Chapter 8. A Middle Man And Magistrate--Master And Man

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VIII. A Middle Man and Magistrate--Master and Man

Having mentioned a strange woman who made her appearance at Skinadre's, it may be necessary, or, at least, agreeable to the reader, that we should account for her presence under the roof of that worthy individual, especially as she is likely to perform a part of some interest in our tale. We have said already that she started on hearing Mave Sullivan's name mentioned, and followed her and the Black Prophet's wife like a person who watched their motions, and seemed to feel some peculiar interest in either one or both. The reader must return, then, to the Grey Stone already alluded to, which to some of the characters in our narrative will probably prove to be a "stone of destiny."

Hanlon, having departed from Sarah M'Gowan in a state of excitement, wended his way along a lonely and dreary road, to the residence of his master, Dick o' the Grange. The storm had increased, and was still increasing at every successive blast, until it rose to what might be termed a tempest. It is, indeed, a difficult thing to describe the peculiar state of his feelings as he struggled onwards, sometimes blown back to a stand-still, and again driven forward by the gloomy and capricious tyranny of the blast, as if he were its mere plaything. In spite, however, of the conflict of the external elements as they careered over the country around him, he could not shake from his imagination the impression left there by the groan which he had heard at the Grey Stone. A supernatural terror, therefore, was upon him, and he felt as if he were in the presence of an accompanying spirit--of a spirit that seemed anxious to disclose the fact that murder would not rest; and so strongly did this impression gain upon him, that in the fitful howling of the storm, and in its wild wailing and dying sobs among the trees and hedges, as he went along, he thought he could distinguish sounds that belonged not to this life. Still he proceeded, his terrors thus translating, as it were, the noisy conflict of the elements into the voices of the dead, or thanking Heaven that the strong winds brought him to a calmer sense of his position, by the necessity that they imposed of preserving himself against their violence. In this anomalous state he advanced, until he came to a grove of old beeches that grew at the foot of one of the hill-ranges we have described, and here the noises he heard were not calculated to diminish his terrors. As the huge trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his ears were assailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached them before. The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repetition of hoarse moanings, muffled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere transition from extreme cowardice to reckless indifference.

Still he advanced homewards, repeating his prayers with singular energy, his head uncovered notwithstanding the severity of the night, and the rain pouring in torrents upon him, when he found it necessary to cross a level of rough land, at all times damp and marshy, but in consequence of the rains of the season, now a perfect morass. Over this he had advanced about half a mile, and got beyond the frightful noises of the woods, when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the voice of undiscovered murder was groaning on the blast--shrieking, as it were, for vengeance in the terrible voice of the tempest. He once more blessed himself, repeated a fresh prayer, and struggled forward, weak, and nearly exhausted, until at length he reached the village adjoining which his master, Dick o' the Grange, resided.

The winds now, and for some minutes previously, had begun to fall, and the lulls in the storm were calmer and more frequent, as well as longer in duration. Hanlon proceeded to his master's, and peering through the shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest; then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was admitted by a thin, tall female.

"God protect us, dear, you're lost!--blessed father, sich a night! Oh! my, my! Well, well; sit near the spark o' fire, sich as it is; but, indeed, it's little you'll benefit by it. Any way, sit down."

Hanlon sat on a stool, and laying his hat beside him on the floor, he pressed the rain as well as he could out of his drenched hair, and for some time did not speak, whilst the female, squatted upon the ground, somewhat like a hare in her form, sat with the candle in her hand, which she held up in the direction of his face, whilst her eyes were riveted on him with a look of earnest and solemn inquiry.

"Well," she at length said, "did your journey end, as I tould you it would, in nothing? And yet, God presarve me, you look--eh!--what has happened?--you look like one that was terrified, sure enough. Tell me, at wanst, did the dhrame come out thrue?"

"I'll not have a light heart this many a day," he replied; "let no one say there's not a Providence above us to bring murdher to light."

"God of glory be about us!" she exclaimed, interrupting him; "something has happened! Your looks would frighten one, an' your voice isn't like the voice of a livin' man. Tell me--and yet, for all so curious as I feel, I'm thremblin' this minute--but tell me, did the dhrame come out thrue, I say?"

"The dhrame came out thrue," he replied, solemnly. "I know where the tobaccy box is that he had about him; the same that transported my poor uncle, or that was partly the means of doin' it."

The woman crossed herself, muttered a short ejaculatory prayer, and again gathered her whole features into an expression of mingled awe and curiosity.

"Did you go to the place you dhramed of?" she asked.

"I went to the Grey Stone," he replied, "an' offered up a prayer for his sowl, afther puttin' my right hand upon it in his name, jist as I did on yesterday; afther I got an account of the tobaccy box, I heard a groan at the spot--as heaven's above me, I did."

"Savior of earth, gluntho shin!"

"But that wasn't all. On my way home, I heard, as I was passin' the ould trees at the Rabbit Bank, things that I can't find words to tell you of."

"Well acushla, glory be to God for everything! it's all his will, blessed be his name! What did you hear, avick?--but wait till I throw a drop o' the holy wather that I have hangin' in the little bottle at the bed-post upon us."

She rose whilst speaking and getting the bottle alluded to, sprinkled both herself and him, after which she hung it up again in its former position.

"There, now, nothin' harmful, at any rate, can come near us afther that, blessed be his name. Well, what did you hear comin' home?--I mean at the Rabbit Bank. Wurrah," she added, shuddering, "but it's it that's the lonely spot after night! What was it, dear?"

"Indeed, I can scarcely tell you--sich groans, an' wild shoutins, an' shrieks, man's ears never hard in this world, I think; there I hard them as I was comin' past the trees, an' afther I passed them; an' when I left them far behind me, I could hear, every now and then, a wild shriek that made my blood run cowld. But there was still worse as I crossed the Black Park; something got up into the air out o' the rushes before me, an' went off wid a noise not unlike what Jerry Hamilton of the Band makes when he rubs his middle finger up against the tamborine."

"Heaven be about us!" she exclaimed, once more crossing herself, and uttering a short prayer for protection from evil; "but tell me, how did you know it was his Box, and how did you find it out?"

"By the letters P. M., and the broken hinge," he replied.

"Blessed be the name of God!" she exclaimed again--"He won't let the murdher lie, that's clear. But what I want to know is, how did your goin' to the Grey Stone bring you to the knowledge of the box?"

He then gave her a more detailed account of his conversation with Sarah M'Gowan, and the singular turn which it chanced to take towards the subject of the handkerchief, in the first instance; but when the coincidence of the letters were mentioned, together with Sarah's admission that she had the box in her possession, she clasped her hands, and looking upwards exclaimed--

"Blessed be the name of the Almighty for that! Oh, I feel there is no doubt now the hand of God is in it, an' we'll come at the murdher or the murdherers yet."

"I hope so," he replied; "but I'm lost Wid wet an' cowld; so in the meantime I'll be off home, an' to my bed. I had something to say to you about another matther, but I'll wait till mornin'; dear knows, I'm in no condition to spake about anything else to-night. This is a snug little cabin; but, plaise God, in the coorse of a week or so, I'll have you more comfortable than you are. If my own throuble was over me, I wouldn't stop long in the neighborhood; but as the hand of God seems to be in this business, I can't think of goin' till it's cleared up, as cleared up it will be, I have no doubt, an' can have none, afther what has happened this awful night."

Hanlon's situation with his master was one with which many of our readers are, no doubt, well acquainted. He himself was a clever, active, ingenious fellow, who could, as they say in the country, put a hand to anything, and make himself useful in a great variety of employments. He had in the spring of that year, been engaged as a common laborer by Dick o' the Grange, in which capacity he soon attracted his employer's notice, by his extraordinary skill in almost everything pertaining to that worthy gentleman's establishment. It is true he was a stranger in the country, of whom nobody knew anything--for there appeared to be some mystery about him; but as Dick cared little of either his place of birth or pedigree, it was sufficient for him to find that Hanlon was a very useful, not to say valuable young man, about his house, that he understood everything, and had an eye and hand equally quick and experienced. The consequence was, that he soon became a favorite with the father, and a kind of sine qua non with the son, into whose rustic gallantries he entered, with a spirit that satisfied the latter of his capacity to serve him in that respect as well as others. Hanlon, in truth, was just the person for such a master, and for such an establishment as he kept. Dick o' the Grange was not a man who, either by birth, education, or position in society, could entertain any pretensions to rank with the gentry of the surrounding country. It is true he was a magistrate, but then he was a middleman, and as such found himself an interested agent in the operation of one of the worst and most cruel systems that ever cursed either the country or the people. We of course mean that which suffered a third party to stand between the head landlord, and those who in general occupied the soil. Of this system, it may be with truth said, that the iniquity lay rather in the principal on which it rested, than in the individual who administered it; because it was next to an impossibility that a man anxious to aggrandize his family--as almost every man is--could, in the exercise of the habits which enable him to do so, avoid such a pressure upon those who were under him as amounted to great hardships and injustice. The system held out so many temptations to iniquity in the management of land, and in the remuneration of labor, that it required an amount of personal virtue and self-denial to resist them, that were scarcely to be expected from any one, so difficult was it to overlook or neglect the opportunities for oppression and fraud which it thus offered.

Old Dick, although bearing the character of being a violent and outrageous man, was, however, one of those persons of whom there will be always somebody found to speak favorably. Hot and ungovernable in temper, he unquestionably was, and capable of savage and cruel acts; but at the same time his capricious and unsteady impulses rendered him uncertain, whether for good or evil; so much so, indeed, that it was impossible to know when to ask him for a favor; nor was it extraordinary to find him a friend this day to the man whose avowed enemy he proclaimed himself yesterday; and this same point of character was true the other way---for whilst certain that you had him for a friend, perhaps you found him hard at work to oppress or over-reach you if he could. The consequence of this peculiarity was that he had a two-fold reputation in the country. Some were found to abuse him, and others to mention many acts of generosity and kindness which he had been known to perform under circumstances where they were least to be expected. This perhaps was one reason why they made so strong an impression upon the people, and were so distinctly remembered to his advantage. It is true he was a violent party man, but then he wanted coolness to adjust his principles, and thus make them subservient to his private interests. For this reason, notwithstanding his strong and out-spoken prejudices, it was a well know fact, that the Roman Catholic population preferred him as a magistrate to many who were remarkable for a more equal and even tenor of life, and in whom, under greater plausibility of manner, there existed something which they would have readily exchanged for his violent abuse of them and their creed.

Such was Dick o' the Grange, a man who, as a middleman and a magistrate, stood out a prominent representative of a class that impressed themselves strongly upon their times, and who, whether as regards their position or office, would not find at the present day in the ranks of any party in Ireland a single man who could come forward and say they were not an oppressive evil to the country.

Dick o' the Grange, at this period of our narrative, was far advanced in years, and had, some time past, begun to feel what is known in men who have led a hard convivial life, as that breaking down of the constitution, which is generally the forerunner of dissolution. On this account he had for some time past resigned the management of his property altogether to his son, young Dick, who was certainly wild and unreflecting, but neither so impulsively generous, nor so habitually violent as his father. The estimate of his character which went abroad was such as might be expected--many thought him better than the old man. He was the youngest son and a favorite--two circumstances which probably occasioned his education to be neglected, as it had been. All his sisters and brothers having been for some years married and settled in life, he, and his father, who was a widower, kept a bachelor's house, where we regret to say the parental surveillance over his morals was not so strict as it ought to have been. Young Dick was handsome, and so exceedingly vain of his person, that any one wishing to gain a favor either from himself or his worthy sire, had little more to do than dexterously apply a strong dose of flattery to this his weakest point, and the favor was sure to be granted, for his influence over old Dick was boundless.

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 Dick'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 Dick'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, Dick 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 constituted friendship, then, indeed, the reader may substitute the word friend, if he pleases.

In fact, Dick 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 passed 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 passion about it, was put down by Jemmy, who got into a greater passion 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 Dick was finally forced to succumb.

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; nobody 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, God 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 God!--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.

"Damn 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 Dick--"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 acrass me!"

"Dick," 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', God 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 Saturday 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 passion, 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; God 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, God help you! what'll you do when you'll be left to yourself, as you will be on Saturday 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 shirkin' 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, God 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 Dick. 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 circumstances 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 pass 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.

"Maybe you could tell me, young woman, whereabouts here a man lives that they call Donnel Dhu, or the Black Prophet; his real name is M'Gowan, I think."

"I ought to be able to tell you, at any rate," replied Sarah; "I'm his daughter."

The strange woman, on surveying Sarah more closely, looked as if she never intended to remove her eyes from her countenance and figure. She seemed for a moment, as it were, to forget every other object in life--her previous conversation with Hanlon--the message on which she had been sent--and her anxiety to throw light upon the awful crime that had been committed at the spot whereon she stood. At length she sighed deeply, and appeared to recover her presence of mind, and to break through the abstraction in which she had been wrapped. "You're his daughter, you say?"

"Ay, I do say so."

"Then you know a young man by name Pierce--och, what am I sayin'!--by name Charley Hanlon?"

"To be sure I do--I'm not ashamed of knowin' Charles Hanlon."

"You have a good opinion of him, then?"

"I have a good opinion of him, but not so good as I had thought."

"Mush a why then, might one ask?"

"I'm afeard he's a cowardly crathur, and rather unmanly a thrifle. I like a man to be a man, an' not to get as white as a sheet, an' cowld as a tombstone, bekaise he hears what he thinks to be a groan at night, an' it may be nothin' but an owld cow behind a ditch. Ha! ha! ha!"

"An' where did he hear the groan?"

"Why, here where we're standin'. Ha! ha! ha! I was thinkin' of it since, an' I did hear somethin' very like a groan; but what about it? Sich a night as last night would make any one groan that had a groan in them."

"You spoke about ditches, but sure there's no ditches here."

"Divil a matther--who cares what it was? What did you want wid my father?"

"It was yourself that I wanted to see."

"Faix, an' you've seen me, then, an' the full o' your eye you tuck out o' me. You'll know me again, I hope."

"Is your mother livin'?"

"No."

"How long is she dead, do you know?"

"I do not; I hardly remember anything about her. She died when I was a young slip--a mere child, I believe. Still," she proceeded, rather slowly, musing and putting her beautiful and taper fingers to her chin--"I think that I do remember--it's like a dhrame to me though, an' I dunna but it is one--still it's like a dhrame to me, that I was wanst in her arms, that I was cryin', an' that she kissed me--that she kissed me! If she had lived, it's a different life maybe I'd lead an' a different creature I'd be to-day, maybe, but I never had a mother."

"Did your father marry a second time?"

"He did."

"Then you have a step-mother?"

"Ay have I."

"Is she kind to you, an' do you like her?"

"Middlin'--she's not so bad--better than I deserve, I doubt; I'm sorry for what I did to her; but then I have the divil's temper, an' have no guide o' myself when it comes on me. I know whatever she may be to me, I'm not the best step-daughter to her."

The strange female was evidently much struck with the appearance and singularly artless disposition of Sarah, as well as with her extraordinary candor; and indeed no wonder; for as this neglected creature spoke, especially with reference to her mother, her eyes flashed and softened with an expression of brilliancy and tenderness that might be said to resemble the sky at night, when the glowing corruscations of the Aurora Borealis sweep over it like expanses of lightning, or fade away into those dim but graceful undulations which fill the mind with a sense of such softness and beauty.

"I don't know," observed her companion, sighing and looking at her affectionately, "how any step-mother could be harsh to you."

"Ha! ha! ha! don't you, indeed? Faix, then, if you had me, maybe you wouldn't think so--I'm nothin' but a born divil when the fit's on me."

"Charley Hanlon," proceeded the strange woman, "bid me ax you for the ould tobaccy-box you promised him last night."

"Well, but he promised me a handkerchy; have you got it?"

"I have," replied the other, producing it; "but, then, I'm not to give it to you, unless you give me the box for it."

"But I haven't the box now," said Sarah, "how-and-ever, I'll get it for him."

"Are you sure that you can an' will?" inquired the other.

"I had it in my hand yesterday," she said, "an' if it's to be had I'll get it."

"Well, then," observed the other mildly, "as soon as you get him the box, he'll give you this handkerchy, but not till then."

"Ha!" she exclaimed, kindling, "is that his bargain; does he think I'd thrick him or cheat him?--hand it here."

"I can't," replied the other; "I'm only to give it to you when I get the box."

"Hand it here, I say," returned Sarah, whose eyes flashed in a moment; "it's Peggy Murray's rag, I suppose--hand it here, I bid you."

The woman shook her head and replied, "I can't--not till you get the box."

Sarah replied not a word, but sprang at it, and in a minute had it in her hands.

"I would tear it this minute into ribbons," she exclaimed, with eyes of fire and glowing cheeks, "and tramp it undher my feet too; only that I want it to show her, that I may have the advantage over her."

There was a sharp, fierce smile of triumph on her features as she spoke; and altogether her face sparkled with singular animation and beauty.

"God bless me!" said the strange woman, looking at her with a wondering yet serious expression of countenance; "I wanst knew a face like yours, an' a temper the aiquil of it--at any rate, my good girl, you don't pay much respect to a stranger. Is your stepmother at home?"

"She is not, but my father is; however, I don't think he'll see you now. My stepmother's gone to Darby Skinadre, the meal-monger's."

"I'm goin' there."

"An' if you see her," replied the other, "you'll know her; a score on her cheek--ha, ha, ha; an' when you see it, maybe you'll thank God that I am not your step-daughter."

"Isn't there a family named Sullivan that lives not far from Skinadre's?"

"There is; Jerry Sullivan, it's his daughter that's the beauty--Gra Gal Sullivan. Little she knows what's preparin' for her!"

"How am I to go to Skinadre's from this?" asked the woman.

"Up by that road there; any one will tell you as you go along."

"Thank you, dear," replied the woman, tenderly; "God bless you; you are a wild girl, sure enough; but above all things, afore I go, don't forget the box for--for--och, for--Charley Hanlon. God bless you, a colleen machree, an' make you what you ought to be!"

Sarah, during many a long day, had not heard herself addressed in an accent of kindness or affection; for it would be wrong to bestow upon the rude attachment which her father entertained for her, or his surly mode of expressing it, any term that could indicate tenderness, even in a remote degree. She looked, therefore, at the woman earnestly, and as she did, her whole manner changed to one of melancholy and kindness. A soft and benign expression came like the dawn of breaking day over her features, her voice fell into natural melody and sweetness, and, approaching her companion, she took her hand and exclaimed--

"May God bless you for them words! it's many a day since I heard the voice o' kindness. I'll get the box, if it's to be had, if it was only for your own sake."

She then passed on to her neighbor's house, and the next appearance of her companion was that in which the reader caught, a glimpse of her in the house of Darby Skinadre, from which she followed Nelly M'Gowan and Mave Sullivan with an appearance of such interest. _

Read next: Chapter 9. Meeting Of Strangers--Mysterious Dialogue

Read previous: Chapter 7. A Panorama Of Misery

Table of content of Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book