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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine, a novel by William Carleton |
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Chapter 15. A Plot And A Prophecy |
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_ CHAPTER XV. A Plot and a Prophecy Our readers cannot forget a short dialogue which took place between Charley Hanlon and the strange female, who has already borne some part in the incidents of our story. It occurred on the morning she had been sent to convey the handkerchief which Hanlon had promised to Sarah M'Gowan, in lieu of the Tobacco-Box of which we have so frequently made mention, and which, on that occasion, she expected to have received from Sarah. After having inquired from Hanlon why Donnel Dhu was called the Black Prophet, she asked: "But could he have anything to do with the murdher?" To which Hanlon replied, that "he had been thinkin' about that, an' had some talk, this mornin', wid a man that's livin' a long time--indeed, that was born a little above the place, an' he says that the Black Prophet, or M'Gowan, did not come to the neighborhood till afther the murdher." Now this person was no other than Red Rody Duncan, to whom our friend Jemmy Branigan made such opprobrious allusion in the character of the Black Prophet to Dick-o'-the-Grange. This man, who was generally known by the sobriquet of Red Body, had been for some time looking after the situation of bailiff or driver to Dick-o'-the-Grange; and as Hanlon was supposed to possess a good deal of influence with young Dick, Duncan very properly thought he could not do better than cultivate his acquaintance. This was the circumstance which brought them together at first, and it was something of a dry, mysterious manner which Hanlon observed in this fellow, when talking about the Prophet and his daughter, that caused him to keep up the intimacy between them. When Donnel Dhu had closed his lengthened conference with Henderson, he turned his steps homewards, and had got half-way through the lawn, when he was met by Red Rody. He had, only a minute or two before, left young Dick, with whom he held another short conversation; and as he met Rody, Dick was still standing within about a hundred yards of them, cracking his whip with that easy indolence and utter disregard of everything but his pleasures, which chiefly constituted his character. "Don't stand to spake to me here," said the Prophet; "that young scoundrel will see us. Have you tried Hanlon yet, and will he do? Yes or no?" "I haven't tried him, but I'm now on way to do so." "Caution!" "Certainly; I'm no fool, I think. If we can secure him, the business may be managed aisily; that is, provided the two affairs can come off on the same night." "Caution, I say again." "Certainly; I'm no fool, I hope. Pass on." The Prophet and he passed each other very slowly during this brief dialogue; the former, when it was finished, pointing naturally towards the Grange, or young Dick, as if he I had been merely answering a few questions respecting some person about the place that the other was going to see. Having passed the Prophet, he turned to the left, by a back path that led to the garden, where, in fact, Hanlon was generally to be found, and where, upon this occasion, he found him. After a good deal of desultory chat, Rody at last inquired if Hanlon thought there existed any chance of his procuring the post of bailiff. "I don't think there is, then, to tell you the truth," replied Hanlon; "old Jemmy is against you bitterly, an' Masther Richard's interest in this business isn't as strong as his." "The blackguard ould villain!" exclaimed Rody; "it will be a good job to give him a dog's knock some night or other." "I don't see that either," replied Hanlon; "Ould Jemmy does a power of good in his way; and indeed many an act of kindness the master himself gets credit for that ought to go to Jemmy's account." "But you can give me a lift in the drivership, Charley, if you like." "I'm afeard not, so long as Jemmy's against you." "Ay, but couldn't you thry and twist that ould scoundrel himself in my favor?" "Well," replied the other, "there is something in that, and whatever I can do with him, I will, if you'll thry and do me a favor." "Me! Name it, man--name it, and it's done, if it was only to rob the Grange. Ha! ha! An' by the way, I dunna what puts robbin' the Grange into my head!" And, as he spoke, his eye was bent with an expression of peculiar significance on Hanlon. "No!" replied Hanlon with indifference; "it is not to rob the Grange. I believe you know something about the man they call the Black Prophet?" "Donnel Dhu? Why--ahem!--a little--not much. Nobody, indeed, knows or cares much about him. However, like most people, he has his friends and his enemies." "Don't you remember a murdher that was committed here about two-and-twenty-years ago?" "I do." "Was that before or afther the Black Prophet came to live in this counthry?" "Afther it--afther it. No, no!'" he replied, correcting himself; "I am wrong; it was before he came here." "Then he could have had no hand in it?" "Him! Is it him! Why, what puts such a thing as that into your head'?" "Faith, to tell you the truth, Rody, his daughter Sarah an' myself is beginnin' to look at one another; an', to tell you the truth again, I'd wish to know more about the same Prophet before I become his son-in-law, as I have some notion of doin'." "I hard indeed that you wor pullin' a string wid her, an' now that I think of it, if you give me a lift wid ould Jemmy, I'll give you one there. The bailiff's berth is jist the thing for me; not havin' any family of my own, you see I could have no objection to live in the Grange, as their bailiff always did; but, aren't you afeard to tackle yourself to that divil's clip, Sarah?" "Well, I don't know," replied the other; "I grant it's a hazard, by all accounts." "An' yet" continued Rody, "she's a favorite with every one; an' indeed there's not a more generous or kinder-hearted creature alive this day than she is. I advise you, however, not to let her into your saicrets, for if it was the knockin' of a man on the head and that she knew it, and was asked about it, out it would go, rather than she'd tell a lie." "They say she's handsomer than Gra Gal Sullivan," said Hanlon; "and I think myself she is." "I don't know; it's a dead tie between them; however, I can give you a lift with her father, but not with herself, for somehow, she doesn't like a bone in my skin." "She and I made a swop," proceeded Hanlon, "some time ago, that 'ud take a laugh out o' you: I gave her a pocket-hand-kerchy; and she was to give me an ould Tobaccy-Box--but she says she can't find it, altho' I have sent for it, an' axed it myself several times. She thinks the step-mother has thrown it away or hid it somewhere." Body looked at him inquiringly. "A Tobaccy-Box," he exclaimed; "would you like to get it?" "Why," replied Hanlon, "the poor girl has nothing else to give, an' I'd like to have something from her, even if a ring never was to go on us, merely as a keepsake." "Well, then," replied Duncan, with something approaching to solemnity in his voice, "mark my words--you promise to give me a lift for the drivership with old Jemmy and the two Dicks?" "I do." "Well, then, listen: If you will be at the Grey Stone to-morrow night at twelve o'clock--midnight--I'll engage that Sarah will give you the box there." "Why, in troth, Eody, to tell you the truth if she could give it to me at any other time an' place, I'd prefer it. That Grey Stone is a wild place to be in at midnight." "It is a wild place; still it's there, an' nowhere else, that you must get the box. And now that the bargain's made, do you think it's thrue that this old Hendherson"--here he looked very cautiously about him--"has as much money as they say he has?" "I b'lieve he's very rich." "It is thrue that he airs the bank notes in the garden here, and turns the guineas in the sun, for fraid--for fraid--they'd get blue-mowled--is it?" "It may, for all I know; but it's more than I've seen yet." "An' now between you and me, Charley--whisper--I say, isn't it a thousand pities--nobody could hear us, surely?" "Nonsense--who could hear us?" "Well, isn't it a thousand pities, Charley, avia, that dacent fellows, like you and me, should be as we are, an' that mad ould villain havin' his house full 'o money? eh, now?" "It's a hard case," replied Hanlon, "but still we must put up with our lot. His father I'm tould was as poor in the beginnin' as either of us." "Ay, but it's the son we're spakin about--the ould tyrannical villain that dhrives an' harries the poor! He has loads of money in the house, they say--eh?" "Divil a know myself knows, Rody:--nor--not makin' you an ill answer--divil a hair myself cares, Rody. Let him have much, or let him have little, that's your share an' mine of it." "Charley, they say America's a fine place; talkin' about money--wid a little money there, they say a man could do wondhers." "Who says that?" "Why Donnel Dhu, for one; an' he knows, for he was there." "I b'lieve that Donnel was many a place;--over half the world, if all's thrue." "Augh! the same Donnel's a quare fellow--a deep chap--a cute follow; but, I know more about him than you think--ay, do I." "Why, what do you know?" "No matther--a thing or two about the same Donnel; an' by the same token, a betther fellow never lived--an' whisper--you're a strong favorite wid him, that I know, for we wor talkin' about you. In the meantime I wish to goodness we had a good scud o' cash among us, an' we safe an' snug in America! Now shake hands an' good bye--an' mark me--if you dhrame of America an' a long purse any o' these nights, come to me an' I'll riddle your dhrame for you." He then looked Hanlon significantly in the face, wrung his hand, and left him to meditate on the purport of their conversation. The latter as he went out gazed at him with a good deal of surprise. "So," thought he, "you were feelin' my pulse, were you? I don't think it's hard to guess whereabouts you are; however I'll think of your advice at any rate, an' see what good may be in it. But, in the name of all that's wondherful, how does it come to pass that that red ruffian has sich authority over Sarah M'Gowan as to make her fetch me the very thing I want?--that tobacco-box; an' at sich a place, too, an' sich an hour! An' yet he says that she doesn't like a bone in his skin, which I b'lieve! I'm fairly in the dark here; however time will make it all clear, I hope; an' for that we must wait." He then resumed his employment. Donnel Dhu, who was a man of much energy and activity, whenever his purposes required it, instead of turning his steps homewards, directed them to the house of our kind friend Jerry Sullivan, with whose daughter, the innocent and unsuspecting Mave, it was his intention to have another private interview. During the interval that had elapsed since his last journey to the house of this virtuous and hospitable family, the gloom that darkened the face of the country had become awful, and such as wofully bore out to the letter the melancholy truth of his own predictions. Typhus fever had now set in, and was filling the land with fearful and unexampled desolation. Famine, in all cases the source and origin of contagion, had done, and was still doing, its work. The early potato crop, for so far as it had come in, was a pitiable failure; the quantity being small, and the quality watery and bad. The oats, too, and all early grain of that season's growth, were still more deleterious as food, for it had all fermented and become sour, so that the use of it, and of the bad potatoes, too, was the most certain means of propagating the pestilence which was sweeping away the people in such multitudes. Scarcely any thing presented itself to him as he went along that had not some melancholy association with death or its emblems. To all this, however, he paid little or no attention. When a funeral met him, he merely turned back three steps in the direction it went, as was usual; but unless he happened to know the family from which death had selected its victim, he never even took the trouble of inquiring who it was they bore to the grave--a circumstance which strongly proved the utter and heartless selfishness of the man's nature. On arriving at Sullivan's, however, he could not help feeling startled, hard and without sympathy as was his heart, at the wild and emaciated evidences of misery and want which a couple of weeks' severe suffering had impressed upon them. The gentle Mave herself, patient and uncomplaining as she was, had become thin and cheerless; yet of such a character was the sadness that rested upon her, that it only added a mournful and melancholy charm to her beauty--a charm that touched the heart of the beholder at once with love and compassion. As yet there had been no sickness among them; but who could say to-day that he or she might not be stricken down at once before to-morrow. "Donnel," said Sullivan, after he had taken a seat, "how you came to prophecy what would happen, an' what has happened, is to me a wondher; but sure enough, fareer gair, (* bitter misfortune) it has all come to pass." "I can't tell myself," replied the other, "how I do it; all I know is, that the words come into my mouth, an' I can't help spakin' them. At any rate, that's not surprisin'. I'm the seventh son of the seventh son, afther seven generations; that is I'm the seventh seventh son that was in our family; an' you must know that the knowledge increases as they go on. Every seventh son knows more than thim that wint before him till it comes to the last, and he knows more than thim all. There were six seventh sons before me, so that I'm the last; for it was never known since the world began that ever more than seven afther one another had the gift of prophecy in the same family. That's the raison, you see, that I have no sons--the knowledge ends wid me." "It's very strange," replied Sullivan, "an' not to be accounted for by any one but God--glory be to his name!" "It is strange--an' when I find that I'm goin' to foretell any thing that's bad or unlucky, I feel great pain or uneasiness in my mind--but on the other hand, when I am to prophesy what's good, I get quite light-hearted and aisy--I'm all happiness. An' that's the way I feel now, an' has felt for the last day or two." "I wish to God, Donnel," said Mrs. Sullivan, "that you could prophesize something good for us." "Or," continued her charitable and benevolent husband, "for the thousands of poor creatures that wants it more still than we do--sure it's thankful to the Almighty we ought to be--an' is, I hope--that this woful sickness hasn't come upon us yet. Even Condy Dalton an' his family--ay, God be praised for givin' me the heart to do it--I can forgive him and them." "Don't say them, Jerry ahagur," observed his wife, "we never had any bad feelin' against them." "Well, well," continued the husband, "I can forgive him an' all o' them now--for God help them, they're in a state of most heart-breakin' distitution, livin' only upon the bits that the poor starvin' neighbors is able to crib from their own hungry mouths for them!" And here the tears--the tears that did honor not only to him, but to human nature and his country--rolled slowly down his emaciated cheeks, for the deep distress to which the man that he believed to be the murdherer of his brother had been. "Indeed, Donnel," said Mrs. Sullivan, "it would be a hard an' uncharitable heart that wouldn't relent if it knew what they are suffering. Young Con is jist risin' out of the faver that was in the family, and it would wring your--" A glance at Mave occasioned her to pause. The gentle girl, upon whom the Prophet had kept his eye during the whole conversation, had been reflecting, in her wasted but beautiful features, both the delicacy and depth of the sympathy that had been expressed for the unhappy Daltons. Sometimes she became pale as ashes, and again her complexion assumed the subdued hue of the wild rose; for--alas that we must say it--sorrow and suffering--in other words, want, in its almost severest form, had thrown its melancholy hue over the richness of her blush--which, on this occasion, borrowed a delicate grace from distress itself. Such, indeed, was her beauty, and so gently and serenely did her virtues shine through it, that it mattered not to what condition of calamity they were subjected; in every situation they seemed to shed some new and unexpected charm upon the eyes of those who looked upon her. The mother, we said on glancing at her, paused--but the chord of love and sorrow had been touched, and poor Mave, unable any longer to restrain her feelings, burst out into tears, and wept aloud on heading the name and sufferings of her lover. Her father looked at her, and his brow got sad; but there was no longer the darkness of resentment or indignation there; so true is it that suffering chastens the heart into its noblest affections, and purges it of the gloomier and grosser passions. "Poor Mave," he exclaimed, "when I let the tears down for the man that has my doother's blood on his hands, it's no wonder you, should cry for him you love so well." "Oh, dear father," she exclaimed, throwing herself into his arms, and embracing him tenderly, "I feel no misery nor sorrow now--the words you have spoken have made me happy. All these sufferings will pass away; for it cannot be but God will, sooner or later, reward your piety and goodness. Oh, if I could do anything for--for--for any one," and she blushed as she spoke; "but I cannot. There is nothing here that I can do at home; but if I could go out and work by the day, I'd do it an' be happy, in ordher to help the--that---family that's now brought so low, and that's so much to be pitied!" We have already said that the Prophet's eye had been bent upon her ever since he came into the house, but it was with an expression of benignity and affection which, notwithstanding the gloomy character of his countenance, no one could more plausibly or willingly assume. Mave, in the mean time, could scarcely bear to look upon him; and it was quite clear from her manner that she had, since their last mysterious interview, once more fallen back into those feelings of strong aversion with which she had regarded him at first. M'Gowan saw this, and without much difficulty guessed at the individual who had been instrumental in producing the change. "God pardon an' forgive me," he exclaimed, as if giving unconscious utterance to his I own reflections--"for what I had thoughts of about that darlin' an' lovely girl; but sure I'll make it up to her; an', indeed, I feel the words of goodness that's to befall her breakin' out o' my lips. A colleen dhas, I had some private discoorse wid you when I was here last, an' will you let me spake a few words to you by ourselves agin?" "No," she replied, "I'll hear nothing from you: I don't like you--I can't like you, an' I I'll hold no private discoorse with you." "Oh, then, but that voice is music itself, an' you are, by all accounts, the best of girls; I but sure we have all turned over a new leaf, poor child. I discovered how I was taken in an' dasaved; but sure I can't ait you--an' a sweet morsel you'd be, a lanna dhas--nor' can I run away wid you--an' I seen the day that it's not my heart would hinder me to do that same. Oh, my goodness, what a head o' hair! an' talkin' about that--you undherstand--I'd like to have a word or two wid yourself.' "Say whatever you have to say before my father and mother, then," she replied; "I have no--" she paused a moment and seemed embarrassed. The Prophet, who skilfully threw in the allusion to her hair, guessed the words she was on the point of uttering, and availing' himself of her difficulty, seemed to act as if she had completed what she was about to say. "I know, dear," he added, "you have no saicrets from them: I'm glad to hear it, an' for that raison I'm willin' to say what I had to say in their presence; so far as I'm concerned, it makes no difference." The allusion to her hair; added to the last observations, reminded her that it might be possible that he had some message from her lover, and she consequently seemed to waver a little, as if struggling against her strong, instinctive abhorrence of him. "Don't be afeard, Mave dear," said her mother, "sure, poor honest Donnel wishes you well, an' won't prophesize any harm to you. Go with him." "Do, achora," added the father; "Donnel can have nothing to say to you that can have any harm in it--go for a minute or two, since he wishes it." Reluctantly, and with an indomitable feeling against the man, she went out, and stood under the shelter of a little elder hedge that adjoined the house. "Now, tell me," she asked, quickly, "what is it you have to say to me?" "I gave young Condy Dalton the purty ringlet of hair you sent him." "What did he say?" she inquired. "Not much," he replied, "till I tould him it was the last token that ever you could send him afther what your father said to you." "Well?" "Why, he cursed your father, an' said he desirved to get his neck broke." "I don't believe that," she replied, "I know he never said them words, or anything like them. Don't mislead me, but tell me what he did say." "Ah! poor Mave," he replied, "you little know what hot blood runs in the Daltons' veins. He said very little that was creditable to himself--an' indeed I won't repate it--but it was enough to make any girl of spirit have done wid him." "An' don't you know," she replied, mournfully, "that I have done with him; an' that there never can be anything but sorrow and good will between us? Wasn't that my message to him by yourself?" "It was, dear, an' I hope you're still of the same mind." "I am," she said; "but you are not tellin' me the truth about him. He never spoke disrespectfully of my father or me." "No, indeed, asthore, he did not then--oh, the sorra syllable--oh no; if I said so, don't believe me." And yet the very words he uttered, in consequence of the meaning which, they received from his manner, made an impression directly the reverse of their natural import. "Well then," she said, "that's all you have to say to me?" "No," he replied, "it is not; I want to know from you when you'll be goin' to your uncle's, at Mullaghmore." "To-morrow," replied the artless and unsuspicious girl, without a moment's hesitation. "Well, then," said he, "you pass the Grey Stone, at the foot of Mallybenagh--of coorse, I know you must. Now, my dear Mave, I want to show you that I have some insight into futurity. What hour will you pass it at?" "About three o'clock, as near as I think; it may be a little more or a little less." "Very well, acushlee; when you pass the Grey Stone about a few hundred yards on the right hand side, the first person you will meet will be a young man, well made, and very handsome. That young man will be the person, whosoever he is--an' I don't know myself--that will bring you love, and wealth, and happiness, and all that a woman can wish to have with a man. Nor, dear, if this doesn't happen, never b'lieve anything I say again; but if this does happen, I hope you'll have good sense, acushla machree, to be guided by one that's your true friend--an' that's myself. The first person you meet, afther passin' the Grey Stone, on your right hand side; remember the words. I know there's great luck an' high fortune before you; for, indeed, your beauty an' goodness well desarves it, an' they'll get both." They then returned into the house; Mave somewhat surprised, but no way relieved, while the Prophet seemed rather in better spirits by the interview. "Now, Jerry Sullivan," said he, "an' you, Bridget his wife, lend your ears an' listen. The heart of Prophet is full of good to you and yours, and the good must come to his lips, and flow from them when it comes. There are three books known to the wise: the Book of Marriage, the Book of Death, and the Book of Judgment. Open a leaf, says the Angel of Marriage--the Garden Angel of Jericho--where he brings all love, happiness and peace to; open a' leaf, says the Angel of Marriage--him that has one head and ten horns--and read us a page of futurity from the prophecy of St. Nebbychodanazor, the divine. The child is a faymale child, says the angel with one head and ten horns--by name Mabel Sullivan, daughter to honest Jerry Sullivan and his daicent wife Bridget, of Aughnamurrin. Amin, says the Prophet. Time is not tide, nor is tide time, and neither will wait for man. Three things will happen. A girl, young and handsome, will walk forth upon the highway, and there she will meet a man, young and handsome too, who will rise her to wealth, happiness and grandeur. So be it, says the Book of Marriage, and amin, agin, says the Prophet. Open a new leaf, says Nebbychodanazor, the divine; a new leaf in the Book of Judgment, and another in the Book of Death. A man was killed and his body hid, and a man lived with his blood upon him. Fate is fate, and Justice is near. For years he will keep the murther to himself, till a man's to come that will bring him to judgment. Then will judgment be passed, and the Book of Death will be opened. Read, says the Prophet; it is done at last; Judgment is passed, and Death follows; the innocent is set free, and the murdherer that consaled the murdher so long swings at last; and all these things is to be found by the Wise in the Books of Marriage, Death, and Judgment. He then added, as he had done at the conclusion of his former prophecy: "Be kind and indulgent to your daughter, for she'll soon make all your fortunes; an' take care of her and yourselves till I see yez again." As before, he gave them no further opportunity of asking for explanations, but immediately departed; and as if he had been moved by some new impulse or afterthought, he directed his steps once more to the Grange, where he saw young Henderson, with whom he had another private interview, of the purport of which our readers may probably form a tolerably accurate conjecture. _ |
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