The Black Prophet Part 5

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 pa.s.sing 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sociated 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d!" 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 s.e.x 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 cla.s.ses 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, st.u.r.dily; "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, a.s.suming 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?"