Having satisfied herself that the skeleton was a human one, she
cautiously put back the earth, and covered it up with the green sward,
as graves usually are covered, and in such a way that there should
exist, from the undisturbed appearance of the place, as little risk as
possible of discovery. This being-settled, she returned with the herbs,
laying aside the spade, from off which she had previously rubbed the red
earth, so as to prevent any particular observation; she sat down, and
locking her fingers into each other, swayed her body backwards and
forwards in silence, as a female does in Ireland when under the
influence of deep and absorbing sorrow, whilst from time to time she
fixed her eyes on the prophet, and sighed deeply.
“I thought,” said he, “I sent you for the dandelion; where is it?”
“Oh,” she replied, unrolling it from the corner of her apron, “here
it is--I forgot it--ay, I forgot it--and no wondher--oh, no wondher,
indeed!--Providence! You may blaspheme Providence as much as you like;
but he'll take his own out o' you yet; an' indeed, it's comin' to
that--it is, Donnel, an' you'll find it so.”
The man had just taken the herbs into his hand and was about to shred
them into small leaves for the poultice, when she uttered the last
words. He turned his eyes upon her; and in an instant that terrible
scowl, for which he was so remarkable, when in a state of passion, gave
its deep and deadly darkness to his already disfigured visage. His eyes
blazed, and one half of his face became ghastly with rage.
“What do you mane?” he asked; “what does she mane, Sarah? I tell you,
wanst for all, you must give up ringing Providence into my ears, unless
you wish to bring my hand upon you, as you often did! mark that!”
“Your ears,” she replied, looking at him calmly, and without seeming to
regard his threat; “oh, I only wish I could ring the fear of Providence
into your heart--I wish I I could; I'll do for yourself what you often
pretend to do for others: but I'll give you warnin'. I tell you now,
that Providence: himself is on your track--that his judgment's hangin'
over you--and that it'll fall upon! you before long. This is my
prophecy, and; a black one you'll soon find it.”
That Nelly had been always a woman of some good nature, with gleams of
feeling and humanity appearing in a character otherwise apathetic, hard,
and dark, M'Gowan well knew; but that she was capable of bearding him
in one of his worst and most ferocious moods, was a circumstance which
amazed and absolutely overcame him. Whether it was the novelty or the
moral elevation of the position she so unexpectedly assumed, or some
lurking conviction within himself which echoed back the truth of her
language, it is difficult to say. Be that, however, as it might, he
absolutely quailed before her; and instead of giving way to headlong
violence or outrage, he sat down, and merely looked on her in silence
and amazement.
Sarah thought he was unnecessarily tame on the occasion, and that
her prophecy ought not to have been listened to in silence. The utter
absence of all fear, however, on the part of the elder female, joined to
the extraordinary union of determination and indifference with which
she spoke, had something morally impressive in it; and Sarah, who
felt, besides, that there seemed a kind of mystery in the words of the
denunciation, resolved to let the matter rest between them, at least for
the present.
A silence of some time now ensued, during which she looked from the one
to the other with an aspect of uncertainty. At length, she burst into a
hearty laugh--
“Ha, ha, ha!--well,” said she, “it's a good joke at any rate to see my
father bate with his own weapons. Why, she has frightened you more wid
her prophecy than ever you did any one wid one of your own. Ha, ha, ha!”
To this Sally neither replied, nor seemed disposed to reply.
“Here,” added Sarah, handing her stepmother a cloth, “remimber you have
to go to Darby Skinadre's for meal. I'd go myself, an' save you in the
journey, but that I'm afraid you might fall in love wid one another
in my absence. Be off now, you ould stepdivle, an' get the meal; or if
you're not able to go, I will.”
After a lapse of a few minutes, the woman rose, and taking the cloth,
deliberately folded it up, and asked him for money to purchase the meal
she wanted.
“Here,” said he, handing her a written paper, “give him that, an' it
will do as well as money. He expects Master Dick's interest for Dalton's
farm, an' I'll engage he'll attend to that.”
She received the paper, and looking at it, said--
“I hope this is none of the villainy I suspect.”
“Be off,” he replied, “get what you want, and that's all you have to
do.”
“What's come over you?” asked Sarah of her father, after the other had
gone. “Did you get afeard of her?”
“There's something in her eye,” he replied, “that I don't like, and that
I never seen there before.”
“But,” returned the other, a good deal surprised, “what can there be in
her eye that you need care about? You have nobody's blood on your hands,
an' you stole nothing. What made you look afeard that time?”
“I didn't look afeard.”
“But I say you did, an' I was ashamed of you.”
“Well, never mind--I may tell you something some o' these days about
that same woman. In the meantime, I'll throw myself on the bed, an' take
a sleep, for I slept but little last night.”
“Do so,” replied Sarah; “but at any rate, never be cowed by a woman. Lie
down, an' I'll go over awhile to Tom Cassidy's. But first, I had better
make the poultice for your face, to take down the ugly swellin'.”
Having made and applied the poultice, she went off, light-hearted as a
lark, leaving her worthy father to seek some rest if he could.
She had no sooner disappeared than the prophet, having closed and
bolted the door, walked backwards and forwards, in a moody and unsettled
manner.
“What,” he exclaimed to himself, “can be the matther with that woman,
that made her look at me in sich a way a while agone? I could not
mistake her eye. She surely knows more than I thought, or she would not
fix her eye into mine as she did. Could there be anything in that dhrame
about Dalton an' my coffin? Hut! that's nonsense. Many a dhrame I had
that went for nothin'. The only thing she could stumble on is the Box,
an' I don't think she would be likely to find that out, unless she
went to throw down the house; but, anyhow, it's no harm to thry.” He
immediately mounted the old table, and, stretching up, searched the
crevice in the wall where it had been, but, we need not add, in vain. He
then came down again, in a state of dreadful alarm, and made a general
search for it in every hole and corner visible, after, which his
agitation became wild and excessive.
“She has got it!” he exclaimed--“she has stumbled on it, aided by the
devil'--an' may she soon be in his clutches!--and it's the only thing
I'm afeard of! But then,” he added, pausing, and getting somewhat
cool--“does she know it might be brought against me, or who owned it?
I don't think she does; but still, where can it be, and what could she
mane by Providence trackin' me out?--an' why did she look as if she:
knew something? Then that dhrame I can't get it out o' my head this
whole day--and the terrible one I had last night, too! But that last is
aisily 'counted for. As it is, I must only wait, and watch her; and if I
find she can be dangerous, why--it'll be worse for her--that's all!”
He then threw himself on the wretched bed, and, despite of his
tumultuous reflections, soon fell asleep.