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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine, a novel by William Carleton |
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Chapter 2. The Black Prophet Prophesies |
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_ 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.'"
"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--" "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. _ |
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