On the whole, the journey was to me a delightful one, and certainly not
the least pleasant portion of my life in Ireland. Endowed--partly
from his individual gifts, partly from the nature of his sacred
functions--with influence over all the humble ranks in life, the good
priest jogged along with the assurance of a hearty welcome wherever he
pleased to halt--the only look of disappointment being when he declined
some proffered civility, or refused an invitation to delay his journey.
The chariot was well known in every town and village, and scarcely
was the rumble of its wheels heard coming up the 'street' when the
population might be seen assembling in little groups and knots, to have
a word with 'the father,' to get his blessing, to catch his eye, or even
obtain a nod from him. He knew every one and everything, and with a tact
which is believed to be the prerogative of royalty, he never miscalled
a name nor mistook an event. Inquiring after them, for soul and body, he
entered with real interest into all their hopes and plans, their fears
and anticipations, and talked away about pigs, penances, purgatory, and
potatoes in a way that showed his information on any of these matters to
be of no mean or common order.
By degrees our way left the more travelled highroad, and took by a
mountain tract through a wild, romantic line of country beside the
Shannon. No villages now presented themselves, and indeed but little
trace of any habitation whatever; large misshapen mountains, whose
granite sides were scarce concealed by the dark fern, the only
vegetation that clothed them, rose around and about us. In the valleys
some strips of bog might be seen, with little hillocks of newly-cut
turf, the only semblance of man's work the eye could rest on. Tillage
there was none. A dreary silence, too, reigned throughout. I listened in
vain for the bleating of a lamb or the solitary tinkle of a sheep-bell;
but no--save the cawing of the rooks or the mournful cry of the plover,
I could hear nothing. Now and then, it is true, the heavy flapping of a
strong wing would point the course of a heron soaring towards the river;
but his low flight even spoke of solitude, and showed he feared not man
in his wild and dreamy mountains. At intervals we could see the Shannon
winding along, far, far down below us, and I could mark the islands in
the bay of Scariff, with their ruined churches and one solitary tower;
but no sail floated on the surface, nor did an oar break the sluggish
current of the stream. It was, indeed, a dreary scene, and somehow my
companion's manner seemed coloured by its influence; for scarcely had we
entered the little valley that led to this mountain track than he became
silent and thoughtful, absorbed in reflection, and when he spoke, either
doing so at random or in a vague and almost incohérent way that showed
his ideas were wandering.
I remarked that as we stopped at a little forge shortly after daybreak,
the smith had taken the priest aside and whispered to him a few words,
at which he seemed strangely moved; and as they spoke together for some
moments in an undertone, I perceived by the man's manner and gesture, as
well as by the agitation of the good father himself, that something of
importance was being told. Without waiting to finish the little repair
to the carriage which had caused our halt, he remounted hastily, and
beckoning me to take my place, drove on at a pace that spoke of haste
and eagerness. I confess that my curiosity to know the reason was
great; but as I could not with propriety ask, nor did my companion
seem disposed to give the information, I soon relapsed into a silence
unbroken as his own, and we travelled along for some miles without
speaking. Now and then the priest would make an effort to relieve the
weariness of the way by some remark upon the scenery, or some allusion
to the wild grandeur of the pass; but it was plain he spoke only from
constraint, and that his mind was occupied on other and very different
thoughts.
It was now wearing late, and yet no trace of any house or habitation
could I see, where to rest for the night. Not wishing, however, to
interrupt the current of my friend's thoughts I maintained my silence,
straining my eyes on every side--from the dark mountains that towered
above me, to the narrow gloomy valley that lay several hundred feet
beneath our track--but all in vain. The stillness was unbroken, and not
a roof, not even a smoke-wreath, could be seen far as the view extended.
The road by which we travelled was scarped from the side of a mountain,
and for some miles pursued a gradually descending course. On suddenly
turning the angle of a rocky wall that skirted us for above a mile, we
came in sight of a long reach of the Shannon upon which the sun was now
setting in all its golden lustre. The distant shore of Munster, rich
in tillage and pasture-land, was lit up too with cornfield and green
meadow, leafy wood and blue mountain, all glowing in their brightest
hue. It was a vivid and a gorgeous picture, and I could have looked on
it long with pleasure, when suddenly I felt my arm grasped by a strong
finger. I turned round, and the priest, relaxing his hold, pointed down
into the dark valley below us, as he said in a low and agitated voice--
'You see the light? It is there--there.'
Quickening our pace by every effort, we began rapidly to descend the
mountain by a zigzag road, whose windings soon lost us the view I have
mentioned, and left nothing but the wild and barren mountains around
us. Tired as our poor horse was, the priest pressed him forward; and
regardless of the broken and rugged way he seemed to think of nothing
but his haste, muttering between his teeth with a low but rapid
articulation, while his face grew flushed and pale at intervals, and
his eye had all the lustrous glare and restless look of fever. I
endeavoured, as well as I was able, to occupy my mind with other
thoughts; but with that invincible fascination that turns us ever to
the side we try to shun, I found myself again and again gazing on my
companion's countenance. Every moment now his agitation increased; his
lips were firmly closed, his brow contracted, his cheek flattened and
quivering with a nervous spasm, while his hand trembled violently as he
wiped the big drops of sweat that rolled from his forehead.
At last we reached the level, where a better road presented itself
before us, and enabled us so to increase our speed that we were rapidly
coming up with the light, which, as the evening closed in, seemed larger
and brighter than before. It was now that hour when the twilight seems
fading into night--a grey and sombre darkness colouring every object,
but yet marking grass and rock, pathway and river, with some seeming of
their noonday hues, so that as we came along I could make out the roof
and walls of a mud cabin built against the very mountainside, in the
gable of which the light was shining. A rapid, a momentary thought
flashed across my mind as to what dreary and solitary man could fix his
dwelling-place in such a spot as this, when in an instant the priest
suddenly pulled up the horse, and, stretching out one hand with a
gesture of listening, whispered--
'Hark! Did you not hear that?'
As he spoke, a cry, wild and fearful, rose through the gloomy valley--at
first in one prolonged and swelling note; then broken as if by sobs,
it altered, sank, and rose again wilder and madder, till the echoes,
catching up the direful sounds, answered and repeated them as though a
chorus of unearthly spirits were calling to one another through the air.
'O God! too late--too late!' said the priest, as he bowed his face upon
his knees, and his strong frame shook in agony. 'O Father of Mercy!'
he cried, as he lifted his eyes, bloodshot and tearful, toward heaven,
'forgive me this; and if unshriven before Thee--'
Another cry, more frantic than before, here burst upon us, and the
priest, muttering with rapid utterance, appeared lost in prayer. But at
him I looked no longer, for straight before us on the road, and in
front of the little cabin, now not above thirty paces from us, knelt
the figure of a woman, whom, were it not for the fearful sounds we had
heard, one could scarcely believe a thing of life. Her age was not more
than thirty years; she was pale as death; not a tinge, not a ray of
colour streaked her bloodless cheek; her black hair, long and wild, fell
upon her back and shoulders, straggling and disordered; while her hands
were clasped, as she held her stiffened arms straight before her. Her
dress bespoke the meanest poverty, and her sunken cheek and drawn-in
lips betokened famine and starvation. As I gazed on her almost
breathless with awe and dread, the priest leaped out, and hurrying
forward, cried out to her in Irish; but she heard him not, she saw him
not--dead to every sense, she remained still and motionless. No feature
trembled, no limb was shaken; she knelt before us like an image of
stone; and then, as if by some spell that worked within her, once
more gave forth the heart-rending cry we heard at first. Now low and
plaintive, like the sighing night-wind, it rose fuller and fuller,
pausing and continuing at intervals; and then breaking into short and
fitful efforts, it grew wilder and stronger, till at last with one
outbreak, like the overflowing of a heart of misery, it ceased abruptly.
The priest bent over her and spoke to her; he called her by her name,
and shook her several times--but all in vain. Her spirit, if indeed
present with her body, had lost all sympathy with things of earth.
'God help her!' said he; 'God comfort her! This is sore affliction.'
As he spoke he walked towards the little cabin, the door of which now
stood open. All was still and silent within its walls. Unused to see the
dwellings of the poor in Ireland, my eye ranged over the bare walls, the
damp and earthen floor, the few and miserable pieces of furniture, when
suddenly my attention was called to another and a sadder spectacle. In
one corner of the hovel, stretched upon a bed whose poverty might have
made it unworthy of a dog to lie in, lay the figure of a large and
powerfully-built man, stone dead. His eyes were dosed, his chin bound
up with a white cloth, and a sheet, torn and ragged, was stretched above
his cold limbs, while on either side of him two candles were burning.
His features, though rigid and stiffened, were manly and even
handsome--the bold character of the face heightened in effect by his
beard and moustache, which appeared to have been let grow for some time
previous, and whose black and waving curl looked darker from the pallor
around it.
Some lines there were about the mouth that looked like harshness and
severity, but the struggle of departing life might have caused them.
Gently withdrawing the sheet that covered him, the priest placed his
hand upon the man's heart. It was evident to me, from the father's
manner, that he still believed the man living; and as he rolled back the
covering, he felt for his hand. Suddenly starting, he fell back for an
instant; and as he moved his fingers backwards and forwards, I saw that
they were covered with blood. I drew near, and now perceived that the
dead man's chest was laid open by a wound of several inches in extent.
The ribs had been cut across, and some portion of the heart or lung
seemed to protrude. At the slightest touch of the body, the blood gushed
forth anew, and ran in streams upon him. His right hand, too, was cut
across the entire palm, the thumb nearly severed at the joint. This
appeared to have been rudely bound together; but it was evident, from
the nature and the size of the other wound, that he could not have
survived it many hours.
As I looked in horror at the frightful spectacle before me, my foot
struck at something beneath the bed. I stooped down to examine, and
found it was a carbine, such as dragoons usually carry. It was broken
at the stock and bruised in many places, but still seemed not
unserviceable. Part of the butt-end was also stained with blood. The
clothes of the dead man, clotted and matted with gore, were also there,
adding by their terrible testimony to the dreadful fear that haunted me.
Yes, everything confirmed it--murder had been there.
A low, muttering sound near made me turn my head, and I saw the priest
kneeling beside the bed, engaged in prayer. His head was bare, and he
wore a kind of scarf of blue silk, and the small case that contained the
last rites of his Church was placed at his feet. Apparently lost to all
around, save the figure of the man that lay dead before him, he muttered
with ceaseless rapidity prayer after prayer--stopping ever and anon to
place his hand on the cold heart, or to listen with his ear upon the
livid lips; and then resuming with greater eagerness, while the big
drops rolled from his forehead, and the agonising torture he felt
convulsed his entire frame.
'O God!' he exclaimed, after a prayer of some minutes, in which his
features worked like one in a fit of epilepsy--'O God, is it then too
late?'
[Illustration: 392]
He started to his feet as he spoke, and bending over the corpse, with
hands clasped above his head, he poured forth a whole torrent of
words in Irish, swaying his body backwards and forwards, as his voice,
becoming broken by emotion, now sank into a whisper, or broke into a
discordant shout. 'Shaun, Shaun!' cried he, as, stooping down to the
ground; he snatched up the little crucifix and held it before the dead
man's face; at the same time he shook him violently by the shoulder,
and cried, in accents I can never forget, some words aloud, among which
alone I could recognise one word, 'Thea'--the Irish word for God. He
shook the man till his head rocked heavily from side to side, and the
blood oozed from the opening wound, and stained the ragged covering of
the bed.
At this instant the priest stopped suddenly, and fell upon his knees,
while with a low, faint sigh he who seemed dead lifted his eyes and
looked around him; his hands grasped the sides of the bed, and, with
a strength that seemed supernatural, he raised himself to a sitting
posture. His lips were parted and moved, but without a sound, and his
filmy eyes turned slowly in their sockets from one object to another,
till at length they fell upon the little crucifix that had dropped from
the priest's hand upon the bed. In an instant the corpse-like features
seemed inspired with life; a gleam of brightness shot from his eyes;
the head nodded forward a couple of times, and I thought I heard a
discordant, broken sound issue from the open mouth; but a moment after
the head dropped upon the chest, and the hands relaxed, and he fell back
with a crash, never to move more.
Overcome with horror, I staggered to the door and sank upon a little
bench in front of the cabin. The cool air of the night soon brought me
to myself, and while in my confused state I wondered if the whole might
not be some dreadful dream, my eyes once more fell upon the figure of
the woman, who still knelt in the attitude we had first seen her. Her
hands were clasped before her, and from time to time her wild cry
rose into the air and woke the echoes of that silent valley. A faint
moonlight lay in broken patches around her, and mingled its beams with
the red glare of the little candles within, as their light fell upon her
marble features. From the cabin I could hear the sounds of the priest's
voice, as he continued to pray without ceasing.
As the hours rolled on, nothing changed; and when, prompted by
curiosity, I looked within the hovel, I saw the priest still kneeling
beside the bed, his face pale and sunk and haggard, as though months of
sickness and suffering had passed over him. I dared not speak; I dared
not disturb him; and I sat down near the door in silence.
It is one of the strange anomalies of our nature that the feelings which
rend our hearts with agony have a tendency, by their continuance, to
lull us into slumber. The watcher by the bedside of his dying friend,
the felon in his cell but a few hours before death, sleep--and sleep
soundly. The bitterness of grief would seem to blunt sensation, and the
mind, like the body, can only sustain a certain amount of burden, after
which it succumbs and yields. So I found it amid this scene of horror
and anguish, with everything to excite that can operate upon the
mind--the woman stricken motionless and senseless by grief; the dead
man, as it were, recalled to life by the words that were to herald
him into life everlasting; the old man, whom I had known but as a gay
companion, displayed now before my eyes in all the workings of his
feeling heart, called up by the afflictions of one world and the
terrors of another--and this in a wild and dreary valley, far from man's
dwelling. Yet amid all this, and more than all, the harassing conviction
that some deed of blood, some dark hour of crime, had been here at work,
perhaps to be concealed for ever, and go unavenged save of Heaven--with
this around and about me, I slept. How long I know not; but when I woke,
the mist of morning hung in the valley, or rolled in masses of cloudlike
vapour along the mountain-side. In an instant the whole scene of the
previous night was before me, and the priest still knelt beside the bed
and prayed. I looked for the woman, but she was gone.
The noise of wheels, at some distance, could now be heard on the
mountain-road; and as I walked stealthily from the door, I could see
three figures descending the pass, followed by a car and horse. As
they came along, I marked that beneath the straw on the car something
protruded itself on either side, and this, I soon saw, was a coffin.
As the men approached the angle of the road they halted, and seemed to
converse in an eager and anxious manner, when suddenly one of them broke
from the others, and springing to the top of a low wall that skirted the
road, continued to look steadily at the house for some minutes together.
The thought flashed on me at the moment that perhaps my being a stranger
to them might have caused their hesitation; so I waved my hat a couple
of times above my head. Upon this they resumed their march, and in a few
minutes more were standing beside me. One of them, who was an old man
with hard, weather-beaten features, addressed me, first in Irish, but
correcting himself, at once asked, in a low, steady voice--
'Was the priest in time? Did he get the rites?'
I nodded in reply; when he muttered, as if to himself--'God's will be
done! Shaun didn't tell of Hogan----'
'Whisht, father! whisht!' said one of the younger men as he laid
his hand upon the old man's arm, while he added something in Irish,
gesticulating with energy as he spoke.
'Is Mary come back, sir?' said the third, as he touched his hat to me
respectfully.
'The woman--his wife?' said I. 'I have not seen her to-day.'
'She was up with us, at Kiltimmon, at two o'clock this morning, but
wouldn't wait for us. She wanted to get back at once, poor crayture! She
bears it well, and has a stout heart. 'Faith, maybe before long she
'll make some others faint in their hearts that have stricken hers this
night.'
'Was she calm, then?' said I.
'As you are this minute; and sure enough she helped me, with her own
hands, to put the horse in the car, for you see I couldn't lift the
shaft with my one arm.'
I now saw that his arm was bound up, and buttoned within the bosom of
his greatcoat.
The priest now joined us, and spoke for several minutes in Irish; and
although ignorant of all he said, I could mark in the tone of his voice,
his look, his manner, and his gesture that his words were those of
rebuke and reprobation. The old man heard him in silence, but without
any evidence of feeling. The others, on the contrary, seemed deeply
affected; and the younger of the two, whose arm was broken, seemed
greatly moved, and the tears rolled down his hardy cheeks.
These signs of emotion were evidently displeasing to the old man, whose
nature was of a sterner and more cruel mould; and as he turned away from
the father's admonition he moved past me, muttering, as he went--
'Isn't it all fair? Blood for blood; and sure they dhruv him to it.'
After a few words from the priest, two of the party took their spades
from the car, and began digging the grave; while Father Loftus, leading
the other aside, talked to him for some time.
'Begorra,' said the old man, as he shovelled the earth to either side,
'Father Tom isn't like himself, at all, at all. He used to have pity
and the kind word for the poor when they were turned out on the world
to starve, without as much as a sheaf of straw to lie upon, or potatoes
enough for the children to eat.'
'Whisht, father! or the priest will hear ye,' said the younger one,
looking cautiously around.
'Sorrow bit o' me cares if he does! it's thruth I'm telling. You are not
long in these parts, sir, av I may make so bowld?'
'No,' said I, 'I'm quite a stranger.'
'Well, anyhow, ye may understand that this isn't a fine soil for a
potato-garden; and yet the devil a other poor Shaun had since they
turned him out on the road last Michaelmas Day, himself and his wife and
the little gossoon--the only one they had, too--with a fever and ague
upon him. The poor child, however, didn't feel it long, for he died in
ten days after. Well, well! the way of God there's no saying against it.
But, sure, if the little boy didn't die Shaun was off to America; for he
tuk his passage, and got a sea-chest of a friend, and was all ready
to go. But you see, when the child died, he could not bring himself
to leave the grave; and there he used to go and spend half of his days
fixing it, and settling the sods about it, and wouldn't take a day's
work from any of the neighbours. And at last he went off one night, and
we never knew what was become of him, till a pedlar brought word that
he and Mary was living in the Cluan Beg, away from everybody, without
a friend to say “God save you!” It's deep enough now, Mickey; there's
nobody will turn him out of this. And so, sir, he might have lived for
many a year; but when he heerd that the boys was up, and going to settle
a reckoning with Mr. Tarleton----'
'Come, you,' cried the priest, who joined us at the moment, and who
I could perceive was evidently displeased at the old man's
communicativeness--'come, you, the sooner you all get back the better.
We must look after Mary, too; for God knows where she is wandering. And
now let us put the poor boy in the earth.'
With slow and sullen steps the old man entered the house, followed by
the others. I did not accompany them, but stood beside the grave, my
mind full of all I heard. In a few minutes they returned, carrying the
coffin, one corner of which was borne by the priest himself. Their heads
were bare, and their features were pale and care-worn. They placed the
body in the grave, and gazed down after it for some seconds. The priest
spoke a few words in a low, broken voice, the very sounds of which,
though their meaning was unknown to me, sank deep into my heart. He
whispered for an instant to one of the young men, who went into the
cabin and speedily returned, carrying with him some of the clothes of
the deceased and the old carbine that lay beneath the bed.
'Throw them in the grave, Mickey--throw them in,' said the priest.
'Where's his coat?'
'It isn't there, sir,' said the man. 'That's everything that has a mark
of blood upon it.'
'Give me that gun,' cried the priest; and at the same moment he took the
carbine by the end of the barrel, and by one stroke of his strong foot
snapped it at the breech. 'My curse be on you!' said he, as he kicked
the fragments into the grave; 'there was peace and happiness in the land
before men knew ye, and owned ye! Ah, Hugh,' said he, turning his eyes
fiercely on the old man, 'I never said ye hadn't griefs and trials, and
sore ones too, some of them; but God help you, if you think that an
easy conscience and a happy home can be bought by murder.' The old man
started at the words, and as his dark brow lowered and his lip trembled,
I drew near to the priest, fearful lest an attack might be made on him.
'Ay, murder, boys! that's the word, and no less. Don't tell me about
righting yourselves, and blood for blood, and all that. There's a curse
upon the land where these things happen, and the earth is not lucky that
is moistened with the blood of God's creatures.'
'Cover him up! cover him up!' said the old man, shovelling in the earth
so as to drown the priest's words, 'and let us be going. We ought to be
back by six o'clock, unless,' added he with a sarcastic bitterness that
made him look like a fiend--'unless your reverence is going to set the
police on our track.'
'God forgive you, Hugh, and turn your heart,' said the priest, as he
shook his outstretched hands at the old man. As the father spoke these
words he took me by the arm, and led me within the house. I could feel
his hand tremble as it leaned upon me, and the big tears rolled down his
cheeks in silence.
We sat down in the little cabin, but neither of us spoke. After some
time we heard the noise of the cartwheels and the sound of voices, which
grew fainter and fainter as they passed up the glen, and at length all
became still.
'And the poor wife,' said I, 'what, think you, has become of her?'
'Gone home to her people, most likely,' answered the priest. 'Her
misfortunes will make her a home in every cabin. None so poor, none so
wretched, as not to succour and shelter her. But let us hence.'
We walked forth from the hovel, and the priest closing the door after
him fastened it with a padlock that he had found within, and then,
placing the key upon the door-sill, he turned to depart; but suddenly
stopping, he took my hand in both of his, and said, in a voice of
touching earnestness--
'This has been a sad scene. Would to God you had not witnessed it! Would
to God, rather, that it might not have occurred! But promise me, on the
faith of a man of honour and the word of a gentleman, that what you
have seen this night you will reveal to no man, until I have passed away
myself, and stand before that judgment to which we all are coming.'
'I promise you faithfully,' said I. 'And now let us leave a spot
that has thrown a gloom upon my heart which a long life will never
obliterate.'