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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine, a novel by William Carleton |
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Chapter 17. National Calamity--Sarah In Love And Sorrow |
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_ CHAPTER XVII. National Calamity--Sarah in Love and Sorrow The astonishment of the Prophet's wife on discovering that the Tobacco-box had been removed from the place of its concealment was too natural to excite any suspicion of deceit or falsehood on her part, and he himself, although his disappointment was dreadful on finding that it had disappeared, at once perceived that she had been perfectly ignorant of its removal. With his usual distrust and want of confidence, however, he resolved to test her truth a little further, lest by any possibility she might have deceived him. "Now, Nelly," said he sternly, "mark me--is this the way you produce the box? You acknowledge that you had it--that you hid it even--an' now, when I tell you I want it, an' that it may be a matther of life an' death to me--you purtend its gone, an' that you know nothing about it--I say again, mark me well--produce the box!" "Here," she replied, chafed and indignant as well at its disappearance as at the obstinacy of his suspicions--"here's my throat--dash your knife into it, if you like--but as for the box, I tell you, that although I did put it in there, you know as much about it now as I do." "Well," said he, "for wanst I believe you--but mark me still--this box munt be gotten, an' it's to you I'll look for it. That's all--you know me." "Ay," she replied, "I know you." "Eh--what do you mane by that?" he asked--"what do you know? come now; I say, what do you know?" "That you're a hardened and a bad man:--oh! you needn't brandish your knife--nor your eyes needn't blaze up that way, like your daughter's," she added, "except that you're hard an' dark, and widout one spark o' common feelin', I know nothin' particularly wicked about you--but, at the same time, I suspect enough." "What do you suspect, you hardened vagabond?" "It doesn't matther what I suspect," she answered; "only I think you'd have bad heart for anything--so go about your business, for I want to have nothing more either to do or say to you--an' I wish to glory I had been always of that way o' thinkin', a chiernah!--many a scalded heart I'd a missed that I got by you." She then walked into the cabin, and the Prophet slowly followed her with his fixed, doubtful and suspicious eye, after which he flung the knife on the threshold, and took his way, in a dark and disappointed mood, towards Glendhu. It is impossible for us here to detail the subject matter of his reflections, or to intimate to our readers how far his determination to bring Condy Dalton to justice originated in repentance for having concealed his knowledge of the murder, or in some other less justifiable state of feeling. At this moment, indeed, the family of the Daltons wore in anything but a position to bear the heavy and terrible blow which was about to fail upon them. Our readers cannot forget the pitiable state in which we left them, during that distressing crisis of misery, when the strange woman arrived with the oat-meal, which the kind-hearted Mave Sullivan had so generously sent them. On that melancholy occasion her lover complained of being ill, and, unfortunately, the symptoms were, in this instance, too significant of the malady which followed them. Indeed, it would be an infliction of unnecessary pain to detail here the sufferings which this unhappy family had individually and collectively borne. Young Condy, after a fortnight's prostration from typhus fever, was again upon his legs, tottering about, as his father had been, in a state of such helplessness between want of food on the one hand, and illness on the other, as it is distressing even to contemplate. If, however, the abstract consideration of it, even at a distance, be a matter of such painful retrospect to the mind, what must not the actual endurance of that and worse have been to the thousands upon thousands of families who were obliged, by God's mysterious dispensation, to encounter these calamities in all their almost incredible and hideous reality. At this precise period, the state of the country was frightful beyond belief; for it is well known that the mortality of the season we are describing was considerably greater than that which even cholera occasioned in its worst and most malignant ravages. Indeed, the latter was not attended by such a tedious and lingering train of miseries as that, which in so many woful shapes, surrounded typhus fever. The appearance of cholera was sudden, and its operations quick, and although, on that account, it was looked upon with tenfold terror, yet for this very reason, the consequences which it produced were by no means so full of affliction and distress, nor presented such strong and pitiable claims on human aid and sympathy as did those of typhus. In the one case, the victim was cut down by a sudden stroke, which occasioned a shock or moral paralysis both to himself and the survivors--especially to the latter--that might, be almost said to neutralize its own inflictions. In the other, the approach was comparatively so slow and gradual, that all the sympathies and afflictions were allowed full and painful time to reach the utmost limits of human suffering, and to endure the wasting series of those struggles and details which long illness, surrounded by destitution and affliction, never fails to inflict. In the cholera, there was no time left to feel--the passions were wrenched and stunned by a blow, which was over, one may say, before it could be perceived; while in the wide-spread but more tedious desolation of typhus, the heart was left to brood over the thousand phases of love and misery which the terrible realities of the one, joined to the alarming exaggerations of the other, never failed to present. In cholera, a few hours, and all was over; but in the awful fever which then prevailed, there was the gradual approach--the protracted illness--the long nights of racking pain--day after day of raging torture--and the dark period of uncertainty when the balance of human life hangs in the terrible equilibrium of suspense--all requiring the exhibition of constant attention--of the eye whose affection never sleeps--the ear that is deaf only to every sound but the moan of pain--the touch whose tenderness is felt as a solace, so long as suffering itself is conscious--the pressure of the aching head--the moistening of the parched and burning lips--and the numerous and indescribable offices of love and devotedness, which always encompass, or should encompass, the bed of sickness and of death. There was, we say, all this, and much more than the imagination itself, unaided by a severe acquaintance with the truth, could embody in its gloomiest conceptions. In fact, Ireland during the season, or rather the year, we are describing, might be compared to one vast lazar-house filled with famine, disease and death. The very skies of Heaven were hung with the black drapery of the grave; for never since, nor within the memory of man before it, did the clouds present shapes of such gloomy and funereal import. Hearses, coffins, long funeral processions, and all the dark emblems of mortality were reflected, as it were, on the sky, from the terrible work of pestilence and famine, which was going forward on the earth beneath them. To all this, the thunder and lightning too, were constantly adding their angry peals, and flashing, as if uttering the indignation of Heaven against our devoted people; and what rendered such fearful manifestations ominous and alarming to the superstitious, was the fact of their occurrence in the evening and at night--circumstances which are always looked upon With unusual terror and dismay. To any person passing through the country, such a combination of startling and awful appearances was presented as has probably never been witnessed since. Go where you might, every object reminded you of the fearful desolation that was progressing around you. The features of the people were gaunt, their eyes wild and hollow, and their gait feeble and tottering. Pass through the fields, and you were met by little groups bearing home on their shoulders, and that with difficulty, a coffin, or perhaps two of them. The roads were literally black with funerals, and as you passed along from parish to parish, the death-bells were pealing forth, in slow but dismal tones, the gloomy triumph which pestilence was achieving over the face of our devoted country--a country that each successive day filled with darker desolation and deeper mourning. Nor was this all. The people had an alarmed and unsettled aspect; and whether you met them as individuals or crowds, they seemed, when closely observed, to labor under some strong and insatiable want that rendered them almost reckless. The number of those who were reduced to mendicancy was incredible, and if it had not been for the extraordinary and unparalleled exertions of the clergy of all creeds, medical, men, and local committees, thousands upon thousands would have perished of disease or hunger on the highways. Many, indeed, did so perish; and it was no unusual sight to meet the father and mother, accompanied by their children, going they knew not whither, and to witness one or other of them lying down on the road side; and well were they off who could succeed in obtaining a sheaf of straw, on which, as a luxury, to lay down their aching head, that was never more to rise from it, until borne, in a parish shell, to a shallow and hasty grave. Temporary sheds were also erected on the road sides, or near them, containing fever-stricken patients, who had no other-home; and when they were released, at last, from their sorrows, nothing was more common than to place the coffin on the road side also, with a plate on the lid of it, in order to solicit, from those who passed, such aid as they could afford to the sick or starving survivors. That, indeed, was the trying and melancholy period in which all the lingering traces of self-respect--all recollection of former independence--all sense of modesty was cast to the winds. Under the terrible pressure of the complex destitution which prevailed, everything like shame was forgotten, and it was well known that whole families, who had hitherto been respectable and independent, were precipitated, almost at once, into all the common cant of importunity and clamor during this frightful struggle between life and death. Of the truth of this, the scenes which took place at the public Soup Shops, and other appointed places of relief, afforded melancholy proof. Here were wild crowds, ragged, sickly, and wasted away to skin and bone, struggling for the dole of charity, like so many hungry vultures about the remnant of some carcase which they were tearing, amid noise, and screams, and strife, into very shreds; for, as we have said, all sense of becoming restraint and shame was now abandoned, and the timid girl, or modest mother of a family, or decent farmer, goaded by the same wild and tyrannical cravings, urged their claims with as much turbulent solicitation and outcry, as if they had been trained, since their very infancy, to all the forms of impudent cant and imposture. This, our readers will admit, was a most deplorable state of things; but, unfortunately, we cannot limit the truth of our descriptions to the scenes we have just attempted to portray. The misery which prevailed, as it had more than one source, so had it more than one aspect. There were, in the first place, studded over the country, a vast number of strong farmers with bursting granaries and immense haggards, who, without coming under the odious denomination of misers or mealmongers, are in the habit of keeping up their provisions, in large quantities, because they can afford to do so, until a year of scarcity arrives, when they draw upon their stock precisely when famine and prices are both at their highest. In addition to these, there was another still viler class; we mean the hard-hearted and well known misers--men who, at every time, and in every season, prey upon the distress and destitution of the poor, and who can never look upon a promising spring or an abundant harvest, without an inward sense of ingratitude against God for his goodness, or upon a season of drought, or a failing crop, unless with a thankful feeling of devotion for the approaching calamity. During such periods, and under such circumstances, these men--including those of both classes--and the famished people, in general, live and act under antagonistic principles. Hunger, they say, will break through stone walls, and when we reflect, that in addition to this irresistible stimulus, we may add a spirit of strong prejudice and resentment against these heartless persons, it is not surprising that the starving multitudes should, in the ravening madness of famine, follow up its outrageous impulses, and forget those legal restraints, or moral principles, that protect property under ordinary or different circumstances. It was just at this precise period, therefore, that the people, impelled by hunger and general misery, began to burst out into that excited stupefaction which is, we believe, peculiar to famine riots. And what rendered them still more exasperated than they probably would have been, was the long lines of provision carts which met or intermingled with the funerals on the public thoroughfares, while on their way to the neighboring harbors, for exportation. Such, indeed, was the extraordinary fact! Day after day, vessels laden with Irish provisions, drawn from a population perishing with actual hunger, as well as with the pestilence which it occasioned, were passing out of our ports, while, singular as it may seem, other vessels came in freighted with our own provisions, sent back through the charity of England to our relief. It is not our business, any more than it is our inclination, to dwell here upon the state of those sumptuary enactments, which reflected such honor upon the legislative wisdom, that permitted our country to arrive at the lamentable condition we have attempted to describe. We merely mention the facts, and leave to those who possess position and ability, the task of giving to this extraordinary state of things a more effectual attention. Without the least disposition, however, to defend or justify any violation of the laws, we may be permitted to observe, that the very witnessing of such facts as these, by destitute and starving multitudes, was in itself such a temptation to break in upon the provisions thus transmitted, as it was scarcely within the strength of men, furious with famine, to resist. Be this as it may, however, it is our duty as a faithful historian to state, that at the present period of our narrative, the famine riots had begun to assume something of an alarming aspect. Several carts had been attacked and pillaged, some strong farmers had been visited, and two or three misers were obliged to become benevolent with rather a bad grace. At the head of these parties were two persons mentioned in these pages; to wit, Thomas Dalton and Red Eody Duncan, together with several others of various estimation and character; some of them, as might be naturally expected, the most daring and turbulent spirits in the neighborhood. Such, then, was the miserable state of things in the country at that particular period. The dreadful typhus was now abroad in all his deadly power, accompanied, on this occasion, as he always is among the Irish, by a panic which invested him with tenfold terrors. The moment fever was ascertained, or even supposed to visit a family, that moment the infected persons were avoided by their neighbors and friends, as if they carried death, as they often did, about them; so that its presence occasioned all the usual interchanges of civility and good neighborhood to be discontinued. Nor should this excite our wonder, inasmuch as this terrific scourge, though unquestionably an epidemic, was also ascertained to be dangerously and fatally contagious. None, then, but persons of extraordinary moral strength, or possessing powerful impressions of religious duty, had courage to enter the houses of the sick or dead, for the purpose of rendering to the afflicted those offices of humanity which their circumstances required; if we except only their nearest relatives, or those who lived in the same family. Having thus endeavored to give what we feel to be but a faint picture of the state of the kingdom at large in this memorable year, we beg our readers to accompany us once more to the cabin of our moody and mysterious friend, the Black Prophet. Evening was now tolerably far advanced; Donnel Dhu sat gloomily, as usual, looking into the fire, with no agreeable aspect; while on the opposite side sat Nelly, as silent and nearly as gloomy-looking as himself. Every now and then his black, piercing eye would stray over to her, as if in a state of abstraction, and again with that undetermined kind of significance which made it doubtful whether the subject-matter of his cogitations was connected with her at all or not. In this position were they placed when Sarah entered the cabin, and throwing aside her cloak, seated herself in front of the fire, something about halfway between each. She also appeared moody; and if one could judge by her countenance, felt equally disposed to melancholy or ill-temper. "Well, madam," said her father, "I hope it's no offence to ask you where you have been sportin' yourself since? I suppose you went to see Charley Hanlon; or, what is betther, his masther, young Dick o' the Grange?" "No," she replied, "I did not. Charley Hanlon! Oh, no!" "Well, his masther?" "Don't vex me--don't vex me," she replied, abruptly; "I don't wish to fight about nothing, or about thrifles, or to give bad answers; but still, don't vex me, I say." "There's something in the wind now," observed Nelly; "she's gettin' fast into one o' her tantrums. I know it by her eyes; she'd as soon whale me now as cry; and she'd jist as soon cry as whale me. Oh! my lady, I know you. Here, at any rate, will you have your supper?" The resentment which had been gathering at Nelly's coarse observations, disappeared the moment the question as to supper had been put to her. "Oh! why don't you," she said; "and why didn't you always spake to me in a kind voice?" "But about young Dick," said the suspicious prophet; "did you see him since?" "No," she replied, calmly and thoughtfully; but, as if catching, by reflection, the base import of the query, she replied, in a loud and piercing voice, rendered at once full and keen by indignation. "No! I say, an' don't dare to suspect me of goin' to Dick o' the Grange, or any sich profligate." "Hollo! there's a breeze!" After a pause, "You won't bate us, I hope. Then, madame, where were you?" Short as was the period that had passed since her reply and the putting of this last question, she had relapsed or fallen into a mood of such complete abstraction, that she heard him not. With her naturally beautiful and taper hand under her still more finely chiseled chin, she sat looking, in apparent sorrow and perplexity, into the fire, and while so engaged, she sighed deeply two or three times. "Never mind her, man," said Nelly; "let her alone, an' don't draw an ould house on our heads. She has had a fight with Charley Hanlon, I suppose; maybe he has refused to marry her, if he ever had any notion of it--which I don't think he had." Sarah rose up and approaching her, said: "What is that you wor saying? Charley Hanlon!--never name him an' me together, from this minute out. I like him well enough as an acquaintance, but never name us together as sweethearts--mark my words now. I would go any length to sarve Charley Hanlon, but I care nothin' for him beyond an acquaintance, although I did like him a little, or I thought I did." "Poor Charley!" exclaimed Nelly, "he'll break his heart. Arra what'll he do for a piece o' black crape to get into murnin'? eh--ha! ha! ha!" "If you had made use of them words to me only yesterday," she replied, "I'd punish you on the spot; but now, you unfortunate woman, you're below my anger. Say what you will or what you wish, another quarrel with you I will never have." "What does she mane?" said the other, looking fiercely at the Prophet; "I ax you, you traitor, what she manes?" "Ay, an' you'll ax me till you're hoarse, before you get an answer," he replied. "You're a dark an' deep villain," she uttered, while her face became crimson with rage, and the veins of her neck and temples swelled out as if they would burst; "however, I tould you what your fate would be, an' that Providence was on your bloody trail. Ay did I, and you'll find it true soon." The Prophet rose and rushed at her; but Sarah, with the quickness of lightning, flew between them. "Don't be so mane," she said--"don't now, father, if you rise your hand to her I'll never sleep a night undher the roof. Why don't you separate yourself from her? Oh, no, the man that would rise his hand to sich a woman--to a woman that must have the conscience she has--especially when he could put the salt seas between himself an' her--is worse and meaner than she is. As for me, I'm lavin' this house in a day or two, for my mind's made up that the same roof won't cover us." "The divil go wid you an' sixpence then," replied Nelly, disdainfully--"an' then you'll want neither money nor company; but before you go, I'd thank you to tell me what has become o' the ould Tobaccy Box, that you pulled out o' the wall the other day. I know you were lookin' for it, an' I'm sure you got it--there was no one else to take it; so before you go, tell me--unless you wish to get a knife put into me by that dark lookin' ould father of yours." "I know nothing about your ould box, but I wish I did." "That's a lie, you sthrap; you know right well where it is." "No," replied her father, "she does not, when she says she doesn't. Did you ever know her to tell a lie?" "Ay--did I--fifty." The Prophet rushed at her again, and again did Sarah interpose. "You vile ould tarmagint," he exclaimed, "you're statin' what you feel to be false when you say so; right well you know that neither you nor I, nor any one else, ever heard a lie from her lips, an' yet you have the brass to say to the contrary." "Father," said Sarah, "there's but one coorse for you; as for me, my mind's made up--in this house I don't stay if she does." "If you'd think of what I spoke to you about," he replied, "all would soon be right wid us; but then you're so unraisonable, an' full of foolish notions, that it's hard for me to know what to do, especially as I wish to do all for the best." "Well," rejoined Sarah, "I'll spake to you again, about it; at this time I'm disturbed and unaisy in my mind; I'm unhappy--unhappy--an' I hardly knows on what hand to turn. I'm afeared I was born for a hard fate, an' that the day of my doom isn't far from me. All, father, is dark before me--my heart is, indeed, low an' full of sorrow; an' sometimes I could a'most tear any one that 'ud contradict me. Any way I'm unhappy." As she uttered the last words, her father, considerably surprised at the melancholy tenor of her language, looked at her, and perceived that, whilst she spoke, her large black eyes were full of distress, and swam in tears. "Don't be a fool, Sarah," said he, "it's not a thrifle should make any one cry in sich a world as this. If Charley Hanlon and you has quarrelled, it was only the case with thousands before you. If he won't marry you, maybe as good or better will; for sure, as the ould proverb says, there's as good fish in the say as ever was catched. In the mane time think what I said to you, an' all will be right." Sarah looked not at him; but whilst he spoke, she hastily dried her tears, and ere half a minute had passed, her face had assumed a firm and somewhat of an indignant expression. Little, however, did her father then dream of the surprising change which one short day had brought about in her existence, nor of the strong passions which one unhappy interview had awakened in her generous but unregulated heart. _ |
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