Having mentioned a strange woman who made her appearance at Skinadre's,
it may be necessary, or, at least, agreeable to the reader, that
we should account for her presence under the roof of that worthy
individual, especially as she is likely to perform a part of some
interest in our tale. We have said already that she started on hearing
Mave Sullivan's name mentioned, and followed her and the Black Prophet's
wife like a person who watched their motions, and seemed to feel some
peculiar interest in either one or both. The reader must return, then,
to the Grey Stone already alluded to, which to some of the characters in
our narrative will probably prove to be a “stone of destiny.”
Hanlon, having departed from Sarah M'Gowan in a state of excitement,
wended his way along a lonely and dreary road, to the residence of
his master, Dick o' the Grange. The storm had increased, and was still
increasing at every successive blast, until it rose to what might be
termed a tempest. It is, indeed, a difficult thing to describe the
peculiar state of his feelings as he struggled onwards, sometimes
blown back to a stand-still, and again driven forward by the gloomy and
capricious tyranny of the blast, as if he were its mere plaything.
In spite, however, of the conflict of the external elements as they
careered over the country around him, he could not shake from his
imagination the impression left there by the groan which he had heard at
the Grey Stone. A supernatural terror, therefore, was upon him, and
he felt as if he were in the presence of an accompanying spirit--of a
spirit that seemed anxious to disclose the fact that murder would not
rest; and so strongly did this impression gain upon him, that in the
fitful howling of the storm, and in its wild wailing and dying sobs
among the trees and hedges, as he went along, he thought he could
distinguish sounds that belonged not to this life. Still he proceeded,
his terrors thus translating, as it were, the noisy conflict of the
elements into the voices of the dead, or thanking Heaven that the strong
winds brought him to a calmer sense of his position, by the necessity
that they imposed of preserving himself against their violence. In this
anomalous state he advanced, until he came to a grove of old beeches
that grew at the foot of one of the hill-ranges we have described, and
here the noises he heard were not calculated to diminish his terrors. As
the huge trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his
ears were assailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached
them before. The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it
raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repetition of hoarse
moanings, muffled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered
him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel
that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere
transition from extreme cowardice to reckless indifference.
Still he advanced homewards, repeating his prayers with singular energy,
his head uncovered notwithstanding the severity of the night, and the
rain pouring in torrents upon him, when he found it necessary to cross a
level of rough land, at all times damp and marshy, but in consequence of
the rains of the season, now a perfect morass. Over this he had advanced
about half a mile, and got beyond the frightful noises of the woods,
when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes
before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud
and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled
that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could
suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and
hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him
that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the
voice of undiscovered murder was groaning on the blast--shrieking, as it
were, for vengeance in the terrible voice of the tempest. He once more
blessed himself, repeated a fresh prayer, and struggled forward, weak,
and nearly exhausted, until at length he reached the village adjoining
which his master, Dick o' the Grange, resided.
The winds now, and for some minutes previously, had begun to fall, and
the lulls in the storm were calmer and more frequent, as well as longer
in duration. Hanlon proceeded to his master's, and peering through the
shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest;
then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small
isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was
admitted by a thin, tall female.
“God protect us, dear, you're lost!--blessed father, sich a night! Oh!
my, my! Well, well; sit near the spark o' fire, sich as it is; but,
indeed, it's little you'll benefit by it. Any way, sit down.”
Hanlon sat on a stool, and laying his hat beside him on the floor, he
pressed the rain as well as he could out of his drenched hair, and for
some time did not speak, whilst the female, squatted upon the ground,
somewhat like a hare in her form, sat with the candle in her hand, which
she held up in the direction of his face, whilst her eyes were riveted
on him with a look of earnest and solemn inquiry.
“Well,” she at length said, “did your journey end, as I tould you it
would, in nothing? And yet, God presarve me, you look--eh!--what has
happened?--you look like one that was terrified, sure enough. Tell me,
at wanst, did the dhrame come out thrue?”
“I'll not have a light heart this many a day,” he replied; “let no one
say there's not a Providence above us to bring murdher to light.”
“God of glory be about us!” she exclaimed, interrupting him; “something
has happened! Your looks would frighten one, an' your voice isn't like
the voice of a livin' man. Tell me--and yet, for all so curious as I
feel, I'm thremblin' this minute--but tell me, did the dhrame come out
thrue, I say?”
“The dhrame came out thrue,” he replied, solemnly. “I know where the
tobaccy box is that he had about him; the same that transported my poor
uncle, or that was partly the means of doin' it.”
The woman crossed herself, muttered a short ejaculatory prayer, and
again gathered her whole features into an expression of mingled awe and
curiosity.
“Did you go to the place you dhramed of?” she asked.
“I went to the Grey Stone,” he replied, “an' offered up a prayer for his
sowl, afther puttin' my right hand upon it in his name, jist as I did on
yesterday; afther I got an account of the tobaccy box, I heard a groan
at the spot--as heaven's above me, I did.”
“Savior of earth, _gluntho shin!_”
“But that wasn't all. On my way home, I heard, as I was passin' the ould
trees at the Rabbit Bank, things that I can't find words to tell you
of.”
“Well acushla, glory be to God for everything! it's all his will,
blessed be his name! What did you hear, avick?--but wait till I throw a
drop o' the holy wather that I have hangin' in the little bottle at the
bed-post upon us.”
She rose whilst speaking and getting the bottle alluded to, sprinkled
both herself and him, after which she hung it up again in its former
position.
“There, now, nothin' harmful, at any rate, can come near us afther that,
blessed be his name. Well, what did you hear comin' home?--I mean at
the Rabbit Bank. Wurrah,” she added, shuddering, “but it's it that's the
lonely spot after night! What was it, dear?”
“Indeed, I can scarcely tell you--sich groans, an' wild shoutins, an'
shrieks, man's ears never hard in this world, I think; there I hard them
as I was comin' past the trees, an' afther I passed them; an' when I
left them far behind me, I could hear, every now and then, a wild shriek
that made my blood run cowld. But there was still worse as I crossed the
Black Park; something got up into the air out o' the rushes before me,
an' went off wid a noise not unlike what Jerry Hamilton of the Band
makes when he rubs his middle finger up against the tamborine.”
“Heaven be about us!” she exclaimed, once more crossing herself, and
uttering a short prayer for protection from evil; “but tell me, how did
you know it was his Box, and how did you find it out?”
“By the letters P. M., and the broken hinge,” he replied.
“Blessed be the name of God!” she exclaimed again--“He won't let the
murdher lie, that's clear. But what I want to know is, how did your
goin' to the Grey Stone bring you to the knowledge of the box?”
He then gave her a more detailed account of his conversation with Sarah
M'Gowan, and the singular turn which it chanced to take towards the
subject of the handkerchief, in the first instance; but when the
coincidence of the letters were mentioned, together with Sarah's
admission that she had the box in her possession, she clasped her hands,
and looking upwards exclaimed--
“Blessed be the name of the Almighty for that! Oh, I feel there is no
doubt now the hand of God is in it, an' we'll come at the murdher or the
murdherers yet.”
“I hope so,” he replied; “but I'm lost Wid wet an' cowld; so in the
meantime I'll be off home, an' to my bed. I had something to say to you
about another matther, but I'll wait till mornin'; dear knows, I'm in no
condition to spake about anything else to-night. This is a snug little
cabin; but, plaise God, in the coorse of a week or so, I'll have
you more comfortable than you are. If my own throuble was over me, I
wouldn't stop long in the neighborhood; but as the hand of God seems
to be in this business, I can't think of goin' till it's cleared up, as
cleared up it will be, I have no doubt, an' can have none, afther what
has happened this awful night.”
Hanlon's situation with his master was one with which many of our
readers are, no doubt, well acquainted. He himself was a clever, active,
ingenious fellow, who could, as they say in the country, put a hand to
anything, and make himself useful in a great variety of employments. He
had in the spring of that year, been engaged as a common laborer by
Dick o' the Grange, in which capacity he soon attracted his employer's
notice, by his extraordinary skill in almost everything pertaining to
that worthy gentleman's establishment. It is true he was a stranger in
the country, of whom nobody knew anything--for there appeared to be some
mystery about him; but as Dick cared little of either his place of birth
or pedigree, it was sufficient for him to find that Hanlon was a
very useful, not to say valuable young man, about his house, that
he understood everything, and had an eye and hand equally quick and
experienced. The consequence was, that he soon became a favorite with
the father, and a kind of _sine qua non_ with the son, into whose rustic
gallantries he entered, with a spirit that satisfied the latter of his
capacity to serve him in that respect as well as others. Hanlon,
in truth, was just the person for such a master, and for such an
establishment as he kept. Dick o' the Grange was not a man who, either
by birth, education, or position in society, could entertain any
pretensions to rank with the gentry of the surrounding country. It is
true he was a magistrate, but then he was a middleman, and as such found
himself an interested agent in the operation of one of the worst and
most cruel systems that ever cursed either the country or the people.
We of course mean that which suffered a third party to stand between
the head landlord, and those who in general occupied the soil. Of this
system, it may be with truth said, that the iniquity lay rather in the
principal on which it rested, than in the individual who administered
it; because it was next to an impossibility that a man anxious to
aggrandize his family--as almost every man is--could, in the exercise of
the habits which enable him to do so, avoid such a pressure upon those
who were under him as amounted to great hardships and injustice. The
system held out so many temptations to iniquity in the management of
land, and in the remuneration of labor, that it required an amount of
personal virtue and self-denial to resist them, that were scarcely to
be expected from any one, so difficult was it to overlook or neglect the
opportunities for oppression and fraud which it thus offered.
Old Dick, although bearing the character of being a violent and
outrageous man, was, however, one of those persons of whom there will
be always somebody found to speak favorably. Hot and ungovernable in
temper, he unquestionably was, and capable of savage and cruel acts;
but at the same time his capricious and unsteady impulses rendered him
uncertain, whether for good or evil; so much so, indeed, that it was
impossible to know when to ask him for a favor; nor was it extraordinary
to find him a friend this day to the man whose avowed enemy he
proclaimed himself yesterday; and this same point of character was
true the other way---for whilst certain that you had him for a friend,
perhaps you found him hard at work to oppress or over-reach you if he
could. The consequence of this peculiarity was that he had a two-fold
reputation in the country. Some were found to abuse him, and others to
mention many acts of generosity and kindness which he had been known to
perform under circumstances where they were least to be expected. This
perhaps was one reason why they made so strong an impression upon the
people, and were so distinctly remembered to his advantage. It is true
he was a violent party man, but then he wanted coolness to adjust his
principles, and thus make them subservient to his private interests. For
this reason, notwithstanding his strong and out-spoken prejudices, it
was a well know fact, that the Roman Catholic population preferred him
as a magistrate to many who were remarkable for a more equal and even
tenor of life, and in whom, under greater plausibility of manner,
there existed something which they would have readily exchanged for his
violent abuse of them and their creed.
Such was Dick o' the Grange, a man who, as a middleman and a magistrate,
stood out a prominent representative of a class that impressed
themselves strongly upon their times, and who, whether as regards their
position or office, would not find at the present day in the ranks of
any party in Ireland a single man who could come forward and say they
were not an oppressive evil to the country.
Dick o' the Grange, at this period of our narrative, was far advanced in
years, and had, some time past, begun to feel what is known in men
who have led a hard convivial life, as that breaking down of the
constitution, which is generally the forerunner of dissolution. On
this account he had for some time past resigned the management of his
property altogether to his son, young Dick, who was certainly wild and
unreflecting, but neither so impulsively generous, nor so habitually
violent as his father. The estimate of his character which went abroad
was such as might be expected--many thought him better than the old man.
He was the youngest son and a favorite--two circumstances which probably
occasioned his education to be neglected, as it had been. All his
sisters and brothers having been for some years married and settled in
life, he, and his father, who was a widower, kept a bachelor's house,
where we regret to say the parental surveillance over his morals was
not so strict as it ought to have been. Young Dick was handsome, and
so exceedingly vain of his person, that any one wishing to gain a favor
either from himself or his worthy sire, had little more to do than
dexterously apply a strong dose of flattery to this his weakest point,
and the favor was sure to be granted, for his influence over old Dick
was boundless.
In this family, then, it was that Hanlon held the situation we have
described--that is, partly a gardener, and partly a steward, and partly
a laboring man. There was a rude and riotous character in and about
Dick's whole place, which marked it at once as the property of a person
below the character of a gentleman. Abundance there was, and great
wealth; but neither elegance nor neatness marked the house or furniture.
His servants partook of the same equivocal appearance, as did the father
and son, and the “Grange” in general; but, above all and everything in
his establishment, must we place, in originality and importance, Jemmy
Branigan, who, in point of fact, ought to receive credit for the greater
portion of old Dick's reputation, or at least for all that was good of
it. Jemmy was his old, confidential--enemy--for more than forty years,
during the greater portion of which period it could scarcely be said
with truth that, in Jemmy's hands, Dick o' the Grange ought to be looked
to as a responsible person. When we say “enemy,” we know perfectly well
what we mean; for if half a dozen battles between Jemmy and his master
every day during the period above mentioned constituted friendship,
then, indeed, the reader may substitute the word friend, if he pleases.
In fact, Dick and Jemmy had become notorious throughout the whole
country; and we are certain that many of our readers will, at first
glance, recognize these two remarkable individuals. Truly, the
ascendancy which Jemmy had gained over the magistrate, was surprising;
and nothing could be more amusing than the interminable series of
communications, both written and oral, which passed between them, in the
shape of dismissals from service on the one side, and notices to leave
on the other; each of which whether written or oral, was treated by the
party noticed with the most thorough contempt. Nothing was right that
Jemmy disapproved of, and nothing wrong that had his sanction, and this
without any reference whatsoever to the will of his master, who, if he
happened to get into a passion about it, was put down by Jemmy, who
got into a greater passion still; so that, after a long course of
recrimination and Billinsgate on both sides, delivered by Jemmy in an
incomparably louder voice, and with a more consequential manner, old
Dick was finally forced to succumb.
The worthy magistrate and his son were at breakfast next morning, when
young “Master Richard,” as he was called, rung the bell, and Jemmy
attended--for we must add, that Jemmy discharged the duties of butler,
together with any other duty that he himself deemed necessary, and that
without leave asked or given.
“Where's Hanlon, Jemmy?” he asked.
“Hanlon? troth, it's little matther where he is, an' devil a one o'
myself cares.”
“Well, but I care, Jemmy, for I want him. Where is he?”
“He's gone up to that ould streele's, that lives in the cabin above
there. I don't like the same Hanlon; nobody here knows anything about
him, nor he won't let them know anything about him. He's as close as
Darby Skinadre, and as deep as a dhraw-well. Altogether, he looks as if
there was a weight on his conscience, for all his lightness an' fun--an'
if I thought so, I'd discharge him at wanst.”
“And I agree with you for once,” observed his master; “there is some
cursed mystery about him. I don't like him, either, to say the truth.”
“An' why don't you like him?” asked Jemmy, with a contemptuous look.
“I can't say; but I don't.”
“No! you can't? I know you can't say anything, at all events, that you
ought to say,” replied Jemmy, who, like, his master, would have died
without contradiction; “but I can say why you don't like him; it's
bekaise he's the best sarvint ever was about your place; that's the
raison you don't like him. But what do you know about a good sarvint or
a bad one, or anything else that's useful to you, God help you.”
“If you were near my cane, you old scoundrel, I'd pay you for your
impertinence, ay would I.”
“Ould scoundrel, is it? Oh, hould your tongue; I'm not of your blood,
thank God!--and don't be fastenin' your name upon me. Ould scoundrel,
indeed!--Troth, we could spare an odd one now and then out of our own
little establishment.”
“Jemmy, never mind,” said the son, “but tell Hanlon I want to speak to
him in the office after breakfast.”
“If I see him I will, but the devil an inch I'll go out o' my way for
it--if I see him I will, an' if I don't I won't. Did you put a fresh
bandage to your leg, to keep in them Pharisee (* Varicose, we presume)
veins o' yours, as the docthor ordhered you?”
This, in fact, was the usual style of his address to the old magistrate,
when in conversation with him.
“Damn the quack!” replied his master: “no, I didn't.”
“An' why didn't you?”
“You're beginning this morning,” said the other, losing temper. “You had
better keep quiet, keep your distance, if you're wise--that's all.”
“Why didn't you, I ax,” continued Jemmy, walking up to him, with his
hands in his coat pocket, and looking coolly, but authoritatively in his
face. “I tell you, and if you don't know how to take care of yourself, I
do, and I will. I'm all that's left over you now; an' in spite of all I
can do, it's a purty account I'd be able to give of you, if I was called
on.”
“This to my face!” exclaimed Dick--“this to my face, you villain!”--and,
as he spoke, the cane was brandished over Jemmy's head, as if it would
descend every moment.
“Ay,” replied Jemmy, without budging, “ay, indeed--an' a purty face it
is--a nice face hard drinkin' an' a bad life has left you. Ah! do it if
you dare,” he added, as the other swung his staff once or twice, as if
about to lay it down in reality; “troth, if you do, I'll know how to
act.”
“What would you do, you old cancer--what would you do if I did?”
“Troth, what you'll force me to do some day. I know you will, for heaven
an' earth couldn't stand you; an' if I do, it's not me you'll have to
blame for it. Ah, that same step you'll drive me to--I see that.”
“What will you do, you old viper, that has been like a blister to me my
whole life--what will you do?”
“Send you about your business,” replied Jemmy, coolly, but with all the
plenitude of authority in his manner; “send you from about the place,
an' then I'll have a quiet house. I'll send you to your youngest
daughter's or somewhere, or any where, out of this. So now that you know
my determination you had betther keep yourself cool, unless, indeed, you
wish to thravel. Oh, then heaven's above, but you wor a bitther sight to
me, an' but it was the unlucky day that ever the divil druv you acrass
me!”
“Dick,” said the father, “as soon as you go into the office, write a
discharge, as bad a one, for that old vagabond, as the English language
can enable you to do--for by the light of heaven, he shan't sleep
another night under this roof.”
“Shan't I?--we'll see that, though. To the divil I pitch yourself an'
your discharge--an' now mark my words: I'll be no longer throubled
wid you; you've been all my life a torment and a heart-break to me--a
blister of French flies was swan's down, compared to you, but by the
book, I'll end it at last--ay, will I--I give you up--I surrendher you
as a bad bargain--I wash my hands of you--This is Tuesday mornin', God
bless the day and the weather--an' woeful weather it is--but sure it's
betther than you desarve, an' I don't doubt but it's you and the likes
o' you that brings it on us! Ay, this is Tuesday mornin', an' I now give
you warnin' that on Saturday next, you'll see the last o' me--an' don't
think that this warnin' is like the rest, or that I'll relint again,
as I was foolish enough to do often before. No--my mind's made up--an'
indeed--” here his voice sank to a great calmness and philosophy, like a
man who was above all human passion, and who could consequently talk in
a voice of cool and quiet determination;--“An' indeed,” he added, “my
conscience was urgin' me to this for some time past--so that I'm glad
things has taken this turn.”
“I hope you'll keep your word, then,” said his master, “but before you
go, listen to me.”
“Listen to you--to be sure I will; God forbid I wouldn't; let there be
nothing at any rate, but civility between us while we're together. What
is it?”
“You asked me last night to let widow Leary's cow out o' pound?”
“Ay, did I!”
“And I swore I wouldn't.”
“I know you did. Who would doubt that, at any rate?”
“Well, before you leave us, be off now, and let the animal out o' the
pound.”
“Is that it? Oh, God help you! what'll you do when you'll be left to
yourself, as you will be on Saturday next? Let her out, says you. Troth,
the poor woman had her cow safe and sound at home wid her before she
went to bed last night, and her poor childre had her milk to kitchen
their praties, the craythurs. Do you think I'd let her stay in till the
maggot bit you? Oh, ay, indeed! In the mane time, as soon as you are
done breakfast, I want you in the study, to put the bindage on that
ould, good-for-nothin' leg o' yours; an' mark my words, let there be no
shirkin' now, for on it must go, an' will, too. If I see that Hanlon,
I'll tell him you want to see him, Master Richard; an' now that I'm on
it, I had betther say a word to you before I go; bekaise when I do go,
you'll have no one to guide you, God help you, or to set you a Christian
patthern. You see that man sittin' there wid that bad leg, stretched out
upon the chair?”
“I do, Jemmy--ha, ha, ha! Well, what next?”
“That man was the worst patthern ever you had. In the word, don't folly
his example in anything--in any one single thing, an' then there may be
some chance o' you still. I'll want you by-an'-by in the study, I tould
you.”
These last words were addressed to his master, at whom he looked as
one might be supposed to do at a man whose case, in a moral sense, was
hopeless; after which, having uttered a groan that seemed to imitate
the woeful affliction he was doomed, day by day, to suffer, he left the
room.
It is not our intention, neither is it necessary that we should enter
into the particulars of the interview which Hanlon had that morning with
young Dick. It is merely sufficient to state that they had a private
conversation in the old magistrate's office, at which the female
whom Hanlon had visited the night before was present. When this was
concluded, Hanlon walked with her a part of the way, evidently holding
serious and interesting discourse touching a subject which we may
presume bore upon the extraordinary proceedings of the previous night.
He closed by giving her directions how to proceed on her journey; for it
seemed that she was unacquainted with the way, being, like himself, but
a stranger in the neighborhood:--“You will go on,” said he, “till you
reach the height at Aughindrummon, from that you will see the trees at
the Rabbit Bank undher you; then keep the road straight till you come to
where it crosses the ford of the river: a little on this side, and where
the road turns to your right, you will find the Grey Stone, an' jist
opposite that you will see the miserable cabin where the Black Prophet
lives.”
“Why do they call him the Black Prophet?”
“Partly, they tell me, from his appearance, an' partly bekaise he takes
delight in prophesyin' evil.”
“But could he have anything to do wid the murdher?”
“I was thinkin' about that,” he replied, “and had some talk this mornin'
wid a man that's livin' a long time--indeed that was born--a little
above the place--and he says that the Black Prophet, or M'Gowan, did not
come to the neighborhood till afther the murdher. I wasn't myself cool
enough last night to ask his daughter many questions about it; an' I was
afraid, besides, to appear over-anxious in the business. So now that
you have your instructions in that and the other matthers, you'll manage
every thing as well as you can.”
Hanlon then returned to the Grange, and the female proceeded on her
mission to the house, if house it could be called, of the Black Prophet,
for the purpose, if possible, of collecting such circumstances as might
tend to throw light upon a dark and mysterious murder.
When Sarah left her father, after having poulticed his face, to go a
kailley, as she said, to a neighbor's house, she crossed the ford of the
river, and was proceeding in the same directions that had been taken by
Hanlon the preceding night, when she met a strange woman, or rather she
found her standing, apparently waiting for herself, at the Grey Stone.
From the position of the stone, which was a huge one, under one ledge
of which, by the way, there grew a little clump of dwarf elder, it was
impossible that Sarah could pass her, without coming in tolerable close
contact; for the road was an old and narrow one, though perfectly open
and without hedge or ditch on either side of it.
“Maybe you could tell me, young woman, whereabouts here a man lives that
they call Donnel Dhu, or the Black Prophet; his real name is M'Gowan, I
think.”
“I ought to be able to tell you, at any rate,” replied Sarah; “I'm his
daughter.”
The strange woman, on surveying Sarah more closely, looked as if she
never intended to remove her eyes from her countenance and figure.
She seemed for a moment, as it were, to forget every other object in
life--her previous conversation with Hanlon--the message on which she
had been sent--and her anxiety to throw light upon the awful crime that
had been committed at the spot whereon she stood. At length she sighed
deeply, and appeared to recover her presence of mind, and to break
through the abstraction in which she had been wrapped. “You're his
daughter, you say?”
“Ay, I do say so.”
“Then you know a young man by name Pierce--och, what am I sayin'!--by
name Charley Hanlon?”
“To be sure I do--I'm not ashamed of knowin' Charles Hanlon.”
“You have a good opinion of him, then?”
“I have a good opinion of him, but not so good as I had thought.”
“Mush a why then, might one ask?”
“I'm afeard he's a cowardly crathur, and rather unmanly a thrifle. I
like a man to be a man, an' not to get as white as a sheet, an' cowld as
a tombstone, bekaise he hears what he thinks to be a groan at night, an'
it may be nothin' but an owld cow behind a ditch. Ha! ha! ha!”
“An' where did he hear the groan?”
“Why, here where we're standin'. Ha! ha! ha! I was thinkin' of it since,
an' I did hear somethin' very like a groan; but what about it? Sich a
night as last night would make any one groan that had a groan in them.”
“You spoke about ditches, but sure there's no ditches here.”
“Divil a matther--who cares what it was? What did you want wid my
father?”
“It was yourself that I wanted to see.”
“Faix, an' you've seen me, then, an' the full o' your eye you tuck out
o' me. You'll know me again, I hope.”
“Is your mother livin'?”
“No.”
“How long is she dead, do you know?”
“I do not; I hardly remember anything about her. She died when I was
a young slip--a mere child, I believe. Still,” she proceeded, rather
slowly, musing and putting her beautiful and taper fingers to her
chin--“I think that I do remember--it's like a dhrame to me though, an'
I dunna but it is one--still it's like a dhrame to me, that I was wanst
in her arms, that I was cryin', an' that she kissed me--that she
kissed me! If she had lived, it's a different life maybe I'd lead an' a
different creature I'd be to-day, maybe, but I never had a mother.”
“Did your father marry a second time?”
“He did.”
“Then you have a step-mother?”
“Ay have I.”
“Is she kind to you, an' do you like her?”
“Middlin'--she's not so bad--better than I deserve, I doubt; I'm sorry
for what I did to her; but then I have the divil's temper, an' have no
guide o' myself when it comes on me. I know whatever she may be to me,
I'm not the best step-daughter to her.”
The strange female was evidently much struck with the appearance
and singularly artless disposition of Sarah, as well as with her
extraordinary candor; and indeed no wonder; for as this neglected
creature spoke, especially with reference to her mother, her eyes
flashed and softened with an expression of brilliancy and tenderness
that might be said to resemble the sky at night, when the glowing
corruscations of the Aurora Borealis sweep over it like expanses of
lightning, or fade away into those dim but graceful undulations which
fill the mind with a sense of such softness and beauty.
“I don't know,” observed her companion, sighing and looking at her
affectionately, “how any step-mother could be harsh to you.”
“Ha! ha! ha! don't you, indeed? Faix, then, if you had me, maybe you
wouldn't think so--I'm nothin' but a born divil when the fit's on me.”
“Charley Hanlon,” proceeded the strange woman, “bid me ax you for the
ould tobaccy-box you promised him last night.”
“Well, but he promised me a handkerchy; have you got it?”
“I have,” replied the other, producing it; “but, then, I'm not to give
it to you, unless you give me the box for it.”
“But I haven't the box now,” said Sarah, “how-and-ever, I'll get it for
him.”
“Are you sure that you can an' will?” inquired the other.
“I had it in my hand yesterday,” she said, “an' if it's to be had I'll
get it.”
“Well, then,” observed the other mildly, “as soon as you get him the
box, he'll give you this handkerchy, but not till then.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed, kindling, “is that his bargain; does he think I'd
thrick him or cheat him?--hand it here.”
“I can't,” replied the other; “I'm only to give it to you when I get the
box.”
“Hand it here, I say,” returned Sarah, whose eyes flashed in a moment;
“it's Peggy Murray's rag, I suppose--hand it here, I bid you.”
The woman shook her head and replied, “I can't--not till you get the
box.”
Sarah replied not a word, but sprang at it, and in a minute had it in
her hands.
“I would tear it this minute into ribbons,” she exclaimed, with eyes of
fire and glowing cheeks, “and tramp it undher my feet too; only that I
want it to show her, that I may have the advantage over her.”
There was a sharp, fierce smile of triumph on her features as she spoke;
and altogether her face sparkled with singular animation and beauty.
“God bless me!” said the strange woman, looking at her with a wondering
yet serious expression of countenance; “I wanst knew a face like yours,
an' a temper the aiquil of it--at any rate, my good girl, you don't pay
much respect to a stranger. Is your stepmother at home?”
“She is not, but my father is; however, I don't think he'll see you now.
My stepmother's gone to Darby Skinadre, the meal-monger's.”
“I'm goin' there.”
“An' if you see her,” replied the other, “you'll know her; a score on her
cheek--ha, ha, ha; an' when you see it, maybe you'll thank God that I am
not your step-daughter.”
“Isn't there a family named Sullivan that lives not far from
Skinadre's?”
“There is; Jerry Sullivan, it's his daughter that's the beauty--_Gra
Gal_ Sullivan. Little she knows what's preparin' for her!”
“How am I to go to Skinadre's from this?” asked the woman.
“Up by that road there; any one will tell you as you go along.”
“Thank you, dear,” replied the woman, tenderly; “God bless you; you are
a wild girl, sure enough; but above all things, afore I go, don't forget
the box for--for--och, for--Charley Hanlon. God bless you, a _colleen
machree_, an' make you what you ought to be!”
Sarah, during many a long day, had not heard herself addressed in an
accent of kindness or affection; for it would be wrong to bestow upon
the rude attachment which her father entertained for her, or his surly
mode of expressing it, any term that could indicate tenderness, even in
a remote degree. She looked, therefore, at the woman earnestly, and as
she did, her whole manner changed to one of melancholy and kindness. A
soft and benign expression came like the dawn of breaking day over
her features, her voice fell into natural melody and sweetness, and,
approaching her companion, she took her hand and exclaimed--
“May God bless you for them words! it's many a day since I heard the
voice o' kindness. I'll get the box, if it's to be had, if it was only
for your own sake.”
She then passed on to her neighbor's house, and the next appearance of
her companion was that in which the reader caught, a glimpse of her in
the house of Darby Skinadre, from which she followed Nelly M'Gowan and
Mave Sullivan with an appearance of such interest.