The Black Prophet Part 32

"What are you spakin' about? Me go out, an' not know it! Nonsense!"

"You went in your sleep, she rejoined.

"Did I spake?" said he, with a black and; ghastly look.

"What--what--tell me--eh? What did I say?"

"You talked a good deal, an' said that it was Condy Dalton that murdhered him, and that you had Red Rody to prove it."

"That was what I said?--eh, Sarah?"

"That's what you said, an' I thought it was only right to tell you."

"It was right, Sarah; but at the same time, at the peril of your life, never folly me there again. Of coorse, you know now that Sullivan is buried there."

"I do," said she; "but that's no great comfort, although it is to know that you didn't murdher him. At any rate, father, remember what I tould you about Condy Dalton. Lave him to G.o.d; an' jist that you may feel what you ought to feel on the subject, suppose you were in his situation--suppose for a minute that it was yourself that murdhered him--then ask, would you like to be dragged out from us and hanged, in your ould age, like a dog--a disgrace to all belongin' to you. Father, I'll believe that Condy Dalton murdhered him, when I hear it from his own lips, but not till then. Now, Good-bye. You won't find me at home when you come back, I think."

"Why, where are you goin'?"

"There's plenty for me to do," she replied; "there's the sick an' the dyin' on all hands about me, an' it's a shame for any one that has a heart in their body, to see their fellow-creatures gaspin' for want of a dhrop of cowld wather to wet their lips, or a hand to turn them where they lie. Think of how many poor sthrangers is lyin' in ditches an' in barns, an' in outhouses, without a livin' bein' a'most to look to them, or reach them any single thing they want; no, even to bring the priest to them, that they might die reconciled to the Almighty. Isn't it a shame, then, for me, an' the likes o' me, that has health an' strength, an' nothin' to do, to see my fellow-creatures dyin' on all hands about me, for want of the very a.s.sistance that I can afford them. At any rate, I wouldn't live in the house with that woman, an' you know that, an'

that I oughtn't."

"But aren't you afeard of catchin' this terrible faver, that's takin'

away so many, if you go among them'?"

"Afeard!" she replied; "no, father, I feel no fear either of that or anything else. If I die, I lave a world that I never had much happiness in, an' I know that I'll never be happy again in it. What then have I to fear from death? Any change for me must now be for the betther; at all events it can hardly be for the worse. No; my happiness is gone."

"What in Heaven's name is the matther with you?" asked her father; "an'

what brings the big tears into your eyes that way?"

"Good-bye," said she; and as she spoke, a melancholy smile--at once sad and brilliant--irradiated her features. "It's not likely, father, that ever you'll see me under your roof again. Forgive me all my follies now, maybe it's the last time ever you'll have an opportunity."

"Tut, you foolish girl; it's enough to sicken one to hear you spake such stuff!"

She stood and looked at him for a moment, and the light of her smile gradually deepened, or rather faded away, until nothing remained but a face of exquisite beauty, deeply shadowed by anxiety and distress.

The Prophet pursued his way to d.i.c.k o' the Grange's, whither, indeed, he was bent; Sarah, having looked after him for a moment with a troubled face, proceeded in the direction of old Dalton's, with the sufferings and pitiable circ.u.mstances of whose family she was already but too well acquainted. Her journey across the country presented her with little else than records of death, suffering, and outrage. Along the roads the funerals were so frequent, that, in general, they excited no particular notice. They could, in fact scarcely be termed funerals, inasmuch as they were now nothing more than squalid and meagre-looking knots of those who were immediately related to the deceased, hurrying onward, with reckless speed and disturbed looks to the churchyard, where their melancholy burthen was hastily covered up with scarcely any exhibition of that simple and affecting decorum, or of those sacred and natural sorrows, which in other circ.u.mstances throw their tender but solemn light over the last offices of death. As she went along, new and more startling objects of distress attracted her notice. In dry and sheltered places she observed little temporary sheds, which, in consequence of the dreadful panic which always accompanies an epidemic in Ireland, had, to a timid imagination, something fearful about them, especially when it is considered that death and contagion were then at work in them in such terrible shapes. To Sarah, however, they had no terrors; so far from that, a great portion of the day was spent by her in relieving their wretched, and, in many cases, dying inmates, as well as she could. She brought them water, lit fires for them, fixed up their shed, and even begged aid for them from the neighbors around, and, as far as she could, did everything to ease their pain, or smooth their last moment by the consolation of her sympathy. If she met a family on the highway, worn with either illness or fatigue--perhaps an unhappy mother, surrounded by a helpless brood, bearing, or rather tottering under a couple of sick children, who were unable to walk--she herself, perhaps, also ill, as was often the case--she would instantly take one of them out 'of the poor creature's arms, and carry it in her own as far as she happened to go in that direction, utterly careless of contagion, or all other consequences.

In this way was she engaged towards evening when at a turn of the road she was met by a large crowd of rioters, headed by Red Rody, Tom Dalton, and many others in the parish who were remarkable only for a tendency to ruffianism and outrage; for we may remark here, that on occasions such as we are describing, it is generally those who have suffered least, and have but little or nothing to complain of, that lead the misguided and thoughtless people into crime, and ultimately into punishment.

The change that had come over young Dalton was frightful; he was not half his former size; his clothes were now in rags, his beard grown, his whole aspect and appearance that of some miscreant, in whom it was difficult to say whether the ruffian or the idiot predominated the most. He appeared now in his glory--frantic and destructive; but amidst all this drivelling impetuosity, it was not difficult to detect some desperate and unshaken purpose in his heavy but violent and bloodshot eyes.

Far different from him was Red Rody, who headed his own section of them with an easy but knowing swagger; now nodding his head with some wonderful purpose which n.o.body could understand; or winking at some acquaintance with an indefinite meaning, that set them a guessing at it in vain. It was easy to see that he was a knave, but one of those knaves on whom no earthly reliance could be placed, and who would betray to-morrow, for good reasons, and without a moment's hesitation, those whom he had corrupted to-day.

"Come, Tom," said Rody, "we have scattered a few of the meal-mongin'

vagabonds; weren't you talkin' about that blessed voteen, ould Darby Skinadre? The villain that allowed Peggy Murtagh an' her child to starve to death! Aren't we to pay him a visit?"

Dalton coughed several times, to clear his throat; a settled hoa.r.s.eness having given a frightful hollowness to his voice. "Ay," said he--"ha, ha, ha--by the broken-heart she died of--well--well--eh, Rody, what are we to do to him?"

Rody looked significantly at the crowd, and grinned, and touched his forehead, and pointed at Dalton.

"That boy's up to everything," said he; "he's the man to head us all--ha, ha!"

"Never mind laughin' at him, anyway," observed one of his friends; "maybe if you suffered what he did, poor fellow, an' his family too, that it's not fun you'd be makin' of him."

"Why," asked a new comer; "what's wrong wid him?"

"He's not at himself," replied the other, "ever since he had the faver; that, they say, an' the death of a very purty girl he was goin' to be married to, has put him beside himself, the Lord save us!"

"Come on now," shouted Tom, in his terrible voice; "here's the greatest of all before us still. Who wants meal now? Come on, I say--ha, ha, ha!

Is there any of you hungry? Is there any of you goin' to die for want of food? Now's your time--ho, ho! Now, Peggy, now. Amn't I doin' it? Ay, am I, an' it's all for your sake, Peggy dear, for, I swore by the broken heart you died of--ay, an' didn't I tell you that last night on your grave where I slep'. No, he wouldn't--he wouldn't--but now--now--he'll see the differ--ay, an' feel it too. Come on," he shouted, "who-ever's hungry, folly me! ha, ha, ha!"

This idiotic, but ferocious laugh, echoing such a dreadful purpose, was appalling; but the people who knew what he had suffered, only felt it as a more forcible incentive to outrage. Darby's residence was now quite at hand, and in a few minutes it was surrounded by such a mult.i.tude, both of men and women, as no other occasion could ever bring together. The people were, in fact, almost lost in their own garments; some were without coats or waistcoats to protect them from the elements, having been forced, poor wretches, to part with them for food; others had nightcaps or handkerchiefs upon their heads instead of hats; a certain proof that they were only in a state of convalescence from fever--the women stood with dishevelled hair--some of them half naked, and others leading their children about, or bearing them in their arms; altogether they presented such an appearance as was enough to wring the benevolent heart with compa.s.sion and. sorrow for their sufferings.

On arriving at Darby's house, they found it closed, but not deserted.

At first, Tom Dalton knocked, and desired the door to be opened, but the women who were present, whether with shame or with honor to the s.e.x, we are at a loss to say, felt so eager on the occasion, probably for the purpose of avenging Peggy Murtagh, that they lost not a moment in s.h.i.+vering in the windows, and attacking the house with stones and missiles of every description. In a few minutes the movement became so general and simultaneous that the premises were a perfect wreck, and nothing was to be seen but meal and flour, and food of every description, either borne off by the hungry crowd, or scattered most wickedly and wantonly through the streets, while, in the very midst of the tumult, Tom Dalton was seen dragging poor Darby out by the throat, and over to the centre of the street.

"Now," said he, "here I have you at last--ha, ha, ha!"--his voice, by the way, as he spoke and laughed, had become fearfully deep and hollow--"now, Peggy dear, didn't I swear it--by the broken heart you died of, I said, an' I'll keep that sacred oath, darlin'." While speaking, the thin fleshless face of the miser was becoming black--his eyes were getting blood-shot, and, in a very short time, strangulation must have closed his wretched existence, when a young and tall female threw herself by a bound upon Dalton, whom she caught by the throat, precisely as he himself had caught Darby. It was Sarah, who saw that there was but little time to lose in order to save the wretch's life. Her grip was so effectual, that Dalton was obliged to relax his hold upon the other for the purpose of defending himself.

"Who is this?" said he; "let me go, you had better, till I have his life--let me go, I say."

"It's one," she replied, "that's not afeard but ashamed of you. You, a young man, to go strangle a weak, helpless ould creature, that hasn't strength or breath to defend himself no more then a child."

"Didn't he starve Peggy Murtagh?" replied Tom; "ha, ha, ha!--didn't he starve her and her child?"

"No," she replied aloud, and with glowing cheeks; "it's false--it wasn't he but yourself that starved her and her child. Who deserted her--who brought her to shame, an' to sorrow, in her own heart an' in the eyes of the world? Who left her to the bitter and vile tongues of the whole counthry? Who refused to marry her, and kept her so that she couldn't raise her face before her fellow cratures? Who sent her, without hope, or any expectation of happiness in this life--this miserable life--to the glens and lonely ditches about the neighborhood, where she did nothing but shed blither tears of despair and shame at the heartless lot you brought her to? An' when she was desarted by the wide world, an'

hadn't a friendly face to look to but G.o.d's, an' when one kind word from your lips would give her hope, an' comfort, an' happiness, where were you? and where was that kind word that would have saved her? Let the old man go, you unmanly coward; it wasn't him that starved her--it was yourself that starved her, and broke her heart!"

"Did yez hear that?" said Dalton; "ha, ha, ha--an' it's all thrue; she has tould me nothing but the thruth--here, then, take the ould vagabond away with you, and do what you like with him--"

"'I am a bold and rambling boy, My lodging's in the isle of Throy; A rambling boy, although I be, I'd lave them all an' folly thee.'

Ha, ha, ha!--but come, boys, pull away; we'll finish the wreck of this house, at any rate."

"Wreck away," said Sarah, "I have nothin' to do with that; but I think them women--man-women I ought to call them--might consider that there's many a starvin' mouth that would be glad to have a little of what they're throwin' about so shamefully. Do you come with me, Darby; I'll save you as far as I can, an' as long as I'm able."

"I will, achora," replied Darby, "an' may G.o.d bless you, for you have saved my life; but why should they attack me? Sure the world knows, an'

G.o.d knows, that my heart bleeds--"

"Whisht," she exclaimed, "the world an' G.o.d both know it's a lie, if you say your heart bleeds for any thing but the destruction that you see on your place. If you had given Peggy Murtagh the meal, she might be a livin' woman to-day; so no more falsehoods now, or I'll turn you back to Tom Dalton's clutches."

"No, then," replied the trembling wretch, "I won't; but between you an' me, then,--an' it needn't go farther--troth my heart bleeds for the severity that's--"

"One word more," she replied, "an' I lave you to what you'll get."

Sarah's interference had a singular effect upon the crowd. The female portion of it having reflected upon her words, soon felt and acknowledged their truth, because they involved a principle of justice and affection to their s.e.x; while the men, without annexing any moral consideration to the matter, felt themselves influenced by her exquisite figure and great beauty.

"She's the Black Prophet's daughter," exclaimed the women; "an' if the devil was in her, she tould Tom Dalton nothing but the truth, at any rate."

"An' they say the devil is in her, the Lord save us, if ever he was in any one--keep away from her--my sowl in Heaven! but she'd think no more of tearin' your eyes out, or stickin' you wid a case-knife, than you would of aitin' bread an' b.u.t.ther."