Home > Authors Index > William Carleton > Emigrants Of Ahadarra > This page
The Emigrants Of Ahadarra, a novel by William Carleton |
||
Chapter 11. Death Of A Virtuous Mother |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XI. Death of a Virtuous Mother It could not be expected that Bryan M'Mahon, on his way home from Fethertonge's, would pass Gerald Cavanagh's without calling. He had, in his interview with that gentleman, stated the nature of his mother's illness, but at the same time without feeling any serious apprehensions that her life was in immediate danger. On reaching Cavanagh's, he found that family over-+shadowed with a gloom for which he could not account. Kathleen received him gravely, and even Hanna had not her accustomed jest. After looking around him for a little, he exclaimed--"What is the matther? Is anything wrong? You all look as if you were in sorrow." Hanna approached him and said, whilst her eyes filled with tears--"We are in sorrow, Bryan; for we are goin', we doubt, to lose a friend that we all love--as every one did that knew her." "Hanna, darling," said Kathleen, "this won't do. Poor girl! you are likely to make bad worse; and besides there may, after all, be no real danger. Your mother, Bryan," she proceeded, "is much worse than she has been. The priest and doctor have been sent for; but you know it doesn't follow that there is danger, or at any rate that the case is hopeless." "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Bryan, "is it so? My mother--and such a mother! Kathleen, my heart this minute tells me it is hopeless. I must leave you--I must go." "We will go up with you," said Kathleen. "Hanna, we will go up; for, if she is in danger, I would like to get the blessing of such a woman before she dies; but let us trust in G-od she won't die, and that it's only a sudden attack that will pass away." "Do so, Kathleen," said her mother; "and you can fetch us word how she is. May the Lord bring her safe over it at any rate; for surely the family will break their hearts afther her, an' no wondher, for where was her fellow?" Bryan was not capable of hearing these praises, which he knew to be so well and so justly her due, with firmness; nor could he prevent his tears, unless by a great effort, from bearing testimony to the depth of his grief. Kathleen's gaze, however, was turned on him with an expression which gave him strength; for indeed there was something noble and. sustaining in the earnest and consoling sympathy which he read in her dark and glorious eye. On their way to Carriglass there was little spoken. Bryan's eye every now and then sought that of Kathleen; and he learned, for the first time, that it is only in affliction that the exquisite tenderness of true and disinterested love can be properly appreciated and felt. Indeed he wondered at his own sensations; for in proportion as his heart became alarmed at the contemplation of his mother's loss, he felt, whenever he looked upon Kathleen, that it also burned towards her with greater tenderness and power--so true is it that sorrow and suffering purify and exalt all our nobler and better emotions. Bryan and his companions, ere they had time to reach the house, were seen and. recognized by the family, who, from the restlessness and uncertainty which illness usually occasions, kept moving about and running out from time to time to watch the arrival of the priest or doctor. On this occasion Dora came to meet them; but, alas! with what a different spirit from that which animated her on the return of her father from the metropolis. Her gait was now slow, her step languid; and they could perceive that, as she approached them, she wiped away the tears. Indeed her whole appearance was indicative of the state of her mother; when they met her, her bitter sobbing and the sorrowful earnestness of manner with which she embraced the sisters, wore melancholy assurances that the condition of the sufferer was not improved. Hanna joined her tears with hers; but Kathleen, whose sweet voice in attempting to give the affectionate girl consolation, was more than once almost shaken out of its firmness, did all she could to soothe and relieve her. On entering the house, they found a number of the neighboring females assembled, and indeed the whole family, in consequence of the alarm and agitation visible them, might not inaptly be compared to a brood of domestic fowl when a hawk, bent on destruction, is seen hovering over their heads. As is usual with Catholic families in their state of life, there were several of those assembled, and also some of themselves, at joint prayer in different parts of the house; and seated by her bedside was her youngest son, Art, engaged, with sobbing voice and eyes every now and then blinded with tears, in the perusal, for her comfort, of Prayers for the Sick. Tom M'Mahon himself went about every now and then clasping his hands, and turning up his eyes to heaven in a distracted manner, exclaiming--"Oh! Bridget, Bridget, is it come to this at last! And you're lavin' me--you're lavin' me! Oh, my God! what will I do--how will I live, an' what will become of me!" On seeing Bryan, he ran to him and said,--"Oh! Bryan, to what point will I turn?--where will I get consolation?--how will I bear it? Sure, she was like a blessin' from heaven among us; ever full of peace, and charity, and goodness--the kind word an' the sweet smile to all; but to me--to me--oh! Bridget, Bridget, I'd rather die than live afther you!" "Father, dear, your takin' it too much to heart," replied Bryan; "who knows but God may spare her to us still? But you know that even if it's His will to remove her from amongst us"--his voice here failed him for a moment--"hem--to remove her from amongst us, it's our duty to submit to it; but I hope in God she may recover still. Don't give way to sich grief till we hear what the docthor will say, at all events. How did she complain or get ill; for I think she wasn't worse when I left home?" "It's all in her stomach," replied his father. "She was seized wid cramps in her stomach, an' she complains very much of her head; but her whole strength is gone, she can hardly spake, and she has death in her face." At this moment his brother Michael came to them, and said--"Bryan--Bryan"--but he could proceed no farther. "Whisht, Michael," said the other; "this is a shame; instead of supportin' and cheer-in' my father, you're only doing him harm. I tell you all that you'll find there's no raison for this great grief. Be a man, Michael--" "She has heard your voice," proceeded his brother, "and wishes to see you." This proof of her affection for him, at the very moment when he was attempting to console others, was almost more than he could bear. Bryan knew that he himself had been her favorite son, so far as a heart overflowing with kindness and all the tender emotions that consecrate domestic life and make up its happiness, could be said to have a favorite. There was, however, that almost imperceptible partiality, which rarely made its appearance unless in some slight and inconsiderable circumstances, but which, for that very reason, was valuable in proportion to its delicacy and the caution with which it was guarded. Always indeed in some quiet and inoffensive shape was the partiality she bore him observable; and sometimes it consisted in a postponement of his wishes or comforts to those of her other children, because she felt that she might do with him that which she could not with the others--thus calculating as it were upon his greater affection. But it is wonderful to reflect in how many ways, and through what ingenious devices the human heart can exhibit its tenderness. Arthur, as Bryan entered, had concluded the devotions he had been reading for her, and relinquished to him the chair he had occupied. On approaching, he was at once struck by the awful change for the worse, which so very brief a period had impressed upon her features. On leaving home that morning she appeared to be comparatively strong, and not further diminished in flesh than a short uneasy ailment might naturally occasion. But now her face, pallid and absolutely emaciated, had shrunk into half its size, and was, beyond all possibility of hope or doubt, stamped with the unequivocal impress of death. Bryan, in a state which it is impossible to describe and very difficult to conceive, took her hand, and after a short glance at her features, now so full of ghastliness and the debility which had struck her down, he stooped, and, kissing her lips, burst out into wild and irrepressible sorrow. "Bryan, dear," she said, after a pause, and when his grief had somewhat subsided, "why will you give way to this? Sure it was on you I placed my dependence--I hoped that, instead of settin' the rest an example for weakness, you'd set them one that they might and ought to follow--I sent for you, Bryan, to make it my request that, if it's the will of God to take me from among you, you might support an' console the others, an' especially your poor father; for I needn't tell you that along wid the pain I'm bearin', my heart is sore and full o sorrow for what I know he'll suffer when I'm gone. May the Lord pity and give him strength!--for I can say on my dyin' bed that, from the first day I ever seen his face until now, he never gave me a harsh word or an unkind look, an' that you all know." "Oh how could he, mother dear? how could any one give you that? Who was it that ever knew you could trate you with anything but respect and affection?" "I hope I always struv to do my duty, Bryan, towards God an' my childre', and my fellow-creatures; an' for that raison I'm not frightened at death. An', Bryan, listen to the words of your dyin' mother--" "Oh, don't say that yet, mother," replied her son, sobbing; "don't say so yet; who knows but God will spare your life, an' that you may be many years with us still; they're all alarmed too much, I hope; but it's no wondher we should, mother dear, when there's any appearance at all of danger about you." "Well, whether or not, Bryan, the advice I'm goin' to give you is never out o' saison. Live always with the fear of God in your heart; do nothing that you think will displease Him; love your fellow-creatures--serve them and relieve their wants an' distresses as far as you're able; be like your own father--kind and good to all about you, not neglectin' your religious duties. Do this, Bryan, an' then when the hour o' death comes, you'll feel a comfort an' happiness in your heart that neither the world nor anything in it can give you. You'll feel the peace of God there, an' you will die happy--happy." Her spirit, animated by the purity and religious truth of this simple but beautiful morality, kindled into pious fervor as she proceeded, so much so indeed, that on turning her eyes towards heaven, whilst she uttered the last words, they sparkled with the mild and serene light of that simple but unconscious enthusiasm on behalf of all goodness which had characterized her whole life, and which indeed is a living principle among thousands of her humble countrywomen. "This, dear Bryan, is the advice I gave to them all; it an' my love is the only legacy I have to lave them. An' my darlin' Dora, Bryan--oh, if you be kind and tendher to any one o' them beyant another, be so to her. My darlin'Dora! Oh! her heart's all affection, an' kindness, an' generosity. But indeed, as I said, Bryan, the task must fall to you to strengthen and console every one o' them. Ay!--an' you must begin now. You wor ever, ever, a good son; an' may God keep you in the right faith, an' may my blessin' an' His be wid you for ever! Amin." There was a solemn and sustaining spirit in her words which strengthened Bryan, who, besides, felt anxious to accomplish to the utmost extent the affectionate purpose which had caused her to send for him. "It's a hard task, mother darlin," he replied; "but I'll endeavor, with God's help, to let them see that I haven't been your son for nothing; but you don't know, mother, that Kathleen's here, an' Hanna. They wish to see you, an' to get your blessin'." "Bring them in," she replied, "an' let Dora come wid them, an' stay yourself, Bryan, becaise I'm but weak, an' I don't wish that they should stay too long. God sees its not for want of love for the other girls that I don't bid you bring them in, but that I don't wish to see them sufferin' too much sorrow; but my darlin' Dora will expect to be where Kathleen is, an' my own eyes likes to look upon her, an' upon Kathleen, too, Bryan, for I feel my heart bound to her as if she was one of ourselves, as I hope she will be." "Oh, bless her! bless her! mother," he said, with difficulty, "an' tell her them words--say them to herself. I'll go now and bring them in." He paused, however, for a minute or two, in order to compose his voice and features, that he might not seem to set them an example of weakness, after which he left the apartment with an appearance of greater composure than he really felt. In a few minutes the four returned: Bryan, with Kathleen's hand locked in his, and Hanna, with her arm affectionately wreathed about Dora's neck, as if the good-hearted girl felt anxious to cherish and comfort her under the heavy calamity to which she was about to be exposed, for Dora wept bitterly. Mrs. M'Mahon signed to Hanna to approach, who, with her characteristic ardor of feeling, now burst into tears herself, and stooping down kissed her and wept aloud, whilst Dora's grief also burst out afresh. The sick woman looked at Bryan, as if to solicit his interference, and the look was immediately understood by Kathleen as well as by himself. "This is very wrong of you, Hanna," said her sister; "out of affection and pity to them, you ought to endeavor to act otherwise. They have enough, an' to much, to feel, without your setting them example; and, Dora dear, I thought you had more courage than you have. All this is only grieving and disturbing your mother; an' I hope that, for her sake, you'll both avoid it. I know it's hard to do so, but it's the difficulty and the trial that calls upon us to have strength, otherwise what are we better than them that we'd condemn or think little of for their own weakness." The truth and moral force of the words, and the firmness of manner that marked Kathleen as she spoke, were immediately successful. The grief of the two girls was at once hushed; and, after a slight pause, Mrs. M'Mahon called Kathleen to her. "Dear Kathleen," she said, "I did hope to see the day when you'd be one of my own family, but it's not the will of God, it appears, that I should; however, may His will be done! I hope still that day will come, an' that your friends won't have any longer an objection to your marriage wid Bryan. I am his mother, an' no one has a better right to know his heart an' his temper, an' I can say, upon my dyin' bed, that a better heart an' a better temper never was in man. I believe, Kathleen, it was never known that a good son ever made a bad husband. However, if it's God's will to bring you together, He will, and if it isn't, you must only bear it patiently." Bryan was silent, but his eye, from time to time, turned with a long glance of love and sorrow upon Kathleen, whose complexion became pale and red by turns. At length Dora, after her mother had concluded, went over to Kathleen, and putting her arms around her neck, exclaimed, "Oh! mother dear, something tells me that Kathleen will be my sisther yet, an' if you'd ask her to promise--" Kathleen looked down upon the beautiful and expressive features of the affectionate girl, and gently raising her hand she placed it upon Dora's lips, in order to prevent the completion of the sentence. On doing so she received a sorrowful glance of deep and imploring entreaty from Bryan, which she returned with another that seemed to reprove him for doubting her affection, or supposing that such a promise was even necessary. "No, Dora dear," she said, "I could make no promise without the knowledge of my father and mother, or contrary to their wishes; but did you think, darling, that such a thing was necessary?" She kissed the sweet girl as she spoke, and Dora felt a tear on her cheek that was not her own. Mrs. M'Mahon had been looking with a kind of mournful admiration upon Kathleen during this little incident, and then proceeded. "She says what is right and true; and it would be wrong, my poor child, to ask her to give such a promise. Bryan, thry an' be worthy of that girl--oh, do! an' if you ever get her, you'll have raison to thank God for one of the best gifts He ever gave to man. Hanna, come here--come to me--let me put my hand upon your head. May my blessin' and God's blessin' rest upon you for ever more. There now, be stout, acushla machree." Hanna kissed her again, but her grief was silent; and Dora, fearing she might not be able to restrain it, took her away. "Now," proceeded the dying woman, "come to me, you Kathleen, my daughter--sure you're the daughter of my heart, as it is. Kneel down and stay with me awhile. Why does my heart warm to you as it never did to any one out o' my own family? Why do I love you as if you were my own child? Because I hope you will be so. Kiss me, asthore machree." Kathleen kissed her, and for a few moments Mrs. M'Mahon felt a shower of warm tears upon her face, accompanied by a gentle and caressing pressure, that seemed to corroborate and return the hope she had just expressed. Kathleen hastily wiped away her tears, however, and once more resuming her firmness, awaited the expected blessing. "Now, Kathleen dear, for fear any one might say that at my dyin' hour, I endeavored to take any unfair advantage of your feelings for my son, listen to me--love him as you may, and as I know you do." "Why should I deny it?" said Kathleen, "I do love him." "I know, darlin', you do, but for all that, go not agin the will and wishes of your parents and friends; that's my last advice to you." She then placed her hand upon her head, and in words breathing of piety and affection, she invoked many a blessing upon her, and upon any that was clear to her in life, after which both Bryan and Kathleen left her to the rest which she now required so much. The last hour had been an interval from pain with Mrs. M'Mahon. In the course of the day both the priest and the doctor arrived, and she appeared somewhat better. The doctor, however, prepared them for the worst, and in confirmation of his opinion, the spasms returned with dreadful violence, and in the lapse of two hours after his visit, this pious and virtuous woman, after suffering unexampled agony with a patience and fortitude that could not be surpassed, expired in the midst of her afflicted family. It often happens in domestic life, that in cases where long and undisturbed affection is for the first time deprived of its object by death, there supervenes upon the sorrow of many, a feeling of awful sympathy with that individual whose love for the object has been, the greatest, and whose loss is of course the most irreparable. So was it with the M'Mahons. Thomas M'Mahon himself could not bear to witness the sufferings of his wife, nor to hear her moans. He accordingly left the house, and walked about the garden and farm-yard, in a state little short of actual distraction. When the last scene was over, and her actual sufferings closed for ever, the outrage of grief among his children became almost hushed from a dread of witnessing the sufferings of their father; and for the time a great portion of their own sorrow was merged in what they felt for him. Nor was this feeling confined to themselves. His neighbors and acquaintances, on hearing of Mrs. M'Mahon's death, almost all exclaimed:-- "Oh, what will become of him? they are nothing an will forget her soon, as is natural, well as they loved her; but poor Tom, oh! what on earth will become of him?" Every eye, however, now turned toward Bryan, who was the only one of the family possessed of courage enough to undertake the task of breaking the heart-rending intelligence to their bereaved father. "It must be done," he said, "and the sooner it's done the better; what would I give to have my darlin' Kathleen here. Her eye and her advice would give me the strength that I stand so much in need of. My God, how will I meet him, or break the sorrowful tidings to him at all! The Lord support me!" "Ah, but Bryan," said they, "you know he looks up to whatever you say, and how much he is advised by you, if there happens to be a doubt about anything. Except her that's gone, there was no one--" Bryan raised his hand with an expression of resolution and something like despair, in order as well as he could to intimate to them, that he wished to hear no allusion made to her whom they had lost, or that he must become incapacitated to perform the task he had to encounter, and taking his hat he proceeded to find his father, whom he met behind the garden. It may be observed of deep grief, that whenever it is excited by the loss of what is good and virtuous, it is never a solitary passion, we mean within the circle of domestic life. So far from that, there is not a kindred affection under the influence of a virtuous heart, that is not stimulated, and strengthened by its emotions. How often, for instance, have two members of the same family rushed into each other's arms, when struck by a common sense of the loss of some individual that was dear to both, because it was felt that the very fact of loving the same object had now made them dear to each other. The father, on seeing Bryan approach, stood for a few moments and looked at him eagerly; he then approached him with a hasty and unsettled step, and said, "Bryan, Bryan, I see it in your face, she has left us, she has left us, she has left us all, an' she has left me; an' how am I to live without her? answer me that; an then give me consolation if you can." He threw himself on his son's neck, and by a melancholy ingenuity attempted to seduce him as it were from the firmness which he appeared to preserve in the discharge of this sorrowful task, with a hope that he might countenance him in the excess of his grief--"Oh," he added, "I've have lost her, Bryan--you and I, the two that she--that--she--Your word was everything to her, a law to her; and she was so proud out of you--I an' her eye would rest upon you smilin', as much as to say--there's my son, haven't I a right to feel proud of him, for he has never once vexed his mother's heart? nayther did you, Bryan, nayther did you, but now who will praise you as she did? who will boast of you behind your back, for she seldom did it to your face; and now that smile of love and kindness will never be on her blessed lips more. Sure you won't blame me, Bryan--oh, sure above all men livin', you won't blame me for feelin' her loss as I do." The associations excited by the language of his father were such as Bryan was by no means prepared to meet. Still he concentrated all his moral power and resolution in order to accomplish the task he had undertaken, which, indeed, was not so much to announce his mother's death, as to support his father under it. After a, violent effort, he at length said:-- "Are you sorry, father, because God has taken my mother to Himself? Would you wish to have her here, in pain and suffering? Do you grudge her heaven? Father, you were always a brave and strong, fearless man, but what are you now? Is this the example you are settin' to us, who ought to look up to you for support? Don't you know my mother's in heaven? Why, one would think you're sorry for it? Come, come, father, set your childre' an example now when they want it, that they can look up to--be a man, and don't forget that she's in God's Glory, Come in now, and comfort the rest." "Ay, but when I think of what she was, Bryan; of what she was to me, Bryan, from the first day I ever called her my wife, ay, and before it, when she could get better matches, when she struggled, and waited, and fought for me, against all opposition, till her father an' mother saw her heart was fixed upon me; hould your tongue, Bryan, I'll have no one' to stop my grief for her, where is she? where's my wife, I tell you? where's Bridget M'Mahon?--Bridget, where are you? have you left me, gone from me, an' must I live here widout you? must I rise in the mornin,' and neither see you nor hear you? or must I live here by myself an' never have your opinion nor advice to ask upon anything as I used to do--Bridget M'Mahon, why did you leave me? where are you from me?" "Here's Dora," said a sweet but broken voice; "here's Dora M'Mahon--your own Dora, too--and that you love bekaise I was like her. Oh, come with me, father, darlin'. For her sake, compose yourself and come with me. Oh, what are we to feel! wasn't she our mother? Wasn't she?--wasn't she? What am I sayin'? Ay, but, now--we have no mother, now!" M'Mahon still leaned upon his son's neck, but on hearing his favorite daughter's voice, he put his arm round to where she stood, and clasping her in, brought her close to him and Bryan, so that the three individuals formed one sorrowing group together. "Father," repeated Dora, "come with me for my mother's sake." He started. "What's that you say, Dora? For your mother's sake? I will, darlin'--for her sake, I will. Ay, that's the way to manage me--for her sake. Oh, what wouldn't I do for her sake? Come, then, God bless you, darlin', for puttin' that into my head. You may make me do anything now, Dora, jewel--if you just ax it for her sake. Oh, my God! an is it come to this? An' am I talkin' this way?--but--well, for her sake, darlin'--for her sake. Come, I'll go in--but--but--oh, Bryan, how can I?" "You know father," replied Bryan, who now held his arm, "we must all die, and it will be well for us if we can die as she died. Didn't father Peter say that if ever the light of heaven was in a human heart, it was in hers?" "Ay, but when I go in an' look upon her, an' call Bridget, she won't answer me." "Father dear, you are takin' it too much to heart." "Well, it'll be the first time she ever refused to answer me--the first time that ever her lips will be silent when I spake to her." "But, father," said the sweet girl at his side, "think of me. Sure I'll be your Dora more than ever, now. You know what you promised me this minute. Oh, for her sake, and for God's sake, then, don't take it so much to heart. It was my grandfather sent me to you, an' he says he want's to see you, an' to spake to you." "Oh!" he exclaimed, "My poor father, an' he won't be long afther her. But this is the way wid all, Bryan--the way o' the world itself. We must go. I didn't care, now, how soon I followed her. Oh, no, no." "Don't say so, father; think of the family you have; think of how you love them, and how they love you, father dear. Don't give way so much to this sorrow. I know it's hard to bid you not to do it; but you know we must strive to overcome ourselves. I hope there's happy days and years before us still. We'll have our leases soon, you know, an' then we'll feel firm and comfortable: an' you know you'll be--we'll all be near where she sleeps." "Where she sleeps. Well, there's comfort in that, Bryan--there's comfort in that." The old man, though very feeble, on seeing him approach, rose up and met him. "Tom," said he, "be a man, and don't shame my white hairs nor your own. I lost your mother, an' I was as fond of her, an' had as good a right, too, as ever you were of her that's now an angel in heaven; but if I lost her, I bore it as a man ought. I never yet bid you do a thing that you didn't do, but I now bid you stop cryin', an don't fly in the face o' God as you're doin'. You respect my white hairs, an' God will help you as he has done!" The venerable appearance of the old man, the melancholy but tremulous earnestness with which he spoke, and the placid spirit of submission which touched his whole bearing with the light of an inward piety that no age could dim or overshadow, all combined to work a salutary influence upon M'Mahon. He evidently made a great effort at composure, nor without success. His grief became calm; he paid attention to other matters, and by the aid of Bryan, and from an anxiety lest he should disturb or offend his father by any further excess of sorrow, he was enabled to preserve a greater degree of composure than might have been expected. _ |
||