"THERE'S LUCK IN LEISURE."
"DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS."
"James Scanlan wants to see you, sir. I told him you were hardly done
dinner, but he begged me to let you know he is waiting."
"Dear me," said my father, "what can he want? Show him in, Carey.--Well,
James, what is the matter?"
"Oh! your honour, sir, won't you come see my poor father? He'll speak to
you, but we can't get a word from him. He's dying of grief, my mother is
so bad."
"Your mother, James!--what has happened her?"
"She took a heavy cold, sir, on Friday last, from a wetting she got going
to Cashel; and when she came home, she took to her bed, and it's worse
and worse she has got ever since, and at last she began to rave this
morning; and as Dr M'Carthy was going past to the dispensary, Pat called
him in; and when he looked at her, he just shook his head and said he'd
send her something, but that we must be prepared for any thing that might
happen. Well, sir, when my father heard that, he went and sat down by the
bedside, and taking my mother's hand in his, says he, 'Ah, then, Mary,
a-cushla-machree, am I going to lose you? Are you going from me? Did I
ever think I'd see this day? Ah, Mary, avourneen, sure you won't leave
me?' And from that to this he has never stirred, nor spoken, nor taken
the least notice of any one--not even of me--not even of me."
The poor fellow burst into a flood of tears.
In a few minutes I was standing with my father by the bedside of Mrs
Scanlan. She was quite unconscious of what was passing around. Her
husband, who was my father's principal tenant, and a substantial farmer,
sat as his eldest and favourite son had described; and although the
object of my father's visit was to rouse him from his lethargy, it was
long ere he addressed himself to the task. It seemed almost sacrilegious
to disturb such hallowed grief.
At length he laid his hand upon Scanlan's shoulder. "Come, James," said
he, "look up, man; don't be so utterly cast down. You know the old
saying, 'Whilst there's life, there's hope.'"
"It's kind of your honour to try and comfort me; but yours was always the
good heart, and the kind one, and you never made the sight of your sunny
face a compliment. But it's no use--there's no hope. The death's on her
handsome countenance."
He groaned deeply, and rocked himself backwards and forwards.
"James," said my father, "we must be resigned to the will of God, but we
need not make ourselves miserable by anticipating evils."
"Your honour was but a slip of a gossoon when you danced at the bright
girl's wedding, and you're come now in time to see the last of the old
woman--the old woman, the old woman," repeated he, as if something struck
him in the sound of the words as strange. "Two-and-forty is not old, but
they called her 'the old woman' since the boys began to grow up. But she
never grew old to me; she's the same now that she was the first evening I
told her, that she was the only treasure on the face of the earth that my
heart coveted. Only, much as I loved her then, I love her more now. Oh!
Mary, Mary, pulse of my heart, would to God I could die before you!"
The younger son Pat, his mother's favourite, now entered the room in a
state of pitiable excitement. He had been at the dispensary to procure
the medicine prescribed by the doctor, and to his imagination every
person and every thing seemed to have conspired to delay him, whilst the
lookers on deemed his haste almost superhuman.
He immediately attempted to administer the draught he had brought, but
his mother could not be made to understand what was wanted of her; and at
length, as if teased by his importunities, she suddenly dashed the cup of
medicine from her.
The look of unutterable anguish with which he regarded her, as she
rejected and destroyed that upon the taking of which depended the last
hope, was indescribable.
The almost fierceness of his haste, which he now saw had been utterly
useless, had flushed his cheek and lighted up his countenance, and he
stood with his hands clasped, and raised as if in prayer, with firmly
shut lips, and his eyes, in which you could view the transition from
eager hope to utter despair, fixed upon her face, like a being that was
changing into stone.
At the other side of the bed was his father, who had resumed his former
attitude, and beside him stood his eldest son, whose utterly wretched
countenance, alternating from one parent to the other, showed that he
suffered that lowest state of misery, which anticipates still further and
greater woe as a consequence from that which overwhelms at present.
My father left the room. I looked upon the group one instant. I felt that
I could have resigned the possession of worlds to be permitted the luxury
of raising the load of grief from those afflicted hearts; but it could
not be, and I retired to relieve my surcharged feelings in solitude.
Ere morning dawned, nature had received another instalment of her debt.
My father and I attended the funeral, and were surprised at the apparent
fortitude of Mr Scanlan. We wished to bring him with us to the Hall after
the sad ceremony, but he would not come. We then accompanied him to his
own house. As we entered, I glanced at him: he was ghastly pale. He
looked slowly round, fixed his eyes one moment on the countenance of his
younger son, another on the elder, and sank upon a chair.
Since the period of which I now write, I have often witnessed the closing
scene of mortality, and various are the opinions I have heard, as to
which point of time, between the moment of death and the first appearance
abroad of the survivors in their mourning apparel, is the saddest, the
most afflicting, or the most trying--whether the moment of dissolution,
the first appearance of the undertaker, the laying out in the apparel of
death, the bringing of the coffin, the last frantic kiss and look, the
screwing down, the carrying out, the dull thud of the clay upon the
coffin lid. Oh! think not that I am coolly writing this, that I am
probing with the surgeon's calmness the deep, the sensitive (with many
bleeding) wounds that death has given.
I am but a young man, yet my brain reels, and my eyes burn, and my heart
swells to my throat, as memory holds the mirror to my view, and I see
depicted in it the scenes, and feel again the feelings, that have been
more than once or twice excited at the stages which I have just recounted
in order. But of all the stabs thus given to the heart, of all those
moments of anguish, the keenest is that felt when the survivor re-enters
the house, where the form and the voice and the cheerful laugh of the
departed one had made his home a little paradise, and feels that that
home is now for ever desolate! Is there a desert so deserted?
"James," said Mr Scanlan, after he had looked steadfastly at him for some
time, "you were the first she brought me; and when you came into the
world, I was almost beside myself with joy; and when I was allowed to
enter the room where she was sitting up in bed, with you in her arms, I
almost smothered you both with kisses; and I cried, and laughed, and
danced about, as if I was mad. Sure I need'nt be ashamed to own it, now
that she's gone. And when I told her that they said you were the image of
me, she answered me, 'So he ought, for sure you were always before my
eyes;' and when I said that I could'nt be 'always,' she said that 'twas
the eyes of her heart she meant. So, Pat, avourneen (addressing the
younger, who had been all this time crying bitterly), though you're the
living image of her that's dead, and though father could'nt love son more
than I do you, you're not surprised that I gave James the preference
sometimes, though I never loved you the less."
"Father dear," said Pat, "I was never jealous of Jem, nor he of me; we
both knew that our faces and tempers and dispositions took after you
both--Jem's after you, and mine after my mother. Oh! mother dear! mother
dear!" He burst into a paroxysm of grief, ran wildly into his mother's
room, and threw himself across the bed, roaring in a frenzied manner,
"James, honey, isn't the house terrible lonesome?" and a violent shudder
ran through poor Scanlan's frame. "Isn't there a great echo in it? It's
very chilly; I believe I had better go and lie down on the bed."
He stood up, and, continuing the forward movement of his body after he
had risen to a standing position, would have fallen, extended on his
face, but that I caught him just as his watchful son had sprung to save
him.
Poor Pat now mastered his feelings in some degree, and turned his entire
attention to assist his surviving parent. He was laid on the bed, and
shortly recovered himself, and addressed my father. "I know your honour
feels for my trouble, and will excuse the boys and me for not showing the
attention we ought to show for your goodness."
"Say nothing about attention to me, James; I am sorry for your trouble,
and, God knows, I wish I knew how to relieve and comfort you."
"I'm sure you do, sir.--Boys, I won't be long with you. The pulse of my
heart is gone. Look up to his honour, and never forget, that, though
there's no clanship in these times, and though many a shoneen holds a
higher head than his in the country now, you still owe him your love and
fealty, for he's one of the real old stock; and your forefathers followed
his forefathers in war and peace, when, if you stood on the highest crag
of the Bogaragh, you could'nt see to the bounds of their wide domains.
And while his honour is present, and I have my senses clear about me,
I'll lay my commands on you both, boys; and if ever you break through
them (though I am sure you never will), let his honour, and the young
master here bear witness against you."
He then delivered what was simply a verbal will, directing how they
should dispose of and divide his property and effects, and concluded as
follows:--
"When your mother and I were married, we were both of us full of old
sayings and proverbs, and we thought, like most others, that their
meaning should be taken in the plainest and fullest signification; and as
most of them are universally allowed to contain a great deal of wisdom
and good sense, we thought that whoever regulated his or her conduct
strictly according to their rule, would of necessity be the wisest person
in the world.
One of these sayings, that I had been taught to believe was one of the
wisest ever pronounced by man, was, 'there's luck in leisure,' and this
was my most favourite maxim; but when I got married, I found that your
mother--that your mother had a favourite one also--'delays are
dangerous.'
Well, the first year, when the corn was coming up, a corn factor came to
this part of the country, and offered a middling fair price for an
average crop. Mary bade me take it, as I'd have that much money certain,
and if the season should turn out bad, the factor would be the sufferer,
and I'd be safe.
'Take it at once,' said she; 'you know "delays are dangerous."'
I began to consider that if the season should be only middling, inclining
to bad, I might get as much money still, as the factor offered; and if it
should turn out fine, the crop would produce a great deal more, whilst
it would be only in the event of a bad season that I'd be apt to lose.
'There's luck in leisure,' said I; 'I'll wait.'
Well, the season was dreadful: most of the crops were totally destroyed,
and we suffered more than almost any of the neighbours. I was afraid to
look Mary in the face, when I had made out the extent of my loss, but she
only said, 'Come, Jemmy, it can't be helped; the worse luck now, the
better another time. You'll attend more to wise old sayings for the
future; they were made out of wiser heads than yours.'
'Ah, but, Mary, a-cushla, it was following an old saying that I was; sure
you have often heard say, "there's luck in leisure."' 'Poh,' said she,
'that's only a foolish saying, take my word for it.'
Next year the sky-farmer came again. He had lost nothing, for no one
would deal with him, on his terms, the year before; and to hear how
heartlessly he'd jeer and jibe them that had the sore hearts in their
bosoms, and calculate up for them how much they had lost, and then he'd
say, he supposed they would'nt refuse a good offer another time. Well, I
asked him was he going to make me a good offer, and he said he would'nt
care if he did, and he offered as much as would hardly pay the rent,
letting alone seed and labour. 'Why,' said I, 'you'll give as much as you
offered last year.' 'Not I indeed,' said he; 'I bought experience instead
of corn last year, and you paid for it;' and he laughed, and shook
himself with glee, and chuckled, and jingled the guineas in his pockets,
until I was hardly able to keep from knocking him down.
Well, I higgled and bargained, and tried to raise him, but not another
penny would he give; and at last he said that he was going away in the
morning, and so I might take it or leave it, as I liked--he would'nt
force his money on any man, not he. 'Delays are dangerous,' thought I;
and, though it was a certain loss, I agreed.
A finer season than that, never came from the heavens. The factor came to
see the crops, and such crops as they were! Several others had done like
me; and if he laughed at us the year before, he laughed ten times more
now. The year before he had lost nothing: this year he had made a
fortune. He had laughed at our losses before, but he now laughed over his
own gains. 'They may laugh who win.'
If he had taken it quieter, he might have done the same thing again; but
by acting as he did, he set every one against him, and he never after
could buy up growing crops here.
'Mary, my darling,' said I, 'we're almost ruined, in the second year, by
following old sayings. I'll never believe in them again.' 'Jemmy, dear,'
said she, 'I have been thinking the matter over, and I believe it's not
the sayings that are wrong, but the wrong use that's made of them; for if
we had said them the other way, we'd have made money instead of losing
it; and for the future we'll try to use the sense that God has given us,
and the acquirements such as they are that He has enabled us to obtain,
in directing us to the proper use and timely application of those
proverbs that are really wise and useful when properly applied.'
As it was the will of the Almighty, boys, that your dear mother should
not have had her senses about her when departing, and it's likely that
these are the last of her sensible words that I'll ever be able to tell
you, I'd have you take them, and think upon them as if they were her last
addressed to you, and let neither proverbs, however apparently wise in
themselves, nor superstitious remarks, ever guide your actions or sway
your conduct until you have applied to them the touchstone of your own
common sense.
May God bless and guide you, my darling boys; and now I have done with
the world and its affairs."