Jimmy Branighan and the Pedlar
The next morning but one after the committal of Condy Dalton, the
strange woman who had manifested such an anxious interest in the
recovery of the Tobacco-Box, was seated at her humble fireside, in a
larger and more convenient cottage than that which we have described,
where she was soon joined by Charley Hanlon, who had already made it
so comfortable and convenient that she was able to contribute something
towards her own support, by letting what are termed in the country parts
of Ireland, “Dry Lodgings.” Her only lodger on this occasion was our
friend the pedlar, who had been domiciled with her ever since his
arrival in the neighborhood, and whose principal traffic, we may
observe, consisted in purchasing the flowing and luxuriant heads of hair
which necessity on the one hand, and fear of fever on the other, induced
the country maidens to part with. This traffic, indeed, was very general
during the period we are describing, the fact being that the poor
people, especially the females, had conceived a notion, and not a very
unreasonable one, too, that a large crop of hair not only predisposed
them to the fever which then prevailed, but rendered their recovery from
it more difficult. These notions, to be sure, resulted naturally enough
from the treatment which medical men found it necessary to adopt in
dealing with it--every one being aware that in order to relieve the
head, whether by blister or other application, it is necessary to remove
the hair. Be this, however, as it may, it is our duty to state here that
the traffic we allude to was very general, and that many a lovely and
luxuriant crop came under the shears of the pedlars who then strolled
through the country.
“Afther all, aunt,” said Hanlon, after having bidden her good morrow,
“I'm afraid it was a foolish weakness to depend upon a dhrame. I see
nothing clear in the business yet. Here now we have got the Box, an'
what are we the nearer to the discovery?”
“Well,” replied his aunt, for in that relation she stood to him, “is it
nothing to get even that? Sure we know now that it was his, an' do you
think that M'Gowan, or as they call him, the Black Prophet, would be in
sich a state to get it--an' his wife, too, it seems--unless there was
some raison on their part beyond the common, to come at it?”
“It's a dark business altogether; but arn't we thrown out of all trace
of it in the mane time? Jist when we thought ourselves on the straight
road to the discovery, it turns out to be another an' a different
murdher entirely--the murdher of one Sullivan.”
At this moment, the pedlar, who had been dressing himself in another
small apartment, made, his appearance, just in time to catch his
concluding words.
“An' now,” Hanlon added, “it appears that Sullivan's body has been found
at last. The Black Prophet and Body Duncan knows all about the murdher,
an' can prove the act home to Condy Dalton, and identify the body, they
say, besides.”
The pedlar looked at the speakers with a face of much curiosity and
interest, then mused for a time, and at length took a turn or two about
the floor, after which he sat down and began to drum his fingers on the
little table which had been placed for breakfast.
“Afther I get my breakfast,” he said at length, “I'll thank you to let
me know what I have to pay. It's not my intention to stop undher this
roof any longer; I don't think I'd be overly safe.”
“Safe!--arrah why so?” asked the woman.
“Why,” he replied, “ever since I came here, you have done nothing but
collogue--collogue--an' whisper, an' lay your heads together, an' divil
a syllable can I hear that hasn't murdher at the front an' rear of
it--either spake out, or get me my bill. If you're of that stamp, it's
time for me to thravel; not that I'm so rich as to make it worth any
body's while to take the mouthful of wind out o' me that's in me. What
do you mean by this discoorse?”
“May God rest the sowls of the dead!” replied the woman, “but it's not
for nothing that we talk as we do, an' if you knew but all, you wouldn't
think so.”
“Very likely,” he replied, in a dry but dissatisfied voice; “maybe, sure
enough, that the more I'd know of it, the less I'd like of it--here now
is a man named Sullivan--Barney, Bill, or Bartley, or some sich name,
that has been murdhered, an' it seems the murdherer was sent to gaol
yestherday evenin'--the villain! Get me my bill, I say, it's an unsafe
neighborhood, an' I'll take myself out of it, while I'm able.”
“It's not widout raisin we talk of murdher then,” replied the woman.
“Faith may be so--get me my bill, then, I bid you, an' in the mane time,
let me have, my breakfast. As it is, I tell you both that I carry no
money to signify about me.”
“Tell him the truth, aunt,” said Hanlon, “there's no use in lyin' under
his suspicion wrongfully, or allowin' him to lave your little place for
no raison.”
“The truth is, then,” she proceeded, throwing the corner of her apron
over her left shoulder, and rocking herself to and fro, “that this young
man had a dhrame some time ago--he dremt that a near an' dear friend of
his an' of mine too, that was murdhered in this neighborhood, appeared
to him, an' that he desired him to go of a sartain night, at the hour of
midnight, to a stone near this, called the Grey Stone, an' that there he
would get a clue to the murdherer.”
'Well, an' did he?”
“He went--an'--but you had betther tell it yourself, avillish,” she
added, addressing Hanlon; “you know best.”
The pedlar instantly fixed his anxious and lively eyes on the young man,
intimating that he looked to him for the rest of the story.
“I went,” proceeded Hanlon, “and you shall hear everything that
happened.”
It is unnecessary for us, however, to go over the same ground a second
time. Hanlon minutely detailed to him all that had taken place at
the Grey Stone, precisely as it occurred, if we allow for a slight
exaggeration occasioned by his terrors, and the impressions of
supernatural manifestations which they left upon his imagination.
The pedlar heard all the circumstances with an astonishment which
changed his whole bearing into that of deep awe and the most breathless
attention. The previous eccentricity of his manner by degrees abandoned
him; and as Hanlon proceeded, he frequently looked at him in a state of
abstraction, then raised his eyes towards heaven, uttering, from time
to time, “Merciful Father!”--“Heaven preserve us!” and such like, thus
accompanying him by a running comment of exclamations as he went along.
“Well,” said he, when Hanlon had concluded, “surely the hand of God is
in this business; you may take that for granted.”
“I would fain hope as much,” replied Hanlon; “but as the matthers
stand now, we're nearly as far from it as ever. Instead of gettin' any
knowledge of the murdherer we want to discover, it proves to be the
murdher of Sullivan that has been found out.”
“Of Sullivan!” he exclaimed; “well, to be sure--oh, ay--well, sure that
same is something; but, in the mane time, will you let me look at this
Box you spoke of? I feel a curiosity to see it.”
Hanlon rose and taking the Box from a small deal chest which was
strongly locked, placed it in the pedlar's hands. After examining it
closely for about half a minute, they could observe that he got very
pale, and his hands began to tremble, as he held and turned it about in
a manner that was very remarkable.
“Do you say,” he asked, in an agitated voice, “that you have no manes of
tracin' the murdher?”
“None more than what we've tould you.”
“Did this Box belong to the murdhered man?--I mane, do you think he had
it about him at the time of his death?”
“Ay, an' for some time before it,” replied the woman. “It's all
belongin' to him that we can find now.”
“And you got it in the keeping of this M'Gowan, the Black Prophet, you
say?”
“We did,” replied the woman, “from his daughter, at all events.”
“Who is this Black Prophet?” he asked; “or what is he? for that comes
nearer the mark. Where did he come from, where does he live, an' what
way does he earn his bread?”
“The boy here,” she replied, pointing to Hanlon, “can tell you that
betther than I can; for although I've been at his place three or four
times, I never laid eyes on him yet.”
“Well,” continued the pedlar, “you have both a right to be thankful that
you tould me this. I now see the hand of God in the whole business. I
know this box an' I can tell you something that will surprise you more
than that. Listen--but wait--I hear somebody's foot. No matter--I'll
surprise you both by an' by.”
“Godsave all here,” said the voice of our friend, Jemmy Branigan, who
immediately entered. “In troth, this change is for the betther, at any
rate,” said he, looking at the house; “I gave you a lift wid the masther
yestherday,” he added, turning to the woman. “I think I'll get him to
throw the ten shillings off--he as good as promised me he would.”
“Masther!” exclaimed the pedlar, bitterly--“oh, thin, it's he that's the
divil's masther, by all accounts, an' the divil's landlord, too. Be me
sowl, he'll get a warm corner down here;” and as he uttered the
words, he very significantly stamped with his heel, to intimate the
geographical position of the place alluded to.
“It would be only manners to wait till your opinion is axed of him,”
replied Jemmy; “so mind your pack, you poor sprissaun, or when you do
spake, endeavor to know something of what you're discoorsin' about.
Masther, indeed! Divil take your impidence!”
“He's a scourge to the counthry,” continued the pedlar; “a worse
landlord never faced the sun.”
“That's what we call in this part of the counthry--a lie,” replied
Jemmy. “Do you understand what that manes?”
“No one knows what an' outrageous ould blackguard he is betther than
yourself,” proceeded the pedlar; “an' how he harrishes the poor.”
“That's ditto repated,” responded Jemmy; “you're improvrn'--but tell me
now do you know any one that he harrished?”
This was indeed a hazardous question on the part of Jemmy; who, by the
way, put it solely upon the presumption of the peddlar's ignorance of
Dick's proceedings as a landlord, in consequence of his (the pedlar)
being a stranger.
“Who did you ever know that he harrished, i' you please?”
“Look at the Daltons,” replied the other; “what do you call his conduct
to them?”
Jemmy, who, whenever he felt himself deficient in truth, always made
up for the want of it by warmth of temper, now turned shortly upon his
antagonist, and replied, in a spirit very wide of the argument--
“What do I call his conduct to them? What do you call the nose on your
face, my codger? Divil a sich an impident crature ever I met.”
“It would be no wondher that the curse o' God would come on him for his
tratement to that unfortunate and respectable family,” responded the
pedlar.
“The curse o' God knows where to fall best,” replied Jemmy, “or it's not
in the county jail ould Condy Dalton 'ud be for murdher this day.”
“But,” returned the other, “isn't it a disgraceful thing to be, as they
say he and yourself is, a pair o' scourges in the hands o' God for your
fellow-creatures; an' in troth you're both fit for it by all accounts.”
“Troth,” replied Jemmy, whose gall was fast rising, “it's a scourge wid
nine tails to it ought to go to your back. The Daltons desarved all
they got at his hands; an' the same pack was never anything else than a
hot-brained crew, that 'ud knock you on the head to-day, and groan over
you to-morrow. He sarved them right, an' he's a liar that says to the
contrary; so if you have a pocket for that put it in it.”
Jemmy, in fact, was now getting rapidly into a towering passion, for it
mattered little how high in violence his own pitched battles with Dick
ran, he never suffered, nor could suffer a human being to abuse his
master behind his back, but himself. So confirmed, however, by habit,
was his spirit of contradiction, that had the pedlar begun to praise
Dick, Jemmy would immediately have attacked him without remorse, and
scarcely have left a rag of his character together.
“It's a shame for you,” proceeded the pedlar, “to defend an' ould sinner
like him; but then as there's a pair of you, that's not unnatural; every
rogue will back his brother. I could name the place, any way, that'll
hould you both yet.”
“An' I could,” replied Jemmy, “name the piece of machinery that'll be
apt to hould you, if you give the masther any more abuse. Whether you'll
grow in it or not, is more than I know, but be me sowl, we'll plant you
there any how. Do you know what the stocks manes? Faith, many a spare
hour you've sarved there, I go bail, that is, when, you had nothing else
to do--an' by the way of raycreation jist.”
“Ay,” said the pedlar, “listen how he sticks to the ould villain--but
sure, if you put any other two blisthers together, they'll do the same.”
“My own opinion is,” observed Hanlon's aunt, “that it's a pity of the
Daltons, at any raite. Every one feels for them--but still the hand o'
God an' his curse, I'm afeard, is upon them.”
“An' that's more, maybe, than you know,” replied Jemmy. “Maybe God's
only punishing them, bekaise he loves them. It's good to have our
suffering in this world.”
“Afther all,” said the pedlar, “I'm afeard myself, too, that the wrath
o' the Almighty has marked them out. Indeed, I'm sure of it.”
“An' maybe that's not the only lie you're sure of,” replied Jemmy. “It's
a subject, any way, you don't undherstand. No,” he proceeded, “by all
accounts, Charley, it would wring any one's heart to see him taken away
in his ould age from his miserable family and childre, and then he's so
humble, too, and so resigned to the will an' way o' God. He's lyin'
ill in the gaol. I seen him yestherday--I went to see him an' to say
whatever I could to comfort him. God pity his gray hairs! an'--hem--have
compassion on him and his this day!”
The poor fellow's heart could stand the sudden contemplation of Dalton's
sorrow no longer--and on uttering the last words he fairly wept.
“If I had known what it was about,” he proceeded; “but that ould
scoundrel of a Prophet--ay, an' that other ould scoundrel of a masther
o' mine--hem ay--whish--but--what am I sayin'?--but if I had known it,
'ud go hard but I'd give him a lift--so that he might get out o' the
way, at any rate.”
“Ay,” said the pedlar, “at any rate, indeed--faith, you may well say
it; but I say, that at any rate he'll be hanged as sure as he murdhered
Sullivan, and as sure as he did, that he may swing, I pray this day!”
“I'll hould no more discoorse wid that circulatin' vagabone,” replied
Jemmy; “I'm a Christian man--a peaceable man; an' I know what my
religion ordhers me to do when I meet the likes of him--and that is when
he houlds the one cheek towardst me to give him a sound Christian rap
upon the other. So to the divil I pitch, you, you villain, sowl and
body, an' that's the worst I wish you. If you choose to be unchristian,
be so; but, be my sowl, I'll not set you the example. Charley,” he
proceeded, addressing Hanlon, “I was sent for you in a hurry. Masther
Dick wants you, and so does Red Rody--the villain! and I tell you to
take care of him, for, like that vagabone, Judas, he'd kiss you this
minute and betray you the next.”
“I believe you're purty near the truth,” replied Jemmy, “but I was near
forgettin'--it seems the Crowner of the country is sick, an' there can't
be an inquest held till he recovers; if he ever does recover, an' if
it 'ud sarve poor ould Dalton, that he never may, I pray God this
day!--come away, you'll be killed for stayin'.”
Just then young Henderson himself called Hanlon forth, who, after some
conversation with him, turned towards the garden, where he held a second
conference with Red Rody, who, on leaving him appeared in excellent
spirits, and kept winking and nodding, with a kind of burlesque good
humor, at every one whom he knew, until he reached home.
In this state stood the incidents of our narrative, suspended for
some time by the illness of the coroner, when Mr. Travers, himself a
magistrate, came to the head inn of the county town in which he always
put up, and where he held his office. He had for several days previously
gone over the greater portion of the estate, and inspected the actual
condition of the tenantry on it. It is unnecessary to say that he was
grieved at the painful consequences of the middleman system, and of
sub-letting in general. Wherever he went, he found the soil in many
places covered with hordes of pauper occupants, one holding under
another in a series that diminished from bad to worse in everything but
numbers, until he arrived at a state of destitution that was absolutely!
disgraceful to humanity. And what rendered this state of things doubly
painful and anomalous was the fact, that while these starving wretches
lived upon his employer's property, they had no claim on him as a
landlord, nor could he recognize them as tenants. It is true that these
miserable creatures, located upon small patches of land, were obliged
to pay their rents to the little tyrant who was over them, and he
again, probably to a still more important little tyrant, and so on; but
whenever it happened that the direct tenant, or any one of the series,
neglected to pay his or their rent, of course the landlord had no other
remedy than to levy it from off the soil, thus rendering it by no means
an unfrequent case that the small occupiers who owed nothing to him
or those above them were forced to see their property applied to the
payment of the head rent, in consequence of the inability, neglect, or
dishonesty of the middleman, or some other subordinate individual from
whom, they held. This was a state of things which Mr. Travers wished to
abolish, but to do so, without inflicting injury, however unintentional,
or occasioning harshness to the people, was a matter not merely
difficult but impossible. As we are not, however, writing a treatise
upon the management of property, we shall confine ourselves simply to
the circumstances only of such of the tenants as have enacted a part in
our narrative.
About a week had now elapsed since the abusive contest between Jemmy
Branigan and the pedlar; the coroner was beginning to recover, and
Charley Hanlon's aunt had disappeared altogether from the neighborhood.
Previous to her departure, however, she, her nephew, and the pedlar, had
several close, and apparently interesting conferences, into which their
parish priest, the Rev. Anthony Devlin, was ultimately admitted. It
was clear, indeed, that whatever secret the pedlar communicated, had
inspired both Hanlon and his aunt with fresh energy in their attempts to
discover the murderer of their relative; and there could be little doubt
that the woman's disappearance from the scene of its perpetration was in
some way connected with the steps they were taking to bring everything
connected with it to light.
Travers, already acquainted with the committal of old Dalton, as he was
with all the circumstances of his decline and eviction from his farm,
was sitting in his office, about twelve o'clock, when our friend, the
pedlar, bearing a folded paper in his hand, presented himself, with a
request that he might be favored with a private interview. This, without
any difficulty, was granted, and the following dialogue took place
between them:--
“Well, my good friend,” said the agent; “what is the nature of this
private business of yours?”
“Why, plase your honor, it's a petition in favor of ould Condy Dalton.”
“A petition! Of what use is a petition to Dalton? Is he not now in gaol,
on a charge of murder? You would not have me attempt to obstruct the
course of justice, would you? The man will get a fair trial, I hope.”
“I hope so, your honor; but this petition is not about the crime the
unfortunate man is in for; it's an humble prayer to your honor, hopin'
you might restore him--or, I ought rather to say, his poor family, to
the farm that they wor so cruelly put out of. Will your honor read it,
sir, and look into it, bekaise, at any rate, it sets forth too common a
case.”
“I am partly acquainted with the circumstances, already; however, let me
see the paper.”
“The pedlar placed it in Mr. Travers' hands,--who on looking over it,
read, somewhat to his astonishment, as follows:--
“The humble petition of Cornelius Dalton, to his Honor, Mr. John Robert
Travers, Esq., on behalf of himself, his Wife, and his afflicted family;
now lying in a state of almost superhuman Destitution--by Eugenius
M'Grane, Philomath and classical Instructor in the learned Languages
of Latin, English, and the Hibernian Vernacular, with an inceptive
Initiation into the Rudiments of Greek, as far as the Gospel of St. John
the Divine; attended with copious Disquisitions on the relative Merits
of moral and physical Philosophy, as contrasted with the pusillanimous
Lectures of that Ignoramus of the first Water, Phadrick M'Swagger,
falsely calling himself Philomath--_cum multis aliis quos enumerare
longum est_:
“Humbly Sheweth--
“That Cornelius Dalton, late of Cargah, gentleman agriculturist, held
a farm of sixty-six Irish acres, under the Right Honorable (the reverse
could be proved with sound and legitimate logic) Lord Mollyborough, an
absentee nobleman, and proprietor of the Tullystretchem estate. That the
said Cornelius Dalton entered upon the farm of Cargah, with a handsome
capital and abundant stock, as became a man bent on improving it, for
both the intrinsic and external edification and comfort of himself and
family. That the rent was originally very high; and, upon complaint of
this, several well indited remonstrances, urged with most persuasive
and enthusiastic eloquence, as the inditer hereof can testify, were
most insignificantly and superciliously disregarded. That the said
Mr. Cornelius Dalton persisted notwithstanding this great act of
contemptuosity and discouragement to his creditable and industrious
endeavors, to expend, upon the aforesaid farm, in solid and valuable
improvements, a sum of seven hundred pounds and upwards, in building,
draining, enclosing, and manuring--all of which improvements
transcendantly elevated the value of the farm in question, as the whole
rational population of the country could depose to--_me ipso teste
quoque_. That when this now highly emendated tenement was brought to the
best condition of excellence of which it was susceptible, the middleman
landlord--_va miseris agricolis!_--called upon him for an elevation
of rent, which was reluctantly complied with, under the tyrannical
alternative of threatened ejection, incarceration of cattle, &c, &c,
and many other proceedings equally inhuman and iniquitous. That this
rack-rent, being now more than the land could pay, began to paralyze the
efforts, and deteriorate the condition of the said Mr. Cornelius Dalton;
and which, being concatenated with successive failures in his crops,
and mortality among his cattle, occasioned him, as it were, to retrogade
from his former state; and in the course of a few calamitous years, to
decline, by melancholy gradation and oppressive treatment from Richard
Henderson, Esq., J.P., his landlord, to a state of painful struggle and
poverty. That the said Richard Henderson, Esq., his unworthy landlord,
having been offered a still higher rent, from a miserable disciple,
named Darby Skinadre, among others, unfeelingly availed himself of
Dalton's _res augusta_--and under play of his privileges as a landlord,
levied an execution upon his property, auctioned him out, and expelled
him from the farm; thus turning a respectable man and his family,
hopeless and houseless, beggars upon the world, to endure misery
and destitution. That the said Mr. Cornelius Dalton, now plain Corny
Dalton--for vile poverty humilifies even the name--or rather his
respectable family, among whom, _facile princeps_, for piety and
unshaken trust in her Redeemer, stands his truly unparalleled wife, are
lying in a damp wet cabin within about two hundred perches of his
former residence, groaning with the agonies of hunger, destitution,
dereliction, and disease, in such a state of complicated and multiform
misery as rarely falls to the lot of human eyes to witness. That the
burthen and onus of this petition is, to humbly supplicate that Mr.
Cornelius Dalton, or rather his afflicted and respectable family, may
be reinstated in their farm as aforesaid, or if not, that Richard
Henderson, J.P., may be compelled to swallow such a titillating emetic
from the head landlord as shall compel him to eructate to this oppressed
and plundered man all the money he expended in making improvements,
which remain to augment the value of the farm, but which, at the same
time, were the means of ruining himself and his most respectable family:
for, as the bard says, '_sio vos non vobis_,' &c, &c. Of the remainder
of this appropriate quotation, your honor cannot be incognizant, or
any man who has had the advantage of being college-bred, as every true
gentleman or '_homo factus ad unguem_' must have, otherwise he fails to
come under this category.--And your petitioner will ever pray.”
“Are you the Mr. Eugenius McGrane,” asked the agent, “who drew up this
extraordinary document?”
“No, your honor; I'm only merely a friend of the Daltons, although a
stranger in the neighborhood.”
“But what means have Dalton or his family, granting that he escapes
from this charge of murder that's against him, of stocking or working so
large a farm? I am aware myself that the contents of this petition, with
all its pedantry, are too true.”
“But consider, sir, that he sunk seven hundred pounds in it, an' that,
according to everything like fair play, he ought either to get his farm
again, at a raisonable rate, or his money that raised its value for the
landlord, back again; sure, that's but fair, your honor.”
“I'm not here to discuss the morality of the subject, my good friend,
neither do I question the truth of your argument, simply as you put it.
I only say, that what you ask, is impracticable. You probably know not
Dick o' the Grange, for you say you are a stranger--if you did, you
would not put yourself to the trouble of getting even a petition for
such a purpose written.”
“It's a hard case, your honor.”
“It is a hard case; but the truth is, I see nothing that can be done for
the Daltons. To talk of putting a family, in such a state as they are
now in, back again, upon such a farm, is stark nonsense--without stock
or capital of any kind--the thing is ridiculous.”
“But suppose they had stock and capital?”
“Why, then, they certainly would have the best right to the farm--but
where's the use of talking about stock or capital, so far as they are
concerned?”
“I wish your honor would interfere for an oppressed and ill-treated
family, against as great a rogue, by all accounts, as ever broke
bread--I wish you would make me first sure that they'd get their farm.”
“To what purpose, I say?”
“Why, sir, for a raison I have. If your honor will make me sure that
they'll get their land again, that's all I want.”'
“What is your reason? Have you capital, and are you willing to assist
them?”
The pedlar shook his head. “Is it the likes o' me, your honor? No, but
maybe it might be made up for them some way.”
“I believe,” said the agent, “that your intentions are good; only that
they are altogether impracticable. However, a thought strikes me. Go to
Dick o' the Grange, and lay your case before him. Ask a new lease
for your friends, the Daltons--of course he won't give it; but at all
events, come back to me, and let me know, as nearly in his own words as
you can, what answer he will give you; go now, that is all that I can do
for you in the matter.”
“Barrin' this, your honor, that set in case the poor heart-broken
Daltons wor to get capital some way.”
“Perhaps,” said Travers, interrupting him, “you can assist them.”
“Oh, if I could!--no, but that set in case, as I said, that it was to be
forthcomin', you persave. Me!--oh, the Lord that _I was_ able!”
“Very well,” replied the other, anxious to rid himself of the pedlar,
“that will do, now. You are, I perceive, one of those good-natured,
speculating creatures, who are anxious to give hope and comfort to every
one. The world has many like you; and it often happens, that when some
good fortune does throw the means of doing good into your power, you
turn out to be a poor, pitiful, miserable crew, without actual heart
or feeling. Goodbye, now. I have no more time to spare--try Dick o' the
Grange himself, and let me know his answer.”
So saying, he rang the bell, and our friend the pedlar, by no means
satisfied with the success of his interview, took his leave.