The Black Prophet Part 34

"It is, it is," said Sarah, with a quick, short sob; "it is a blessin', an' a holy blessin'; but bless him--bless him, too!"

"May my blessin' rest upon you, or rather may the blessin' of Almighty G.o.d, rest upon you, daughter of my heart! And you too," he proceeded, turning to the other bed; "here is him that among them all I loved the best; my youngest, an' called afther myself--may my blessin' an' the blessin' of G.o.d and my Saviour rest upon you, my darlin' son; an' if I never see either of you in this unhappy world, grant, oh, merciful Father, that we may meet in the glory of Heaven, when that stain will be taken away from me for that crime that I have repented for so long an'

so bittherly?"

Sarah, while he spoke, had let go his arm, and placing her two hands over her eyes, her whole breast quivered; and the men, on looking at her, saw the tears gus.h.i.+ng out in torrents from between her finger. She turned round, however, for a few moments, as if to compose herself; and, when she again approached the old man, there was a smile--a smile, brilliant, but agitated, in her eyes and upon her lips.

"There now," she proceeded; "you have said all you can say; come, go with them. Ah," she exclaimed with a start of pain, "all we've done or tried to do is lost, I doubt. Here's his wife and daughter. Come out now," said she addressing him, "say a word or two to them outside."

Just as she spoke, Mrs. Dalton and the poor invalid, Mary, entered the house: the one with some scanty supply of food, and the other bearing a live coal between two turf, one under and the other over it.

"Wait," said Sarah, "I'll speak to them before they come in." And, ere the words were uttered, she met them.

"Come here, Mrs. Dalton," said she; "stop a minute, speak to this poor girl, and support her. These sogers, and the constables inside, is come about Sullivan's business, long ago."

"I know it," replied Mrs. Dalton; "I've just heard all about it, there beyond; but she," pointing to her daughter, "has only crossed the ditch from the commons, and joined me this minute."

"Give me these," said Sarah to the girl, "and stay here till I come out again, wet as it is. Your mother will tell you why."

She took the fire from her as she spoke, and, running in, laid it upon the hearth, placing, at the same time, two or three turf about in a hurried manner, but still in a way that argued great presence of mind, amid all her distraction. On going out again, however, the first object she saw was one of the soldiers supporting the body of poor Mary, who had sunk under the intelligence. Mrs. Dalton having entered the cabin, and laid down the miserable pittance of food which she had been carrying, now waved her hand with authority and singular calmness, but at the same time with a face as pallid as death itself.

"This is a solemn hour," said she, "an' a woful sight in this place of misery. Keep quiet, all of you. I know what this is about, dear Condy,"

she said; "I know it; but what is the value of our faith, if it doesn't teach us obedience? Kiss your child, here," said she, "an' go--or come, I ought to say, for I will go with you. It's not to be wondhered at that she couldn't bear it, weak, and worn, and nearly heartbroken as she is.

Bless her, too, before you go. An' this girl," she said, pointing at Mary, and addressing Sarah, "you will spake to her, an' support her as well as you can, and stay with them all for an hour or two. I can't lave him."

Dalton, while she spoke, had taken Mary in his arms, kissed her, and, as in the case of the others, blessed her with a fervor only surpa.s.sed by his sorrow and utter despair.

"I will stay with them," said Sarah; "don't doubt that--not for an hour or two, but till they come to either life or death; so I tould him."

"It's a bitther case," said Mrs. Dalton; "a bitther case; but then it's G.o.d's gracious will, an' them that He loves He chastises. Blessed be His name for all He does, and blessed be His name ever for this!"

Mary now recovered in her father's arms; and her mother, in a low but energetic voice, pointing to the beds, said:

"Think of them, darlin'. There now, part with him. This world, I often tould you dear, Mary, is not our place, but our pa.s.sage; an' although it's painful let us not forget that it is G.o.d Himself that is guidin'

and directin' us through it. Come, Con dear, come."

A long mournful embrace, and another sorrowful but fervent blessing, and with a feeble effort at consolation, Dalton parted with the weeping girl; and placing his hat on his white head, he gave one long look--one indescribable look--upon all that was so dear to him in this scene of unutterable misery, and departed. He had not gone far, however, when he returned a step or two towards the door; and Mary, having noticed this, went to him, and throwing her arms once more about his neck, exclaimed:

"Oh! Father, darlin' an' is it come to this? Oh, did we ever complain or grumble about all we suffered, while we had you wid us? no, we wouldn't.

What was our sufferins, father, dear--nothing. But, oh, nothing ever broke our hearts, or troubled us, but to see you in sich sorrow."

"It's thrue, Mary darlin'; you wor all--all a blessin' to me; but I feel, threasure of my heart, that my sorrows an' my cares will soon be over.

It's about Tom I come back. Och, sure I didn't care what he or we might suffer, if it had plased G.o.d to lave him in his senses; but maybe now he's happier than we are. Tell him--if he can understand it, or when he does understand it--that I lave my blessin' and G.o.d's blessin' with him for evermore--for evermore: an' with you all; an' with you, too, young woman, for evermore, amen! And now come; I submit myself to the will of my marciful Saviour."

He looked up to heaven as he spoke, his two hands raised aloft; after which he covered his venerable head, and, with this pious and n.o.ble instance of resignation, did the affectionate old man proceed, as well as his feeble limbs could support him, to the county prison, accompanied by his pious and truly Christian wife.

As the men were about to go, he who had addressed Sarah so rudely, approached her with as much regret on his face as its hardened and habitual indifference to human misery could express, and said, tapping her on the shoulder:

"I was rather rough to you, jist now, my purty girl--to' be jabers, it'

is you that is the purty girl. I dunna, by the way, how the ould Black Prophet came by the likes o' you; but, then he was a handsome vagabond in his day, himself, an' you are like him."

"What do you want to say?" she asked, impatiently; "but stand outside, I won't speak to you here--your voice would waken a corpse. Here, now,"

she added, having gone out upon the causeway, "what is it?"

"Why, devil a thing," he replied; "only you're a betther girl than I tuck you to be. It's a pitiful case, this--a woful case at his time o'

life. Be heaventhers, but I'd rather a thousand times see Black Boy, your own precious father, swing, than this poor ould man."

A moment's temporary fury was visible, but she paused, and it pa.s.sed away; after which she returned slowly and thoughtfully into the cabin.

It is unnecessary to say, that almost immediately the general rumor of Dalton's arrest for the murder had gone through the whole parish, together with the fact that it was upon the evidence of the Black Prophet and Red Rody Duncan, that the proof of it had been brought home to him. Upon the former occasion there had been nothing against him, but such circ.u.mstances of strong suspicion as justified the neighboring magistrates in having him taken into custody. On this, however, the two men were ready to point out the identical spot where the body had been buried, and to identify it as that of Bartholomew Sullivan. Nothing remained, therefore, now that Dalton was in custody, but to hold an inquest upon the remains, and to take the usual steps for the trial of Dalton at the following a.s.sizes, which were not very far distant.

Indeed, notwithstanding the desolation that prevailed throughout the country, and in spite of the care and sorrow which disease and death brought home to so many in the neighborhood, there was a very general feeling of compa.s.sion experienced for poor old Dalton and his afflicted family. And among those who sympathized with them, there was scarcely one who expressed himself more strongly upon the subject than Mr.

Travers, the head agent of the property on which they had lived, especially upon contrasting the extensive farm and respectable residence, from which their middleman landlord had so harshly and unjustly ejected them, with the squalid kennel in which they then endured such a painful and pitiable existence. This gentleman had come to the neighborhood, in order to look closely into the condition of the property which had been entrusted to his management, in consequence of a great number of leases having expired; some of which had been held by extensive and wealthy middlemen, among the latter of whom was our friend, d.i.c.k o' the Grange.

The estate was the property of an English, n.o.bleman, who derived an income of thirty-two or thirty-three thousand a year from it; and who though, as landlords went, was not, in many respects, a bad one; yet when called upon to aid in relieving the misery of those from whose toil he drew so large an income, did actually remit back the munificent sum of one hundred pounds! [A recent fact.] The agent, himself, was one of those men who are capable of a just, but not of a generous action. He could, for instance, sympathize with the frightful condition of the people--but to contribute to their relief was no part of his duty. Yet he was not a bad man. In his transactions with his landlord's tenancy, he was fair, impartial, and considerate. Whenever he could do a good turn, or render a service, without touching his purse, he would do it.

He had, it is true, very little intercourse with the poorer cla.s.s of under tenants, but, whenever circ.u.mstances happened to bring them before him, they found him a hard, just man, who paid attention to their complaints, but who, in a case of doubt, always preferred the interest of his employer, or his own, to theirs. He had received many complaints and statements against the middlemen who resided upon the property, and he had duly and carefully considered them. His present visit, therefore, proceeded from a determination to look closely into the state and condition of the general tenancy, by which he meant as well those who derived immediately from the head landlord, as those who held under middlemen. One virtue he possessed, which, in an agent, deserves every praise; he was inaccessible to bribery on the one hand, or flattery on the other; and he never permitted his religious or political principles to degenerate into prejudice, so far as to interfere with the impartial discharge of his duty. Such was Robert James Travers, Esq., and we only wish that every agent in the country at large would follow his example.

CHAPTER XXII. -- Re-appearance of the Box--Friendly Dialogue Between Jimmy Branighan and the Pedlar

The next morning but one after the committal of Condy Dalton, the strange woman who had manifested such an anxious interest in the recovery of the Tobacco-Box, was seated at her humble fireside, in a larger and more convenient cottage than that which we have described, where she was soon joined by Charley Hanlon, who had already made it so comfortable and convenient that she was able to contribute something towards her own support, by letting what are termed in the country parts of Ireland, "Dry Lodgings." Her only lodger on this occasion was our friend the pedlar, who had been domiciled with her ever since his arrival in the neighborhood, and whose princ.i.p.al traffic, we may observe, consisted in purchasing the flowing and luxuriant heads of hair which necessity on the one hand, and fear of fever on the other, induced the country maidens to part with. This traffic, indeed, was very general during the period we are describing, the fact being that the poor people, especially the females, had conceived a notion, and not a very unreasonable one, too, that a large crop of hair not only predisposed them to the fever which then prevailed, but rendered their recovery from it more difficult. These notions, to be sure, resulted naturally enough from the treatment which medical men found it necessary to adopt in dealing with it--every one being aware that in order to relieve the head, whether by blister or other application, it is necessary to remove the hair. Be this, however, as it may, it is our duty to state here that the traffic we allude to was very general, and that many a lovely and luxuriant crop came under the shears of the pedlars who then strolled through the country.

"Afther all, aunt," said Hanlon, after having bidden her good morrow, "I'm afraid it was a foolish weakness to depend upon a dhrame. I see nothing clear in the business yet. Here now we have got the Box, an'

what are we the nearer to the discovery?"

"Well," replied his aunt, for in that relation she stood to him, "is it nothing to get even that? Sure we know now that it was his, an' do you think that M'Gowan, or as they call him, the Black Prophet, would be in sich a state to get it--an' his wife, too, it seems--unless there was some raison on their part beyond the common, to come at it?"

"It's a dark business altogether; but arn't we thrown out of all trace of it in the mane time? Jist when we thought ourselves on the straight road to the discovery, it turns out to be another an' a different murdher entirely--the murdher of one Sullivan."

At this moment, the pedlar, who had been dressing himself in another small apartment, made, his appearance, just in time to catch his concluding words.

"An' now," Hanlon added, "it appears that Sullivan's body has been found at last. The Black Prophet and Body Duncan knows all about the murdher, an' can prove the act home to Condy Dalton, and identify the body, they say, besides."

The pedlar looked at the speakers with a face of much curiosity and interest, then mused for a time, and at length took a turn or two about the floor, after which he sat down and began to drum his fingers on the little table which had been placed for breakfast.

"Afther I get my breakfast," he said at length, "I'll thank you to let me know what I have to pay. It's not my intention to stop undher this roof any longer; I don't think I'd be overly safe."

"Safe!--arrah why so?" asked the woman.

"Why," he replied, "ever since I came here, you have done nothing but collogue--collogue--an' whisper, an' lay your heads together, an' divil a syllable can I hear that hasn't murdher at the front an' rear of it--either spake out, or get me my bill. If you're of that stamp, it's time for me to thravel; not that I'm so rich as to make it worth any body's while to take the mouthful of wind out o' me that's in me. What do you mean by this discoorse?"

"May G.o.d rest the sowls of the dead!" replied the woman, "but it's not for nothing that we talk as we do, an' if you knew but all, you wouldn't think so."

"Very likely," he replied, in a dry but dissatisfied voice; "maybe, sure enough, that the more I'd know of it, the less I'd like of it--here now is a man named Sullivan--Barney, Bill, or Bartley, or some sich name, that has been murdhered, an' it seems the murdherer was sent to gaol yestherday evenin'--the villain! Get me my bill, I say, it's an unsafe neighborhood, an' I'll take myself out of it, while I'm able."

"It's not widout raisin we talk of murdher then," replied the woman.

"Faith may be so--get me my bill, then, I bid you, an' in the mane time, let me have, my breakfast. As it is, I tell you both that I carry no money to signify about me."