you? They're hard times, Jemmy; we all know that
an' feel it too, and yet we live, most of us, as if there wasn't a God
ta punish us.”

“At all events,” replied the man, “we feel what sufferin' is now, God
help us! Between hunger and sickness, the counthry was never in such a
state widin the memory of man, What, in the name o' God, will become of
the poor people, I know not. The Lord pity them an' relieve them!”

“Amen, amen, Jemmy! Well, Jemmy, can I do any thing for you? But Jemmy,
in regard to that, the thruth is, we have brought all these scourges
on us by our sins and our transgressions; thim that sins, Jemmy, must
suffer.”

“There's no one denyin' it, Darby; but you're axin' me can you do any
thing for me, an' my answer to that is, you can, if you like.”

“Ah! Jemmy, you wor ever an' always a wild, heedless, heerum-skeerum
rake, that never was likely to do much good; little religion ever rested
on you, an' now I'm afeard no signs on it.”

“Well, well, who's widout sin? I'm sure I'm not. What I want is, to know
if you'll credit me for a hundred of meal till the times mends a trifle.
I have the six o' them at home widout their dinner this day, an' must go
widout if you refuse me. When the harvest comes round, I'll pay you.”

“Jemmy, you owe three half-year's, rent; an' as for the harvest an' what
it'll bring, only jist look at the day that's in it. It goes to my heart
to refuse you, poor man; but Jemmy, you see you have brought this on
yourself. If you had been an attentive, industrious man, an' minded
your religion, you wouldn't be as you are now. Six you have at home, you
say?”

“Ay, not to speak of the woman; an' myself. I know you won't, refuse
them, Darby, bekase if we're hard pushed now, it's, a'most every body's
case as well as mine. Be what I may, you know I'm honest.”

“I don't doubt your honesty, Jemmy; but Jemmy, if I sell my meal to a
man that can pay and won't, or if I sell my meal to a man that would pay
and can't, by which do I lose most? There it is, Jemmy--think o' that
now. Six in family, you say?”

“Six in family, wid the woman an' myself.”

“The sorra man livin' feels more for you than I do, an' I would let you
have the meal if I could; but the truth is, I'm makin' up my rent--an'
Jemmy, I lost so much last year by my foolish good nature, an' I gave
away so much on trust, that now I'm brought to a hard pass myself. Troth
I'll fret enough this night for havin' to refuse you. I know it was rash
of me to make the promise I did; but still, God forbid that ever any man
should be able to throw it in my face, an' say that Darby Skinadre ever
broke his promise.”

“What promise?”

“Why, never to sell a pound of meal on trust.”

“God help us, then!--for what to do or where to go I don't know.”

“It goes to my heart, Jemmy, to refuse you--six in family, an' the two
of yourselves. Troth it does, to my very heart itself; but stay, maybe
we may manage it. You have no money, you say?”

“No money now, but won't be so long, plaise God.”

“Well, but haven't you value of any kind?--: sure, God help them, they
can't starve, poor cratures--the Lord pity them!” Here he wiped away a
drop of villainous rheum which ran down his cheek, and he did it with
such an appearance of sympathy, that almost any one would have imagined
it was a tear of compassion for the distresses of the poor man's family.

“Oh! no, they can't starve. Have you no valuables of any kind,
Jemmy!--ne'er a baste now, or anything that way?”

“Why, there's a young heifer; but I'm strugglin' to keep it to help me
in the rent. I was obliged to sell my pig long ago, for I had no way of
feedin' it.”

“Well, bring me the heifer, Jemmy, an' I won't let the crathurs starve.
We'll see what can be done when it comes here. An' now, Jemmy, let me ax
if you wint to hear mass on last Sunday?”

“Troth I didn't like to go in this trim. Peggy has a web of frieze half
made this good while; it'll be finished some time, I hope.”

“Ah! Jemmy, Jemmy, it's no wondher the world's the way it is, for indeed
there's little thought of God or religion in it. You passed last Sunday
like a haythen, an' now you see how you stand to-day for the same.”

“You'll let me bring some o' the meal home wid me now,” said the man;
“the poor cratures tasted hardly anything to-day yet, an' they wor
cryin' whin I left home. I'll come back wid the heifer fullfut. Troth
they're in utther misery, Darby.”

“Poor things!--an' no wondher, wid such a haythen of a father; but,
Jemmy, bring the heifer here first till I look at it, an' the sooner you
bring it here the sooner they'll have relief, the crathurs.”

It is not our intention to follow up this iniquitous bargain any
further; it is enough to say that the heifer passed from Jemmy's
possession into his, at about the fourth part of its value.

To those who had money he was a perfect honey-comb, overflowing with
kindness and affection, expressed in such a profusion of warm and sugary
words, that it was next to an impossibility to doubt his sincerity.

“Darby,” said a very young female, on whose face was blended equal
beauty and sorrow, joined to an expression that was absolutely
death-like, “I suppose I needn't ax you for credit?” He shook his head.

“It's for the couple,” she added, “an' not for myself. I wouldn't ax it
for myself. I know my fault, an' my sin, an' may God forgive myself in
the first place, an' him that brought me to it, an' to the shame that
followed it! But what would the ould couple do now widout me?”

“An' have you no money? Ah, Margaret Murtagh! sinful creature--shame,
shame, Margaret. Unfortunate girl that you are, have you no money?”

“I have not, indeed; the death of my brother Alick left us as we are;
he's gone from them now; but there was no fear of me goin' that wished
to go. Oh, if God in His goodness to them had took me an' spared him,
they wouldn't be sendin' to you this day for meal to keep life in them
till things comes round.”

“Troth I pity them--from my heart I pity them now they're helpless and
ould--especially for havin' sich a daughter as you are; but if it was
my own father an' mother, God rest them, I couldn't give meal out on
credit. There's not in the parish a poorer man than I am. I'm done wid
givin' credit now, thank goodness; an' if I had been so long ago, it
isn't robbed, and ruined, an' beggared by rogues I'd be this day, but a
warm, full man, able and willin' too to help my neighbors; an' it is not
empty handed I'd send away any messenger from your father or mother, as
I must do, although my heart bleeds for them this minute.”

Here once more he wiped away the rheum, with every appearance of regret
and sorrow. In fact, one would almost suppose that by long practice he
had trained one of his eyes--for we ought to have said that there was
one of them more sympathetic than the other--to shed its hypocritical
tear at the right place, and in such a manner, too, that he might claim
all the credit of participating in the very distresses which he refused
to relieve, or by which he amassed his wealth.

The poor heart-broken looking girl, who by the way carried an
unfortunate baby in her arms, literally tottered out of the room,
sobbing bitterly, and with a look of misery and despair that it was
woeful to contemplate.

“Ah, then, Harry Hacket,” said he, passing to another, “how are you?
an' how are you all over in Derrycloony, Harry? not forgettin' the ould
couple?”

“Throth, middlin' only, Darby. My fine boy, Denis, is down wid this
illness, an' I'm wantin' a barrel of meal from you till towards
Christmas.”

“Come inside, Harry, to this little nest here, till I tell you
something; an', by the way, let your father know I've got a new prayer
that he'll like to learn, for it's he that's the pious man, an' attinds
to his duties--may God enable him! and every one that has the devotion
in the right place; _amin a Chiernah!_”

He then brought Hacket into a little out-shot behind the room in which
the scales were, and shutting the door, thus proceeded in a sweet,
confidential kind of whisper--

“You see, Harry, what I'm goin' to say to you is what I'd not say
to e'er another in the parish, the divil a one--God pardon me for
swearin'--_amin a Chiernah!_ I'm ruined all out--smashed down and broke
horse and foot; there's the Slevins that wint to America, an' I lost
more than thirty pounds by them.”

“I thought,” replied Hacket, “they paid you before they went; they were
always a daicent and an honest family, an' I never heard any one speak
an ill word o' them.”

“Not a penny, Harry.”

“That's odd, then, bekaise it was only Sunday three weeks, that Murty
Slevin, their cousin, if you remember, made you acknowledge that they
paid you, at the chapel green.”

“Ay, an' I do acknowledge; bekaise, Harry, one may as well spake
charitably of the absent as not; it's only in private to you that I'm
lettin' out the truth.”

“Well, well,” exclaimed the other, rather impatiently, “what have they
to do wid us?”

“Ay, have they; it was what I lost by them an' others--see now, don't
be gettin' onpatient, I bid you--time enough for that when you're
refused--that prevints me from bein' able to give credit as I'd wish.
I'm not refusin' you, Harry; but _achora_, listen; you'll bring your
bill at two months, only I must charge you a trifle for trust, for
chances, or profit an' loss, as the schoolmasther says; but you're to
keep it a saicret from livin' mortal, bekaise if it 'ud get known in
these times that I'd do sich a thing, I'd have the very flesh ait off
o' my bones by others wantin' the same thing; bring me the bill, then,
Harry, an' I'll fill it up myself, only be _dhe husth_ (* hold your
tongue) about it.”

Necessity forces those who are distressed to comply with many a
rapacious condition of the kind, and the consequence was that Hacket did
what the pressure of the time compelled him to do, passed his bill to
Skinadre, at a most usurious price, for the food which was so necessary
to his family.

It is surprising how closely the low rustic extortioner and the city
usurer upon a larger scale resemble each other in the expression of
their sentiments, in their habits of business, their plausibility,
natural tact, and especially, in that hardness of heart and utter want
of all human pity and sympathy, upon which the success of their black
arts of usury and extortion essentially depends. With extortion in all
its forms Skinadre, for instance, was familiar. From those who were poor
but honest, he got a bill such as he exacted from Hacket, because he
knew that, cost what it might to them, he was safe in their integrity.
If dishonest, he still got a bill and relied upon the law and its cruel
list of harassing and fraudulent expenses for security. From others he
got property of all descriptions; from some, butter, yarn, a piece of
frieze, a pig, a cow, or a heifer. In fact, nothing that possessed value
came wrong to him, so that it is impossible to describe adequately the
web of mischief which this blood-sucking old spider contrived to spread
around him, especially for those whom he knew to be too poor to avail
themselves of a remedy against his villany.

“Molly Cassidy, how are you?” he said, addressing a poor looking woman
who carried a parcel of some description rolled up under her cloak; “how
are all the family, achora?”

“Glory be to God for it, they can scarcely be worse;” replied the woman,
in that spirit of simple piety and veneration for the Deity, which in
all their misery characterizes the Irish people; “but sure we're only
sufferin' like others, an' indeed not so bad as many; there's Mick
Kelly has lost his fine boy Lanty; and his other son, young Mick, isn't
expected to live, an' all wid this sickness, that was brought on them,
as it is everywhere, wid bad feedin'.”

“They're miserable times, Molly, at least I find them so; for I dunna
how it happens, but every one's disappointment falls upon me, till they
have me a'most out of house an' home--throth it 'ud be no wondher I'd
get hard-hearted some day wid the way I'm thrated an' robbed by every
one; aye, indeed, bekase I'm good-natured, they play upon me.”

The poor creature gave a faint smile, for she knew the man's character
thoroughly.

“I have a dish of butther here, Darby,” she said, “an' I want meal
instead of it.”

“Butther, Molly; why thin, Molly, sure it isn't to me you're bringing
butther--me that has so much of it lyin' on my hands here already. Sure,
any way, it's down to dirt since the wars is over--butther is; if it
was anything else but butther, Molly: but--it's of no use; I've too
much of it.”

“The sorra other thing I have, thin, Mr. Skinadre; but sure you had
betther look at it, an' you'll find it's what butther ought to be, firm,
claine, and sweet.”

“I can't take it, achora; there's no market for it now.”

“Here, as we're distressed, take it for sixpence a pound, and that's
the lowest price--God knows, if we wern't as we are, it isn't for that
you'd get it.”

“Troth, I dar' say, you're ill off--as who isn't in these times? an'
it's worse they're gettin' an' will be gettin' every day. Troth, I say,
my heart bleeds for you; but we can't dale; oh, no! butther, as I said,
is only dirt now.”

“For God's sake, thin,” exclaimed the alarmed creature, “take it for
whatever you like.”

“It 'ud go hard wid me to see your poor family in a state of outther
want,” he replied, “an' it's not in my nature to be harsh to a
struggling person---so whether I lose or gain, I'll allow you
three-pence a pound for it.”

A shade of bitterness came across her features at this iniquitous
proposal; but she felt the truth of that old adage in all its severity,
that necessity has no law.

“God help us,” she exclaimed--“threepence a pound for such butther as
this!--however, it's the will of God sure, an' it can't be helped--take
it.”

“Ay, it's aisy said, take it; but not to say what'll I do wid it, when
I have it; however, that's the man I am, an' I know how it'll end wid
me--sarvin' every one, workin' for every one, an' thinkin' of every one
but myself, an' little thanks or gratitude for all--I know I'm not fit
for sich a world--but still it's a consolation to be doin' good to our
fellow-creatures when we can, an' that's what lightens my heart.”

A woman now entered, whose appearance excited general sympathy, as was
evident from the subdued murmurs of compassion which were breathed
from the persons assembled, as soon as she entered the room. There
was something about her which, in spite of her thin and worn dress,
intimated a consciousness of a position either then or at some previous
time, above that of the common description of farmer's wives. No one
could mistake her for a highly-educated woman--but there was in her
appearance that decency of manner resulting from habits of independence
and from moral feeling, which at a first glance, whether it be
accompanied by superior dress or not, indicates something which is felt
to entitle its proprietor to unquestionable respect. The miser, when she
entered, had been putting away the dish of butter into the outshot we
have mentioned, so that he had not yet an opportunity of seeing her,
and, ere he returned to the scales, another female possessing probably
not less interest to the reader, presented herself--this was Mave or
Mabel, the young and beautiful daughter of the pious and hospitable
Jerry Sullivan.

Skinadre on perceiving the matron who preceded her, paused for a moment,
and looked at her with a wince in his thin features that might be taken
for an indication of either pleasure or pain. He' closed the sympathetic
eye, and wiped it--but this not seeming to satisfy him, he then closed
both, and blew his nose with a little skeleton mealy handkerchief that
lay on a sack beside him for that purpose.

“Hem--a-hem! why, thin, Mrs. Dalton, it isn't to my poor place I
expected you would come.”

“Darby,” she replied, “there is no use for any length of conversation
between you and me--I'm here contrary to the wishes of my family--but I
am a mother, and cannot look upon their destitution without feeling
that I should not allow my pride to stand between them and death: we are
starving, I mean--they are; and I'm come to ask you for credit; if we
are ever able to pay you, we will; if not, it's only one good act done
to a family that often did many to you when they thought you grateful.”

“I'm the worst in the world--I'm the worst in the world,” replied
Skinadre; “but it wasn't till I knew that you'd be put out o' your farm
that I offered for it, and now you've taken away my carrecther, an'
spoken ill o' me everywhere, an' said that I bid for it over your heads;
ay, indeed, an' that it was your husband that set me up, by the way--oh,
yes--an' supposin' it was, an' I'm not denyin' it, but is that any
raisin that I'd not bid for a good farm, when I knew that yez 'ud be put
out of it?”

“I am now spakin' about the distress of our family,” said Mrs. Dalton,
“you know that sickness has been among us, and is among us--poor Tom is
just able to be up, but that's all.”

“Troth, an' it 'ud be well for you all, an' for himself too, that he had
been taken away afore he comes in a bad end. What he will come too, if
God hasn't said it. I hope he feels the affliction he brought on
poor Ned Munay an' his family by the hand he made of his unfortunate
daughter.”

“He does feel it. The death of her brother and their situation has
touched his heart, an' he's only waitin' for better health and better
times to do her justice; but now what answer do you give me?”

“Why, this: I'm harrished by what I've done for every one; an'--an'--the
short and the long of it is, that I've naither male nor money to throw
away. I couldn't afford it and I can't. I'm a rogue, Mrs. Dalton--a
miser, an extortioner, an ungrateful knave, and everything that is bad
an' worse than another; an' for that raison, I say, I have naither male
nor money to throw away. That's what I'd say if I was angry; but I'm not
angry. I do feel for you an' them; still I can't afford to do what you
want, or I'd do it, for I like to do good for evil, bad as I am. I'm
strivin' to make up my rent an' to pay an unlucky bill that I have
due to-morrow, and doesn't know where the money's to come from to meet
both.”

“Mave Sullivan, achora, what can I--”

Mrs. Dalton, from her position in the room, could not have noticed the
presence of Mave Sullivan, but even had she been placed otherwise,
it would have been somewhat difficult to get a glimpse of the young
creature's face. Deeply did she participate in the sympathy which was
felt for the mother of her mother, and so naturally delicate were her
feelings, that she had drawn up the hood of her cloak, lest the other
might have felt the humiliation to which Mave's presence must have
exposed her by the acknowledgment of her distress. Neither was this all
the gentle and generous girl had to suffer. She experienced, in her own
person, as well as Mrs. Dalton did, the painful sense of degradation
which necessity occasions, by a violation of that hereditary spirit of
decent pride and independence which the people consider as the prestige
of high respect, and which, even while it excites compassion and
sympathy, is looked upon, to a certain extent, as diminished by even a
temporary visitation of poverty. When the meal-man, therefore, addressed
her, she unconsciously threw the hood of her cloak back, and disclosed
to the spectators a face burning with blushes and eyes filled with
tears. The tears, however, were for the distress of Mrs. Dalton and her
family, and the blushes for the painful circumstances which compelled
her at once to witness them, and to expose those which were left under
her own careworn father's roof. Mrs. Dalton, however, on looking round
and perceiving what seemed to be an ebullition merely of natural shame,
went over to her with a calm but mournful manner that amounted almost to
dignity.

“Dear Mave,” she said, “there is nothing here to be ashamed of. God
forbid that the struggle of an honest family with poverty should bring
a blot upon either your good name or mine. It does not, nor it will not:
so dry your tears, my darlin' girl; there are better times before us
all, I trust. Darby Skinadre,” she added, turning to the miser, “you
are both hard-hearted and ungrateful, or you would remember, in our
distress, the kindness we showed you in yours. If you can cleanse your
conscience from the stain of ingratitude, it must be by a change of
life.”

“Whatever stain there may be on my ungrateful conscience,” he replied,
turning up his red eyes, as it were with thanksgiving, “there's not the
stain of blood and murdher on it--that's one comfort.”

Mrs. Dalton did not seem to hear him, neither did she seem to look in
the direction of where he stood. As the words were uttered she had
been in the act of extending her hand to Mave Sullivan, who had hers
stretched out to receive it. There now occurred, however, a mutual
pause. Her hand was withdrawn, as was that of Mave also, who had
suddenly become pale as death.

“God bless you, my darlin' girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Dalton, sighing, as
if with some hidden sorrow; “God bless you and yours, prays my unhappy
heart this day!”

And with these words she was about to depart, when Mave, trembling and
much agitated, laid her hand gently and timidly upon her,--adding, in a
low, sweet, tremulous voice,

“My heart is free from that suspicion--I can't tell why--but I don't
believe it.”

And while she spoke, her small hand gradually caught that of Mrs.
Dalton, as a proof that she would not withhold the embrace on that
account. Mrs. Dalton returned her pressure, and at the same moment
kissed the fair girl's lips, who sobbed a moment or two in her arms,
where she threw herself. The other again invoked a blessing upon her
head, and walked out, having wiped a few tears from her pale cheeks.

The miser looked upon this exhibition of feeling with some surprise; but
as his was not a heart susceptible of the impressions it was calculated
to produce, he only said in a tone of indifference:

“Well, to be sure now, Mave, I didn't expect to see you shakin' hands
wid and kissin' Condy Dalton's wife, at any rate, considerin' all that
has happened atween the families. However, it's good to be forgivin';
I hope it is; indeed I know that; for it comes almost to a feelin' in
myself. Well, _achora_, what am I to do for you?”

“Will you let me speak to you inside a minute?” she asked.

“Will I? Why, then, to be sure I will; an' who knows but it's my
daughter-in-law I might have you yet, _avillish!_ Yourself and Darby's
jist about an age. Come inside, _ahagur_.”

Their dialogue was not of very long duration. Skinadre, on returning to
the scales, weighed two equal portions of oatmeal, for one of which Mave
paid him.

“I will either come or send for this,” she said laying her hand on the
one for which she had paid. “If I send any one, I'll give the token I
mentioned.”

“Very well, a suchar--very well,” he replied; “it's for nobody livin'
but yourself I'd do it; but sure, now that I must begin to coort you for
Darby, it won't be aisy to refuse you for anything in raison.”

“Mind, then,” she observed, as she seized one of the portions, in order
to proceed home; “mind,” said she, laying her hand upon that which she
was leaving behind her; “mind it's for this one I have paid you.”

“Very well, achora, it makes no difference; sure a kiss o' them red,
purty lips o' yours to Darby will pay the inthrest for all.”

Two other females now made their appearance, one with whom our readers
are already acquainted. This was no other than the prophet's wife,
who had for her companion a woman whom neither she herself nor any one
present knew.

“Mave Sullivan, darlin',” exclaimed the former, “I'm glad to see you.
Are you goin' home, now?”

“I am, Nelly,” replied Mave, “jist on my step.”

“Well, thin, if you stop a minute or two, I'll be part o' the way wid
you. I have somethin' to mention as we go along.”

“Very well, then,” replied Mave; “make as much haste as you can, Nelly,
for I'm in a hurry;” and an expression of melancholy settled upon her
countenance as she spoke.

The stranger was a tall thin woman, much about the age and height of the
prophet's 'wife, but neither so lusty nor so vigorous in appearance,
She was but indifferently dressed, and though her features had evidently
been handsome in her younger days, yet there was now a thin, shrewish
expression about the nose, and a sharpness about the compressed lips,
and those curves which bounded in her mouth, that betokened much
firmness if not obstinancy in her character, joined to a look which
might as well be considered an indication of trial and suffering, as of
a temper naturally none of the best.

On hearing Mave Sullivan's name mentioned, she started, and looked at
her keenly, and for a considerable time; after which she asked for
a drink of water, which she got in the kitchen, where she sat, as it
seemed to rest a little.

Nelly, in the meantime, put her hand in a red, three-cornered pocket
that hung by her side, and pulling out a piece of writing, presented it
to the meal man. That worthy gentleman, on casting his eye over it, read
as follows:


“Dear Skinadre: Give Daniel M'Gowan, otherwise the Black Prophet, any
quantity of meal necessary for his own family, which please charge, (and
you know why,) to your friend,

“Dick o' the Grange, Jun.”


Skinadre's face, on perusing this document, was that of a man who felt
himself pulled in different directions by something at once mortifying
and pleasant. He smiled at first, then bit his lips, winked one eye,
then another; looked at the prophet's wife with complacency, but
immediately checked himself, and began to look keen and peevish. This,
however, appeared to be an error on the other side; and the consequence
was, that, after some comical alterations, his countenance settled down
into its usual expression.

“Troth,” said he, “that same Dick o' the Grange, as he calls himself,
is a quare young gintleman; as much male as you want--a quare, mad--your
family's small, I think?”

“But sharp an' active,” she replied, with a hard smile, as of one who
cared not for the mirth she made, “as far as we go.”

“Ay,” said he, abruptly, “divil a much--God pardon me for swearin'--ever
they wor for good that had a large appetite. It's a bad sign of either
man or woman. There never was a villain hanged yet that didn't ait more
to his last breakfast than ever he did at a meal in his life before.
How-an-ever, one may as well have a friend; so I suppose, we must give
you a thrifle.”

When her portion was weighed out, she and Mave Sullivan left this scene
of extortion together, followed by the strange woman, who seemed, as
it were, to watch their motions, or at least to feel some particular
interest in them.

He had again resumed his place at the scales, and was about to proceed
in his exactions, when the door opened, and a powerful young man, tall,
big boned and broad shouldered, entered the room, leading or rather
dragging with him the poor young-woman and her child, who had just left
the place in such bitterness and affliction. He was singularly handsome,
and of such resolute and manly bearing, that it was impossible not to
mark him as a person calculated to impress one with a strong anxiety to
know who and what he might be. On this occasion his cheek was blanched
and his eye emitted a turbid fire, which could scarcely be determined as
that of indignation or illness.

“Is it thrue,” he asked, “that you've dared to refuse to
this--this--unfor--is it thrue that you've dared to refuse this girl and
her starvin' father and mother the meal she wanted? Is this thrue, you
hard-hearted ould scoundrel?--bekaise if it is, by the blessed sky above
us, I'll pull the wind-pipe out of you, you infernal miser!”

He seized unfortunate Skinadre by the neck, as he spoke, and almost at
the same moment forced him to project his tongue about three inches
out of his mouth, causing his face at the same time to assume, by the
violence of the act, an expression of such comic distress and terror, as
it was difficult to look upon with gravity.

“Is it thrue,” he repeated, in a voice of thunder, “that you've dared to
do so scoundrelly an act, an' she, the unfortunate creature, famishing
wid hunger herself?”

While he spake, he held Skinadre's neck as if in a vice--firm in the
same position--and the latter, of course, could do nothing more than
turn his ferret eyes round as well as he could, to entreat him to relax
his grip.

“Don't choke him, Tom,” exclaimed Hacket, who came forward, to
interpose; “you'll strangle him; as Heaven's above, you will.”

“An' what great crime would that be?” answered the other, relaxing his
awful grip of the miser. “Isn't he an' every cursed meal-monger like
him a curse and a scourge to the counthry--and hasn't the same counthry
curses and scourges enough widhout either him or them? Answer me now,”
 he proceeded, turning to Skinadre, “why did you send her away widout the
food she wanted?”

“My heart bled for her; but--”

“It's a lie, you born hypocrite--it's a lie--your heart never bled for
anything, or anybody.”

“But you don't know,” replied the miser, “what I lost by--”

“It's a lie, I say,” thundered out the gigantic young fellow, once more
seizing the unfortunate meal-monger by the throat, when out again went
his tongue, like a piece of machinery touched by a spring, and again
were the red eyes now almost starting out of his head, turned round,
whilst he himself was in a state of suffocation, that rendered his
appearance ludicrous beyond description--“it's a lie, I say, for you
have neither thruth nor heart--that's what we all know.”

“For Heaven's sake, let the man go,” said Hacket, “or you'll have his
death to answer for “--and as he spoke he attempted to unclasp the young
man's grip; “Tom Dalton, I say, let the man go.”

Dalton, who was elder brother to the lover of Mave Sullivan, seized
Hacket with one of his hands, and spun him like a child to the other end
of the room.

“Keep away,” he exclaimed, “till I settle wid him--here now, Skinadre,
listen to me--you refused my father credit when we wanted it, although
you knew we were honest--you refused him credit when we were turned out
of our place, although you knew the sickness was among us--well, you
know whether we that wor your friends, an'--my father at least--the
makin' of you”--and as he spoke, he accompanied every third word by
a shake or two, as a kind of running commentary upon what he said;
“ay--you did--you knew it well, and I could bear all that; but I can't
bear you to turn this unfortunate girl out of your place, widout what
she wants, and she's sinkin' wid hunger herself. If she's in distress,
'twas I that brought her to it, an' to shame an' to sorrow too--but I'll
set all right for you yet, Margaret dear--an' no one has a betther right
to spake for her.”

“Tom,” said the young woman, with a feeble voice, “for the love of God
let him go or he'll drop.”

“Not,” replied Dalton, “till he gives you what you come for. Come now,”
 he proceeded, addressing the miser, “weigh her. How much will you be
able to carry, Margaret?”

“Oh, never mind, now, Tom,” she replied, “I don't want any, it's the
ould people at home--it's them--it's them.”

“Weigh her out,” continued the other, furiously; “weigh her out a stone
of meal, or by all the lies that ever came from your lips, I'll squeeze
the breath out of your body, you deceitful ould hypocrite.”

“I will,” said the miser, panting, and adjusting his string of a cravat,
“I will, Tom; here, I ain't able, weigh it yourself--I'm not--indeed I'm
not able,” said he, breathless; “an' I was thinkin when you came in of
sendin' afther her, bekase, when I heard of the sickness among them,
that I mayn't sin, but I found my heart bleedin' inwar--”


[Illustration: PAGE 807-- Tom's clutches were again at his throat]


Tom's clutches were again at his throat. “Another lie,” he exclaimed,
“and you'r a gone man. Do what I bid you.”

Skinadre appeared, in point of fact, unable to do so, and Dalton seeing
this, weighed the unhappy young woman a stone of oatmeal, which, on
finding it too heavy for her feeble strength, he was about to take up
himself when he put his hands to his temples, then staggered and fell.

They immediately gathered about him to ascertain the cause of this
sudden attack, when it appeared that he had become insensible. His brow
was now pale and cold as marble, and a slight dew lay upon his broad
forehead; his shirt was open, and exposed to view a neck and breast,
which, although sadly wasted, were of surpassing whiteness and great
manly beauty.

Margaret, on seeing him fall, instantly placed her baby in the hands of
another woman, and flying to him, raised his head and laid it upon her
bosom; whilst the miser, who had now recovered, shook his head, lifted
his hands, and looked as if he felt that his house was undergoing
pollution. In the meantime, the young woman bent her mouth down to his
ear, and said, in tones that were wild and hollow, and that had more of
despair than even of sorrow in them--

“Tom, oh, Tom, are you gone?--hear me!”

But he replied not to her. “Ah! there was a day,” she added, looking
with a mournful smile around, “when he loved to listen to my voice; but
that day has passed forever.”

He opened his eyes as she spoke; hers were fixed upon him. He felt a few
warm tears upon his face, and she exclaimed in a low voice, not designed
for other ears--

“I forgive you all, Tom, dear--I forgive you all!”

He looked at her, and starting to his feet, exclaimed--

“Margaret, my own Margaret, hear me! She is dyin',” he shouted, in a
hoarse and excited voice--“she is dyin' with want. I see it all. She's
dead!”

It was too true; the unhappy girl had passed into another life; but,
whether from a broken heart, caused by sin, shame, and desertion, or
from famine and the pressure of general destitution and distress, could
never properly be ascertained.

“I see!” exclaimed Dalton, his eyes again blazing, and his voice hollow
with emotion--“I see--there she lies; and who brought her to that? But I
intended to set all right. Ay--there she lies. An' again, how are we at
home? Brought low down, down to a mud cabin! Now, Dick o' the Grange,
an' now, Darby Skinadre--now for revenge. The time is come. I'll take my
place at the head of them, and what's to be done, must be done. Margaret
Murtagh, you're lying dead before me, and by the broken heart you died
of--”

He could add no more; but with these words, tottering and frantic, he
rushed out of the miser's house.

“Wid the help o' God, the young savage is as mad as a March hare,”
 observed Skinadre, coolly; “but, as it's all over wid the unfortunate
crature, I don't see why an honest man should lose his own, at any
rate.”

Whilst uttering these words, he seized the meal, and deliberately
emptied it back into the chest from which young Dalton had taken it.




CHAPTER VIII. -- A Middle Man and Magistrate--Master and Man.


Having mentioned a strange woman who made her appearance at Skinadre's,
it may be necessary, or, at least, agreeable to the reader, that
we should account for her presence under the roof of that worthy
individual, especially as she is likely to perform a part of some
interest in our tale. We have said already that she started on hearing
Mave Sullivan's name mentioned, and followed her and the Black Prophet's
wife like a person who watched their motions, and seemed to feel some
peculiar interest in either one or both. The reader must return, then,
to the Grey Stone already alluded to, which to some of the characters in
our narrative will probably prove to be a “stone of destiny.”

Hanlon, having departed from Sarah M'Gowan in a state of excitement,
wended his way along a lonely and dreary road, to the residence of
his master, Dick o' the Grange. The storm had increased, and was still
increasing at every successive blast, until it rose to what might be
termed a tempest. It is, indeed, a difficult thing to describe the
peculiar state of his feelings as he struggled onwards, sometimes
blown back to a stand-still, and again driven forward by the gloomy and
capricious tyranny of the blast, as if he were its mere plaything.
In spite, however, of the conflict of the external elements as they
careered over the country around him, he could not shake from his
imagination the impression left there by the groan which he had heard at
the Grey Stone. A supernatural terror, therefore, was upon him, and
he felt as if he were in the presence of an accompanying spirit--of a
spirit that seemed anxious to disclose the fact that murder would not
rest; and so strongly did this impression gain upon him, that in the
fitful howling of the storm, and in its wild wailing and dying sobs
among the trees and hedges, as he went along, he thought he could
distinguish sounds that belonged not to this life. Still he proceeded,
his terrors thus translating, as it were, the noisy conflict of the
elements into the voices of the dead, or thanking Heaven that the strong
winds brought him to a calmer sense of his position, by the necessity
that they imposed of preserving himself against their violence. In this
anomalous state he advanced, until he came to a grove of old beeches
that grew at the foot of one of the hill-ranges we have described, and
here the noises he heard were not calculated to diminish his terrors. As
the huge trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his
ears were assailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached
them before. The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it
raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repetition of hoarse
moanings, muffled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered
him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel
that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere
transition from extreme cowardice to reckless indifference.

Still he advanced homewards, repeating his prayers with singular energy,
his head uncovered notwithstanding the severity of the night, and the
rain pouring in torrents upon him, when he found it necessary to cross a
level of rough land, at all times damp and marshy, but in consequence of
the rains of the season, now a perfect morass. Over this he had advanced
about half a mile, and got beyond the frightful noises of the woods,
when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes
before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud
and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled
that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could
suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and
hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him
that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the
voice of undiscovered murder was groaning on the blast--shrieking, as it
were, for vengeance in the terrible voice of the tempest. He once more
blessed himself, repeated a fresh prayer, and struggled forward, weak,
and nearly exhausted, until at length he reached the village adjoining
which his master, Dick o' the Grange, resided.

The winds now, and for some minutes previously, had begun to fall, and
the lulls in the storm were calmer and more frequent, as well as longer
in duration. Hanlon proceeded to his master's, and peering through the
shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest;
then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small
isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was
admitted by a thin, tall female.

“God protect us, dear, you're lost!--blessed father, sich a night! Oh!
my, my! Well, well; sit near the spark o' fire, sich as it is; but,
indeed, it's little you'll benefit by it. Any way, sit down.”

Hanlon sat on a stool, and laying his hat beside him on the floor, he
pressed the rain as well as he could out of his drenched hair, and for
some time did not speak, whilst the female, squatted upon the ground,
somewhat like a hare in her form, sat with the candle in her hand, which
she held up in the direction of his face, whilst her eyes were riveted
on him with a look of earnest and solemn inquiry.

“Well,” she at length said, “did your journey end, as I tould you it
would, in nothing? And yet, God presarve me, you look--eh!--what has
happened?--you look like one that was terrified, sure enough. Tell me,
at wanst, did the dhrame come out thrue?”

“I'll not have a light heart this many a day,” he replied; “let no one
say there's not a Providence above us to bring murdher to light.”

“God of glory be about us!” she exclaimed, interrupting him; “something
has happened! Your looks would frighten one, an' your voice isn't like
the voice of a livin' man. Tell me--and yet, for all so curious as I
feel, I'm thremblin' this minute--but tell me, did the dhrame come out
thrue, I say?”

“The dhrame came out thrue,” he replied, solemnly. “I know where the
tobaccy box is that he had about him; the same that transported my poor
uncle, or that was partly the means of doin' it.”

The woman crossed herself, muttered a short ejaculatory prayer, and
again gathered her whole features into an expression of mingled awe and
curiosity.

“Did you go to the place you dhramed of?” she asked.

“I went to the Grey Stone,” he replied, “an' offered up a prayer for his
sowl, afther puttin' my right hand upon it in his name, jist as I did on
yesterday; afther I got an account of the tobaccy box, I heard a groan
at the spot--as heaven's above me, I did.”

“Savior of earth, _gluntho shin!_”

“But that wasn't all. On my way home, I heard, as I was passin' the ould
trees at the Rabbit Bank, things that I can't find words to tell you
of.”

“Well acushla, glory be to God for everything! it's all his will,
blessed be his name! What did you hear, avick?--but wait till I throw a
drop o' the holy wather that I have hangin' in the little bottle at the
bed-post upon us.”

She rose whilst speaking and getting the bottle alluded to, sprinkled
both herself and him, after which she hung it up again in its former
position.

“There, now, nothin' harmful, at any rate, can come near us afther that,
blessed be his name. Well, what did you hear comin' home?--I mean at
the Rabbit Bank. Wurrah,” she added, shuddering, “but it's it that's the
lonely spot after night! What was it, dear?”

“Indeed, I can scarcely tell you--sich groans, an' wild shoutins, an'
shrieks, man's ears never hard in this world, I think; there I hard them
as I was comin' past the trees, an' afther I passed them; an' when I
left them far behind me, I could hear, every now and then, a wild shriek
that made my blood run cowld. But there was still worse as I crossed the
Black Park; something got up into the air out o' the rushes before me,
an' went off wid a noise not unlike what Jerry Hamilton of the Band
makes when he rubs his middle finger up against the tamborine.”

“Heaven be about us!” she exclaimed, once more crossing herself, and
uttering a short prayer for protection from evil; “but tell me, how did
you know it was his Box, and how did you find it out?”

“By the letters P. M., and the broken hinge,” he replied.

“Blessed be the name of God!” she exclaimed again--“He won't let the
murdher lie, that's clear. But what I want to know is, how did your
goin' to the Grey Stone bring you to the knowledge of the box?”

He then gave her a more detailed account of his conversation with Sarah
M'Gowan, and the singular turn which it chanced to take towards the
subject of the handkerchief, in the first instance; but when the
coincidence of the letters were mentioned, together with Sarah's
admission that she had the box in her possession, she clasped her hands,
and looking upwards exclaimed--

“Blessed be the name of the Almighty for that! Oh, I feel there is no
doubt now the hand of God is in it, an' we'll come at the murdher or the
murdherers yet.”

“I hope so,” he replied; “but I'm lost Wid wet an' cowld; so in the
meantime I'll be off home, an' to my bed. I had something to say to you
about another matther, but I'll wait till mornin'; dear knows, I'm in no
condition to spake about anything else to-night. This is a snug little
cabin; but, plaise God, in the coorse of a week or so, I'll have
you more comfortable than you are. If my own throuble was over me, I
wouldn't stop long in the neighborhood; but as the hand of God seems
to be in this business, I can't think of goin' till it's cleared up, as
cleared up it will be, I have no doubt, an' can have none, afther what
has happened this awful night.”

Hanlon's situation with his master was one with which many of our
readers are, no doubt, well acquainted. He himself was a clever, active,
ingenious fellow, who could, as they say in the country, put a hand to
anything, and make himself useful in a great variety of employments. He
had in the spring of that year, been engaged as a common laborer by
Dick o' the Grange, in which capacity he soon attracted his employer's
notice, by his extraordinary skill in almost everything pertaining to
that worthy gentleman's establishment. It is true he was a stranger in
the country, of whom nobody knew anything--for there appeared to be some
mystery about him; but as Dick cared little of either his place of birth
or pedigree, it was sufficient for him to find that Hanlon was a
very useful, not to say valuable young man, about his house, that
he understood everything, and had an eye and hand equally quick and
experienced. The consequence was, that he soon became a favorite with
the father, and a kind of _sine qua non_ with the son, into whose rustic
gallantries he entered, with a spirit that satisfied the latter of his
capacity to serve him in that respect as well as others. Hanlon,
in truth, was just the person for such a master, and for such an
establishment as he kept. Dick o' the Grange was not a man who, either
by birth, education, or position in society, could entertain any
pretensions to rank with the gentry of the surrounding country. It is
true he was a magistrate, but then he was a middleman, and as such found
himself an interested agent in the operation of one of the worst and
most cruel systems that ever cursed either the country or the people.
We of course mean that which suffered a third party to stand between
the head landlord, and those who in general occupied the soil. Of this
system, it may be with truth said, that the iniquity lay rather in the
principal on which it rested, than in the individual who administered
it; because it was next to an impossibility that a man anxious to
aggrandize his family--as almost every man is--could, in the exercise of
the habits which enable him to do so, avoid such a pressure upon those
who were under him as amounted to great hardships and injustice. The
system held out so many temptations to iniquity in the management of
land, and in the remuneration of labor, that it required an amount of
personal virtue and self-denial to resist them, that were scarcely to
be expected from any one, so difficult was it to overlook or neglect the
opportunities for oppression and fraud which it thus offered.

Old Dick, although bearing the character of being a violent and
outrageous man, was, however, one of those persons of whom there will
be always somebody found to speak favorably. Hot and ungovernable in
temper, he unquestionably was, and capable of savage and cruel acts;
but at the same time his capricious and unsteady impulses rendered him
uncertain, whether for good or evil; so much so, indeed, that it was
impossible to know when to ask him for a favor; nor was it extraordinary
to find him a friend this day to the man whose avowed enemy he
proclaimed himself yesterday; and this same point of character was
true the other way---for whilst certain that you had him for a friend,
perhaps you found him hard at work to oppress or over-reach you if he
could. The consequence of this peculiarity was that he had a two-fold
reputation in the country. Some were found to abuse him, and others to
mention many acts of generosity and kindness which he had been known to
perform under circumstances where they were least to be expected. This
perhaps was one reason why they made so strong an impression upon the
people, and were so distinctly remembered to his advantage. It is true
he was a violent party man, but then he wanted coolness to adjust his
principles, and thus make them subservient to his private interests. For
this reason, notwithstanding his strong and out-spoken prejudices, it
was a well know fact, that the Roman Catholic population preferred him
as a magistrate to many who were remarkable for a more equal and even
tenor of life, and in whom, under greater plausibility of manner,
there existed something which they would have readily exchanged for his
violent abuse of them and their creed.

Such was Dick o' the Grange, a man who, as a middleman and a magistrate,
stood out a prominent representative of a class that impressed
themselves strongly upon their times, and who, whether as regards their
position or office, would not find at the present day in the ranks of
any party in Ireland a single man who could come forward and say they
were not an oppressive evil to the country.

Dick o' the Grange, at this period of our narrative, was far advanced in
years, and had, some time past, begun to feel what is known in men
who have led a hard convivial life, as that breaking down of the
constitution, which is generally the forerunner of dissolution. On
this account he had for some time past resigned the management of his
property altogether to his son, young Dick, who was certainly wild and
unreflecting, but neither so impulsively generous, nor so habitually
violent as his father. The estimate of his character which went abroad
was such as might be expected--many thought him better than the old man.
He was the youngest son and a favorite--two circumstances which probably
occasioned his education to be neglected, as it had been. All his
sisters and brothers having been for some years married and settled in
life, he, and his father, who was a widower, kept a bachelor's house,
where we regret to say the parental surveillance over his morals was
not so strict as it ought to have been. Young Dick was handsome, and
so exceedingly vain of his person, that any one wishing to gain a favor
either from himself or his worthy sire, had little more to do than
dexterously apply a strong dose of flattery to this his weakest point,
and the favor was sure to be granted, for his influence over old Dick
was boundless.

In this family, then, it was that Hanlon held the situation we have
described--that is, partly a gardener, and partly a steward, and partly
a laboring man. There was a rude and riotous character in and about
Dick's whole place, which marked it at once as the property of a person
below the character of a gentleman. Abundance there was, and great
wealth; but neither elegance nor neatness marked the house or furniture.
His servants partook of the same equivocal appearance, as did the father
and son, and the “Grange” in general; but, above all and everything in
his establishment, must we place, in originality and importance, Jemmy
Branigan, who, in point of fact, ought to receive credit for the greater
portion of old Dick's reputation, or at least for all that was good of
it. Jemmy was his old, confidential--enemy--for more than forty years,
during the greater portion of which period it could scarcely be said
with truth that, in Jemmy's hands, Dick o' the Grange ought to be looked
to as a responsible person. When we say “enemy,” we know perfectly well
what we mean; for if half a dozen battles between Jemmy and his master
every day during the period above mentioned constituted friendship,
then, indeed, the reader may substitute the word friend, if he pleases.

In fact, Dick and Jemmy had become notorious throughout the whole
country; and we are certain that many of our readers will, at first
glance, recognize these two remarkable individuals. Truly, the
ascendancy which Jemmy had gained over the magistrate, was surprising;
and nothing could be more amusing than the interminable series of
communications, both written and oral, which passed between them, in the
shape of dismissals from service on the one side, and notices to leave
on the other; each of which whether written or oral, was treated by the
party noticed with the most thorough contempt. Nothing was right that
Jemmy disapproved of, and nothing wrong that had his sanction, and this
without any reference whatsoever to the will of his master, who, if he
happened to get into a passion about it, was put down by Jemmy, who
got into a greater passion still; so that, after a long course of
recrimination and Billinsgate on both sides, delivered by Jemmy in an
incomparably louder voice, and with a more consequential manner, old
Dick was finally forced to succumb.

The worthy magistrate and his son were at breakfast next morning, when
young “Master Richard,” as he was called, rung the bell, and Jemmy
attended--for we must add, that Jemmy discharged the duties of butler,
together with any other duty that he himself deemed necessary, and that
without leave asked or given.

“Where's Hanlon, Jemmy?” he asked.

“Hanlon? troth, it's little matther where he is, an' devil a one o'
myself cares.”

“Well, but I care, Jemmy, for I want him. Where is he?”

“He's gone up to that ould streele's, that lives in the cabin above
there. I don't like the same Hanlon; nobody here knows anything about
him, nor he won't let them know anything about him. He's as close as
Darby Skinadre, and as deep as a dhraw-well. Altogether, he looks as if
there was a weight on his conscience, for all his lightness an' fun--an'
if I thought so, I'd discharge him at wanst.”

“And I agree with you for once,” observed his master; “there is some
cursed mystery about him. I don't like him, either, to say the truth.”

“An' why don't you like him?” asked Jemmy, with a contemptuous look.

“I can't say; but I don't.”

“No! you can't? I know you can't say anything, at all events, that you
ought to say,” replied Jemmy, who, like, his master, would have died
without contradiction; “but I can say why you don't like him; it's
bekaise he's the best sarvint ever was about your place; that's the
raison you don't like him. But what do you know about a good sarvint or
a bad one, or anything else that's useful to you, God help you.”

“If you were near my cane, you old scoundrel, I'd pay you for your
impertinence, ay would I.”

“Ould scoundrel, is it? Oh, hould your tongue; I'm not of your blood,
thank God!--and don't be fastenin' your name upon me. Ould scoundrel,
indeed!--Troth, we could spare an odd one now and then out of our own
little establishment.”

“Jemmy, never mind,” said the son, “but tell Hanlon I want to speak to
him in the office after breakfast.”

“If I see him I will, but the devil an inch I'll go out o' my way for
it--if I see him I will, an' if I don't I won't. Did you put a fresh
bandage to your leg, to keep in them Pharisee (* Varicose, we presume)
veins o' yours, as the docthor ordhered you?”

This, in fact, was the usual style of his address to the old magistrate,
when in conversation with him.

“Damn the quack!” replied his master: “no, I didn't.”

“An' why didn't you?”

“You're beginning this morning,” said the other, losing temper. “You had
better keep quiet, keep your distance, if you're wise--that's all.”

“Why didn't you, I ax,” continued Jemmy, walking up to him, with his
hands in his coat pocket, and looking coolly, but authoritatively in his
face. “I tell you, and if you don't know how to take care of yourself, I
do, and I will. I'm all that's left over you now; an' in spite of all I
can do, it's a purty account I'd be able to give of you, if I was called
on.”

“This to my face!” exclaimed Dick--“this to my face, you villain!”--and,
as he spoke, the cane was brandished over Jemmy's head, as if it would
descend every moment.

“Ay,” replied Jemmy, without budging, “ay, indeed--an' a purty face it
is--a nice face hard drinkin' an' a bad life has left you. Ah! do it if
you dare,” he added, as the other swung his staff once or twice, as if
about to lay it down in reality; “troth, if you do, I'll know how to
act.”

“What would you do, you old cancer--what would you do if I did?”

“Troth, what you'll force me to do some day. I know you will, for heaven
an' earth couldn't stand you; an' if I do, it's not me you'll have to
blame for it. Ah, that same step you'll drive me to--I see that.”

“What will you do, you old viper, that has been like a blister to me my
whole life--what will you do?”

“Send you about your business,” replied Jemmy, coolly, but with all the
plenitude of authority in his manner; “send you from about the place,
an' then I'll have a quiet house. I'll send you to your youngest
daughter's or somewhere, or any where, out of this. So now that you know
my determination you had betther keep yourself cool, unless, indeed, you
wish to thravel. Oh, then heaven's above, but you wor a bitther sight to
me, an' but it was the unlucky day that ever the divil druv you acrass
me!”

“Dick,” said the father, “as soon as you go into the office, write a
discharge, as bad a one, for that old vagabond, as the English language
can enable you to do--for by the light of heaven, he shan't sleep
another night under this roof.”

“Shan't I?--we'll see that, though. To the divil I pitch yourself an'
your discharge--an' now mark my words: I'll be no longer throubled
wid you; you've been all my life a torment and a heart-break to me--a
blister of French flies was swan's down, compared to you, but by the
book, I'll end it at last--ay, will I--I give you up--I surrendher you
as a bad bargain--I wash my hands of you--This is Tuesday mornin', God
bless the day and the weather--an' woeful weather it is--but sure it's
betther than you desarve, an' I don't doubt but it's you and the likes
o' you that brings it on us! Ay, this is Tuesday mornin', an' I now give
you warnin' that on Saturday next, you'll see the last o' me--an' don't
think that this warnin' is like the rest, or that I'll relint again,
as I was foolish enough to do often before. No--my mind's made up--an'
indeed--” here his voice sank to a great calmness and philosophy, like a
man who was above all human passion, and who could consequently talk in
a voice of cool and quiet determination;--“An' indeed,” he added, “my
conscience was urgin' me to this for some time past--so that I'm glad
things has taken this turn.”

“I hope you'll keep your word, then,” said his master, “but before you
go, listen to me.”

“Listen to you--to be sure I will; God forbid I wouldn't; let there be
nothing at any rate, but civility between us while we're together. What
is it?”

“You asked me last night to let widow Leary's cow out o' pound?”

“Ay, did I!”

“And I swore I wouldn't.”

“I know you did. Who would doubt that, at any rate?”

“Well, before you leave us, be off now, and let the animal out o' the
pound.”

“Is that it? Oh, God help you! what'll you do when you'll be left to
yourself, as you will be on Saturday next? Let her out, says you. Troth,
the poor woman had her cow safe and sound at home wid her before she
went to bed last night, and her poor childre had her milk to kitchen
their praties, the craythurs. Do you think I'd let her stay in till the
maggot bit you? Oh, ay, indeed! In the mane time, as soon as you are
done breakfast, I want you in the study, to put the bindage on that
ould, good-for-nothin' leg o' yours; an' mark my words, let there be no
shirkin' now, for on it must go, an' will, too. If I see that Hanlon,
I'll tell him you want to see him, Master Richard; an' now that I'm on
it, I had betther say a word to you before I go; bekaise when I do go,
you'll have no one to guide you, God help you, or to set you a Christian
patthern. You see that man sittin' there wid that bad leg, stretched out
upon the chair?”

“I do, Jemmy--ha, ha, ha! Well, what next?”

“That man was the worst patthern ever you had. In the word, don't folly
his example in anything--in any one single thing, an' then there may be
some chance o' you still. I'll want you by-an'-by in the study, I tould
you.”

These last words were addressed to his master, at whom he looked as
one might be supposed to do at a man whose case, in a moral sense, was
hopeless; after which, having uttered a groan that seemed to imitate
the woeful affliction he was doomed, day by day, to suffer, he left the
room.

It is not our intention, neither is it necessary that we should enter
into the particulars of the interview which Hanlon had that morning with
young Dick. It is merely sufficient to state that they had a private
conversation in the old magistrate's office, at which the female
whom Hanlon had visited the night before was present. When this was
concluded, Hanlon walked with her a part of the way, evidently holding
serious and interesting discourse touching a subject which we may
presume bore upon the extraordinary proceedings of the previous night.
He closed by giving her directions how to proceed on her journey; for it
seemed that she was unacquainted with the way, being, like himself, but
a stranger in the neighborhood:--“You will go on,” said he, “till you
reach the height at Aughindrummon, from that you will see the trees at
the Rabbit Bank undher you; then keep the road straight till you come to
where it crosses the ford of the river: a little on this side, and where
the road turns to your right, you will find the Grey Stone, an' jist
opposite that you will see the miserable cabin where the Black Prophet
lives.”

“Why do they call him the Black Prophet?”

“Partly, they tell me, from his appearance, an' partly bekaise he takes
delight in prophesyin' evil.”

“But could he have anything to do wid the murdher?”

“I was thinkin' about that,” he replied, “and had some talk this mornin'
wid a man that's livin' a long time--indeed that was born--a little
above the place--and he says that the Black Prophet, or M'Gowan, did not
come to the neighborhood till afther the murdher. I wasn't myself cool
enough last night to ask his daughter many questions about it; an' I was
afraid, besides, to appear over-anxious in the business. So now that
you have your instructions in that and the other matthers, you'll manage
every thing as well as you can.”

Hanlon then returned to the Grange, and the female proceeded on her
mission to the house, if house it could be called, of the Black Prophet,
for the purpose, if possible, of collecting such circumstances as might
tend to throw light upon a dark and mysterious murder.

When Sarah left her father, after having poulticed his face, to go a
kailley, as she said, to a neighbor's house, she crossed the ford of the
river, and was proceeding in the same directions that had been taken by
Hanlon the preceding night, when she met a strange woman, or rather she
found her standing, apparently waiting for herself, at the Grey Stone.
From the position of the stone, which was a huge one, under one ledge
of which, by the way, there grew a little clump of dwarf elder, it was
impossible that Sarah could pass her, without coming in tolerable close
contact; for the road was an old and narrow one, though perfectly open
and without hedge or ditch on either side of it.

“Maybe you could tell me, young woman, whereabouts here a man lives that
they call Donnel Dhu, or the Black Prophet; his real name is M'Gowan, I
think.”

“I ought to be able to tell you, at any rate,” replied Sarah; “I'm his
daughter.”

The strange woman, on surveying Sarah more closely, looked as if she
never intended to remove her eyes from her countenance and figure.
She seemed for a moment, as it were, to forget every other object in
life--her previous conversation with Hanlon--the message on which she
had been sent--and her anxiety to throw light upon the awful crime that
had been committed at the spot whereon she stood. At length she sighed
deeply, and appeared to recover her presence of mind, and to break
through the abstraction in which she had been wrapped. “You're his
daughter, you say?”

“Ay, I do say so.”

“Then you know a young man by name Pierce--och, what am I sayin'!--by
name Charley Hanlon?”

“To be sure I do--I'm not ashamed of knowin' Charles Hanlon.”

“You have a good opinion of him, then?”

“I have a good opinion of him, but not so good as I had thought.”

“Mush a why then, might one ask?”

“I'm afeard he's a cowardly crathur, and rather unmanly a thrifle. I
like a man to be a man, an' not to get as white as a sheet, an' cowld as
a tombstone, bekaise he hears what he thinks to be a groan at night, an'
it may be nothin' but an owld cow behind a ditch. Ha! ha! ha!”

“An' where did he hear the groan?”

“Why, here where we're standin'. Ha! ha! ha! I was thinkin' of it since,
an' I did hear somethin' very like a groan; but what about it? Sich a
night as last night would make any one groan that had a groan in them.”

“You spoke about ditches, but sure there's no ditches here.”

“Divil a matther--who cares what it was? What did you want wid my
father?”

“It was yourself that I wanted to see.”

“Faix, an' you've seen me, then, an' the full o' your eye you tuck out
o' me. You'll know me again, I hope.”

“Is your mother livin'?”

“No.”

“How long is she dead, do you know?”

“I do not; I hardly remember anything about her. She died when I was
a young slip--a mere child, I believe. Still,” she proceeded, rather
slowly, musing and putting her beautiful and taper fingers to her
chin--“I think that I do remember--it's like a dhrame to me though, an'
I dunna but it is one--still it's like a dhrame to me, that I was wanst
in her arms, that I was cryin', an' that she kissed me--that she
kissed me! If she had lived, it's a different life maybe I'd lead an' a
different creature I'd be to-day, maybe, but I never had a mother.”

“Did your father marry a second time?”

“He did.”

“Then you have a step-mother?”

“Ay have I.”

“Is she kind to you, an' do you like her?”

“Middlin'--she's not so bad--better than I deserve, I doubt; I'm sorry
for what I did to her; but then I have the divil's temper, an' have no
guide o' myself when it comes on me. I know whatever she may be to me,
I'm not the best step-daughter to her.”

The strange female was evidently much struck with the appearance
and singularly artless disposition of Sarah, as well as with her
extraordinary candor; and indeed no wonder; for as this neglected
creature spoke, especially with reference to her mother, her eyes
flashed and softened with an expression of brilliancy and tenderness
that might be said to resemble the sky at night, when the glowing
corruscations of the Aurora Borealis sweep over it like expanses of
lightning, or fade away into those dim but graceful undulations which
fill the mind with a sense of such softness and beauty.

“I don't know,” observed her companion, sighing and looking at her
affectionately, “how any step-mother could be harsh to you.”

“Ha! ha! ha! don't you, indeed? Faix, then, if you had me, maybe you
wouldn't think so--I'm nothin' but a born divil when the fit's on me.”

“Charley Hanlon,” proceeded the strange woman, “bid me ax you for the
ould tobaccy-box you promised him last night.”

“Well, but he promised me a handkerchy; have you got it?”

“I have,” replied the other, producing it; “but, then, I'm not to give
it to you, unless you give me the box for it.”

“But I haven't the box now,” said Sarah, “how-and-ever, I'll get it for
him.”

“Are you sure that you can an' will?” inquired the other.

“I had it in my hand yesterday,” she said, “an' if it's to be had I'll
get it.”

“Well, then,” observed the other mildly, “as soon as you get him the
box, he'll give you this handkerchy, but not till then.”

“Ha!” she exclaimed, kindling, “is that his bargain; does he think I'd
thrick him or cheat him?--hand it here.”

“I can't,” replied the other; “I'm only to give it to you when I get the
box.”

“Hand it here, I say,” returned Sarah, whose eyes flashed in a moment;
“it's Peggy Murray's rag, I suppose--hand it here, I bid you.”

The woman shook her head and replied, “I can't--not till you get the
box.”

Sarah replied not a word, but sprang at it, and in a minute had it in
her hands.

“I would tear it this minute into ribbons,” she exclaimed, with eyes of
fire and glowing cheeks, “and tramp it undher my feet too; only that I
want it to show her, that I may have the advantage over her.”

There was a sharp, fierce smile of triumph on her features as she spoke;
and altogether her face sparkled with singular animation and beauty.

“God bless me!” said the strange woman, looking at her with a wondering
yet serious expression of countenance; “I wanst knew a face like yours,
an' a temper the aiquil of it--at any rate, my good girl, you don't pay
much respect to a stranger. Is your stepmother at home?”

“She is not, but my father is; however, I don't think he'll see you now.
My stepmother's gone to Darby Skinadre, the meal-monger's.”

“I'm goin' there.”

“An' if you see her,” replied the other, “you'll know her; a score on her
cheek--ha, ha, ha; an' when you see it, maybe you'll thank God that I am
not your step-daughter.”

“Isn't there a family named Sullivan that lives not far from
Skinadre's?”

“There is; Jerry Sullivan, it's his daughter that's the beauty--_Gra
Gal_ Sullivan. Little she knows what's preparin' for her!”

“How am I to go to Skinadre's from this?” asked the woman.

“Up by that road there; any one will tell you as you go along.”

“Thank you, dear,” replied the woman, tenderly; “God bless you; you are
a wild girl, sure enough; but above all things, afore I go, don't forget
the box for--for--och, for--Charley Hanlon. God bless you, a _colleen
machree_, an' make you what you ought to be!”

Sarah, during many a long day, had not heard herself addressed in an
accent of kindness or affection; for it would be wrong to bestow upon
the rude attachment which her father entertained for her, or his surly
mode of expressing it, any term that could indicate tenderness, even in
a remote degree. She looked, therefore, at the woman earnestly, and as
she did, her whole manner changed to one of melancholy and kindness. A
soft and benign expression came like the dawn of breaking day over
her features, her voice fell into natural melody and sweetness, and,
approaching her companion, she took her hand and exclaimed--

“May God bless you for them words! it's many a day since I heard the
voice o' kindness. I'll get the box, if it's to be had, if it was only
for your own sake.”

She then passed on to her neighbor's house, and the next appearance of
her companion was that in which the reader caught, a glimpse of her in
the house of Darby Skinadre, from which she followed Nelly M'Gowan and
Mave Sullivan with an appearance of such interest.




CHAPTER IX. -- Meeting of Strangers--Mysterious Dialogue.


_Gra Gal_ Sullivan and the prophet's wife, having left the meal-shop,
proceeded in the direction of Aughamurran, evidently in close, and if
one could judge by their gestures, deeply important conversation. The
strange woman followed them at a distance, meditating, as might be
perceived by her hesitating manner, upon the most seasonable moment of
addressing either one or both, without seeming to interrupt or disturb
their dialogue. Although the actual purport of the topic they discussed
could not be known by a spectator, yet even to an ordinary observer, it
was clear that the elder female uttered something that was calculated to
warn or alarm the younger.

She raised her extended forefinger, looked earnestly into the face
of her companion, then upwards solemnly, and, clasping her hands with
vehemence, appeared to close her assertion by appealing to heaven in
behalf of its truth; the younger looked at her with wonder, seemed
amazed, paused suddenly on her step, raised her hands, and looked as
if about to express terror; but, checking herself, appeared as it were
perplexed by uncertainty and doubt. After this the elder woman seemed
to confide some secret or sorrow to the other, for she began to
weep bitterly, and to wring her hands as if with remorse, whilst her
companion looked like one who had been evidently transformed into an
impersonation of pure and artless sympathy. She caught the rough hand of
the other--and, ere she had proceeded very far in her narrative, a few
tears of compassion stole down her youthful cheek--after which she
began to administer consolation in a manner that was at once simple and
touching. She pressed the hand of the afflicted woman between hers, then
wiped her eyes with her own handkerchief, and soothed her with a
natural softness of manner that breathed at once of true tenderness and
delicacy.

As soon as this affecting scene had been concluded, the strange woman
imperceptibly mended her pace, until her proximity occasioned them to
look at her with that feeling which prompts us to recognize the wish of
a person to address us, as it is often expressed, by an appearance of
mingled anxiety and diffidence, when they approach us. At length Mave
Sullivan spoke--

“Who is that strange woman that is followin' us, an' wants to say
something, if one can judge by her looks?”

“Well, I don't know,” replied Nelly; “but whatsomever it may be, she
wishes to speak to you or me, no doubt of it.”

“She looks like a poor woman,'”* said Mave, “an' yet she didn't ask
anything in Skinadre's, barring a drink of water; but, God pity her if
she's comin' to us for relief poor creature! At any rate, she appears to
have care and distress in her face; I'll spake to her.”

     * A common and compassionate name for a person forced
     to ask alms.

She then beckoned the female to approach them, who did so; but they
could perceive as she advanced, that they had been mistaken in supposing
her to be one of those unhappy beings whom the prevailing famine had
driven to mendicancy. There was visible in her face a feeling of care
and anxiety certainly, but none of that supplicating expression which is
at once recognized as the characteristic of the wretched class to which
they supposed her to belong. This circumstance particularly embarrassed
the inexperienced girl, whose gentle heart at the moment sympathized
with the stranger's anxieties, whatever they may have been, and she
hesitated a little, when the woman approached, in addressing her. At
length she spoke:

“We wor jist sayin' to one another,” she observed, “that it looked as if
you wished to spake to either this woman or me.”

“You're right enough, then,” she replied; “I have something to say to
her, and a single word to yourself, too.”

“An' what is it you have to say to me?” asked Nelly; “I hope it isn't to
borrow money from me, bekase if it is, my banker has failed, an' left me
as poor as a church mouse.”

“Are you in distress, poor woman,” inquired the generous and
kind-hearted girl. “Maybe you're hungry; it isn't much we can do for
you; but little as it is, if you come home with me, you'll come to a
family that won't scruple to share the little they have now with any one
that's worse off than themselves.”

“Ay, you may well say 'now,'” observed the prophet's wife; “for until
now, it's they that could always afford it; an' indeed it was the ready
an' the willin' bit was ever at your father's table.”

The stranger looked upon the serene and beautiful features of Mave with
a long gaze of interest and admiration; after which she added, with a
sigh:

“And you, I believe, are the girl they talk so much about for the fair
face and good heart? Little pinetration it takes to see that you have
both, my sweet girl. If I don't mistake, your name is Mave Sullivan, or
_Gra Gal_, as the people mostly call you.”

Mave, whose natural delicacy was tender and pure as the dew-drop of
morning, on hearing her praises thus uttered by the lips of a stranger,
blushed so deeply, that her whole neck and face became suffused with
that delicious crimson of modesty which, alas! is now of such rare
occurrence among the sex, unconscious that, in doing so, she was adding
fresh testimony to the impressions which had gone so generally abroad
of her extraordinary beauty, and the many unostentatious virtues which
adorned her humble life.

“Mave Sullivan is my name,” she replied, smiling through her blushes:
“as to the nickname, the people will call one what they like, no matther
whether it's right or wrong.”

“The people's seldom wrong, then, in givin' names o' the kind,” returned
the stranger; “but in your case, they're right at all events, as any
one may know that looks upon you: that sweet face an' them fair looks is
seldom if ever found with a bad heart. May God guard you, my purty and
innocent girl, an' keep you safe from all evil, I pray his holy name.”

The prophet's wife and Mave exchanged looks as the woman spoke: and the
latter said:

“I hope you don't think there's any evil before me.”

“Who is there,” replied the stranger, “that can say there's not? Sure
it's before us and about us every hour in the day; but in your case,
darlin', I jist say, be on your guard, an' don't trust or put belief in
any one that you don't know well. That's all I can say, an' indeed all I
know.”

“I feel thankful to you,” replied Mave; “and now that you wish me well,
(for I'm sure you do,) maybe you'd grant me a favor?”

“If it is widin the bounds of my power, I'll do it,” returned the other;
“but it's little I can do, God help me.”

“Nelly,” said Mave, “will you go on to the cross-roads there, an' I'll
be with you in a minute.”

The cross-roads alluded to were only a couple of hundred yards before
them. 

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