The violent beating of the rain against the glass, and the loud crash of
the storm as it shook the window-frames or snapped the sturdy branches
of the old trees, awoke me. I got up, and opening the shutters,
endeavored to look out; but the darkness was impenetrable, and I could
see nothing but the gnarled and grotesque forms of the leafless trees
dimly marked against the sky, as they moved to and fro like the arms
of some mighty giant. Masses of heavy snow melted by the rain fell at
intervals from the steep roof, and struck the ground beneath with a
low sumph like thunder. A grayish, leaden tinge that marked the horizon
showed it was near daybreak; but there was nought of promise in this
harbinger of morning. Like my own career, it opened gloomily and
in sadness: so felt I at least; and as I sat beside the window, and
strained my eyes to pierce the darkening storm, I thought that even
watching the wild hurricane without was better than brooding over the
sorrows within my own bosom.
How long I remained thus I know not; but already the faint streak that
announces sunrise marked the dull-colored sky, when the cheerful sounds
of a voice singing in the room underneath attracted me. I listened, and
in a moment recognized the piper. Darby M'Keown. He moved quickly about,
and by his motions I could collect that he was making preparations for
his journey.
If I could venture to pronounce, from the merry tones of his voice and
the light elastic step with which he trod the floor, I certainly would
not suppose that the dreary weather had any terror for him. He spoke so
loud that I could catch a great deal of the dialogue he maintained with
himself, and some odd verses of the song with which from time to time he
garnished his reflections.
“Marry, indeed! Catch me at it--nabocklish--with the countryside
before me, and the hoith of good eating and drinking for a blast of the
chantre. Well, well! women 's quare craytures anyway.
'Ho, ho! Mister Ramey,
No more of your blarney,
I 'd have yoa not make so free;
You may go where you plaze.
And make love at your ease.
But the devil may have you for me.'
Very well, ma'am. Mister M'Keown is your most obedient,--never say it
twice, honey; and isn't there as good fish, eh?--whoop!
'Oh! my heart is unazy.
My brain is run crazy,
Sure it 's often I wish I was dead;
'Tis your smile now so sweet!
Now your ankles and feet.
That 's walked into my heart, Molly Spread!
Tol de rol, de rol, oh!'
Whew! thttt 's rain, anyhow. I would n't mind it, bad as it is, if I
hadn't the side of a mountain before me; but sure it comes to the same
in the end. Catty Delany is a good warrant for a pleasant evening; and,
please God, I 'll be playing 'Baltiorum' beside the fire there before
this time to-night.
'She 'd a pig and boneens.
And a bed and a dresser.
And a nate little room
For the father confessor;
With a cupboard and curtains, and something, I 'm towld.
That his riv'rance liked when the weather was cowld.
And it 's hurroo, hurroo! Biddy O'Rafferty!'
After all, aix, the priest bates us out. There 's eight o'clock now, and
I'm not off; devil a one's stirring in the house either. Well, I believe
I may take my leave of it; sorrow many tunes of the pipes it's likely to
hear, with Tony Basset over it. And my heart 's low when I think of that
child there. Poor Tom! and it was you liked fun when you could have it.”
I wanted but the compassionate tone in which these few words were spoken
to decide me in a resolution that I had been for some time pondering
over. I knew that ere many hours Basset would come in search of me;
I felt that, once in his power, I had nothing to expect but the
long-promised payment of his old debt of hatred to me. In a few seconds
I ran over with myself the prospect of misery before me, and determined
at once, at every hazard, to make my escape. Darby seemed to afford me
the best possible opportunity for this purpose; and I dressed myself,
therefore, in the greatest haste, and throwing whatever I could find of
my wardrobe into my carpet-bag, I pocketed my little purse, with all
my worldly wealth,--some twelve or thirteen shillings,--and noiselessly
slipped downstairs to the room beneath. I reached the door at the very
moment Darby opened it to issue forth. He started back with fear, and
crossed himself twice.
“Don't be afraid. Darby,” said I, uneasy lest he should make any
noise that would alarm the others; “I want to know which road you are
travelling this morning.”
“The saints be about us, but you frightened me. Master Tommy; though,
intermediately, I may obsarve, I 'm by no ways timorous. I 'm going
within two miles of Athlone.”
“That's exactly where I want to go. Darby; will you take me with you?”
for at the instant Captain Bubbleton's address flashed on my mind, and I
resolved to seek him out and ask his advice in my difficulties.
“I see it all,” replied Darby, as he placed the tip of his finger on his
nose. “I conceive your embarrassments,--you're afraid of Basset;
and small blame to you. But don't do it. Master Tommy,--don't do it,
alannah! that 's the hardest life at all.”
“What?” said I, in amazement.
“To 'list! Sure I know what you're after. Faix, it would sarve you
better to larn the pipes.”
I hastened to assure Darby of his error; and in a few words informed him
of what I had overheard of Basset's intentions respecting me.
“Make you an attorney!” said Darby, interrupting me abruptly; “an
attorney! There's nothing so mean as an attorney. The police is
gentlemen compared to them,--they fight it out fair like men; but the
other chaps sit in a house planning and contriving mischief all day
long, inventing every kind of wickedness, and then getting people to
do it. See, now, I believe in my conscience the devil was the first
attorney, and it was just to serve his own ends that he bred a ruction
between Adam and Eve. But whisht! there's somebody stirring. Are you for
the road?”
“Yes, Darby; my mind's made up.”
Indeed, his own elegant eulogium on legal pursuits assisted my
resolution, and filled my heart with renewed disgust at the thought of
such a guardian as Tony Basset.
We walked stealthily along the gloomy passages, traversed the old
hall, and noiselessly withdrew the heavy bolts and the great chain that
fastened the door. The rain was sweeping along the ground in torrents,
and the wind dashed it against the window panes in fitful gusts. It
needed all our strength to close the door after us against the storm,
and it was only after several trials that we succeeded in doing so. The
hollow sound of the oak door smote upon my heart as it closed behind me;
in an instant the sense of banishment, of utter destitution, was present
to my mind. I turned my eyes to gaze upon the old house,--to take my
last farewell of it forever! Gloomy as my prospect was, my sorrow was
less for the sad future than for the misery of the moment.
“No, Master Tom! no, you must go back,” said Darby, who watched with
a tender interest the sickly paleness of my cheek, and the tottering
uncertainty of my walk.
“No, Darby,” said I, with an effort at firmness; “I'll not look round
any more.” And bending my head against the storm, I stepped out boldly
beside my companion. We walked on without speaking, and soon left the
neglected avenue and ruined gate lodge behind us, as we reached the
highroad that led to Athlone.
Darby, who only waited to let my first burst of sorrow find its natural
vent, no sooner perceived from my step and the renewed color of my cheek
that I had rallied my courage once more, than he opened all his stores
of agreeability, which, to my inexperience in such matters, were by
no means inconsiderable. Abandoning at once all high-flown
phraseology,--which Mr. M'Keown, I afterwards remarked, only retained as
a kind of gala suit for great occasions,--he spoke freely and naturally.
Lightening the way with many a story,--now grave, now gay,--he seemed
to care little for the inclemency of the weather, and looked pleasantly
forward to a happy evening as an ample reward for the present hardship.
“And the captain, Master Tom; you say he's an agreeable man?” said
Darby, alluding to my late companion on the coach, whose merits I was
never tired of recapitulating.
“Oh, delightful! He has travelled everywhere, and seems to know
everybody and everything. He 's very rich, too; I forget how many houses
he has in England, and elephants without number in India.”
“Faix, you were in luck to fall in with him!” observed Darby.
“Yes, that I was I I 'm sure he 'll do something for me; and for you
too, Darby, when he knows you have been so kind to me.”
“Me! What did I do, darling? and what could I do, a poor piper like me?
Wouldn't it be honor enough for me if a gentleman's son would travel the
road with me? Darby M'Keown's a proud man this day to have you beside
him.”
A ruined cabin in the road, whose blackened walls and charred timbers
denoted its fate, here attracted my companion's attention. He stopped
for a second or two to look on it; and then, kneeling down, he muttered
a short prayer for the eternal rest of some one departed, and taking
up a stone, he threw it on a heap of similar ones which lay near the
doorside.
“What happened there, Darby?” said I, as he resumed his way.
“They wor out in the thrubles!” was his only reply, as he cast a glance
behind, to perceive if any one had remarked him.
Though he made no further allusion to the fate of those who once
inhabited the cabin, he spoke freely of his own share in the eventful
year of 'Ninety-eight' justifying, as it then seemed to me, every step
of the patriotic party, and explaining the causes of their unsuccess so
naturally and so clearly that I could not help following with interest
every detail of his narrative, and joining in his regrets for the
unexpected and adverse strokes fortune dealt upon them. As he warmed
with his subject, he spoke of France with an enthusiasm that I soon
found contagious. He told me of the glorious career of the French armies
in Italy and Austria; and of that wonderful man, of whom I then
heard for the first time, as spreading a halo of victory over his
nation,--contrasting, as he went on, the rewards which awaited heroism
and bravery in that service with the purchased promotion in ours,
artfully illustrating his position by a reference to myself, and what
my fortunes would have been if born under that happier sky. “No elder
brother there,” said he, “to live in affluence, while the younger ones
are turned out to wander on the wide world, houseless and penniless. And
all these things we might have done, had we been but true to ourselves.”
I drank in all he said with avidity. The bearing of his arguments on my
own fortunes gave them an interest and an apparent truth my young mind
eagerly devoured; and when he ceased to speak, I pondered over all he
told me in a spirit that left its impress on my whole future life.
It was a new notion to me to connect my own fortunes with anything in
the political condition of the country; and while it gave my young heart
a kind of martyred courage, it set my brain a-thinking on a class of
subjects which never before possessed any interest for me. There was a
flattery, too, in the thought that I owed my straitened circumstances
less to any demerits of my own, than to political disabilities. The time
was well chosen by my companion to instil his doctrines into my heart.
I was young, ardent, enthusiastic; my own wrongs had taught me to
hate injustice and oppression; my condition had made me feel, and feel
bitterly, the humiliation of dependence; and if I listened with eager
curiosity to every story and every incident of the bygone Rebellion, it
was because the contest was represented to me as one between tyranny on
one side and struggling liberty on the other. I heard the names of those
who sided with the insurgent party extolled as the great and good men of
their country; their ancient families and hereditary claims furnishing
a contrast to many of the opposite party, whose recent settlement in the
island and new-born aristocracy were held up in scoff and derision. In
a word, I learned to believe that the one side was characterized by
cruelty, oppression, and injustice; the other, conspicuous only for
endurance, courage, patriotism, and truth. What a picture was this to a
mind like mine! and at a moment, too, when I seemed to realize in my own
desolation an example of the very sufferings I heard of!
If the portrait McKeown drew of Ireland was sad and gloomy, he painted
France in colors the brightest and most seductive. Dwelling less on the
political advantages which the Revolution had won for the popular party,
he directed my entire attention to the brilliant career of glory
the French army had followed; the triumphant success of the Italian
campaign; the war in Germany; and the splendor of Paris, which he
represented as a very paradise on earth; but above all, he dwelt on
the character and achievements of the First Consul, recounting many
anecdotes of his early life, from the period when he was a schoolboy
at Brienne to the hour when he dictated the conditions of peace to the
oldest monarchies of Europe, and proclaimed war with the voice of one
who came as an avenger.
I drank in every word he spoke with avidity. The very enthusiasm of his
manner was contagious; I felt my heart bound with rapturous delight
at some hardy deed of soldierlike daring, and conceived a kind of
wild idolatry for the man who seemed to have infused his own glorious
temperament into the mighty thousands around him, and converted a whole
nation into heroes.
Darby's information on all these matters--which seemed to me something
miraculous--had been obtained at different periods from French
emissaries who were scattered through Ireland; many of them old soldiers
who had served in the campaigns of Egypt and Italy.
“But sure, if you 'd come with me, Master Tom, I could bring you where
you'll see them yourself; and you could talk to them of the battles and
skirmishes, for I suppose you spake French.”
“Very little. Darby. How sorry I am now that I don't know it well.”
“No matter; they'll soon teach you, and many a thing besides. There 's
a captain I know of, not far from where we are this minute, could learn
you the small sword,--in style, he could. I wish you saw him in his
green uniform with white facings, and three elegant crosses upon it
that General Bonaparte gave him with his own hands; he had them on one
Sunday, and I never see'd anything equal to it.”
“And are there many French officers hereabouts?”
“Not now; no, they're almost all gone. After the rising they went back
to France, except a few. Well, there'll be call for them again, please
God.”
“Will there be another Rebellion, then, Darby?”
As I put this question fearlessly, and in a voice loud enough to be
heard at some distance, a horseman, wrapped up in a loose cloth cloak,
was passing. He suddenly pulled up short, and turning his horse
round, stood exactly opposite to the piper. Darby saluted the stranger
respectfully, and seemed desirous to pass on; but the other, turning
round in his saddle, fixed a stern look on him, and he cried out,--
“What! at the old trade, M'Keown. Is there no curing you, eh?”
“Just so, major,” said Darby, assuming a tone of voice he had not
made use of the entire morning; “I 'm conveying a little instrumental
recreation.”
“None of your damned gibberish with me. Who 's that with you?”
“He 's the son of a neighbor of mine, your honor,” said Darby, with
an imploring look at me not to betray him. “His father 's a
schoolmaster,--a philomath, as one might say.”
I was about to contradict this statement bluntly, when the stranger
called out to me,--
“Mark me, young sir, you 're not in the best of company this morning,
and I recommend you to part with your friend as soon as may be. And
you,” said he, turning to Darby, “let me see you in Athlone at ten
o'clock to-morrow. D' ye hear me?”
The piper grew pale as death as he heard this command, to which he only
responded by touching his hat in silence; while the horseman, drawing
his cloak around, dashed his spurs into his beast's flanks, and was soon
out of sight. Darby stood for a moment or two looking down the road,
where the stranger had disappeared; a livid hue colored his cheek, and
a tremulous quivering of his under-lip gave him the appearance of one in
ague.
“I'll be even with ye yet,” muttered he between his clenched teeth; “and
when the hour comes--”
Here he repeated some words in Irish with a vehemence of manner that
actually made my blood tingle; then suddenly recovering himself, he
assumed a kind of sickly smile. “That's a hard man, the major.”
“I'm thinking,” said Darby, after a pause of some minutes,--“I 'm
thinking it 's better for you not to go into Athlone with me; for if
Basset wishes to track you out, that 'll be the first place he 'll try.
Besides, now that the major has seen you, he'll never forget you.”
Having pledged myself to adopt any course my companion recommended, he
resumed,--
“Ay, that 's the best way. I 'll lave you at Ned Malone's in the Glen;
and when I 've done with the major in the morning, I 'll look after your
friend the captain, and tell him where you are.”
I readily assented to this arrangement; and only asked what distance it
might yet be to Ned Malone's, for already I began to feel fatigue.
“A good ten miles,” said Darby,--“no less; but we 'll stop here above,
and get something to eat, and then we 'll take a rest for an hour or
two, and you 'll think nothing of the road after.”
I stepped out with increased energy at the cheering prospect; and
although the violence of the weather was nothing abated, I consoled
myself with thinking of the rest and refreshment before me, and resolved
not to bestow a thought upon the present. Darby, on the other hand,
seemed more depressed than before, and betrayed in many ways a state of
doubt and uncertainty as to his movements,--sometimes pushing on rapidly
for half a mile or so; then relapsing into a slow and plodding
pace; often looking back too, and more than once coming to a perfect
stand-still, talking the whole time to himself in a low muttering voice.
In this way we proceeded for above two miles, when at last I descried
through the beating rain the dusky gable of a small cabin in the
distance, and eagerly asked if that were to be our halting place.
“Yes,” said Darby, “that 's Peg's cabin; and though it 's not very
remarkable in the way of cookery or the like, it 's the only house
within seven miles of us.”
As we came nearer, the aspect of the building became even less enticing.
It was a low mud hovel, with a miserable roof of sods, or scraws, as
they are technically called; a wretched attempt at a chimney occupying
the gable; and the front to the road containing a small square aperture,
with a single pane of glass as a window, and a wicker contrivance in
the shape of a door, which, notwithstanding the severity of the day,
lay wide open to permit the exit of the smoke, which rolled more freely
through this than through the chimney. A filthy pool of stagnant,
green-covered water stood before the door, through which a little
causeway of earth led. Upon this a thin, lank-sided sow was standing to
be rained, on, her long, pointed snout turned meditatively towards the
luscious mud beside her. Displacing this Important member of the family
with an unceremonious kick. Darby stooped to enter the low doorway,
uttering as he did so the customary “God save all here!” As I followed
him in, I did not catch the usual response to the greeting, and from the
thick smoke which filled the cabin, could see nothing whatever around
me.
“Well, Peg,” said Darby, “how is it with you the day?”
A low grunting noise issued from the foot of a little mud wall beside
the fireplace. I turned and beheld the figure of a woman of some seventy
years of age, seated beside the turf embers; her dark eyes, bleared with
smoke and dimmed with age, were still sharp and piercing; and her nose,
thin and aquiline, indicated a class of features by no means common
among the people. Her dress was the blue frieze coat of a laboring man,
over the woollen gown usually worn by women. Her feet and legs were
bare; and her head was covered with an old straw bonnet, whose faded
ribbon and tarnished finery betokened its having once belonged to some
richer owner. There was no vestige of any furniture,--neither table nor
chair, nor dresser, nor even a bed, unless some straw laid against the
wall in one corner could be thus called; a pot suspended over the wet
and sodden turf by a piece of hay rope, and an earthen pipkin with water
stood beside her. The floor of the hovel, lower in many places than the
road without, was cut up into sloppy mud by the tread of the sow, who
ranged at will through the premises. In a word, more dire and wretched
poverty it was impossible to conceive.
Darby's first movement was to take off the lid and peer into the pot,
when the bubbling sound of the boiling potatoes assured him that we
should have at least something to eat; his next, was to turn a little
basket upside down for a seat, to which he motioned me with his hand;
then, approaching the old woman, he placed his hand to his mouth and
shouted in her ear,--
“What 's the major after this morning, Peg?”
She shook her head gloomily a couple of times, but gave no answer.
“I 'm thinking there 's bad work going on at the town there,” cried he,
in the same loud tone as before.
Peg muttered something in Irish, but far too low to be audible.
“Is she mad, poor thing?” said I, in a whisper.
The words were not well uttered when she darted on me her black and
piercing eyes, with a look so steadfast as to make me quail beneath
them.
“Who 's that there?” said the hag, in a croaking, harsh voice.
“He 's a young boy from beyond Loughrea.”
“No!” shouted she, in a tone of passionate energy; “don't tell me a lie.
I 'd know his brows among a thousand,--he 's a son of Matt Burke's, of
Cronmore.”
“Begorra, she is a witch; devil a doubt of it!” muttered Darby between
his teeth. “You 're right, Peg,” continued he, after a moment. “His
father's dead, and the poor child's left nothing in the world.”
“And so ould Matt's dead?” interrupted she. “When did he die?”
“On Tuesday morning, before day.”
“I was driaming of him that morning, and I thought he kem up here to the
cabin door on his knees, and said, 'Peggy, Peggy M'Casky! I'm come to
ax your pardon for all I done to you.' And I sat up in my bed, and cried
out, 'Who 's that?' and he said, ''T is me,--'t is Mister Burke; I 'm
come to give you back your lease.' 'I 'll tell you what you 'll give
me back,' says I; 'give me the man whose heart you bruck with bad
treatment; give me the two fine boys you transported for life; give me
back twenty years of my own, that I spent in sorrow and misery.'”
“Peg, acushla! don't speak of it any more. The poor child here, that
's fasting from daybreak, he is n't to blame for what his father did. I
think the praties is done by this time.”
So saying, he lifted the pot from the fire, and carried it to the door
to strain off the water. The action seemed to rouse the old woman, who
rose rapidly to her legs, and, hastening to the door, snatched the pot
from his hand and pushed him to one side.
“'Tis two days since I tasted bit or sup; 'tis God himself knows when
and where I may have it again; but if I never broke my fast, I'll not do
it with the son of him that left me a lone woman this day, that brought
the man that loved me to the grave, and my children to shame forever.”
As she spoke, she dashed the pot into the road with such force as to
break it into fifty pieces; and then, sitting down on the outside of the
cabin, she wrung her hands and moaned piteously, in the very excess of
her sorrow.
“Let us be going,” said Darby, in a whisper. “There 'a no spaking to her
when she 's one of them fits on her.”
We moved silently from the hovel, and gained the road. My heart was full
to bursting; shame and abasement overwhelmed me, and I dated not look
up.
“Good-by, Peg. I hope we 'll be better friends when we meet again,” said
Darby, as he passed out.
She made no reply, but entered the cabin, from which, in an instant
after, she emerged, carrying a lighted sod of turf in a rude wooden
tongs.
[Illustration: The Curse 42]
“Come along quick!” said Darby, with a look of terror; “she's going to
curse you.”
I turned round, transfixed and motionless. If my life depended on it, I
could not have stirred a limb. The old woman by this time had knelt down
on the road, and was muttering rapidly to herself.
“Gome along, I say I,” said Darby, pulling me by the arm.
“And now,” cried the hag aloud, “may bad luck be your shadow wherever
you walk, with sorrow behind and bad hopes before you! May you never
taste happiness nor ease; and, like this turf, may your heart be always
burning here, and--”
I heard no more, for Darby, tearing me away by main force, dragged me
along the road, just as the hissing turf embers had fallen at my feet
where the hag had thrown them.