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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine, a novel by William Carleton |
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Chapter 19. Hanlon Secures The Tobacco-Box.--Strange Scene At Midnight |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. Hanlon Secures the Tobacco-box.--Strange Scene at Midnight The hour so mysteriously appointed by Red Rody for the delivery of the Tobacco-box to Hanlon, was fast approaching, and the night though by no means so stormy as that which we have described on the occasion of that person's first visit to the Grey Stone, was nevertheless dark and rainy, with an occasional slight gust of wind, that uttered a dreary and melancholy moan, as it swept over the hedges. Hanlon, whose fear of supernatural appearances had not been diminished by what he had heard there before as well as on his way home, now felt alarmed at every gust of wind that went past him. He hurried on, however, and kept his nerves as firmly set as his terrors would allow him, until he got upon the plain old road which led directly to the appointed place. The remarkable interest which he had felt at an earlier stage of the circumstances that compose our narrative, was beginning to cool a little, when it was revived by his recent conversation with Red Rody concerning the Black Prophet, and the palpable contradictions in which he detected that person, with reference to the period when the Prophet came to reside in the neighborhood. His anxiety therefore, about the Tobacco-box began, as he approached the Grey Stone, to balance his fears; so that by the time he arrived there, he found himself cooler and firmer a good deal than when he first crossed the dark fields from home. Hanlon, in fact, had learned a good deal of the Prophet's real character, from several of those who had never been duped by his impostures; and the fact of ascertaining that the very article so essential to the completion of his purpose, had been found in the Prophet's house or possession, gave a fresh and still more powerful impulse to his determinations. The night, we have already observed, was dark, and the heavy gloom which covered the sky was dismal and monotonous. Several flashes of lightning, it is true, had shot out from the impervious masses of black clouds, that lay against each other overhead. These, however, only added terror to the depression which such a night and such a sky were calculated to occasion. "I trust," thought Hanlon, as he approached the stone, "that there will be no disappointment, and that I won't have my journey on sich a dark and dismal night for nothing. How this red ruffian can have any authority over a girl like Sarah, is a puzzle that I can't make out." It was just as these thoughts occurred to him that he arrived at the Stone, where he stood anxiously waiting and listening, and repeating his pater noster, as well as he could, for several minutes, but without hearing or seeing any one. "I might have known," thought he, "that the rascal could bring about nothing of the kind, an' I am only a fool for heedin' him at all." At this moment, however, he heard the noise of a light, quick footstep approaching, and almost immediately afterwards Sarah joined him. "Well, I am glad you are come," said he, "for God knows when I thought of our last stand here, I was anything but comfortable." "Why," replied Sarah, "what wor you afeard of? I hate a cowardly man, an' you are cowardly." "Not where mere flesh and blood is consarned," he replied; "I'm afeard of neither man nor woman--but I wouldn't like to meet a ghost or spirit, may the Lord presarve us!" "Why, now? What harm could a ghost or spirit do you? Did you ever hear that they laid hands on or killed any one?" "No; but for all that, it's well known that several persons have died of fright, in consequence." "Ay, of cowardliness; but it wasn't the ghost killed them. Sure the poor ghost only comes to get relief for itself--to have masses said; or, maybe, to do justice to some one that is wronged in this world. There's Jimmy Beatty, an' he lay three weeks of fright from seein' a ghost, an' it turned out when all was known, that the ghost was nothing more or less than Tom Martin's white-faced cow--ha! ha! ha!" "At any rate, let us change the subject," said Hanlon; "you heard yourself the last night we wor here, what I'll never forget." "We heard some noise like a groan, an' that was all; but who could tell what it was, or who cares either?" "I, for one, do; but, dear Sarah, have you the box?" "Why does your voice tremble that way for? Is it fear? bekaise if I thought it was, I wouldn't scruple much to walk home with' out another word, an' bring the box with me." "You have it, then?" "To be sure I have, an' my father an' Nelly is both huntin' the house for it." "Why, what could your father want with it?" "How can I tell?--an' only that I promised it to you, I wouldn't fetch it at all?" "I thought you had given it up for lost; how did you get it again?" "That's nothing to you, an' don't trouble your head about it. There it is now, an' I have kept my word; for while I live, I'll never break it if I can. Dear me, how bright that flash was!" As Hanlon was taking the box out of her hand, a fearful flash of sheeted lightning opened out of a cloud almost immediately above them, and discovered it so plainly, that the letters P. M. were distinctly legible on the lid of it, and nearly at the same moment a deep groan was heard, as if coming-out of the rock. "Father of Heaven!" exclaimed Hanlon, "do you hear that?" "Yes," she replied, "I did hear a groan; but here, do you go--oh, it would be useless to ask you--so I must only do it myself; stand here an' I'll go round the rock; at any rate let us be sure that it is a ghost." "Don't, Sarah," he exclaimed, seizing her arm; "for God's sake, don't--it is a spirit--I know it--don't lave me. I understand it all, an' maybe you will some day, too." "Now," she exclaimed indignantly, and in an incredulous voice; "in God's name, what has a spirit to do with an old rusty Tobaccy-box? It's surely a curious box; there's my father would give one of his eyes to find it; an' Nelly, that hid it the other day, found it gone when she went to get it for him." "Do you toll me so?" said Hanlon, placing it as he spoke in his safest pocket. "I do," she replied; "an' only that I promised it to you, and would not break my word, I'd give it to my father; but I don't see myself what use it can be of to him or anybody." Hanlon, despite of his terrors, heard this intelligence with the deepest interest--indeed, with an interest so deep, that he almost forgot them altogether; and with a view of eliciting from her as much information in connection with it as he could, he asked her to accompany him a part of the way home. "It's not quite the thing," she replied, "for a girl like me to be walkin' with a young fellow at this hour; but as I'm not afeard of you, and as I know you are afeard of the ghost--if there is a ghost--I will go part of the way with you, although it does not say much for your courage to ask me." "Thank you, Sarah; you are a perfect treasure." "Whatever I was, or whatever I am, Charley, I can never be anything more to you than a mere acquaintance--I don't think ever we were much more--but what I want to tell you is, that if ever you have any serious notion of me, you must put it out of your head." "Why so, Sarah?" "Why so," she replied, hastily; "why, bekaise I don't wish it--isn't that enough for you, if you have spirit?" "Well, but I'd like to know why you changed your mind." "Ah," said she; "well, afther all, that's only natural--it is but raisonable; an' I'll tell you; in the first place, there's a want of manliness about you that I don't like--I think you've but little heart or feelin'. You toy with the girls--with this one and that one--an' you don't appear to love any one of them--in short, you're not affectionate, I'm afeard. Now, here am I, an' I can scarcely say, that ever you courted me like a man that had feelin'. I think you're revengeful, too; for I have seen you look black an' angry at a woman, before now. You never loved me, I know--I say I know you did not. There, then, is some of my raisons--but I'll tell you one more, that's worth them all. I love another now--ay," she added, with a convulsive sigh, "I love another; and, I know, Charley, that he can't love me--there's more lightnin'--what a flash! Oh, I didn't care this minute if it went through my heart." "Don't talk so, Sarah." "I know what's before me--disappointment--disappointment in everything--the people say I'm wild and very wicked in my temper--an' I am, too; but how could I be otherwise? for what did I ever see or hear undher our own miserable roof, but evil talk and evil deeds? A word of kindness I never got from my father or from Nelly; nothing but the bad word an' the hard blow--until now that she is afeard of me; but little she knew, that many a time when I was fiercest, an' threatened to put a knife into her, there was a quiver of affection in my heart; a yearnin', I may say, afther kindness, that had me often near throwin' my arms about her neck, and askin' her why she mightn't as well be kind as cruel to me; but I couldn't, bekaise I knew that if I did, she'd only tramp on me, an' despise me, an' tyrannize over me more and more." She uttered these sentiments under the influence of deep feeling, checkered with an occasional burst of wild distraction, that seemed to originate from much bitterness of heart. "Is it a fair question," replied Hanlon, whose character she had altogether misunderstood, having, in point of fact, never had an opportunity of viewing it in it's natural light; "is it a fair question to ask you who is it that you're in love wid?" "It's not a fair question," she replied; "I know he loves another, an' for that raison I'll never breathe it to a mortal." "Bekaise," he added, "if I knew, maybe I might be able to put in a good word for you, now and then, accordin' as I got an opportunity." "For me!" she replied indignantly; "what! to beg him get fond o' me! Oh, its wondherful the maneness that's in a'most every one you meet. No," she proceeded, vehemently; "if he was a king on his throne, sooner than stoop to that, or if he didn't, or couldn't love me on my own account, I'd let the last drop o' my heart's blood out first. Oh, no!--no, no, no--ha! He loves another," she added, hastily; "he loves another!" "An' do you know her?" asked Hanlon. "Do I know her!" she replied; "do I know her! it's I that do; ay, an' I have her in my power, too; an' if I set about it, can prevent a ring from ever goin' on them. Ha! ha! Oh, ay; that divil, Sarah M'Gowan, what a fine character I have got! Well, well, good night, Charley! Maybe it's a folly to have the bad name for nothin'; at laist they say so. Ha! ha! Good-night; I'll go home. Oh, I had like to forgot; Red Body tould me he was spakin' to you about something that he says you can't but understhand yourself; and he desired me to get you, if I could, to join him in it. I said I would, if it was right an' honest; for I have great doubts of it bein' either the one or the other, if it comes from him. He said that it was both; but that it 'ud be a great piece of roguery to have it undone. Now, if it is what he says it is, help him in it, if you can; but if it isn't, have no hand in it. That's all I tould him I would say, an' that's all I do say. Keep out of his saicrets I advise you; an', above all things, avoid everything mane an' dishonest; for, Charley, I have a kind o' likin' for you that I can't explain, although I don't love you as a sweetheart. Good-night again!" She left him abruptly, and at a rapid pace proceeded back to the Grey Stone, around which she walked, with a view of examining whether or not there might be any cause visible, earthly or otherwise, for the groans which they had heard; but notwithstanding a close and diligent search, she could neither see nor hear anything whatsoever to which they might possibly be ascribed. She reached home about one o'clock, and after having sat musing for a time over the fire, which was raked for the night--that is, covered over with greeshaugh, or living ashes--she was preparing to sleep in her humble bed, behind a little partition wall about five feet high, at the lower end of the cabin, when her father, who had been moaning, and staring, and uttering abrupt exclamations in his sleep, at length rose up, and began deliberately to dress himself, as if with an intention of going out. "Father," said she, "in the name of goodness, where are you goin' at this time o' the night?" "I'm goin' to the murdhered man's grave," he replied, "I'm goin' to toll them all how he was murdhered, an' who it was that murdhered him." A girl with nerves less firm would have felt a most deadly terror at such language, on perceiving, as Sarah at once did, that her father, whose eyes were shut, was fast asleep at the time. In her, however, it only produced such a high degree of excitement and interest, as might be expected from one of her ardent and excitable temperament, imbued as it was with a good deal of natural romance. "In God's name," she said to herself, "what can this mean? Of late he hasn't had one hour's quiet rest at night; nothin' but startin' and shoutin' out, an' talkin' about murdher an' murdherers! What can it mane? for he's now walkin' in his sleep? Father," said she, "you're asleep; go back to bed, you had betther." "No, I'm not asleep," he replied; "I'm goin' down to the grave here below, behind the rocks down in Glendhu, where the murdhered man is lyin' buried." "An' what brings you there at this time o' the night?" "Ha! ha!" he replied, uttering an exclamation of caution in a low, guarded voice--"what brings me?--whisht, hould your tongue, an' I'll tell you." She really began to doubt her senses, notwithstanding the fact of his eyes being shut. "Whisht yourself," she replied; "I don't want to hear anything about it; I have no relish for sich saicrets. I'm ready enough with my own hand, especially when there's a weapon in it--readier then ever I'll be again; but for all that I don't wish to hear sich saicrets. Are you asleep or awake?" "I'm awake, of coorse," he replied. "An' why are your eyes shut then? You're frightful, father, to look at; no corpse ever had sich a face as you have; your heavy brows are knit in sich a way; jist as if you were in agony; your cheeks are so white too, an' your mouth is down at the corners, that a ghost--ay, the ghost of the murdhered man himself--would be agreeable compared to you. Go to bed, father, if you're awake." To all this he made no reply, but having dressed himself, he deliberately, and with great caution, raised the latch, and proceeded out at that dismal and lonely hour. Sarah, for a time, knew not how to act. She had often heard of sleep-walking, and she feared now, that if she awakened him, he might imagine that she had heard matters which he wished no ears whatever to hear; for the truth was, that some vague suspicions of a dreadful nature had lately entered her mind; suspicions, which his broken slumbers--his starts, and frequent exclamations during sleep, had only tended to confirm. "I will watch him at all events," said she to herself, "and see that he comes to no ganger." She accordingly shut the door after her, and followed him pretty closely into the deep gloom of the silent and solitary glen. With cautious, but steady and unerring steps, he proceeded in the direction of the loneliest spot of it, which having reached, he went by a narrow and untrodden circuit--a kind of broken, but natural pathway--to the identical spot where the body, which Nelly had discovered, lay. He then raised his hand, as if in caution, and whispered--"Whisht! here is where the murdhered man's body lies." "I'll not do it," said Sarah, "I'll not do it; it would be mane and ungenerous to ax him a question that might make him betray himself." At this moment the moon which had been for some time risen, presented a strange and alarming aspect. She seemed red as blood; and directly across her centre there went a black bar--a bar so ominously and intensely black, that it was impossible to look upon it without experiencing something like what one might be supposed to feel in the presence of a supernatural appearance; at the performance of some magic or unnatural rite, where the sorcerer, by the wickedness of his spell, forced her, as it were, thus to lend a dreadful and reluctant sanction to his proceedings. Her father, however, proceeded: "Ay--who murdhered him, my lord? Why, my lord--hem--it was--Condy Dalton, an' I have another man to prove it along wid myself--one Rody Duncan; now Rody answer strong; swear home; mind yourself, Rody." These words were spoken aside, precisely as one would address them when instructing any person to give a particular line of evidence. He then stooped down, and placed his hand upon the grave said, as if he were addressing the dead man: "Ha! you sleep cool there, you guilty Villain! an' it wasn't my fault that the unfaithful an' dishonest sthrap that you got that for, didn't get as much herself. There you are, an' you'll tell no tales at all events! You know, Rody," he proceeded, "it was Dalton that murdhered him; mind that--but you're a coward at heart; as for myself there's nothing troubles me but that Tobaccy-Box; but you know nothing about that; may the divil confound me, at any rate, for not destroyin' it! an' that ould sthrap, Nelly, suspects something; for she's always ringin Providence into my ears; but if I had that box destroyed, I'd disregard Providence; if there is a Providence." The words had barely proceeded out of his lips, when a peal of thunder, astonishingly loud, broke, as it were, over their very heads, having been preceded by a flash of lightning, so bright, that the long, well-defined grave was exposed, in all its lonely horrors, to Sarah's eye. "That's odd, now," said she, "that the thunder should come as he said them very words; but thank God that it was Dalton that did the deed, for if it was himself he'd not keep it back now, when the truth would be sure to come out." "It was he, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury," proceeded her father, "an' my conscience, my lord, during all this long time--" He here muttered something which she could not understand, and after stooping down, and putting his hand on the grave a second time, he turned about and retraced his steps home. It appeared, however, that late as the hour was, there were other persons abroad as well as themselves, for Sarah could distinctly hear the footsteps of several persons passing along the adjoining road, past the Grey Stone, and she also thought that among the rest might be distinguished the voice of Red Rody Duncan. The Prophet quietly opened the door, entered as usual, and went to bed; Sarah having also retired to her own little sleeping place, lay for some time, musing deeply over the incidents of the night. _ |
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