Read Ebook: The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry The Works of William Carleton Volume Three by Carleton William Flanery M L Illustrator

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Ebook has 2493 lines and 141397 words, and 50 pages

"Indeed, Donnel," replied Sullivan, "what you say is unfortunately too thrue. Everything we can look upon appears to have the mark of God's displeasure on it; but if we have death and sickness now, what'll become of us this time twelve months, when we'll feel this failure most?"

"I have said it," replied the prophet; "an' if my tongue doesn't tell truth, the tongue that never tells a lie will."

"And what tongue is that?" asked his companion.

"The tongue of the death-bell will tell it day afther day to every parish in the land. However, we know that death's before us, an' the grave, afther all, is our only consolation."

"God help us," exclaimed Sullivan, "if we hadn't betther and brighter consolation than the grave. Only for the hopes in our Divine Redeemer an' his mercy, it's little consolation the grave could give us. But indeed, Donnel, as you say, everything about us is enough to sink the heart within one--an' no hope at all of a change for the betther. However, God is good, and, if it's His will that we should suffer, it's our duty to submit to it."

The prophet looked around him with a gloomy aspect, and, truth to say, the appearance of everything on which the eye could rest, was such as gave unquestionable indications of wide-spread calamity to the country.

Such was the aspect of the evening in question: but as the men advanced, a new element of desolation soon became visible. The sun, ere he sank among the dark western clouds, shot out over this dim and miserable prospect a light so angry, yet so ghastly, that it gave to the whole earth a wild, alarming, and spectral hue, like that seen in some feverish dream. In this appearance there was great terror and sublimity, for as it fell on the black shifting clouds, the effect was made still more awful by the accidental resemblance which they bore to coffins, hearses, and funeral processions, as observed by the prophecy-man, all of which seemed to have been lit up against the deepening shades of evening by some gigantic death-light that superadded its fearful omens to the gloomy scenes on which it fell.

The sun, as he then appeared, might not inaptly be compared to some great prophet, who, clothed with the majesty and terror of I an angry God, was commissioned to launch! his denunciations against the iniquities of nations, and to reveal to them, as they lay under the shadow of his wrath, the terrible calamities with which he was about to visit their transgressions.

The two men now walked on in silence for some time, Donnel Dhu having not deemed it necessary to make any reply to the pious and becoming sentiments uttered by Sullivan.

At length the latter spoke.

"Barrin' what we all know, Donnel, an' that's the saison an' the sufferin' that's in it, is there no news stirrin' at all? Is it thrue that ould Dick o' the Grange is drawin' near to his last account?"

"Not so bad as that; but he's still complainin'. It's one day up and another day down wid' him--an' of coorse his laise of life can't be long now."

"Well, well," responded Sullivan, "it's not for us to pass judgment on our fellow-creatures; but by all accounts he'll have a hard reckonin'."

"That's his own affair, you know," said Donnel Dhu; "but his son, master Richard, or 'Young Dick,' as they call him, will be an improvement upon the ould stock."

"As to that, some says ay, an' some says no; but I believe myself, that he has, like his father, both good and bad in him; for the ould man, if the maggot bit him, or that if he took the notion, would do one a good turn; an' if he took a likin' to you, he'd go any lin'th to sarve you; but, then, you were never sure of him--nor he didn't himself know this minute what he'd do the next."

"That's thrue enough," replied Donnel Dhu; "but lavin' him to shift for himself, I'm of opinion that you an' I are likely to get wet jackets before we're much oulder. Ha! Did you see that lightnin'? God presarve us! it was terrible--an'--ay, there it is--the thundher! God be about us, thundher at this hour is very fearful. I would give a thrifle to be in my own little cabin, an' indeed I'm afeard that I won't be worth the washin' when I get there, if I can go back sich a night as it's goin' to be."

"The last few years, Donnel, has brought a grievous change,upon me and mine," replied Sullivan. "The time was, an' it's not long since, when I could give you a comfortable welcome as well as a willin' one; however, thank God, it isn't come to sich a hard pass wid me yet that I haven't a roof an' a bit to ait to offer you; an' so to sich as it is you're heartily welcome. Home! oh, you mustn't talk of home this night. Blood, you know, is thicker than wather, an' if it was only on your wife Nolly's account, you should be welcome. Second an' third cousins by the mother's side we are, an' that's purty strong. Oh, no, don't talk of goin' home this night."

"Well," replied the other, "I'm thankful to you, Jerry, an' indeed as the night's comin' on so hard and stormy, I'll accept your kind offer; a mouthful of any thing will do me, an' a dry sate at your hearth till mornin'."

"Unfortunately, as I said," replied Sullivan, "it's but poor an' humble treatment I can give you; but if it was betther you should be jist as welcome to it, an' what more can I say?"

"What more can you say, indeed! I know your good heart, Jerry, as who doesn't? Dear me, how it's poorin' over there towards the south--ha, there it is again, that thundher! Well, thank goodness, we haven't far to go, at any rate, an' the shower hasn't come round this far yet. In the mean time let us step out an' thry to escape it if we can."

"Let us cross the fields, then," said Sullivan, "an' get up home by the Slang, an' then behind our garden: to be sure, the ground is in a sad plash, but then it will save a long twist round the road, an' as you say, we may escape the rain yet."

In that sheltered nook, then, our travellers found a young man about two or three and twenty, holding the unresisting hand of a very beautiful and bashful-looking girl, not more than nineteen, between his. From their position, and the earnestness with which the young peasant addressed her, there could be but little doubt as to the subject matter of their conversation. If a bolt from the thunder which had been rolling a little back among the mountains, and which was still faintly heard in the distance, had fallen at the feet of the young persons in question, it could not have filled them with more alarm than the appearance of Sullivan and the prophet. The girl, who became pale and red by turns, hung her head, then covered her face with her hands; and after a short and ineffectual struggle, burst into tears, exclaiming--

"Oh, my God, it is my father!"

The youth, for he seemed scarcely to have reached maturity, after a hesitating glance at Sullivan, seemed at once to have determined the course of conduct he should pursue. His eye assumed a bold and resolute look--he held himself more erect--and, turning towards the girl, without removing his gaze from her father, he said in a loud and manly tone--

"Dear Mave, it is foolish to be frightened. What have you done that ought to make you aither ashamed or afeared? If there's blame anywhere, it's mine, not yours, and I'll bear it."

Sullivan, on discovering this stolen interview--for such it was--felt precisely as a man would feel, who found himself unexpectedly within the dart of a rattlesnake, with but one chance of safety in his favor and a thousand against him. His whole frame literally shook with the deadly depth of his resentment; and in a voice which fully betrayed its vehemence, he replied--

"Blame! ay, shame an' blame--sin an' sorrow there is an' ought to rest upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin'! Blame! surely, an' as I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be a just God in Heaven, if she's not yet punished for holdin' this guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle's blood--my brother's blood--on his hand of murdher--"

"It's false," replied the young fellow, with kindling eye; "it's false, from your teeth to your marrow. I know my father's heart an' his thought--an' I say that whoever charges him with the murder of your brother, is a liar--a false and damnable li--"

He checked himself ere he closed the sentence.

"An' maybe murdher him, as my poor brother was murdhered. Dalton, I see the love of blood in your eye," replied Sullivan, bitterly.

"Why," replied the other, "you have no proof that the man was murdered at all. His body was never found; and no one can say what became of him. For all that any one knows to the contrary, he may be alive still."

"Begone, sirra," said Sullivan, in a burst of impetuous resentment which he could not restrain, "if I ever know you to open your lips to that daughter of mine--if the mane crature can be my daughter--I'll make it be the blackest deed but one that ever a Dalton did; and as for you--go in at wonst--I'll make you hear me by and by."

Dalton looked at him once more with a kindling but a smiling eye.

"Speak what you like," said he--"I'll curb myself. Only, if you wish your daughter to go in, you had better leave the way and let her pass."

Mave--for such was her name--with trembling limbs, burning blushes and palpitating heart, then passed from the shady angle where they stood; but ere she did, one quick and lightning glance was bestowed upon her lover, which, brief though it was, he felt as a sufficient consolation for the enmity of her father.

The prophet had not yet spoken; nor indeed had time been given him to do so, had he been inclined. He looked on, however, with' surprise, which soon assumed the appearance, as well as the reality, of some malignant satisfaction which he could not conceal.

He eyed Dalton with a grin of peculiar bitterness.

"Well," said he, "it's the general opinion that if any one knows or can tell what the future may bring about, I can; an', if my knowledge doesn't desave me, Dalton, I think, while you're before me, that I'm lookin' at a man that was never born to be drowned at any rate. I prophecy that, die when you may, you'll live to see your own funeral."

"If you're wise," replied the young man, "you'll not provoke me now Jerry Sullivan may say what he wishes--he's safe, an he knows why; but I warn you, Donnel Dhu, to take no liberty with me; I'll not bear it.

"Troth, I don't blame Jerry Sullivan," rejoined the prophet. "Of coorse no man would wish to have a son-in-law hanged. It's in the prophecy that you'll go to the surgeons yet."

"Did you foresee in your prophecies this mornin' that you'd get yourself well drubbed before night?" asked Dalton, bristling up.

"No," said the other; "my prophecy seen no one able to do it."

"You and your prophecy are liars, then," retorted the other: "an' in the doom you're kind enough to give me, don't be too sure but you meant yourself. There's more of murdher an' the gallows in your face than there is in mine. That's all I'll say, Donnel. Anything else you'll get from me will be a blow; so take care of yourself."

"Let him alone, Donnel," said Sullivan; "it's not safe to meddle with one of his name. You don't know what harm he may do you."

"I'm not afeard of him," said the prophet, with a sneer; "he'll find himself a little mistaken, if he tries his hand. It won't be for me you'll hang, my lad."

The words were scarcely uttered when a terrific blow on the eye, struck with the rapidity of lightning, shot him to the earth, where he lay for about half a minute, apparently insensible. He then got up, and after shaking his head, as if to rid himself of a sense of confusion and stupor, looked at Dalton for some time.

"Well," said he, "it's all over now--but the truth is, the fault was my own. I provoked him too much, an' without any occasion. I'm sorry you struck me, Condy, for I was only jokin' all the time. I never had ill-will against you; an' in spite of what has happened, I haven't now."

A feeling of generous regret, almost amounting to remorse, instantly touched Dalton's heart; he seized the hand of Donnel, and expressed his sorrow for the blow he had given him.

"My God," he exclaimed, "why did I strike you? But sure no one could for a minute suppose that you weren't in earnest."

"Well, well," said the other, "let it be a warnin' to both of us; to me, in the first place, never to carry a joke too far; and to you, never to allow your passion to get the betther of you, afaird that you might give a blow in anger that you'd have cause to repent of all the days of your life. My eye and cheek is in a frightful state; but no matther, Condy, I forgive you, especially in the hope that you'll mark my advice."

Dalton once more asked his pardon, and expressed his unqualified sorrow at what had occurred; after which he again shook hands with Dalton and departed.

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