Home > Authors Index > William Carleton > Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine > This page
The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine, a novel by William Carleton |
||
Chapter 9. Meeting Of Strangers--Mysterious Dialogue |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER IX. Meeting of Strangers--Mysterious Dialogue Gra Gal Sullivan and the prophet's wife, having left the meal-shop, proceeded in the direction of Aughamurran, evidently in close, and if one could judge by their gestures, deeply important conversation. The strange woman followed them at a distance, meditating, as might be perceived by her hesitating manner, upon the most seasonable moment of addressing either one or both, without seeming to interrupt or disturb their dialogue. Although the actual purport of the topic they discussed could not be known by a spectator, yet even to an ordinary observer, it was clear that the elder female uttered something that was calculated to warn or alarm the younger. She raised her extended forefinger, looked earnestly into the face of her companion, then upwards solemnly, and, clasping her hands with vehemence, appeared to close her assertion by appealing to heaven in behalf of its truth; the younger looked at her with wonder, seemed amazed, paused suddenly on her step, raised her hands, and looked as if about to express terror; but, checking herself, appeared as it were perplexed by uncertainty and doubt. After this the elder woman seemed to confide some secret or sorrow to the other, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands as if with remorse, whilst her companion looked like one who had been evidently transformed into an impersonation of pure and artless sympathy. She caught the rough hand of the other--and, ere she had proceeded very far in her narrative, a few tears of compassion stole down her youthful cheek--after which she began to administer consolation in a manner that was at once simple and touching. She pressed the hand of the afflicted woman between hers, then wiped her eyes with her own handkerchief, and soothed her with a natural softness of manner that breathed at once of true tenderness and delicacy. As soon as this affecting scene had been concluded, the strange woman imperceptibly mended her pace, until her proximity occasioned them to look at her with that feeling which prompts us to recognize the wish of a person to address us, as it is often expressed, by an appearance of mingled anxiety and diffidence, when they approach us. At length Mave Sullivan spoke-- "Who is that strange woman that is followin' us, an' wants to say something, if one can judge by her looks?" "Well, I don't know," replied Nelly; "but whatsomever it may be, she wishes to speak to you or me, no doubt of it." "She looks like a poor woman,'"* said Mave, "an' yet she didn't ask anything in Skinadre's, barring a drink of water; but, God pity her if she's comin' to us for relief poor creature! At any rate, she appears to have care and distress in her face; I'll spake to her." * A common and compassionate name for a person forced to ask alms. She then beckoned the female to approach them, who did so; but they could perceive as she advanced, that they had been mistaken in supposing her to be one of those unhappy beings whom the prevailing famine had driven to mendicancy. There was visible in her face a feeling of care and anxiety certainly, but none of that supplicating expression which is at once recognized as the characteristic of the wretched class to which they supposed her to belong. This circumstance particularly embarrassed the inexperienced girl, whose gentle heart at the moment sympathized with the stranger's anxieties, whatever they may have been, and she hesitated a little, when the woman approached, in addressing her. At length she spoke: "We wor jist sayin' to one another," she observed, "that it looked as if you wished to spake to either this woman or me." "You're right enough, then," she replied; "I have something to say to her, and a single word to yourself, too." "An' what is it you have to say to me?" asked Nelly; "I hope it isn't to borrow money from me, bekase if it is, my banker has failed, an' left me as poor as a church mouse." "Are you in distress, poor woman," inquired the generous and kind-hearted girl. "Maybe you're hungry; it isn't much we can do for you; but little as it is, if you come home with me, you'll come to a family that won't scruple to share the little they have now with any one that's worse off than themselves." "Ay, you may well say 'now,'" observed the prophet's wife; "for until now, it's they that could always afford it; an' indeed it was the ready an' the willin' bit was ever at your father's table." The stranger looked upon the serene and beautiful features of Mave with a long gaze of interest and admiration; after which she added, with a sigh: "And you, I believe, are the girl they talk so much about for the fair face and good heart? Little pinetration it takes to see that you have both, my sweet girl. If I don't mistake, your name is Mave Sullivan, or Gra Gal, as the people mostly call you." Mave, whose natural delicacy was tender and pure as the dew-drop of morning, on hearing her praises thus uttered by the lips of a stranger, blushed so deeply, that her whole neck and face became suffused with that delicious crimson of modesty which, alas! is now of such rare occurrence among the sex, unconscious that, in doing so, she was adding fresh testimony to the impressions which had gone so generally abroad of her extraordinary beauty, and the many unostentatious virtues which adorned her humble life. "Mave Sullivan is my name," she replied, smiling through her blushes: "as to the nickname, the people will call one what they like, no matther whether it's right or wrong." "The people's seldom wrong, then, in givin' names o' the kind," returned the stranger; "but in your case, they're right at all events, as any one may know that looks upon you: that sweet face an' them fair looks is seldom if ever found with a bad heart. May God guard you, my purty and innocent girl, an' keep you safe from all evil, I pray his holy name." The prophet's wife and Mave exchanged looks as the woman spoke: and the latter said: "I hope you don't think there's any evil before me." "Who is there," replied the stranger, "that can say there's not? Sure it's before us and about us every hour in the day; but in your case, darlin', I jist say, be on your guard, an' don't trust or put belief in any one that you don't know well. That's all I can say, an' indeed all I know." "I feel thankful to you," replied Mave; "and now that you wish me well, (for I'm sure you do,) maybe you'd grant me a favor?" "If it is widin the bounds of my power, I'll do it," returned the other; "but it's little I can do, God help me." "Nelly," said Mave, "will you go on to the cross-roads there, an' I'll be with you in a minute." The cross-roads alluded to were only a couple of hundred yards before them. The prophet's wife proceeded, and Mave renewed the conversation. "What I want you to do for me is this--that is if you can do it--maybe you could bring a couple of stones of meal to a family of the name of--of--" here she blushed again, and her confusion became so evident that she felt it impossible to proceed until she had recovered in some degree her composure. "Only two or three years agone," she continued, "they were the daicentest farmers in the parish; but the world went against them as it has of late a'most against every one, owing to the fall of prices, and now they're out of their farm, very much reduced, and there's sickness amongst them, as well as want. They've been living," she proceeded, wiping away the tears which were now fast flowing, "in a kind of cabin or little cottage not far from the fine house an' place that was not long ago their own. Their name," she added, after a pause in which it was quite evident that she struggled strongly with her feelings, "is--is--Dal-ton." "O was the young fellow one of them," asked the woman, "that was so outrageous awhile ago in the miser's? I think I heard the name given to him." "Oh, I have nothing to say for him," replied Mave; "he was always wild, but they say never bad-hearted; it's the rest of the family I'm thinking about--and even that young man isn't more than three or four days up out o' the fever. What I want you to do is to bring the male I'm spakin' of to that family; any one will show you their little place; an' to leave it there about dusk this evenin', so that no one will ever know that you do it; an' as you love God an' hope for mercy, don't breathe my name in the business at all." "I will do it for you," replied the other; "but in the meantime where am I to get the meal?" "Why, at the miser's," replied Mave; "and when you go there, tell him that the person who told him they wouldn't forget it to him, sent you for it, an' you'll get it." "God forbid I refused you that much," said the stranger; "an' although it'll keep me out longer than I expected, still I'll manage it for you, an' come or go what will, widout mentioning your name." "God bless you for that," said Mave, "an grant that you may never be brought to the same hard pass that they're in, and keep you from ever having a heavy or a sorrowful heart." "Ah, acushla oge," replied the woman with a profound sigh, "that prayer's too late for me; anything else than a heavy and sorrowful heart I've seldom had: for the last twenty years and upwards little but care and sorrow has been upon me. "Indeed, one might easily guess as much," said Mave, "you have a look of heart-break and sorrow, sure enough. But answer me this: how do you know that there's evil before me or, about me?' "I don't know much about it," returned the other; "but I'm afeard there's something to your disadvantage planned or plannin' against you. When I seen you awhile ago I didn't know you till I heard your name; I'm a stranger here, not two weeks in the neighborhood, and know hardly anybody in it." "Well," observed Mave, who had fallen back upon her own position, and the danger alluded to by the stranger, "I'll do nothing that's wrong myself, and if there's danger about me, as I hear there is, it's a good thing to know that God can guard me in spite of all that any one can do against me." "Let that be your principle, ahagur--sooner or latter the hand o' God can and will make everything clear, and after all, dear, he is the best protection, blessed be his name!" They had now reached the cross-roads already spoken of, where the prophet's wife again joined them for a short time, previous to her separation from Mave, whose way from that point lay in a direction opposite to theirs. "This woman," said Mave, "wishes to go to Condy Dalton's in the course of the evening, and you, Nelly, can show her from the road the poor place they now live in, God help them." "To be sure," replied the other, "an' the house where they did live when they wor as themselves, full, an' warm, an' daicent; an' it is a hard case on them, God knows, to be turned out like beggars from a farm that they spent hundreds on, and to be forced to see the landlord, ould Dick o' the Grange, now settin' it at a higher rent and putting into his own pocket the money they had laid out upon improvin' it an' makin' it valuable for him and his; troth, it's open robbery an' nothin' else." "It in a hard case upon them, as every body allows," said Mave, "but it's over now, and can't be helped. Good-bye, Nelly, an' God bless you; an' God bless you too," she added, addressing the strange woman, whose hand she shook and pressed. "You are a great deal oulder than I am, an' as I said, every one may read care an' sorrow upon your face. Mine doesn't show it yet, I know, but for all that the heart within me is full of both, an' no likelihood of its ever bein' otherwise with me." As she spoke, the tears again gushed down her cheeks; but she checked her grief by an effort, and after a second hurried good-bye, she proceeded on her way home. "That seems a mild girl," said the strange woman, "as she is a lovely creature to look at." "She's better than she looks," returned the prophet's wife, "an' that's a great deal to say for her." "That's but truth," replied the stranger, "and I believe it; for indeed she has goodness in her face." "She has and in her heart," replied Nelly; "no wondher, indeed, that every one calls her the Gra Gal, for it's she that well deserves it. I You are bound for Condy Dalton's, then?" she added, inquiringly. "I am," said the other. "I think you must be a stranger in the country, otherwise I'd know your face," continued Nelly--"but maybe you're a relation of theirs." "I am a stranger," said the other; "but no relation." "The Daltons," proceeded Nelly, "are daicent people,--but hot and hasty, as the savin' is. It's the blow before the word wid them always." "Ah, tut they say," returned her companion, "that a hasty heart was never a bad one." "Many a piece o' nonsense they say as well as that," rejoined Nelly; "I know them that 'ud put a knife into your heart hastily enough--ay, an' give you a hasty death, into the bargain. They'll first break your head--cut you to the skull, and then, indeed, they'll give you a plaisther. That was ever an' always the carrecther of the same Daltons; an', if all accounts be thrue, the hand of God is upon them, an' will be upon them till the bloody deed is brought to light." "How is that?" inquired the other, with intense interest, whilst her eyes became riveted upon Nelly's hard features. "Why, a murdher that was committed betther than twenty years ago in this neighborhood." "A murdher!" exclaimed the stranger. "Where?--when?--how?" "I can tell you where, an' I can tell you when," replied Nelly; "but there I must stop--for unless I was at the committin' of it, you might know very well I couldn't tell you how." "Where then?" she asked, and whilst she did so, it was by a considerable effort that she struggled to prevent her agitation from being noticed by the prophet's wife. "Why, near the Grey Stone at the crossroads of Mallybenagh--that's the where!" "An' now for the when?" asked the stranger, who almost panted with anxiety as she spoke. "Let me see," replied Nelly, "fourteen and six makes twenty, an' two before that or nearly--I mane the year of the rebellion, Why it's not all out two-and-twenty years, I think." "Aisey," said the other, "I'm but very weak an' feeble--will you jist wait till I rest a minute upon this green bank by the road." "What ails you?" asked Nelly. "You look as if you got suddenly ill." "I did get a little--but it'll soon pass away," she answered--"thrue enough," she added in a low voice, and as if in a soliloquy; "God is a just Judge--he is--he is! Well, but--oh, I'll soon get better--well, but listen, what became of the murdhered man?--was the body ever got?" "Nobody knows that--the body was never got--that is to say nobody knows where it's now lyin', snug enough too." "Ha!" thought the stranger, eying her furtively--"snug enough!--there's more knowledge where that came from. What do you mane by snug enough?" she asked abruptly. "Mane!" replied the other, who at once perceived the force of the unguarded expression she had used;--"mane, why what could I mane, but that whoever did the deed, hid the body where very few would be likely to find it." Her companion now stood up, and approaching the prophet's wife, raised her hand, and said in a tone that was both startling and emphatic-- "I met you this day as you may think, by accident; but take my word for it, and, as sure as we must both account for our acts, it was the hand o' God that brought us together. I now look into your face, and I tell you that I see guilt and throuble there--ay, an' the dark work of a conscience that's gnawin' your heart both night and day." Whilst speaking, she held her face within about a foot of Nelly's, into which she looked with an expression so searching and dreadful in its penetration, that the other shrunk back, and felt for a moment as if subdued by a superior spirit. It was, however, only for a moment; the sense of her subjection passed away, and she resumed that hard and imperturbable manner, for which she had been all her life so remarkable, unless, like Etna and Vesuvius, she burst out of this seeming coldness into fire and passion. There, however, they stood looking sternly into each others' faces, as if each felt anxious that the other should quail before her gaze--the stranger, in order that her impressions might be confirmed, and the prophet's wife, that she should, by the force of her strong will, fling off those traces of inquietude which she knew very well were often too legible in her countenance. "You are wrong," said Nelly, "an' have only mistaken my face for a lookin'-glass. It was your own you saw, all it was your own you wor spaking of--for if ever I saw a face that publishes an ill-spent life on the part of its owner, yours is it." "Care an' sorrow I have had," replied the other, "an' the sin that causes sorrow, I grant; but there's somethin' that's weighin' down your heart, an' that won't let you rest until you give it up. You needn't deny it, for you can't hide it--hard your eye is, but it's not clear, and I see that it quivers, and is unaisy before mine." "I said you're mistaken," replied the other; "but even supposin' you wor not, how is it your business whether my mind is aisy or not? You won't have my sins to answer for." "I know that," said the stranger; "and God sees my own account will be too long and too heavy, I doubt. I now beg of you, as you hope to meet judgment, to think of what I said. Look into your own heart, and it will tell you whether I am right or whether I am wrong. Consult your husband, and if he has any insight at all into futurity, he must tell you that, unless you clear your conscience, you'll have a hard death-bed of it." "You're goin' to Condy Dalton's," replied Nelly, with much coolness, but whether assumed or not it is difficult to say; "look into his face, and try what you can find there. At any rate, report has it that there's blood upon his hand, an' that the downfall of himself and his family is only the vengeance of God, an' the curse of murdher that's pursuin' him and them." "Why," inquired the other, eagerly, "was he accused of it?" "Ay, an' taken up for it; but bekaise the body wasn't found, they could do nothing to him." "May Heaven assist me!" exclaimed the stranger, "but this day is----however, God's will be done, as it will be done! Are you goin'?" "I'm goin'," replied Nelly; "by crossin' the fields here, I'll save a great deal of ground; and when you get as far as the broken bridge, you'll see a large farm-house widout any smoke from it; about a quarter of a mile or less beyant that you'll find the house you're lookin' for--the house where Condy Dalton lives." Having thus directed the stranger, the prophet's wife entered a gap that led into a field, and proceeded on her way homewards, having, ere she parted, glanced at her with a meaning which rendered it extremely difficult to say whether the singular language addressed to her had left behind it any such impression as the speaker wished to produce. Their glances met and dwelt on each other for a short time: the strange woman pointed solemnly towards the sky, and the prophet's wife smiled carelessly; but yet, by a very keen eye, it might have been noticed that, under this natural or affected indifference, there lurked a blank or rather an unquiet expression, such as might intimate that something within her had been moved by the observations of her strange companion. _ |
||