WILDGOOSE LODGE

I had read the anonymous summons, but from its general import I believed

it to be one of those special meetings convened for some purpose

affecting the usual objects and proceedings of the body; at least

the terms in which it was conveyed to me had nothing extraordinary or

mysterious in them, beyond the simple fact, that it was not to be a

general but a select meeting: this mark of confidence flattered me, and

I determined to attend punctually. I was, it is true, desired to keep

the circumstances entirely to myself, but there was nothing startling

in this, for I had often received summonses of a similar nature.

I therefore resolved to attend, according to the letter of my

instructions, “on the next night, at the solemn hour of midnight,

to deliberate and act upon such matters as should then and there be

submitted to my consideration.” The morning after I received this

message, I arose and resumed my usual occupations; but, from whatever

cause it may have proceeded, I felt a sense of approaching evil hang

heavily upon me; the beats of my pulse were languid, and an undefinable

feeling of anxiety pervaded my whole spirit; even my face was pale, and

my eye so heavy, that my father and brothers concluded me to be ill; an

opinion which I thought at the time to be correct, for I felt exactly

that kind of depression which precedes a severe fever. I could not

understand what I experienced, nor can I yet, except by supposing that

there is in human nature some mysterious faculty, by which, in coming

calamities, the dread of some fearful evil is anticipated, and that it

is possible to catch a dark presentiment of the sensations which they

subsequently produce. For my part I can neither analyze nor define it;

but on that day I knew it by painful experience, and so have a thousand

others in similar circumstances.

It was about the middle of winter. The day was gloomy and tempestuous,

almost beyond any other I remember; dark clouds rolled over the hills

about me, and a close sleet-like rain fell in slanting drifts that

chased each other rapidly towards the earth on the course of the blast.

The outlying cattle sought the closest and calmest corners of the fields

for shelter; the trees and young groves were tossed about, for the wind

was so unusually high that it swept in hollow gusts through them, with

that hoarse murmur which deepens so powerfully on the mind the sense of

dreariness and desolation.

As the shades of night fell, the storm, if possible, increased. The moon

was half gone, and only a few stars were visible by glimpses, as a rush

of wind left a temporary opening in the sky. I had determined, if the

storm should not abate, to incur any penalty rather than attend the

meeting; but the appointed hour was distant, and I resolved to be

decided by the future state of the night.

Ten o'clock came, but still there was no change: eleven passed, and on

opening the door to observe if there were any likelihood of its clearing

up, a blast of wind, mingled with rain, nearly blew me off my feet. At

length it was approaching to the hour of midnight; and on examining it a

third time, I found it had calmed a little, and no longer rained.

I instantly got my oak stick, muffled myself in my great coat, strapped

my hat about my ears, and, as the place of meeting was only a quarter of

a mile distant, I presently set out.

The appearance of the heavens was lowering and angry, particularly in

that point where the light of the moon fell against the clouds, from a

seeming chasm in them, through which alone she was visible. The edges of

this chasm were faintly bronzed, but the dense body of the masses that

hung piled on each side of her, was black and inpenetrable to sight. In

no other point of the heavens was there any part of the sky visible;

a deep veil of clouds overhung the whole horizon, yet was the light

sufficient to give occasional glimpses of the rapid shifting which took

place in this dark canopy, and of the tempestuous agitation with which

the midnight storm swept to and fro beneath it.

At length I arrived at a long slated house, situated in a solitary part

of the neighborhood; a little below it ran a small stream, which was

now swollen above its banks, and rushing with mimic roar over the flat

meadows beside it. The appearance of the bare slated building in such

a night was particularly sombre, and to those, like me, who knew the

purpose to which it was usually devoted, it was or ought to have been

peculiarly so. There it stood, silent and gloomy, without any appearance

of human life or enjoyment about or within it. As I approached, the moon

once more had broken out of the clouds, and shone dimly upon the wet,

glittering slates and windows, with a death-like lustre, that gradually

faded away as I left the point of observation, and entered the

folding-door. It was the parish chapel.

The scene which presented itself here was in keeping not only with the

external appearance of the house, but with the darkness, the storm, and

the hour, which was now a little after midnight. About forty persons

were sitting in dead silence upon the circular steps of the altar. They

did not seem to move; and as I entered and advanced, the echo of my

footsteps rang through the building with a lonely distinctness, which

added to the solemnity and mystery of the circumstances about me. The

windows were secured with shutters on the inside, and on the altar a

candle was lighted, which burned dimly amid the surrounding darkness,

and lengthened the shadow of the altar itself, and those of six or

seven persons who stood on its upper steps, until they mingled in the

obscurity which shrouded the lower end of the chapel. The faces of the

men who sat on the altar steps were not distinctly visible, yet their

prominent and more characteristic features were in sufficient relief,

and I observed, that some of the most malignant and reckless spirits in

the parish were assembled. In the eyes of those who stood at the altar,

and those whom I knew to be invested with authority over the others, I

could perceive gleams of some latent and ferocious purpose, kindled,

as I soon observed, into a fiercer expression of vengeance, by the

additional excitement of ardent spirits, with which they had stimulated

themselves to a point of determination that mocked at the apprehension

of all future responsibility, either in this world or the next.

The welcome which I received on joining them was far different from

the boisterous good-humor that used to mark our greetings on other

occasions; just a nod of the head from this or that person, on the part

of those who sat, with a _dhud dhemur tha fhu?_ (* How are you?) in a

suppressed voice, even below a common whisper: but from the standing

group, who were evidently the projectors of the enterprise, I received

a convulsive grasp of the hand, accompanied by a fierce and desperate

look, that seemed to search my eye and countenance, to try if I were a

person likely to shrink from whatever they had resolved to execute.

It is surprising to think of the powerful expression which a moment of

intense interest or great danger is capable of giving to the eye, the

features and the slightest actions, especially in those whose station

in society does not require them to constrain nature, by the force of

social courtesies, into habits that conceal their natural emotions.

None of the standing group spoke; but as each of them wrung my hand

in silence, his eye was fixed on mine, with an expression of drunken

confidence and secrecy, and an insolent determination not to be gainsaid

without peril. If looks could be translated with certainty, they seemed

to say, “We are bound upon a project of vengeance, and if you do not

join us, remember we can revenge.” Along with this grasp, they did not

forget to remind me of the common bond by which we were united, for

each man gave me the secret grip of Ribbonism in a manner that made the

joints of my fingers ache for some minutes afterwards.

There was one present, however--the highest in authority--whose actions

and demeanor were calm and unexcited. He seemed to labor under no

unusual influence whatever, but evinced a serenity so placid and

philosophical, that I attributed the silence of the sitting group, and

the restraint which curbed in the outbreaking passions of those who

stood, entirely to his presence. He was a schoolmaster, who taught his

daily school in that chapel, and acted also on Sunday, in the capacity

of clerk to the priest--an excellent and amiable old man, who knew

little of his illegal connections and atrocious conduct.

When the ceremonies of brotherly recognition and friendship were past,

the Captain (by which title I shall designate the last-mentioned person)

stooped, and, raising a jar of whiskey on the corner of the altar, held

a wineglass to its neck, which he filled, and with a calm nod handed

it to me to drink. I shrank back, with an instinctive horror, at the

profaneness of such an act, in the house, and on the altar of God, and

peremptorily refused to taste the proffered I draught. He smiled mildly

at what he considered my superstition, and added quietly, and in a low

voice, “You'll be wantin' it I'm thinkin', afther the wettin' you

got.”

“Wet or dry,” said I--

“Stop, man!” he replied, in the same tone; “spake low. But why wouldn't

you take the whiskey? Sure there's as holy people to the fore as you:

didn't they all take it? An' I wish we may never do worse nor dhrink a

harmless glass o' whiskey, to keep the cowld out, any way.”

“Well,” said I, “I'll jist trust to God and the consequences, for the

cowld, Paddy, ma bouchal; but a blessed dhrop of it won't be crossin' my

lips, avick; so no more ghostlier about it;--dhrink it yourself if you

like. Maybe you want it as much as I do; wherein I've the patthern of

a good big-coat upon me, so thick, your sowl, that if it was rainin'

bullocks, a dhrop wouldn't get undher the nap of it.”

He gave me a calm, but keen glance as I spoke.

“Well, Jim,” said he, “it's a good comrade you've got for the weather

that's in it; but, in the manetime, to set you a dacent patthern, I'll

just take this myself,”--saying which, with the jar still upon its

side, and the fore-finger of his left hand in his neck, he swallowed

the spirits--“It's the first I dhrank to-night,” he added, “nor would

I dhrink it now, only to show you that I've heart an' spirit to do the

thing that we're all bound an' sworn to, when the proper time comes;”

after which he laid down the glass, and turned up the jar, with much

coolness, upon the altar.

During our conversation, those who had been summoned to this mysterious

meeting were pouring in fast; and as each person approached the altar,

he received from one to two or three glasses of whiskey, according as he

chose to limit himself; but, to do them justice, there were not a few

of those present, who, in despite of their own desire, and the Captain's

express invitation, refused to taste it in the house of God's worship.

Such, however, as were scrupulous he afterwards recommended to take it

on the outside of the chapel door, which they did, as, by that means,

the sacrilege of the act was supposed to be evaded.

About one o'clock they were all assembled except six: at least so the

Captain asserted, on looking at a written paper.

“Now, boys,” said he in the same low voice, “we are all present except

the thraitors, whose names I am goin' to read to you; not that we are to

count thim thraitors, till we know whether or not it was in their power

to come. Any how, the night's terrible--but, boys, you're to know, that

neither fire nor wather is to prevint you, when duly summoned to attind

a meeting--particularly whin the summons is widout a name, as you have

been told that there is always something of consequence to be done

thin.”

He then read out the names of those who were absent, in order that the

real cause of their absence might be ascertained, declaring that they

would be dealt with accordingly. |

After this, with his usual caution, he shut and bolted the door, and

having put the key in his pocket, ascended the steps of the altar,

and for some time traversed the little platform from which the priest

usually addresses the congregation.

Until this night I had never contemplated the man's countenance with any

particular interest; but as he walked the platform, I had an opportunity

of observing him more closely. He was slight in person, apparently not

thirty; and, on a first view, appeared to have nothing remarkable in his

dress or features. I, however, was not the only person whose eyes were

fixed upon him at that moment; in fact, every one present observed him

with equal interest, for hitherto he had kept the object of the meeting

perfectly secret, and of course we all felt anxious to know it. It was

while he traversed the platform that I scrutinized his features with a

hope, if possible, to glean from them some evidence of what was passing

within him. I could, however, mark but little, and that little was at

first rather from the intelligence which seemed to subsist between him

and those whom I have already mentioned as standing against the altar,

than from any indication of his own. Their gleaming eyes were fixed upon

him with an intensity of savage and demon-like hope, which blazed out in

flashes of malignant triumph, as upon turning, he threw a cool but rapid

glance at them, to intimate the progress he was making in the subject to

which he devoted the undivided energies of his mind. But in the course

of his meditation, I could observe, on one or two occasions, a dark

shade come over his countenance, that contracted his brow into a deep

furrow, and it was then, for the first time, that I saw the satanic

expression of which his face, by a very slight motion of its muscles,

was capable. His hands, during this silence, closed and opened

convulsively; his eyes shot out two or three baleful glances, first to

his confederates, and afterwards vacantly into the deep gloom of the

lower part of the chapel; his teeth ground against each other, like

those of a man whose revenge burns to reach a distant enemy, and

finally, after having wound himself up to a certain determination, his

features relapsed into their original calm and undisturbed expression.

At this moment a loud laugh, having something supernatural in it, rang

out wildly from the darkness of the chapel; he stopped, and putting his

open hand over his brows, peered down into the gloom, and said calmly in

Irish, “_Bee dhu husth; ha nih anam inh_:--hold your tongue, it is not

yet time.”

Every eye was now directed to the same spot, but, in consequence of its

distance from the dim light on the altar, none could perceive the person

from whom the laugh proceeded. It was, by this time, near two o'clock in

the morning.

He now stood for a few moments on the platform, and his chest heaved

with a depth of anxiety equal to the difficulty of the design he wished

to accomplish.

“Brothers,” said he--“for we are all brothers--sworn upon all that's

blessed an' holy, to obey whatever them that's over us, manin' among

ourselves, wishes us to do--are you now ready, in the name of God, upon

whose althar I stand, to fulfil yer oaths?”

The words were scarcely uttered, when those who had stood beside the

altar during the night, sprang from their places, and descending its

steps rapidly turned round, and raising their arms, exclaimed, “By all

that's good an' holy we're willin'.”

In the meantime, those who sat upon the steps of the altar, instantly

rose, and following the example of those who had just spoken, exclaimed

after them, “To be sure--by all that's sacred an' holy we're willin'.”

“Now, boys,” said the Captain, “ar'n't ye big fools for your pains? an'

one of ye doesn't know what I mane.”

“You're our Captain,” said one of those who had stood at the altar, “an'

has yer ordhers from higher quarthers; of coorse, whatever ye command

upon us we're bound to obey you in.”

“Well,” said he, smiling, “I only wanted to thry yez; an' by the oath

ye tuck, there's not a captain in the county has as good a right to be

proud of his min as I have. Well, ye won't rue it, maybe, when the right

time comes; and for that same rason every one of ye must have a glass

from the jar; thim that won't dhrink it in the chapel can dhrink it

widout; an' here goes to open the door for thim.”

He then distributed another glass to every one who would accept it, and

brought the jar afterwards to the chapel door, to satisfy the scruples

of those who would not drink within. When this was performed, and all

duly excited, he proceeded:--

“Now, brothers, you are solemnly sworn to obay me, and I'm sure there's

no thraithur here that 'ud parjure himself for a thrifle; but I'm sworn

to obay them that's above me, manin' still among ourselves; an' to show

that I don't scruple to do it, here goes!”

He then turned round, and taking the Missal between his hands placed it

upon the altar. Hitherto every word was uttered in a low precautionary

tone; but on grasping the book he again turned round, and looking upon

his confederates with the same satanic expression which marked his

countenance before, he exclaimed, in a voice of deep determination,

first kissing the book!

[Illustration: PAGE WG939-- By this sacred an' holy book of God]

“By this sacred an' holy book of God, I will perform the action which we

have met this night to accomplish, be that what it may; an' this I swear

upon God's book, and God's althar!”

On concluding, he struck the book violently with his open hand, thereby

occasioning a very loud report.

At this moment the candle which burned before him went suddenly out, and

the chapel was wrapped in pitchy darkness; the sound as if of rushing

wings fell upon our ears, and fifty voices dwelt upon the last words of

his oath with wild and supernatural tones, that seemed to echo and to

mock what he had sworn. There was a pause, and an exclamation of

horror from all present; but the Captain was too cool and steady to be

disconcerted. He immediately groped about until he got the candle,

and proceeding calmly to a remote corner of the chapel, took up a

half-burned peat which lay there, and after some trouble succeeded in

lighting it again. He then explained what had taken place; which indeed

was easily done, as the candle happened to be extinguished by a pigeon

which sat directly above it. The chapel, I should have observed, was at

this time, like many country chapels, unfinished inside, and the pigeons

of a neighboring dove-cot had built nests among the rafters of the

unceiled roof; which circumstance also explained the rushing of the

wings, for the birds had been affrighted by the sudden loudness of

the noise. The mocking voices were nothing but the echoes, rendered

naturally more awful by the scene, the mysterious object of the meeting,

and the solemn hour of the night.

When the candle was again lighted, and these startling circumstances

accounted for, the persons whose vengeance had been deepening more and

more during the night, rushed to the altar in a body, where each, in

a voice trembling with passionate eagerness, repeated the oath, and as

every word was pronounced, the same echoes heightened the wildness

of the horrible ceremony, by their long and unearthly tones. The

countenances of these human tigers were livid with suppressed rage;

their knit brows, compressed lips, and kindled eyes, fell under the dim

light of the taper, with an expression calculated to sicken any heart

not absolutely diabolical.

As soon as this dreadful rite was completed, we were again startled by

several loud bursts of laughter, which proceeded from the lower darkness

of the chapel; and the Captain, on hearing them, turned to the

place, and reflecting for a moment, said in Irish, “_Gutsho nish,

avohenee_--come hither now, boys.”

A rush immediately took place from the corner in which they had secreted

themselves all the night; and seven men appeared, whom we instantly

recognized as brothers and cousins of certain persons who had been

convicted, some time before, for breaking into the house of an honest

poor man in the neighborhood, from whom, after having treated him with

barbarous violence, they took away such fire-arms as he kept for his own

protection.

It was evidently not the Captain's intention to have produced these

persons until the oath should have been generally taken, but the

exulting mirth with which they enjoyed the success of his scheme

betrayed them, and put him to the necessity of bringing them forward

somewhat before the concerted moment.

The scene which now took place was beyond all power of description;

peals of wild, fiendlike yells rang through the chapel, as the party

which stood on the altar and that which had crouched in the darkness

met; wringing of hands, leaping in triumph, striking of sticks and

fire-arms against the ground and the altar itself, dancing and cracking

of fingers, marked the triumph of some hellish determination. Even the

Captain for a time was unable to restrain their fury; but, at length, he

mounted the platform before the altar once more, and with a stamp of his

foot, recalled their attention to himself and the matter in hand.

“Boys,” said he, “enough of this, and too much; an' well for us it is

that the chapel is in a lonely place, or our foolish noise might do us

no good. Let thim that swore so manfully jist now, stand a one side,

till the rest kiss the book one by one.”

The proceedings, however, had by this time taken too fearful a shape for

even the Captain to compel them to a blindfold oath; the first man he

called flatly refused to answer, until he should hear the nature of the

service that was required. This was echoed by the remainder, who, taking

courage from the firmness of this person, declared generally that, until

they first knew the business they were to execute, none of them would

take the oath. The Captain's lip quivered slightly, and his brow again

became knit with the same hellish expression, which I have remarked

gave him so much the appearance of an, embodied fiend; but this speedily

passed away, and was succeeded by a malignant sneer, in which lurked,

if there ever did in a sneer, “a laughing devil,” calmly, determinedly

atrocious.

“It wasn't worth yer whiles to refuse the oath,” said he, mildly, “for

the truth is, I had next to nothing for yez to do. Not a hand, maybe,

would have to rise, only jist to look on, an' if any resistance would

be made, to show yourselves; yer numbers would soon make them see

that resistance would be, no use whatever in the present case. At all,

evints, the oath of secrecy must be taken, or woe be to him that will

refuse that; he won't know the day, nor the hour, nor the minute, when

he'll be made a spatch-cock of.”

He then turned round, and, placing his right hand on the Missal, swore,

“In the presence of God, and before his holy altar, that whatever might

take place that night he would keep secret, from man or mortal, except

the priest, and that neither bribery, nor imprisonment, nor death, would

wring it from his heart.”

Having done this, he again struck the book violently, as if to confirm

the energy with which he swore, and then calmly descending the steps,

stood with a serene countenance, like a man conscious of having

performed a good action. As this oath did not pledge those who refused

to take the other to the perpetration of any specific crime, it was

readily taken by all present. Preparations were then made to execute

what was intended: the half burned turf was placed in a little pot;

another glass of whiskey was distributed; and the door being locked

by the Captain, who kept the key as parish clerk and schoolmaster, the

crowd departed silently from the chapel.

The moment those who lay in the darkness, during the night, made their

appearance at the altar, we knew at once the persons we were to visit;

for, as I said before, they were related to the miscreants whom one of

those persons had convicted, in consequences of their midnight attack

upon himself and his family. The Captain's object in keeping them unseen

was, that those present, not being aware of the duty about to be imposed

on them, might have less hesitation about swearing to its fulfilment.

Our conjectures were correct; for on leaving the chapel we directed our

steps to the house in which this devoted man resided.

The night was still stormy, but without rain: it was rather dark, too,

though not so as to prevent us from seeing the clouds careering swiftly

through the air. The dense curtain which had overhung and obscured the

horizon was now broken, and large sections of the sky were clear, and

thinly studded with stars that looked dim and watery, as did indeed the

whole firmament; for in some places black clouds were still visible,

threatening a continuance of tempestuous weather. The road appeared

washed and gravelly; every dike was full of yellow water; and every

little rivulet and larger stream dashed its hoarse murmur into our ears;

every blast, too, was cold, fierce, and wintry, sometimes driving us

back to a standstill, and again, when a turn in the road would bring

it in our backs, whirling us along for a few steps with involuntary

rapidity. At length the fated dwelling became visible, and a short

consultation was held in a sheltered place, between the Captain and the

two parties who seemed so eager for its destruction. Their fire-arms

were now loaded, and their bayonets and short pikes, the latter shod and

pointed with iron, were also got ready. The live coal which was brought

in the small pot had become extinguished; but to remedy this, two or

three persons from a remote part of the county entered a cabin on the

wayside, and, under pretence of lighting their own and their comrades'

pipes, procured a coal of fire, for so they called a lighted turf. From

the time we left the chapel until this moment a profound silence had

been maintained, a circumstance which, when I considered the number of

persons present, and the mysterious and dreaded object of their journey,

had a most appalling effect upon my spirits.

At length we arrived within fifty perches of the house, walking in a

compact body, and with as little noise as possible; but it seemed as

if the very elements had conspired to frustrate our design, for on

advancing within the shade of the farm-hedge, two or three persons found

themselves up to the middle in water, and on stooping to ascertain more

accurately the state of the place, we could see nothing but one immense

sheet of it--spread like a lake over the meadows which surrounded the

spot we wished to reach.

Fatal night! The very recollection of it, when associated with the

fearful tempests of elements, grows, if that were possible, yet more

wild and revolting. Had we been engaged in any innocent or benevolent

enterprise, there was something in our situation just then that had a

touch of interest in it to a mind imbued with a relish for the savage

beauties of nature. There we stood, about a hundred and thirty in

number, our dark forms bent forward, peering into the dusky expanse of

water, with its dim gleams of reflected light, broken by the weltering

of the mimic waves into ten thousand fragments, whilst the few stars

that overhung it in the firmament appeared to shoot through it in broken

lines, and to be multiplied fifty-fold in the gloomy mirror on which we

gazed.

Over us was a stormy sky, and around us; a darkness through which we

could only distinguish, in outline, the nearest objects, whilst the wild

wind swept strongly and dismally upon us. When it was discovered that

the common pathway to the house was inundated, we were about to abandon

our object and return home. The Captain, however, stooped down low for

a moment, and, almost closing his eyes, looked along the surface of the

waters; and then, rising himself very calmly, said, in his usually quiet

tone, “Ye needn't go back, boys, I've found a way; jist follow me.”

He immediately took a more circuitous direction, by which we reached a

causeway that had been raised for the purpose of giving a free passage

to and from the house, during such inundations as the present. Along

this we had advanced more than half way, when we discovered a breach

in it, which, as afterwards appeared, had that night been made by the

strength of the flood. This, by means of our sticks and pikes, we found

to be about three feet deep, and eight yards broad. Again we were at

a loss how to proceed, when the fertile brain of the Captain devised a

method of crossing it.

“Boys,” said he, “of coorse you've all played at leap-frog; very well,

strip and go in, a dozen of you, lean one upon the back of another from

this to the opposite bank, where one must stand facing the outside

man, both their shoulders agin one another, that the outside man may be

supported. Then we can creep over you, an' a dacent bridge you'll be,

any way.”

This was the work of only a few minutes, and in less than ten we were

all safely over.

Merciful Heaven! how I sicken at the recollection of what is to follow!

On reaching the dry bank, we proceeded instantly, and in profound

silence, to the house; the Captain divided us into companies, and then

assigned to each division its proper station. The two parties who had

been so vindictive all the night, he kept about himself; for of those

who were present, they only were in his confidence, and knew his

nefarious purpose; their number was about fifteen. Having made these

dispositions, he, at the head of about five of them, approached the

house on the windy side, for the fiend possessed a coolness which

enabled him to seize upon every possible advantage. That he had

combustibles about him was evident, for in less than fifteen minutes

nearly one-half of the house was enveloped in flames. On seeing this,

the others rushed over to the spot where he and his gang were standing,

and remonstrated earnestly, but in vain; the flames now burst forth with

renewed violence, and as they flung their strong light upon the faces

of the foremost group, I think hell itself could hardly present anything

more satanic than their countenances, now worked up into a paroxysm of

infernal triumph at their own revenge. The Captain's look had lost all

its calmness, every feature started out into distinct malignity, the

curve in his brow was deep, and ran up,to the root of the hair, dividing

his face into two segments, that did not seem to have been designed

for each other. His lips were half open, and the corners of his mouth a

little brought back on each side, like those of a man expressing intense

hatred and triumph over an enemy who is in the death-struggle under his

grasp. His eyes blazed from beneath his knit eyebrows with a fire that

seemed to be lighted up in the infernal pit itself. It is unnecessary,

and only painful, to describe the rest of his gang; demons might have

been proud of such horrible visages as they exhibited; for they worked

under all the power of hatred, revenge, and joy; and these passions

blended into one terrible scowl, enough almost to blast any human eye

that would venture to look upon it.

When the others attempted to intercede for the lives of the inmates,

there were at least fifteen guns and pistols levelled at them.

“Another word,” said the Captain, “an' you're a corpse where you stand,

or the first man who will dare to spake for them; no, no, it wasn't to

spare them we came here. 'No mercy' is the pass-word for the night, an'

by the sacred oath I swore beyant in the chapel, any one among yez that

will attempt to show it, will find none at my hand. Surround the house,

boys, I tell ye, I hear them stirring. 'No quarter--no mercy,' is the

ordher of the night.”

Such was his command over these misguided creatures, that in an instant

there was a ring round the house to prevent the escape of the unhappy

inmates, should the raging element give them time to attempt it; for

none present durst withdraw themselves from the scene, not only from an

apprehension of the Captain's present vengeance, or that of his gang,

but because they knew that even had they then escaped, an early and

certain death awaited them from a quarter against which they had

no means of defence. The hour now was about half-past two! o'clock.

Scarcely had the last words escaped from the Captain's lips, when one of

the windows of the house was broken, and a human head, having the hair

in a blaze, was descried, apparently a woman's, if one might judge

by the profusion of burning tresses, and the softness of the tones,

notwithstanding that it called, or rather shrieked aloud for help and

mercy. The only reply to this was the whoop from the Captain and his

gang, of “No mercy--no mercy!” and that instant the former, and one of

the latter, rushed to the spot, and ere the action could be perceived,

the head was transfixed with a bayonet and a pike, both having entered

it together. The word “mercy” was divided in her mouth; a short silence

ensued, the head hung down on the window, but was instantly tossed back

into the flames.

This action occasioned a cry of horror from all present, except the gang

and their leader, which startled and enraged the latter so much, that he

ran towards one of them, and had his bayonet, now reeking with the blood

of its innocent victim, raised to plunge it in his body, when, dropping

the point, he said in a piercing whisper, that hissed in the ears of

all: “It's no use now, you know; if one's to hang, all will hang; so our

safest way, you persave, is to lave none of them to tell the story. Ye

may go now, if you wish; but it won't save a hair of your heads. You

cowardly set! I knew if I had tould yez the sport, that none of you,

except my own boys, would come, so I jist played a thrick upon you; but

remimber what you are sworn to, and stand to the oath ye tuck.”

Unhappily, notwithstanding the wetness of the preceding weather, the

materials of the house were extremely combustible; the whole dwelling

was now one body of glowing flame, yet the shouts and shrieks within

rose awfully above its crackling and the voice of the storm, for the

wind once more blew in gusts, and with great violence. The doors and

windows were all torn open, and such of those within as had escaped the

flames rushed towards them, for the purpose of further escape, and

of claiming mercy at the hands of their destroyers; but whenever they

appeared, the unearthly cry of “no mercy” rang upon their ears for a

moment, and for a moment only, for they were flung back at the points of

the weapons which the demons had brought with them to make the work of

vengeance more certain.

As yet there were many persons in the house, whose cry for life was

strong as despair, and who clung to it with all the awakened powers

of reason and instinct. The ear of man could hear nothing so strongly

calculated to stifle the demon of cruelty and revenge within him, as the

long and wailing shrieks which rose beyond the elements, in tones that

were carried off rapidly upon the blast, until they died away in the

darkness that lay behind the surrounding hills. Had not the house been

in a solitary situation, and the hour the dead of night, any person

sleeping within a moderate distance must have heard them, for such a cry

of sorrow rising into a yell of despair was almost sufficient to have

awakened, the dead. It was lost, however, upon the hearts and ears that

heard it: to them, though in justice be it said, to only comparatively

a few of them, it appeared as delightful as the tones of soft and

entrancing music.

The claims of the surviving sufferers were now modified; they

supplicated merely to suffer death by the weapons of their enemies; they

were willing to bear that, provided they should be allowed to escape

from the flames; but no--the horrors of the conflagration were

calmly and malignantly gloried in by their merciless assassins, who

deliberately flung them back into all their tortures. In the course of

a few minutes a man appeared upon the side-wall of the house, nearly

naked; his figure, as he stood against the sky in horrible relief, was

so finished a picture of woebegone agony and supplication, that it is

yet as distinct in my memory as if I were again present at the scene.

Every muscle, now in motion by the powerful agitation of his sufferings,

stood out upon his limbs and neck, giving him an appearance of desperate

strength, to which by this time he must have been wrought up; the

perspiration poured from his frame, and the veins and arteries of his

neck were inflated to a surprising thickness. Every moment he looked

down into the flames which were rising to where he stood; and as he

looked, the indescribable horror which flitted over his features might

have worked upon the devil himself to relent. His words were few:--

“My child,” said he, “is still safe, she is an infant, a young crathur

that never harmed you, or any one--she is still safe. Your mothers, your

wives, have young innocent childhre like it. Oh, spare her, think for a

moment that it's one of your own; spare it, as you hope to meet a just

God, or if you don't, in mercy shoot me first--put an end to me, before

I see her burned!”

The Captain approached him coolly and deliberately. “You'll prosecute no

one now, you bloody informer,” said he: “you'll convict no more boys for

takin' an ould gun an' pistol from you, or for givin' you a neighborly

knock or two into the bargain.”

Just then, from a window opposite him, proceeded the shrieks of a woman,

who appeared at it with the infant, in her arms. She herself was almost

scorched to death; but, with the presence of mind and humanity of her

sex, she was about to put the little babe out of the window. The Captain

noticed this, and, with characteristic atrocity, thrust, with a sharp

bayonet, the little innocent, along with the person who endeavored to

rescue it, into the red flames, where they both perished. This was the

work of an instant. Again he approached the man: “Your child is a coal

now,” said he, with deliberate mockery; “I pitched it in myself, on the

point of this,”--showing the weapon--“an' now is your turn,”--saying

which, he clambered up, by the assistance of his gang, who stood with

a front of pikes and bayonets bristling to receive the wretched man,

should he attempt, in his despair, to throw himself from the wall.

The Captain got up, and placing the point of his bayonet against his

shoulder, flung him into the fiery element that raged behind him. He

uttered one wild and terrific cry, as he fell back, and no more. After

this nothing was heard but the crackling of the fire, and the rushing of

the blast; all that had possessed life within were consumed, amounting

either to eight or eleven persons.

When this was accomplished, those who took an active part in the murder,

stood for some time about the conflagration; and as it threw its red

light upon their fierce faces and rough persons, soiled as they now were

with smoke and black streaks of ashes, the scene seemed to be changed to

hell, the murderers to spirits of the damned, rejoicing over the arrival

and the torture of some guilty soul. The faces of those who kept aloof

from the slaughter were blanched to the whiteness of death: some of them

fainted, and others were in such agitation that they were compelled to

lean on their comrades. They became actually powerless with horror:

yet to such a scene were they brought by the pernicious influence of

Ribbonism.

It was only when the last victim went down, that the conflagration shot

up into the air with most unbounded fury. The house was large, deeply

thatched, and well furnished; and the broad red pyramid rose up with

fearful magnificence towards the sky. Abstractedly it had sublimity, but

now it was associated with nothing in my mind but blood and terror. It

was not, however, without a purpose that the Captain and his gang stood

to contemplate its effect. “Boys,” said he, “we had betther be sartin

that all's safe; who knows but there might be some of the sarpents

crouchin' under a hape o' rubbish, to come out an' gibbet us to-morrow

or next day: we had betther wait a while, anyhow, if it was only to see

the blaze.”

Just then the flames rose majestically to a surprising height. Our eyes

followed their direction; and we perceived, for the first time, that

the dark clouds above, together with the intermediate air, appeared

to reflect back, or rather to have caught the red hue of the fire. The

hills and country about us appeared with an alarming distinctness; but

the most picturesque part of it was the effect of reflection of the

blaze on the floods that spread over the surrounding plains. These, in

fact, appeared to be one broad mass of liquid copper, for the motion of

the breaking-waters caught from the blaze of the high waving column,

as reflected in them, a glaring light, which eddied, and rose, and

fluctuated, as if the flood itself had been a lake of molten fire.

Fire, however, destroys rapidly. In a short time the flames sank--became

weak and flickering--by and by, they shot out only in fits--the

crackling of the timbers died away--the surrounding darkness

deepened--and, ere long, the faint light was overpowered by the thick

volumes of smoke that rose from the ruins of the house and its murdered

inhabitants.

“Now, boys,” said the Captain, “all is safe--we may go. Remember,

every man of you, what you've sworn this night, on the book an' altar of

God--not on a heretic Bible. If you perjure yourselves, you may hang

us; but let me tell you, for your comfort, that if you do, there is

them livin' that will take care the lease of your own lives will be but

short.”

After this we dispersed every man to his own home.

Reader,--not many months elapsed ere I saw the bodies of this Captain,

whose name was Patrick Devann, and all those who were actively concerned

in the perpetration of this deed of horror, withering in the wind, where

they hung gibbeted, near the scene of their nefarious villany; and

while I inwardly thanked Heaven for my own narrow and almost undeserved

escape, I thought in my heart how seldom, even in this world, justice

fails to overtake the murder, and to enforce the righteous judgment of

God--that “whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

*****

This tale of terror is, unfortunately, too true. The scene of hellish

murder detailed in it lies at Wildgoose Lodge, in the county of Louth,

within about four miles of Carrickmacross, and nine of Dundalk. No such

multitudinous murder has occurred, under similar circumstances, except

the burning of the Sheas, in the county of Tipperary. The name of the

family burned in Wildgoose Lodge was Lynch. One of them had, shortly

before this fatal night, prosecuted and convicted some of the

neighboring Ribbonmen, who visited him with severe marks of their

displeasure, in consequence of his having refused to enrol himself as

a member of their body. The language of the story is partly fictitious;

but the facts are pretty closely such as were developed during the

trial of the murderers. Both parties were Roman Catholics, and either

twenty-five or twenty-eight of those who took an active part in the

burning, were hanged and gibbeted in different parts of the county of

Louth. Devann, the ringleader, hung for some months in chains, within

about a hundred yards of his own house, and about half a mile from

Wildgoose Lodge. His mother could neither go into nor out of her cabin

without seeing his body swinging from the gibbet. Her usual exclamation

on looking at him was--“God be good to the sowl of my poor marthyr!”

The peasantry, too, frequently exclaimed, on seeing him, “Poor Paddy!” A

gloomy fact that speaks volumes!

TUBBER DERG; Or, THE RED WELL.

The following story owes nothing to any coloring or invention of

mine; it is unhappily a true one, and to me possesses a peculiar and

melancholy interest, arising from my intimate knowledge of the man whose

fate it holds up as a moral lesson to Irish landlords. I knew him well,

and many a day and hour have I played about his knee, and ran, in my

boyhood, round his path, when, as he said to himself, the world was no

trouble to him.

On the south side of a sloping tract of light ground, lively, warm,

and productive, stood a white, moderate-sized farm-house, which, in

consequence of its conspicuous situation, was a prominent and, we may

add, a graceful object in the landscape of which it formed a part. The

spot whereon it stood was a swelling natural terrace, the soil of which

was heavier and richer than that of the adjoining lands. On each side

of the house stood a clump of old beeches, the only survivors of that

species then remaining in the country. These beeches extended behind the

house in a land of angle, with opening, enough at their termination to

form a vista, through which its white walls glistened with beautiful

effect in the calm splendor of a summer evening. Above the mound on

which it stood, rose two steep hills, overgrown with furze and fern,

except on their tops, which were clothed with purple heath; they were

also covered with patches of broom, and studded with gray rocks, which

sometimes rose singly or in larger masses, pointed or rounded into

curious and fantastic shapes. Exactly between these hills the sun went

down during the month of June, and nothing could be in finer relief

than the rocky and picturesque outlines of their sides, as crowned with

thorns and clumps of wild ash, they appeared to overhang the valley

whose green foliage was gilded by the sun-beams, which lit up the scene

into radiant beauty. The bottom of this natural chasm, which opened

against the deep crimson of the evening sky, was nearly upon a level

with the house, and completely so with the beeches that surrounded it.

Brightly did the sinking sun fall upon their tops, whilst the neat white

house below, in their quiet shadow, sent up its wreath of smoke

among their branches, itself an emblem of contentment, industry, and

innocence. It was, in fact, a lovely situation; perhaps the brighter

to me, that its remembrance is associated with days of happiness and

freedom from the cares of a world, which, like a distant mountain,

darkens as we approach it, and only exhausts us in struggling to climb

its rugged and barren paths.

There was to the south-west of this house another little hazel glen,

that ended in a precipice formed, by a single rock some thirty feet,

high, over which tumbled a crystal cascade into a basin worn in its

hard bed below. From this basin the stream murmured away through the

copse-wood, until it joined a larger rivulet that passed, with many a

winding, through a fine extent of meadows adjoining it. Across the foot

of this glen, and past the door of the house we have described, ran a

bridle road, from time immemorial; on which, as the traveller ascended

it towards the house, he appeared to track his way in blood, for a

chalybeate spa arose at its head, oozing out of the earth, and spread

itself in a crimson stream over the path in every spot whereon a

foot-mark could be made. From this circumstance it was called Tubber

Derg, or the Red Well. In the meadow where the glen terminated, was

another spring of delicious crystal; and clearly do I remember the

ever-beaten pathway that led to it through the grass, and up the green

field which rose in a gentle slope to the happy-looking house of Owen

M'Carthy, for so was the man called who resided under its peaceful roof.

I will not crave your pardon, gentle reader, for dwelling at such length

upon a scene so clear to my heart as this, because I write not now so

much for your gratification as my own. Many an eve of gentle May have

I pulled the Maygowans which grew about that well, and over that smooth

meadow.

Often have I raised my voice to its shrillest pitch, that I might hear

its echoes rebounding in the bottom of the green and still glen, where

silence, so to speak, was deepened by the continuous murmur of the

cascade above; and when the cuckoo uttered her first note from among the

hawthorns on its side, with what trembling anxiety did I, an urchin of

some eight or nine years, look under my right foot for the white hair,

whose charm was such, that by keeping it about me the first female name

I should hear was destined, I believed in my soul, to be that of my

future wife.* Sweet was the song of the thrush, and mellow the whistle

of the blackbird, as they rose in the stillness of evening over the

“hirken shaws” and green dells of this secluded spot of rural beauty.

Far, too, could the rich voice of Owen M'Carthy be heard along the hills

and meadows, as, with a little chubby urchin at his knee, and another in

his arms, he sat on a bench beside his own door, singing the “Trouglia”.

in his native Irish; whilst Kathleen his wife, with her two maids, each

crooning a low song, sat before the door milking the cows, whose sweet

breath mingled its perfume with the warm breeze of evening.

Owen M'Carthy was descended from a long-line of honest ancestors,

whose names had never, within the memory of man, been tarnished by

the commission of a mean or disreputable action. They were always a

kind-hearted family, but stern and proud in the common intercourse of

life. They believed; themselves to be, and probably were, a branch of

the MacCarthy More stock; and, although only the possessors of a small

farm, it was singular to observe the effect which this conviction

produced upon their bearing and manners. To it might, perhaps,

be attributed the high and stoical integrity for which they were

remarkable. This severity, however, was no proof that they wanted

feeling, or were insensible to the misery and sorrows of others: in

all the little cares and perplexities that chequered the peaceful

neighborhood in which they lived, they were ever the first to console,

or, if necessary, to support a distressed neighbor with the means which

God had placed in their possession; for, being industrious, they were

seldom poor. Their words were few, but sincere, and generally promised

less than the honest hearts that dictated them intended to perform.

There is in some persons a hereditary feeling of just principle, the

result neither of education nor of a clear moral sense, but rather a

kind of instinctive honesty which descends, like a constitutional

bias, from father to son, pervading every member of the family. It is

difficult to define this, or to assign its due position in the scale

of human virtues. It exists in the midst of the grossest ignorance, and

influences the character in the absence of better principles. Such was

the impress which marked so strongly the family of which I speak. No one

would ever think of imputing a dishonest act to the M'Carthys; nor would

any person acquainted with them, hesitate for a moment to consider their

word as good as the bond of another. I do not mean to say, however, that

their motives of action were not higher than this instinctive honesty;

far from it: but I say, that they possessed it in addition to a strong

feeling of family pride, and a correct knowledge of their moral duties.

* Such is the superstition; and, as I can tell,

faithfully is it believed.

I can only take up Owen M'Carthy at that part of the past to which my

memory extends. He was then a tall, fine-looking young man; silent, but

kind. One of the earliest events within my recollection is his wedding;

after that the glimpse of his state and circumstances are imperfect; but

as I grew up, they became more connected, and I am able to remember him

the father of four children; an industrious, inoffensive small farmer,

beloved, respected, and honored. No man could rise, be it ever so early,

who would not find Owen up before him; no man could anticipate him in an

early crop, and if a widow or a sick acquaintance were unable to get in

their harvest, Owen was certain to collect the neighbors to assist them;

to be the first there himself, with quiet benevolence, encouraging

them to a zealous performance of the friendly task in which they were

engaged.

It was, I believe, soon after his marriage, that the lease of the farm

held by him expired. Until that time he had been able to live with

perfect independence; but even the enormous rise of one pound per acre,

though it deprived him in a great degree of his usual comforts, did not

sink him below the bare necessaries of life. For some years after that

he could still serve a deserving neighbor; and never was the hand of

Owen M'Carthy held back from the wants and distresses of those whom he

knew to be honest.

I remember once an occasion upon which a widow Murray applied to him for

a loan of five pounds, to prevent her two cows from being auctioned

for a half year's rent, of which she only wanted that sum. Owen sat at

dinner with his family when she entered the house in tears, and, as well

as her agitation of mind permitted, gave him a detailed account of her

embarrassment.

“The blessin' o' God be upon all here,” said she, on entering.

“The double o' that to you, Rosha,” replied Owen's wife: “won't you sit

in an' be atin'?--here's a sate beside Nanny; come over, Rosha.”

Owen only nodded to her, and continued to eat his dinner, as if he felt

no interest in her distress. Rosha sat down at a distance, and with the

corner of a red handkerchief to her eyes, shed tears in that bitterness

of feeling which marks the helplessness of honest industry under the

pressure of calamity.

“In the name o' goodness, Rosha,” said Mrs. M'Carthy, “what ails you,

asthore? Sure Jimmy--God spare him to you--wouldn't be dead?”

“Glory be to God! no, avourneen machree. Och, och! but it 'ud be the

black sight, an' the black day, that 'ud see my brave, boy, the staff

of our support, an' the bread of our mouth, taken away from us!--No, no,

Kathleen dear, it's not that bad wid me yet. I hope we'll never live to

see his manly head laid down before us. 'Twas his own manliness, indeed,

brought it an him--backin' the sack when he was bringin' home our last

_meldhre_ * from the mill; for you see he should do it, the crathur, to

show his strinth, an' the sack, when he got it an was too heavy for him,

an' hurted the small of his back; for his bones, you see, are too young,

an' hadn't time to fill up yet. No, avourneen. Glory be to God! he's

gettin' betther wid me!” and the poor creature's eyes glistened with

delight through her tears and the darkness of her affliction.

Without saying a word, Owen, when she finished the eulogium on her

son, rose, and taking her forcibly by the shoulder, set her down at the

table, on which a large potful of potatoes had been spread out, with

a circle in the middle for a dish of rashers and eggs, into which dish

every right hand of those about it was thrust, with a quickness that

clearly illustrated the principle of competition as a stimulus to

action.

“Spare your breath,” said Owen, placing her rather roughly upon the

seat, “an' take share of what's goin': when all's cleared off we'll hear

you, but the sorra word till then.”

“Musha, Owen,” said the poor woman, “you're the same man still; sure

we all know your ways; I'll strive, avourneen, to ate--I'll strive,

asthore--to plase you, an' the Lord bless you an' yours, an' may you

never be as I an' my fatherless childhre are this sorrowful day!” and

she accompanied her words by a flood of tears.

* Meldhre--whatever quantity of grain is brought to the

mill to be ground on one occasion.

Owen, without evincing the slightest sympathy, withdrew himself from the

table. Not a muscle of his face was moved; but as the cat came about his

feet at the time, he put his foot under her, and flung her as easily as

possible to the lower end of the kitchen.

“Arrah, what harm did the crathur do,” asked his wife, “that you'd kick

her for, that way? an' why but you ate out your dinner?”

“I'm done,” he replied, “but that's no rason that Rosha, an' you, an'

thim boys that has the work afore them, shouldn't finish your male's

mate.”

Poor Rosha thought that by his withdrawing he had already suspected

the object of her visit, and of course concluded that her chance of

succeeding was very slender.

The wife, who guessed what she wanted, as well as the nature of her

suspicion, being herself as affectionate and obliging as Owen, reverted

to the subject, in order to give her an opportunity of proceeding.

“Somethin' bitther an' out o' the common coorse, is a throuble to you,

Rosha,” said she, “or you wouldn't be in the state you're in. The Lord

look down on you this day, you poor crathur--widout the father of your

childhre to stand up for you, an' your only other depindance laid on the

broad of his back, all as one as a cripple; but no matther, Rosha; trust

to Him that can be a husband to you an' a father to your orphans--trust

to Him, an' his blessed mother in heaven, this day, an' never fear but

they'll rise up a frind for you. Musha, Owen, ate your dinner as you

ought to do, wid your capers! How can you take a spade in your hand upon

that morsel?”

“Finish your own,” said her husband, “an' never heed me; jist let me

alone. Don't you see that if I wanted it, I'd ate it, an' what more

would you have about!”

“Well, acushla, it's your own loss, sure, of a sartinty. An' Rosha,

whisper, ahagur, what can Owen or I do for you? Throth, it would be a

bad day we'd see you at a _deshort_ * for a friend, for you never wor

nothin' else nor a civil, oblagin' neighbor yourself; an' him that's

gone before--the Lord make his bed in heaven this day--was as good a

warrant as ever broke bread, to sarve a friend, if it was at the hour of

midnight.”

* That is at a loss; or more properly speaking, taken

short, which it means.

“Ah! when I had him!” exclaimed the distracted widow, “I never had

occasion to trouble aither friend or neighbor; but he s gone an' now

it's otherwise wid me--glory be to God for all his mercies--a wurrah

dheelish! Why, thin, since I must spake, an' has no other frind to go

to--but somehow I doubt Owen looks dark upon me--sure I'd put my hand to

a stamp, if my word wouldn't do for it, an' sign the blessed crass that

saved us, for the payment of it; or I'd give it to him in oats, for I

hear you want some, Owen--Phatie oates it is, an' a betther shouldhered

or fuller-lookin' grain never went undher a harrow--indeed it's it

that's the beauty, all out, if it's good seed you want.”

“What is it for, woman alive?” inquired Owen, as he kicked a

three-legged stool out of his way.”

“What is it for, is it? Och, Owen darlin', sure my two brave cows is

lavin' me. Owen M'Murt, the driver, is over wid me beyant, an' has them

ready to set off wid. I reared them both, the two of them, wid my own

hands; _Cheehoney_, that knows my voice, an' would come to me from the

fardest corner o' the field, an' nothin' will we have--nothin' will my

poor sick boy have--but the black wather, or the dhry salt; besides the

butther of them being lost to us for rent, or a small taste of it, of an

odd time, for poor Jimmy. Owen, next to God, I have no friend to depind

upon but yourself!”

“Me!” said Owen, as if astonished. “Phoo, that's quare enough! Now do

you think, Rosha,--hut, hut, woman alive! Come, boys, you're all done;

out wid you to your spades, an' finish that _meerin_ (* a marsh ditch, a

boundary) before night. Me!--hut, tut!”

“I have it all but five pounds, Owen, an' for the sake of him that's in

his grave--an' that, maybe, is able to put up his prayer for you”--

“An' what would you want me to do, Rosha? Fitther for you to sit down

an' finish your dinner, when it's before you. I'm goin' to get an ould

glove that's somewhere about this chist, for I must weed out that bit

of oats before night, wid a blessin',” and, as he spoke he passed into

another room, as if he had altogether forgotten her solicitation, and in

a few minutes returned.

“Owen, avick!--an' the blessin' of the fatherless be upon you, sure, an'

many a one o' them you have, any how, Owen!”

“Well, Rosha--well?”

“Och, och, Owen, it's low days wid me to be depindin' upon the

sthranger? little thim that reared me ever thought it 'ud come to this.

You know I'm a dacent father's child, an' I have stooped to you, Owen

M'Carthy--what I'd scorn to do to any other but yourself--poor an'

friendless as I stand here before you. Let them take the cows, thin,

from my childhre; but the father of the fatherless will support thim an'

me. Och, but it's well for the O'Donohoes that their landlord lives at

home among themselves, for may the heavens look down on me, I wouldn't

know where to find mine, if one sight of him 'ud save me an' my childre

from the grave! The Agent even, he lives in Dublin, an' how could I lave

my sick boy, an' small girshas by themselves, to go a hundre miles, an'

maybe not see him afther all. Little hopes I'd have from him, even if I

did; he's paid for gatherin' in his rents; but it's well known he wants

the touch of nathur for the sufferins of the poor, an' of them that's

honest in their intintions.”

“I'll go over wid you, Rosha, if that will be of any use,” replied Owen,

composedly; “come, I'll go an' spake to Frank M'Murt.''

“The sorra blame I blame him, Owen,” replied Rosha, “his bread's

depindin' upon the likes of sich doins, an' he can't get over it; but a

word from you, Owen, will save me, for who ever refused to take the word

of a M'Carthy?”

When Owen and the widow arrived at the house of the latter, they found

the situation of the bailiff laughable in the extreme. Her eldest son,

who had been confined to his bed by a hurt received in his back, was

up, and had got the unfortunate driver, who was rather old, wedged in

between the dresser and the wall, where his cracked voice--for he was

asthmatic--was raised to the highest pitch, calling for assistance.

Beside him was a large tub half-filled with water, into which the little

ones were emptying small jugs, carried at the top of their speed from

a puddle before the door. In the meantime, Jemmy was tugging at the

bailiff with all his strength--fortunately for that personage, it was

but little--with the most sincere intention of inverting him into the

tub which contained as much muddy water as would have been sufficient to

make him a subject for the deliberation of a coroner and twelve honest

men. Nothing could be more conscientiously attempted than the task

which Jemmy had proposed to execute: every tug brought out his utmost

strength, and when he failed in pulling down the bailiff, he compensated

himself for his want of success by cuffing his ribs, and peeling his

shins by hard kicks; whilst from those open points which the driver's

grapple with his man naturally exposed, were inflicted on him by the

rejoicing urchins numberless punches of tongs, potato-washers, and

sticks whose points were from time to time hastily thrust into the

coals, that they might more effectually either blind or disable him in

some other manner.

As one of the little ones ran out to fill his jug, he spied his mother

and Owen approaching, on which, with the empty vessel in his hand, he

flew towards them, his little features distorted by glee and ferocity,

wildly mixed up together.

“Oh mudher, mudher--ha, ha, ha!--don't come in yet; don't come in, Owen,

till Jimmy un' huz, an' the Denisses, gets the bailie drownded. We'll

soon have the _bot_ (* tub) full; but Paddy an' Jack Denis have the

eyes a'most pucked out of him; an' Katty's takin' the rapin' hook from,

behind the _cuppet_, to get it about his neck.”

Owen and the widow entered with all haste, precisely at the moment when

Frank's head was dipped, for the first time, into the vessel.

“Is it goin' to murdher him ye are?” said Owen, as he seized Jemmy with

a grasp that transferred him to the opposite end of the house; “hould

back ye pack of young divils, an' let the man up. What did he come to

do but his duty? I tell you, Jimmy, if you wor at yourself, an' in full

strinth, that you'd have the man's blood on you where you stand, and

would suffer as you ought to do for it.”

“There, let me,” replied the lad, his eyes glowing and his veins

swollen with passion; “I don't care if I did. It would be no sin, an' no

disgrace, to hang for the like of him; dacenter to do that, than stale a

creel of turf, or a wisp of straw, 'tanny rate.”

In the meantime the bailiff had raised his head out of the water, and

presented a visage which it was impossible to view with gravity. The

widow's anxiety prevented her from seeing it in a ludicrous light; but

Owen's severe face assumed a grave smile, as the man shook himself and

attempted to comprehend the nature of his situation. The young urchins,

who had fallen back at the appearance of Owen and the widow, now burst

into a peal of mirth, in which, however, Jemmy, whose fiercer passions

had been roused, did not join.

“Frank M'Murt,” said the widow, “I take the mother of heaven to witness,

that it vexes my heart to see you get sich thratement in my place; an'

I wouldn't for the best cow I have that sich a _brieuliagh_ (* squabble)

happened. _Dher charp agusmanim_, (** by my soul and body) Jimmy, but

I'll make you suffer for drawin' down this upon my head, and me had

enough over it afore.”

“I don't care,” replied Jemmy; “whoever comes to take our property from

us, an' us willin' to work will suffer for it. Do you think I'd see thim

crathurs at their dhry phatie, an' our cows standin' in a pound for no

rason? No; high hangin' to me, but I'll split to the skull the first man

that takes them; an' all I'm sorry for is, that it's not the vagabone

Landlord himself that's near me. That's our thanks for paying many

a good pound, in honesty and dacency, to him an' his; lavin' us to a

schamin' agent, an' not even to that same, but to his undher-strap-pers,

that's robbin' us on both sides between them. May hard fortune attind

him, for a landlord! You may tell him this, Frank,--that his wisest plan

is to keep clear of the counthry. Sure, it's a gambler he is, they say;

an' we must be harrished an' racked to support his villany! But wait a

bit; maybe there's a good time comin', when we'll pay our money to thim

that won't be too proud to hear our complaints wid their own ears,

an' who won't turn us over to a divil's limb of an agent. He had need,

anyhow, to get his coffin sooner nor he thinks. What signifies hangin'

in a good cause?” said he, as the tears of keen indignation burst from

his glowing eyes. “It's a dacent death, an' a happy death, when it's

for the right,” he added--for his mind was evidently fixed upon the

contemplation of those means of redress, which the habits of the

country, and the prejudices of the people, present to them in the first

moments of passion.

“It's well that Frank's one of ourselves,” replied Owen, coolly,

“otherwise, Jemmy, you said words that would lay you up by the heels.

As for you, Frank, you must look over this. The boy's the son of dacent

poor parents, an' it's a new thing for him to see the cows druv from the

place. The poor fellow's vexed, too, that he has been so long laid up

wid a sore back; an' so you see one thing or another has put him through

other. Jimmy is warm-hearted afther all, an' will be sorry for it when

he cools, an' renumbers that you wor only doin' your duty.”

“But what am I to do about the cows? Sure, I can't go back widout either

thim or the rint?” said Frank, with a look of fear and trembling at

Jemmy.

“The cows!” said another of the widow's sons who then came in; “why, you

dirty spalpeen of a rip, you may whistle on the wrong side o' your mouth

for them. I druv them off of the estate; an' now take them, if you dar!

It's conthrairy to law,” said the urchin; “an' if you'd touch them, I'd

make my mudher sarve you wid a _lattitat_ or _fiery-flashes_.”

This was a triumph to the youngsters, who, began to shake their little

fists at him, and to exclaim in a chorus--“Ha, you dirty rip! wait till

we get you out o' the house, an' if we don't put you from ever drivin'!

Why, but you work like another!--ha, you'll get it!”--and every little

fist was shook in vengeance at him.

“Whist wid ye,” said Jemmy to the little ones; “let him alone, he got

enough. There's the cows for you; an keen may the curse o' the widow

an' orphans light upon you, and upon them that sent you, from first to

last!--an' that's the best we wish you!”

“Frank,” said Owen to the bailiff, “is there any one in the town below

that will take the rint, an' give a resate for it? Do you think, man,

that the neighbors of an honest, industrious woman 'ud see the cattle

taken out of her byre for a thrifle? Hut tut! no, man alive--no sich

thing! There's not a man in the parish, wid manes to do it, would see

them taken away to be canted, at only about a fourth part of their

value. Hut, tut,--no!”

As the sterling fellow spoke, the cheeks of the widow were suffused with

tears, and her son Jemmy's hollow eyes once more kindled, but with a far

different expression from that which but a few minutes before flashed

from them.

“Owen,” said he, and utterance nearly failed him: “Owen, if I was well

it wouldn't be as it is wid us; but--no, indeed it would not; but--may

God bless you for this! Owen, never fear but you'll be paid; may God

bless you, Owen!”

As he spoke the hand of his humble benefactor was warmly grasped in his.

A tear fell upon it: for with one of those quick and fervid transitions

of feeling so peculiar to the people, he now felt a strong, generous

emotion of gratitude, mingled, perhaps, with a sense of wounded pride,

on finding the poverty of their little family so openly exposed.

“Hut, tut, Jimmy, avick,” said Owen, who understood his feelings; “phoo,

man alive! hut--hem!--why, sure it's nothin' at all, at all; anybody

would do it--only a bare five an' twenty shillins [it was five pound]:

any neighbor--Mick Cassidy, Jack Moran, or Pether M'Cullagh, would do

it.--Come, Frank, step out; the money's to the fore. Rosha, put

your cloak about you, and let us go down to the agint, or clerk, or

whatsomever he is--sure, that makes no maxin anyhow;--I suppose he

has power to give a resate. Jemmy, go to bed again, you're pale, poor

bouchal; and, childhre, ye crathurs ye, the cows won't be taken from

ye this bout.--Come, in the name of God, let us go, and see-everything

rightified at once--hut, tut--come.”

Many similar details of Owen M'Carthy's useful life could be given, in

which he bore an equally benevolent and Christian part. Poor fellow! he

was, ere long, brought low; but, to the credit of our peasantry, much

as is said about their barbarity, he was treated, when helpless, with

gratitude, pity, and kindness.

Until the peace of 1814, Owen's regular and systematic industry

enabled him to struggle successfully against a weighty rent and sudden

depression in the price of agricultural produce; that is, he was able,

by the unremitting toil of a man remarkable alike for an unbending

spirit and a vigorous frame of body, to pay his rent with tolerable

regularity. It is true, a change began to be visible in his personal

appearance, in his farm, in the dress of his children, and in the

economy of his household. Improvements, which adequate capital would

have enabled, him to effect, were left either altogether unattempted,

or in an imperfect state, resembling neglect, though, in reality, the

result of poverty. His dress at mass, and in fairs and markets, had,

by degrees, lost that air of comfort and warmth which bespeak the

independent farmer. The evidences of embarrassment began to disclose

themselves in many small points--inconsiderable, it is true, but not

the less significant. His house, in the progress of his declining

circumstances,ceased to be annually ornamented by a new coat of

whitewash; it soon assumed a faded and yellowish hue, and sparkled not

in the setting sun as in the days of Owen's prosperity. It had, in fact,

a wasted, unthriving look, like its master. The thatch became black

and rotten upon its roof; the chimneys sloped to opposite points; the

windows were less neat, and ultimately, when broken, were patched with a

couple of leaves from the children's blotted copy-books. His out-houses

also began to fail. The neatness of his little farm-yard, and the

cleanliness which marked so conspicuously the space fronting his

dwelling-house, disappeared in the course of time. Filth began to

accumulate where no filth had been; his garden was not now planted so

early, nor with such taste and neatness as before; his crops were later,

and less abundant; his haggarts neither so full nor so trim as they were

wont to be, nor his ditches and enclosures kept in such good repair. His

cars, ploughs, and other farming implements, instead of being put under

cover, were left exposed to the influence of wind and weather, where

they soon became crazy and useless.

Such, however, were only the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle

against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests

were, year after year, so unhappily sinking.

Had the tendency to general distress among the class to which he

belonged become stationary, Owen would have continued by toil and

incessant exertion to maintain his ground; but, unfortunately, there was

no point at which the national depression could then stop. Year after

year produced deeper, more extensive, and more complicated misery; and

when he hoped that every succeeding season would bring an improvement

in the market, he was destined to experience not merely a fresh

disappointment, but an unexpected depreciation in the price of his corn,

butter, and other disposable commodities.

When a nation is reduced to such a state, no eye but that of God himself

can see the appalling wretchedness to which a year of disease and

scarcity strikes down the poor and working classes.

Owen, after a long and noble contest for nearly three years, sank, at

length, under the united calamities of disease and scarcity. The father

of the family was laid low upon the bed of sickness, and those of his

little ones who escaped it were almost consumed by famine. This two-fold

shock sealed his ruin; his honest heart was crushed--his hardy frame

shorn of its strength, and he to whom every neighbor fled as to a

friend, now required friendship at a moment when the widespread poverty

of the country rendered its assistance hopeless.

On rising from his bed of sickness, the prospect before him required his

utmost fortitude to bear. He was now wasted in energy both of mind and

body, reduced to utter poverty, with a large family of children, too

young to assist him, without means of retrieving his circumstances, his

wife and himself gaunt skeletons, his farm neglected, his house wrecked,

and his offices falling to ruin, yet every day bringing the half-year's

term nearer! Oh, ye who riot on the miseries of such men--ye who roll

round the easy circle of fashionable life, think upon this picture! To

vile and heartless landlords, who see not, hear not, know not those to

whose heart-breaking toil ye owe the only merit ye possess--that of

rank in society--come and contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended,

unassisted, and uncheered by those who are bound by a strong moral duty

to protect and aid him, he looks shuddering into the dark, cheerless

future! Is it to be wondered at that he, and such as he, should, in the

misery of his despair, join the nightly meetings, be lured to associate

himself with the incendiary, or seduced to grasp, in the stupid apathy

of wretchedness, the weapon of the murderer? By neglecting the people;

by draining them, with merciless rapacity, of the means of life; by

goading them on under a cruel system of rack rents, ye become not their

natural benefactors, but curses and scourges, nearly as much in reality

as ye are in their opinion.

When Owen rose, he was driven by hunger, direct and immediate, to sell

his best cow; and having purchased some oatmeal at an enormous price,

from a well-known devotee in the parish, who hoarded up this commodity

for a “dear summer,” he laid his plans for the future, with as much

judgment as any man could display. One morning after breakfast he

addressed his wife as follows:

“Kathleen, mavourneen, I want to consult wid you about what we ought to

do; things are low wid us, asthore; and except our heavenly Father puts

it into the heart of them I'm goin' to mention, I don't know what well

do, nor what'll become of these poor crathurs that's naked and hungry

about us. God pity them, they don't know--and maybe that same's some

comfort--the hardships that's before them. Poor crathurs! see how quiet

and sorrowful they sit about their little play, passin' the time for

themselves as well as they can! Alley, acushla machree, come over to

me. Your hair is bright and fair, Alley, and curls so purtily that the

finest lady in the land might envy it; but, acushla, your color's gone,

your little hands are wasted away, too; that sickness was hard and sore

upon you, a _colleen machree_ (* girl of my heart) and he that 'ud spend

his heart's blood for you, darlin', can do nothin' to help you!”

He looked at the child as he spoke, and a slight motion in the muscles

of his face was barely preceptible, but it passed away; and, after

kissing her, he proceeded:

“Ay, ye crathurs--you and I, Kathleen, could earn our bread for

ourselves yet, but these can't do it. This last stroke, darlin', has

laid us at the door of both poverty and sickness, but blessed be the

mother of heaven for it, they are all left wid us; and sure that's a

blessin' we've to be thankful for--glory be to God!”

“Ay, poor things, it's well to have them spared, Owen dear; sure I'd

rather a thousand times beg from door to door, and have my childher to

look at, than be in comfort widout them.”

“Beg: that 'ud go hard wid me, Kathleen. I'd work--I'd live on next to

nothing all the year round; but to see the crathurs that wor dacently

bred up brought to that, I couldn't bear it, Kathleen--'twould break

the heart widin in me. Poor as they are, they have the blood of kings

in their veins; and besides, to see a M'Carthy beggin' his bread in the

country where his name was once great--The M'Carthy More, that was their

title-no, acushla, I love them as I do the blood in my own veins; but

I'd rather see them in the arms of God in heaven, laid down dacently

with their little sorrowful faces washed, and their little bodies

stretched out purtily before my eyes--I would--in the grave-yard there

beyant, where all belonging to me lie, than have it cast up to them, or

have it said, that ever a M'Carthy was seen beggin' on the highway.”

“But, Owen, can you strike out no plan for us that 'ud put us in the way

of comin' round agin? These poor ones, if we could hould out for two or

three year, would soon be able to help us.”

“They would--they would. I'm thinkin' this day or two of a plan: but I'm

doubtful whether it 'ud come to anything.”

“What is it, acushla? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, any way.”

“I'm goin' to go to Dublin. I'm tould that the landlord's come home from

France, and that he's there now; and if I didn't see him, sure I could

see the agent. Now, Kathleen, my intintion 'ud be to lay our case before

the head landlord himself, in hopes he might hould back his hand, and

spare us for a while. If I had a line from the agent, or a scrape of a

pen, that I could show at home to some of the nabors, who knows but I

could borry what 'ud set us up agin! I think many of them 'ud be sorry

to see me turned out; eh, Kathleen?”

The Irish are an imaginative people; indeed, too much so for either

their individual or national happiness. And it is this and superstition,

which also depends much upon imagination, that makes them so easily

influenced by those extravagant dreams that are held out to them by

persons who understand their character.

When Kathleen heard the plan on which Owen founded his expectations of

assistance, her dark melancholy eye flashed with a portion of its former

fire; a transient vivacity lit up her sickly features, and she turned a

smile of hope and affection upon her children, then upon Owen.

“Arrah, thin, who knows, indeed!--who knows but he might do something

for us? And maybe we might be as well as ever yet! May the Lord put it

into his heart, this day! I declare, ay!--maybe it was God put it into

your heart, Owen!”

“I'll set off,” replied her husband, who was a man of decision; “I'll

set off on other morrow mornin'; and as nobody knows anything about it,

so let there not be a word said upon the subject, good or bad. If I have

success, well and good; but if not, why, nobody need be the wiser.”

The heart-broken wife evinced, for the remainder of the day, a lightness

of spirits which she had not felt for many a month before. Even Owen

was less depressed than usual, and employed himself in making

such arrangements as he knew would occasion his family to feel the

inconvenience of his absence less acutely. But as the hour of his

departure drew nigh, a sorrowful feeling of affection rising into

greater strength and tenderness threw a melancholy gloom around his

hearth. According to their simple view of distance, a journey to Dublin

was a serious undertaking, and to them it was such. Owen was in weak

health, just risen out of illness, and what was more trying than any

other consideration was, that since their marriage they had never been

separated before.

On the morning of his departure, he was up before daybreak, and so were

his wife and children, for the latter had heard the conversation already

detailed between them, and, with their simple-minded parents, enjoyed

the gleam of hope which it presented; but this soon changed--when he was

preparing to go, an indefinite sense of fear, and a more vivid clinging

of affection marked their feelings. He himself partook of this, and

was silent, depressed, and less ardent than when the speculation first

presented itself to his mind. His resolution, however, was taken, and,

should he fail, no blame at a future time could be attached to himself.

It was the last effort; and to neglect it, he thought, would have been

to neglect his duty. When breakfast was ready, they all sat down in

silence; the hour was yet early, and a rushlight was placed in a wooden

candlestick that stood beside them to afford light. There was something

solemn and touching in the group as they sat in dim relief, every face

marked by the traces of sickness, want, sorrow, and affection. The

father attempted to eat, but could not; Kathleen sat at the meal, but

could taste nothing; the children ate, for hunger at the moment was

predominant over every other sensation. At length it was over, and Owen

rose to depart; he stood for a minute on the floor, and seemed to take a

survey of his cold, cheerless house, and then of his family; he cleared

his throat several times, but did not speak.

“Kathleen,” said he, at length, “in the name of God I'll go; and may his

blessin' be about you, asthore machree, and guard you and these darlins

till I come back to yez.”

Kathleen's faithful heart could bear no more; she laid herself on his

bosom--clung to his neck, and, as the parting kiss was given, she wept

aloud, and Owen's tears fell silently down his worn cheeks. The children

crowded about them in loud wailings, and the grief of this virtuous and

afflicted family was of that profound description, which is ever the

companion, in such scenes, of pure and genuine love.

“Owen!” she exclaimed; “Owen, _a-suilish mahuil agus machree!_ (* light

of my eyes and of my heart) I doubt we wor wrong in thinkin' of this

journey. How can you, mavourneen, walk all the way to Dublin, and you so

worn and weakly with that sickness, and the bad feedin' both before and

since? Och, give it up, achree, and stay wid us, let what will happen.

You're not able for sich a journey, indeed you're not. Stay wid me

and the childher, Owen; sure we'd be so lonesome widout you--will you,

agrah? and the Lord will do for us some other way, maybe.”

Owen pressed his faithful wife to his heart, and kissed her chaste lips

with a tenderness which the heartless votaries of fashionable life can

never know.

“Kathleen, asthore,” he replied, in those terms of endearment which flow

so tenderly through the language of the people; “sure whin I remimber

your fair young face--your yellow hair, and the light that was in your

eyes, acushla machree--but that's gone long ago--och, don't ax me to

stop. Isn't your lightsome laugh, whin you wor young, in my ears? and

your step that 'ud not bend the flower of the field--Kathleen, I can't,

indeed I can't, bear to think of what you wor, nor of what you are now,

when in the coorse of age and natur, but a small change ought to be upon

you! Sure I ought to make every struggle to take you and these sorrowful

crathurs out of the state you're in.”

The children flocked about them, and joined their entreaties to those of

their mother. “Father, don't lave us--we'll be lonesome if you go, and

if my mother 'ud get unwell, who'd be to take care of her? Father, don't

lave your own 'weeny crathurs' (a pet name he had for them)--maybe

the meal 'ud be eat out before you'd come back; or maybe something 'ud

happen you in that strange place.”

“Indeed, there's truth in what they say, Owen,” said, the wife; “do

be said by your own Kathleen for this time, and don't take sich a long

journey upon you. Afther all, maybe, you wouldn't see him--sure the

nabors will help us, if you could only humble yourself to ax them!”

“Kathleen,” said Owen, “when this is past you'll be glad I went--indeed

you will; sure it's only the tindher feelin' of your hearts, darlins.

Who knows what the landlord may do when I see himself, and show him

these resates--every penny paid him by our own family. Let me go,

acushla; it does cut me to the heart to lave yez the way yez are in,

even for a while; but it's far worse to see your poor wasted faces,

widout havin' it in my power to do anything for yez.”

He then kissed them again, one by one; and pressing the affectionate

partner of his sorrows to his breaking heart, he bade God bless them,

and set out in the twilight of a bitter March morning. He had not gone

many yards from the door when little Alley ran after him in tears; he

felt her hand upon the skirts of his coat, which, she plucked with a

smile of affection that neither tears nor sorrow could repress. “Father,

kiss me again,” said she. He stooped down, and kissed her tenderly. The

child then ascended a green ditch, and Owen, as he looked back, saw her

standing upon it; her fair tresses were tossed by the blast about her

face, as with straining eyes she watched him receding from her view.

Kathleen and the other children stood at the door, and also with deep

sorrow watched his form, until the angle of the bridle-road rendered him

no longer visible; after which they returned slowly to the fire and wept

bitterly.

We believe no men are capable of bearing greater toil or privation than

the Irish. Owen's viaticum was only two or three oaten cakes tied in a

little handkerchief, and a few shillings in silver to pay for his bed.

With this small stock of food and money, an oaken stick in his hand, and

his wife's kerchief tied about his waist, he undertook a journey of one

hundred and ten miles, in quest of a landlord who, so far from being

acquainted with the distresses of his tenantry, scarcely knew even their

names, and not one of them in person.

Our scene now changes to the metropolis. One evening, about half past

six o'clock, a toil-worn man turned his steps to a splendid! mansion in

Mountjoy Square; his appearance was drooping, fatigued, and feeble. As

he went along, he examined the numbers on the respective doors, until

he reached a certain one--before which he stopped for a moment; he

then stepped out upon the street, and looked through the windows, as if

willing to ascertain whether there was any chance of his object being

attained. Whilst in this situation a carriage rolled rapidly up, and

stopped with a sudden check that nearly threw back the horses on their

haunches. In an instant the thundering knock of the servant intimated

the arrival of some person of rank; the hall door was opened, and Owen,

availing himself of that opportunity, entered the hall. Such a visitor,

however, was too remarkable to escape notice. The hand of the menial

was rudely placed against his breast; and, as the usual impertinent

interrogatories were put to him, the pampered ruffian kept pushing him

back, until the afflicted man stood upon the upper step leading to the

door.

“For the sake of God, let me spake but two words to him. I'm his tenant;

and I know he's too much of a jintleman to turn away a man that has

lived upon his honor's estate, father and son, for upwards of three

hundred years. My name's Owen ------”

“You can't see him, my good fellow, at this hour. Go to Mr. M------,

his Agent: we have company to dinner. He never speaks to a tenant on

business; his Agent manages all that. Please, leave the way, here's more

company.”

As he uttered the last word, he pushed Owen back; who, forgetting that

the stairs were behind him, fell,--received a severe cut, and was so

completely stunned, that he lay senseless and bleeding. Another carriage

drove up, as the fellow now much alarmed, attempted to raise him from

the steps; and, by order of the gentleman who came in it, he was brought

into the hall. The circumstance now made some noise. It was whispered

about, that one of Mr. S------'s tenants, a drunken fellow from the

country, wanted to break in forcibly to see him; but then it was also

asserted, that his skull was broken, and that he lay dead in the hall.

Several of the gentlemen above stairs, on hearing that a man had

been killed, immediately assembled about him, and, by the means of

restoratives, he soon recovered, though the blood streamed copiously

from the wound in the back of his head.

“Who are you, my good man?” said Mr. S------.

Owen looked about him rather vacantly; but soon collected himself,

and implied in a mournful and touching tone of voice--“I'm one of

your honor's tenants from Tubber Derg; my name is Owen M'Carthy, your

honor--that is, if you be Mr. S------.”

“And pray, what brought you to town, M'Carthy?”

“I wanted to make an humble appale to your honor's feelins, in regard to

my bit of farm. I, and my poor family, your honor, have been broken down

by hard times and the sickness of the sason--God knows how they axe.”

“If you wish to speak to me about that, my good man, you must know I

refer all these matters to my Agent. Go to him--he knows them best;

and whatever is right and proper to be done for you, he will do it.

Sinclair, give him a crown, and send him to the ------ Dispensary, to

get his head dressed, I say, Carthy, go to my Agent; he knows whether

your claim is just or not, and will attend to it accordingly.”

“Plase, your honor, I've been wid him, and he says he can do nothin'

whatsomever for me. I went two or three times, and couldn't see him,

he was so busy; and, when I did get a word or two wid him, he tould me

there was more offered for my land than I'm payin'; and that if I did

not pay up, I must be put out, God help me!”

“But I tell you, Carthy, I never interfere between him and my tenants.”

“Och, indeed! and it would be well, both for your honor's tenants and

yourself, if you did, sir. Your honor ought to know, sir, more about

us, and how we're thrated. I'm an honest man, sir, and I tell you so for

your good.”

“And pray, sir,” said the Agent, stepping forward, for he had arrived

a few minutes before, and heard the last observation of M'Carthy--“pray

how are they treated, you that know so well, and are so honest a

man?--As for honesty, you might have referred to me for that, I think,”

he added.

“Mr. M------,” said Owen, “we're thrated very badly. Sir, you needn't

look at me, for I'm not afeerd to spake the thruth; no bullyin', sir,

will make me say anything in your favor that you don't desarve. You've

broken the half of them by severity; you've turned the tenants aginst

yourself and his honor here; and I tell you now, though you're to the

fore, that, in the coorse of a short time, there'll be bad work upon the

estate, except his honor, here, looks into his own affairs, and hears

the complaints of the people. Look at these resates, your honor; they'll

show you, sir,--”

“Carthy, I can hear no such language against the gentleman to whom I

entrust the management of my property; of course, I refer the matter

solely to him. I can do nothing in it.”

“Kathleen, avourneen!” claimed the poor man, as he looked up

despairingly to heaven; “and ye, poor darlins of my heart! is this the

news I'm to have for yez whin I go home?--As you hope for mercy, sir,

don't turn away your ear from my petition, that I'd humbly make to

yourself. Cowld, and hunger, and hardship, are at home before me, yer

honor. If you'd be plased to look at these resates, you'd see that I

always paid my rint; and 'twas sickness and the hard times--”

“And your own honesty, industry, and good conduct,” said the Agent,

giving a dark and malignant sneer at him. “Carthy, it shall be my

business to see that you do not spread a bad spirit through the tenantry

much longer.--Sir, you have heard the fellow's admission. It is an

implied threat he will give us much serious trouble. There is not such

another incendiary on your property--not one, upon my honor.”

“Sir,” said a servant, “dinner is on the table.”

“Sinclair,” said his landlord, “give him another crown, and tell him

to trouble me no more.” Saying; which, he and the Agent went up to

the drawing-room, and, in a moment, Owen saw a large party sweep

down stairs, full of glee and vivacity, by whom both himself and his

distresses were as completely forgotten as if they had never existed.

He now slowly departed, and knew not whether the house-steward had given

him money or not until he felt it in his hand. A cold, sorrowful weight

lay upon his heart; the din of the town deadened his affliction into

a stupor; but an overwhelming sense of his disappointment, and a

conviction of the Agent's diabolical falsehood, entered like barbed

arrows into his heart.

On leaving the steps, he looked up to heaven in the distraction of

his agonizing thoughts; the clouds were black and lowering--the wind

stormy--and, as it carried them on its dark wing along the sky, he

wished, if it were the will of God, that his head lay in the quiet

grave-yard where the ashes of his forefathers reposed in peace. But he

again remembered his Kathleen and their children; and the large tears of

anguish, deep and bitter, rolled slowly down his cheeks.

We will not trace him into an hospital, whither the wound on his head

occasioned him to be sent, but simply state, that, on the second week

after this, a man, with his head bound in a handkerchief, lame, bent,

and evidently laboring under a severe illness or great affliction,

might be seen toiling slowly up the little hill that commanded a view of

Tubber Derg. On reaching the top he sat down to rest for a few minutes,

but his eye was eagerly turned to the house which contained all that was

dear to him on this earth. The sun was setting, and shone, with half his

disk visible, in that dim and cheerless splendor which produces almost

in every temperament a feeling of melancholy. His house which, in

happier days, formed so beautiful and conspicuous an object in the

view, was now, from the darkness of its walls, scarcely discernible.

The position of the sun, too, rendered it more difficult to be seen; and

Owen, for it was he, shaded his eyes with his hand, to survey it more

distinctly. Many a harrowing thought and remembrance passed through his

mind, as his eye traced its dim outline in the fading-light'. He had

done his duty--he had gone to the fountain-head, with a hope that his

simple story of affliction might be heard; but all was fruitless: the

only gleam, of hope that opened upon their misery had now passed into

darkness and despair for ever. He pressed his aching forehead with

distraction as he thought of this; then clasped his hands bitterly, and

groaned aloud.

At length he rose, and proceeded with great difficulty, for the short

rest had stiffened his weak and fatigued joints. As he approached home

his heart sank; and as he ascended the blood-red stream which covered

the bridle-way that led to his house, what with fatigue and affliction,

his agitation weakened him so much that, he stopped, and leaned on his

staff several times, that he might take breath.

“It's too dark, maybe, for them to see me, or poor Kathleen would send

the darlins to give me the _she dha veha_ (* the welcome). Kathleen,

avourneen machree! how my heart beats wid longin' to see you, asthore,

and to see the weeny crathurs--glory be to Him that has left them to

me--praise and glory to His name!”

He was now within a few perches of thy door; but a sudden misgiving shot

across his heart when he saw it shut, and no appearance of smoke from

the chimney, nor of stir or life about the house. He advanced--

“Mother of glory, what's this!--But, wait, let me rap agin. Kathleen,

Kathleen!--are you widin, avourneen? Owen--Alley--arn't ye widin,

childhre? Alley, sure I'm come back to you all!” and he rapped more

loudly than before. A dark breeze swept through the bushes as he spoke,

but no voice nor sound proceeded from the house;--all was still as death

within. “Alley!” he called once more to his little favorite; “I'm come

home wid something for you, asthore! I didn't forget you, alanna!--I

brought it from Dublin, all the way. Alley!” but the gloomy murmur of

the blast was the only reply.

Perhaps the most intense of all that he knew as misery was that which

he then felt; but this state of suspense was soon terminated by the

appearance of a neighbor who was passing.

“Why, thin, Owen, but yer welcome home agin, my poor fellow; and I'm

sorry that I haven't betther news for you, and so are all of us.”

He whom he addressed had almost lost the power of speech.

“Frank,” said he, and he wrung his hand, “What--what? was death among

them? For the sake of heaven, spake!”

The severe pressure which he received in return ran like a shoot, of

paralysis to his heart.

“Owen, you must be a man; every one pities yez, and may the Almighty

pity and support yez! She is, indeed, Owen, gone; the weeny fair-haired

child, your favorite Alley, is gone. Yestherday she was berrid; and

dacently the nabors attinded the place, and sent in, as far as they

had it, both mate and dhrink to Kathleen and the other ones. Now, Owen,

you've heard it; trust in God, an' be a man.”

A deep and convulsive throe shook him to the heart. “Gone!--the

fair-haired one!--Alley!--Alley!--the pride of both our hearts; the

sweet, the quiet, and the sorrowful child, that seldom played wid the

rest, but kept wid mys--! Oh, my darlin', my darlin'! gone from my eyes

for ever!--God of glory; won't you support me this night of sorrow and

misery!”

With a sudden yet profound sense of humility, he dropped on his knees

at the threshold, and, as the tears rolled down his convulsed cheeks,

exclaimed, in a burst of sublime piety, not at all uncommon among our

peasantry--“I thank you, O my God! I thank you, an' I put myself an' my

weeny ones, my _pastchee boght_ (* my poor children) into your hands. I

thank you, O God, for what has happened! Keep me up and support me--och,

I want it! You loved the weeny one, and you took her; she was the light

of my eyes, and the pulse of my broken heart, but you took her, blessed

Father of heaven! an' we can't be angry wid you for so doin'! Still if

you had spared her--if--if--O, blessed Father, my heart was in the very

one you took--but I thank you, O God! May she rest in pace, now and for

ever, Amin!”

He then rose up, and slowly wiping the tears from his eyes, departed.

“Let me hould your arm, Frank, dear,” said he, “I'm weak and tired wid

a long journey. Och, an' can it be that she's gone--the fair-haired

colleen! When I was lavin' home, an' had kissed them all--'twas the

first time we ever parted, Kathleen and I, since our marriage--the

blessed child came over an' held up her mouth, sayin', 'Kiss me agin,

father;' an' this was afther herself an' all of them had kissed me

afore. But, och! oh! blessed Mother! Frank, where's my Kathleen and the

rest?--and why are they out of their own poor place?”

“Owen, I tould you awhile agone, that you must be a man. I gave you the

worst news first, an' what's to come doesn't signify much. It was too

dear; for if any man could live upon it you could:--you have neither

house nor home, Owen, nor land. An ordher came from the Agint; your last

cow was taken, so was all you had in the world--hem--barrin' a thrifle.

No,--bad manners to it! no,--you're not widout a home anyway. The

family's in my barn, brave and comfortable, compared to what your own

house was, that let in the wather through the roof like a sieve; and,

while the same barn's to the fore, never say you want a home.”

“God bless you, Frank, for that goodness to them and me; if you're not

rewarded for it here you will in a betther place. Och, I long to see

Kathleen and the childher! But I'm fairly broken down, Frank, and hardly

able to mark the ground; and, indeed, no wondher, if you knew but all:

still, let God's will be done! Poor Kathleen, I must bear up afore her,

or she'll break her heart; for I know how she loved the golden-haired

darlin' that's gone from us. Och, and how did she go, Frank, for I left

her betther?”

“Why, the poor girsha took a relapse, and wasn't strong enough to bear

up aginst the last attack; but it's one comfort that you know she's

happy.”

Owen stood for a moment, and, looking solemnly in his neighbor's face,

exclaimed, in a deep and exhausted voice, “Frank!”

“What are you goin' to say, Owen?”

“The heart widin me's broke--broke!”

The large tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks, and he proceeded

in silence to the house of his friend. There was, however, a feeling

of sorrow in his words and manner which Frank could not withstand. He

grasped Owen's hand, and, in a low and broken voice, simply said--“Keep

your spirits up--keep them up.”

When they came to the barn in which his helpless family had taken up

their temporary residence, Owen stood for a moment to collect himself;

but he was nervous, and trembled with repressed emotion. They then

entered; and Kathleen, on seeing her beloved and affectionate husband,

threw herself on his bosom, and for some time felt neither joy nor

sorrow--she had swooned. The poor man embraced her with a tenderness

at once mournful and deep. The children, on seeing their father safely

returned, forgot their recent grief, and clung about him with gladness

and delight. In the meantime Kathleen recovered, and Owen for many

minutes could not check the loud and clamorous grief, now revived by

the presence of her husband, with which the heart-broken and emaciated

mother deplored her departed child; and Owen himself, on once more

looking among the little ones, on seeing her little frock hanging up,

and her stool vacant by the fire--on missing her voice and her blue

laughing eyes--and remembering the affectionate manner in which, as with

a presentiment of death, she held up her little mouth and offered him

the last kiss--he slowly pulled the toys and cakes he had purchased for

her out of his pocket, surveyed them for a moment, and then, putting

his hands on his face, bent his head upon his bosom, and wept with the

vehement outpouring of a father's sorrow.

The reader perceives that he was a meek man; that his passions were not

dark nor violent; he bore no revenge to those who neglected or injured

him, and in this he differed from too many of his countrymen. No; his

spirit was broken down with sorrow, and had not room for the fiercer and

more destructive passions. His case excited general pity. Whatever his

neighbors could, do to soothe him and alleviate his affliction was done.

His farm was not taken; for fearful threats were held out against those

who might venture to occupy it. In these threats he had nothing to do;

on the contrary, he strongly deprecated them. Their existence, however,

was deemed by the Agent sufficient to justify him in his callous and

malignant severity towards him.