The Black Prophet Part 11

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 d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.k'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, d.i.c.k 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 const.i.tuted friends.h.i.+p, then, indeed, the reader may subst.i.tute the word friend, if he pleases.

In fact, d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion about it, was put down by Jemmy, who got into a greater pa.s.sion 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 d.i.c.k was finally forced to succ.u.mb.

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; n.o.body 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, G.o.d 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 G.o.d!--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.

"d.a.m.n 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 d.i.c.k--"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 acra.s.s me!"

"d.i.c.k," 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', G.o.d 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sion, 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; G.o.d 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, G.o.d help you! what'll you do when you'll be left to yourself, as you will be on Sat.u.r.day 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 s.h.i.+rkin' 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, G.o.d 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 d.i.c.k. 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.s 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.