--Dreams of a Broken Heart--The Christian Pastor at his Duty--Melancholy
Meeting between a Mother and her Son--A Death-Bed that the Great
might envy--Phil experiences a Specimen of the Pressure from
without--Retribution--The Death of Valentine M'Clutchy.
It was now about seven o'clock in the evening; and up from the moment
of Val's return, he had scarcely spoken half a dozen words. As Phil was
leaving the room, however, the father called after him:--
“Phil,” said he, “come here for a minute.”
“Well,” said Phil, staggering back, “what's in the wind now?”
“Phil,” continued the father, “which of all the blood-hounds is the
greatest and most remorseless villain?”
“A d----d ni-nice point to decide, when they're on-on duty,” replied
Phil.
“If he escapes me--” said Val in a soliloquy;--“but no matter,” he
added, speaking aloud; “I'm a fool for putting such a question to you.
Go to bed, and sleep yourself sober.”
Phil staggered out of the room in a very musical mood, slamming' the
door after him with a force that made the house shake. He had not gone a
hundred yards from the hall door when Raymond appeared in the distance,
beckoning him forward; a signal for which he was looking out with that
kind of drunken eagerness which is incapable of forethought, or any
calculation whatsoever that might aid in checking the gross and onward
impulses of blind and savage appetite. Phil's instinctive cowardice,
however, did not abandon him. In the course of the day he primed
and loaded his pistols, in order to be prepared against any of those
contingencies which the fears of pusillanimous men never fail to create.
On meeting with Raymond, who had been waiting for him outside, at a
place previously agreed on between them, he pulled, out the fire-arms,
and showed them to the fool, with a swaggering air, which, despite his
intoxication, sorely belied what he felt. They then proceeded together
by the mountain path, the moon occasionally showing herself by
glimpses--for the night, although cloudy, was not dark, but on the
contrary, when the clouds passed away, she almost might be said to flash
out with singular brilliancy.
We now leave them on their way to the place of appointment, as it had
been arranged by Raymond, and beg our readers to accompany us to the
church-yard in the mountains, where all that were dear and so devotedly
beloved by poor Mary O'Regan slept. This unhappy woman, though closely
watched by her friends and neighbors, always contrived, with the
ingenuity peculiar to maniacs and insane persons, to escape from time to
time from under their surveillance, and make her way to the spot, which,
despite the aberrations of reason and intellect, maintained all its
sacred and most tender influences over her pure and noble heart. For
some time past, moved probably by some unconscious impression of the
pastoral attention and kindness of the amiable Father Roche, she had
made his house her home; and indeed nothing could exceed the assiduity
and care with which she was there watched and tended. Everything that
could be done for her was done; but all sympathy and humanity on their
part came too late. Week after week her strength wasted away, in a
manner that was painfully perceptible to those who felt an interest in
her. Her son Ned was still in the country, but had no fixed residence,
and merely remained for the purpose of seeing her freed from all her
miseries, and laid in her last unbroken sleep beside those whom she had
loved so well. On the evening in question, she appeared to be so feeble
and exhausted, that the good priest's family did not for a moment
imagine that any particular vigilance was necessary. Between six and
seven o'clock, then, she had performed the last of those pilgrimages
of the heart which time after time had been made by her to the solitary
church-yard in the mountains--containing, as it did, the only humble
shrine from which her bruised and broken spirit could draw that ideal
happiness, of which God in His mercy had not bereft her.
On arriving at the old ruin, she felt so completely enfeebled, that a
little rest was absolutely necessary previous to her reaching the graves
she came to visit, although they were only a few yards distant from
the spot which afforded the poor creature the requisite shelter while
recruiting her exhausted powers. At length she arose, and having
tottered over to the graves, she sat down, and clasping her hands about
her knees, she rocked her body to and fro, as Irish women do when under
the influence of strong grief. She then chaunted a verse or two of an
old song, whose melancholy notes were not out of keeping with either the
scene or the hour; nor an unsuitable burthen for the wild night breeze
which wailed through the adjoining ruins in tones that might almost
be supposed to proceed from the spirit of death itself, as it kept its
lonely watch over those who lay beneath.
“I wonder,” said she, “that they do not speak to me before this,
for they know I'm here. Ah,” she proceeded, “there's his voice!--my
white-haired Brian's voice! what is it, 'darling? I'm listenin'!
“'Come, mother, come,' he says, 'we are waitin'!'
“Is it for me, _a lanna dhas oge_?
“'Yes,' he says, 'for you, mother dear, for you!'
“Well, Brian darlin', I'll come.
“'Yes, come,' he says, 'for we are wait-in'!'
“And,” she proceeded, “who is this again? ah, sure I needn't ax; Torley,
my heart, I'm here!
“'Come, mother dear,' he says, 'for we are waitin'!'
“Is it for me, my manly son?
“'Yes,' he says, 'for you, mother--mother dear, for you?'
“Well, Torley darlin', I'll come.
“'Yes, come,' he says, 'for we are waitin'?'
“Ah,” she proceeded, “here is my own Hugh, my brave husband, that I
fought for, what does he say? Whisht!
“'Come, Mary dear--come, the distracted, the lovin,' but the
heart-broken--come to us, my fair-haired Mary, for we are waitin'; our
hearts love you even 'in heaven, and long for you to be with us.'
“Husband of my heart, I will come; and here sure I feel as you all do
in heaven--for there is one thing that nothing can kill, and will never
die, that is the light that's in a lovin' wife's heart--the light that
shines in a mother's love--Hugh, _asthore machree_, I'll come, for sure
I'm jist ready.
“You are not sick now, Brian,” she proceeded; “it isn't the cowld
pratee, and the black sickenin' bog water you have there!
“'No, mother dear,' he said, 'but we want you; oh, don't stay away from
us, for our hearts long for you.'
“I will come, avillish--sure I'm jist ready. Torley,” she proceeded,
sustaining a dialogue that proceeded, as it were, out of the accumulated
affection of a heart whose tenderness shed its light where that of
reason failed,--“Torley, my manly son, your young cheek is not pale
now, nor your eye dim--you don't fear the hard-hearted. Agent, nor his
bloodhounds, nor the cowld and bitther storm that beat upon your poor
head, an' you dyin'--you don't fear them now, my brave boy--you neither
feel nor fear any of these things now, Torley, my son!
“'No mother,' he says 'all we want now is to have you wid us. Our hearts
long for you, and why do you stay away from us?--Oh! come mother dear,
for we're waitin'!'
“Torley, my manly son, I'll come, for I'm jist ready.
“Hugh, husband of my heart, you're not now lyin' sick upon the damp
cowld straw, as you war in the cabin on the mountains--your head has no
pain now, avick machree--nor is your heart low and sorrowful wid your
own illness and our want.--The voices of the Dashers, or Blood-hounds,
aren't now in your ears, nor need you be afraid that they will disturb
your bed of death--an' distract your poor sowl wid their blasphemin',
when you ought to think of God's mercy.--Oh! no, avillish, sure you feel
none of that now, Hugh dear?
“'Oh, no,' he says, 'nothing of that do we feel now--nothing of that do
we fear. But, come, Mary, oh, come, come to us--and we think the time
long till we see you again.'”
These affecting dialogues, or rather “dreams of a broken heart,” were
literally nothing else than the mere echoes of her own afliction; for
it was obvious that the love she felt for her husband and children,
unconscious as she then was of it, gave form to the sentiments which
her excited imagination had clothed in language that was so highly
figurative. For some time she was silent, or muttered to herself such
fragments of unconnected language as rose to her fancy--and ultimately
laid down her head upon the little grassy mound which constituted their
graves. Here she had not lain long, when, overcome by the fatigue of
the journey, she closed her eyes, and despite the chilliness of a biting
night, sank into an unbroken slumber.
Sleep on, poor sufferer--and let those whose crimes have placed thy
distracted head upon that cold and unnatural pillow, reflect that they
have a judge to meet, who will, in another life, not overlook the deeds
done in this. Who is there who would, even in this thy most pitiable
destitution, exchange thy innocent, but suffering spirit, for
M'Clutchy's heart, or the dark crimes which it festers.
At length she awoke, but whether it was that the keen and piercing air
had cooled the pulsation of her beating brain, or that the restoration
to reason, which is called, when applied to the insane--a lightening
before death--had taken place, it is impossible to say with anything
like certainty. At all events, on awakening, the first sensations she
experienced were those of surprise and wonder, and immediately did she
feel her mind filled with a train of shocking and fearful reminiscences.
Her physical sufferings were also great. She felt benumbed and chilled;
her heart was cold, and a shivering sickness ran through her whole
frame, with a deadly presage of approaching dissolution. She looked up
to the sky, then round her at the graves, and in a moment recognized the
burying-place of her husband and children. All the circumstances then
connected with the Extermination scene at Drum Dim, and that of the
treble death in the mountains, rushed upon her recollection with a force
at once vivid and powerful.
“Father of heaven,” * she exclaimed, “I have been driven out of my raison
by too much sorrow, and here I am restored to it on the very graves
where those that I love!”
* The reader is to remember, that she is supposed to give
utterance to all her feelings and sentiments in the Irish
language.
She then endeavored to rise, but found on making the attempt, that she
had not strength for it. The consciousness of this filled her heart with
woe almost unutterable.
“Merciful father,” she again exclaimed, “do not--oh, do not suffer me
to die on this wild mountain side, far from the face or voice of a
human being! There is nothing too powerful for your hand, or beyond your
strength or your mercy, to them that put their humble trust in you. Save
me, oh, God, from this frightful and lonely death, and do not let
me perish here without the consolations of religion! But if it's thy
blessed and holy will to let me do so, then it is my duty to submit!
Give me strength, then, to bow to thy will, and to receive with faith
and thanksgivin' whatever you choose to bestow upon me! And above all
things O Lord, grant me a repentant heart, and that my bleak and lonely
death-bad may have the light of glory upon it! Grant me this, O God, and
I will die happy even here; for where your blessed presence is there can
be nothing wantin'.”
Her piety and faith in the mercy of God were not without their own
reward. The last words were scarcely uttered, when Father Roche,
accompanied by her son Ned, advanced to the grave on which she sat. He
had been absent on a sick call, and would not have been aware of her
escape to the mountains, were it not for her son, who, having met him on
his return, requested permission to see her, only for a few minutes, if
not too late. The priest granted him so reasonable a request, and it
was on seeking for her that the discovery of her absence took place, the
rest of the family having been of opinion that she had gone to bed
in the early part of the evening, as was mostly her habit. The priest
suspected, from her weak state of health and shattered constitution,
that such a journey would probably prove fatal, and with his usual
discrimination he calculated upon the restoration to reason which
actually occurred.
“In that case,” said he, “the administration of the last rites will
console her on her bed of death, and God forbid that she should depart
without them. It is my duty that she shall not.”
“Poor woman!” said he, as they approached her, “this chilly night will
be a severe trial upon her.”
“What wouldn't I give, my dear mother,--oh, what wouldn't I give,” said
Ned, tenderly taking her hand, “to see your senses restored to you!”
“Thank the Almighty, then!” she returned feebly--“what!--my darling
son Ned! and Father Roche! Oh, was I not right in sayin' that there is
nothing too powerful for God's strength and love?” she exclaimed; she
then kissed her son, who burst into tears, and tenderly embraced her.
“See how unexpectedly He can surround even this cowld death-bed with his
mercy.”
“Don't say a death-bed”, my dear mother, for now that the blight of
raison has left you, I hope you'll get new strength.”
“I will,” she replied, with a feeble but Mournful smile, “I will Ned;
but it'll be in heaven with them I love, and that love me. My dear Ned,
all my cares are now over--my affections past--I will soon be out of
sorrow and out of pain: this heart will suffer no more, and this head
will no longer be distracted! Oh, the hopes of heaven, but they're sweet
and consolin' on the bed of death!”
“Cherish them, dear Mary,” said Father Roche; “for I believe you will
soon--very soon indeed--realize them. Her pulse,” he added, “is scarcely
perceptible, and you hear how very feeble her voice is.”
“What are we to do, then?” asked her son; “do you think, my dear mother,
that you could bear removal?”
“No--ah, no,”--she replied, “No--I feel that I am going fast--my feet
and limbs are like marble, and the cowld is gettin' into my heart.”
“Ah, my darling mother,” said the son, in tears, “but that was the warm
and the lovin' heart!”
Father Roche then having put on his stole, went to her side, and, as
is usual in all cases of approaching death, where a priest is in
attendance, administered to her the last rites of religion. Here in the
mountain solitude did he cheer her departing spirit, as he had that of
her husband, with the sustaining hopes of a glorious immortality.
“Now,” said she, “I know that I die happy; for here where I couldn't
expect it, has the light of God's mercy shone upon me. He has brought my
son to my side--He has brought the consolations of religion to my heart,
when I was lyin' helpless and alone in this mountain desert. Yes,” she
said, “I forgive all those who ill-treated both me and mine--and the
worst I wish them is, to pray that God may forgive them, and turn their
hearts. And now, Hugh, I am ready--Tor-ey, my manly son, and my own
Brian, with the fair locks, we'll soon be all united again--and never to
part any more--never to part anymore! Ned,” said she, “kiss me; you are
all I now lave behind me out of my fine family; but God's will be
done! I need not bid you,” she added, “to bury me here, for I know you
will--and I wish you would put little Brian's coffin on mine, in order
that my darling child may sleep where I'd have him sleep, until the
Resurrection Day--that is, upon this lovin' mother's breast. But what is
this?” she asked; “is there a light--a bright light--about me? I feel
happy--happy. Oh sure this is the love of God that is to recompense me
for all!”
Ned, who had her in his arms, felt her head fall down, and on looking at
her, he perceived that she had actually passed away into the happiness
of God's love, which, no doubt, diffused its radiance through her spirit
that was now made perfect.
“Yes,” said Father Roche, wiping his eyes, “a pure and noble spirit has
indeed passed from a life of great trial and crushing, calamity into one
of glory and immortality. There is a proof, and a consoling proof,
of the lustre which so often irradiates the death-beds of the humble
classes in Ireland, who die far from the knowledge and notice of the
great, whom their toil probably goes to support.”
“Yes,” replied Ned, bitterly; “it's an aisy thing for Lord Cumber to
know what's either good or bad upon his estate--how the people live, or
how they die--very aisy, indeed, for a man who never puts a foot on it,
but leaves them to the mercy of such villains as M'Clutchy. Had he been
livin' on his property, or looked afther it as he ought to do, I don't
think it's lyin' stretched, far from house or habitation, that you would
be this night, my blessed mother--my poor father, and your childre cut
down by persecution, and yourself, without house or home, runnin' an'
unhappy, deranged creature about the country, and now lyin' there widout
a roof to cover your poor remains.”
“Do not say so,” replied Father Roche; “she shall be waked in my house,
and buried at my expense.”
“If you'll allow her to be waked there, I will thank you, Father Eoche;
but the expenses of her burial, I am myself able to pay; and so long
as I am, you know, I could not suffer any one else to intherfare; many
thanks to you, sir, in the meantime.”
“Well then,” said the priest, “as I know and understand the feeling, I
shall not press the matter; but since the body cannot be left without
protection, I think you had better go down, and fetch a few neighbors
with a door, and let her be removed forthwith. I shall remain till you
return.”
“It's a very hard thing, Father Roche, that you should be put to sich a
duty,” replied O'Regan; “but the truth is, I wouldn't take all the money
in the King's exchequer, and remain here by myself.”
“But I have no such fears,” said the priest; “I shall stay within the
shelter of this old ruin until your return, which will be as quick, I
trust, as possible.”
O'Regan was about to start off at the top of his speed; and Father Roche
began to walk to and fro the old ruin, struck by the pale moonlight, as
it fell through the gray stone windows, loopholes, and breaches of
the walls, lighting up some old remnant of human ambition, or perhaps
exposing a grinning skull, bleached by time and the elements into that
pale white, which is perhaps the most ghastly exponent of death and
the dead. At this moment, however, they were each in no small
degree startled by the sound of human voices; and, to complete their
astonishment, two figures approached the humble grave on which the dead
body of Mary O'Regan lay stretched. On turning towards the moon they
were both immediately recognized by the priest and O'Regan, who looked
on in silence and wonder, and waited to hear, if possible, the object of
their visit.
“I say again,” said Phil, “I say my jolly ph-foolosophy--eh
foolosopher--that is to say, you deal in foolosophy--an ex-excellent
trade for a fool--I say again, you have brought me the wrong way, or
misled me somehow--upon my honor and reputation, Rimon, I rather
think you're short of sense, my man. Come, I say, let us be off home
again--what the devil did you bring me to a church-yard for?--eh?”
“Whisht,” said Raymond, “let us see--who have we here? Ah,” said he,
stooping down and feeling the chill of death upon her features, “it is
Mary O'Regan, and she's dead--dead!”
“Dead,” exclaimed Phil, starting, “curse you, Rimon, let us be off at
full speed, I say--Gad, I'm in a nice pickle; and these pistols are of
no use against any confounded ghost.”
On hearing that Phil carried pistols, O'Regan started, and had it been
daylight, a fierce but exulting fire might have been seen to kindle in
his eyes.
“What can have brought them here?” asked Father Roche; “I cannot
understand their visit at such an hour to such a place as this.”
“A few minutes, sir, will make all clear, maybe.”
“And what brought poor Mary here to die, do you know?” inquired Raymond;
“no you don't,” he replied, “but I will tell you--she came to die near
poor White-head that she loved so much, and near Torley, and near poor
Hugh himself, that the bloodhounds--”
“Damn my honor, Rimon, if I can stand this any longer--I'm off.”
“Hould!” said Raymond, with a shout whose echoes rang through the ruins;
“you musn't go till you hear me out,” and on uttering the words he
gripped him by the arm, and led him over to the dead body.
“I'm goin' to tell you myself,” proceeded Raymond; “she came to die here
that she might be near them--do you onderstand?” and he involuntarily
pressed the arm he still held with his huge iron finger, until Phil told
him he could not bear the pain. “She came to die here that she mightn't
have far to go to them; for you don't know, maybe, that it's on their
grave she is now lyin':--ha, ha; that's one. DID YOU EVER SEE A MURDERED
WOMAN, CAPTAIN PHIL?”
“Never,” replied Phil, who stood passive in his grip.
“Ha, ha, ha,” he chuckled, “that's not a good one. Well, but, did you
ever see a murdherer?”
“Some o' the blood-hounds pinked fellows, I believe, but then they were
only rebels and Pap-papishes.”
“Ha, ha,” still chuckled Raymond, as he confronted himself by degrees
with Phil, “I swore it for poor White-head's sake--and for Mary
M'Loughlin's sake--an' for twenty sakes besides.”
“God! Rimon, what do you mean?” said Phil, “there's a dreadful look
in your eyes Rimon, you are an excellent fellow; but tell me what you
mean?”
“To show you a murdherer,” he replied; “and now I have one by the
throat!”
As he spoke, he clutched him by the neck with a grasp that might
strangle a tiger. Then, as before in O'Regan's sheeling, all the fury of
the savage came upon him; his eyes blazed fearfully--the white froth of
passion, or rather of madness, appeared upon his lips, and his bowlings
resembled the roaring of some beast of prey, while tearing up its
quivering victim in the furious agonies of protracted hunger. In a
moment Phil was down, and truly the comparison of the beast of prey, and
his struggling victim, is probably the most appropriate that could be
made; when we consider the position of the one writhing helplessly upon
the ground, and the other howling in all the insatiable wildness of
bloodthirsty triumph over him. So hard and desperate indeed was the tug
for life, and so deadly was the immediate sense of suffocation becoming,
that Phil, whose eyes were already blinded, and who was only able to
utter a low hoarse gurgle, which sounded like the death-rattle in his
throat, was utterly unable either to think of or to use his fire-arms.
The onset, too, was so quick, that neither Father Roche nor O'Regan had
time to render assistance.
“Great heaven,” exclaimed the priest, “is the young man, bad and wicked
as he is, to be murdered before our eyes by that gigantic idiot!”
He proceeded to the spot just when Raymond was about to repeat, in
reality, the imaginary scene with the pillow.
“Ho, ho,” he shouted, “give us betther measure--a little more of
it--the same tongue never was your own friend, nor the friend of any one
else--ha, ha,--ho, ho, ho. There, that's one--take it out o' that, will
you?--whoo, hoo--hello, hach, ach!--This for White-head, and this for
Mary M'----”
“What's this, Raymond?” said Father Roche, gently laying his hand upon
his huge arm, the muscles of which, now strung into almost superhuman
strength, felt as hard as oak. “Stop, Raymond,” he proceeded, “would you
like that work yourself, my good boy?”
“Father Roche!” said Raymond, relaxing his hold more from surprise than
anything else.
“If you will take your hand from his throat, Raymond, my good boy,
I will tell you where you will get a cock that no other bird in the
country could have a chance with. There's a good boy--let him go. Follow
me over here, and leave him.”
“A cock that cannot be beat?” exclaimed Raymond, starting at once to his
feet, “no, but will you?”
“I will tell you where he is,” said the priest, “but do not harm him
more,” pointing to Phil,--“I only trust in God that it is not too late.”
He stooped to examine Phil's countenance, and indeed the sight was as
strongly calculated to excite mirth as disgust. There he lay, his foul
tongue projecting out of his mouth, which was open and gasped for wind;
his huge goggle eyes, too, had their revolting squint heightened by
terror into an expression very like that assumed by a clown when he
squints and makes faces at the audience, whilst his whole countenance
was nearly black from excess of blood, and the veins about his forehead
and temples stood out swollen as if filled with ink.
“Aye, you may look at him,” said Raymond--“he is apurty boy now,
countin' the stars there. A beauty you were, a beauty you are, and so I
leave you!”
“Come over,” said Father Roche to O'Regan, “and see if you can render
him any assistance. You are stronger.”
“Would he know me, do you think?” said O'Regan before he went over.
“At present, certainly not,” replied Father Roche; “but he is breathing,
and in about eight or ten minutes I hope he will probably recover.”
O'Regan went over, loosed his cravat, and stayed with him a few moments,
after which he returned to Raymond and the priest, who were now in the
ruin.
“I think he will be well enough shortly,” he observed, “but the truth
is, Raymond, that he wasn't worth your vengeance. I will now go and
fetch a few of the neighbors to assist in bringing my poor mother down
from this lonely spot, that she may at least have a Christian roof over
her.”
He accordingly departed, and Father Roche in a few minutes had Phil's
mind completely disentangled from the train of dark thoughts and
affectionate impulses by which it had been for some time past
alternately influenced.
“Raymond,” said the priest, “how could you think of committing such a
frightful act as murder?”
“Ha, ha!” he replied, “sure i'twas when I thought of Mary M'Loughlin and
poor White-head.”
“And how did it happen that, of all places in the world, you both came
here?”
“Becaise White-head and the rest are here. Sure he thought he was comin'
to a poor creature upon no good, and when he was drunk it was aisey to
bring him anywhere--ha, ha! that's one too--for I--can manage him.”
“I thank the Almighty Father,” ejaculated the priest, “that I was able
to prevent another murder this night--for most assuredly, Raymond, you
would have taken his life.”
“Ho, ho!” exclaimed the fool, with a little of his former ferocity,
“sure it was for that I brought him here--aye, aye, nothin' else.”
“Well, while you live,” continued the old man, “never attempt to have
the blood of a fellow creature on your soul. I must go over and see how
he feels--I perceive he is able to sit up. Young man,” he proceeded,
addressing Phil, “I render God thanks that I have been instrumental in
saving your life this night.”
“That's more than I know,” replied this grateful youth; “I neither saw
nor heard you, if you were.”
“It matters not,” replied the other, “let me assist you to rise.”
“I can rise myself now,” said he, getting up and staggering; “I'll
transport you and that d----d savage, Rimon the hatter. You are a
po-popish priest, and you cannot be he-here at this time of night for
much good. Never fear but I'll make you give an account of yourself, my
old buck.”
The, reader is already aware that Phil had been far advanced in
intoxication previously; but when we take into account the fearful
throttling he received, and the immense rush of blood which must have
taken place to the brain, we need not be surprised that he should
relapse into the former symptoms of his intoxication, or, in other
words, that its influence should be revived in him, in consequence of
the treatment he received.
“I think,” continued Phil, “that I have got you and Rimon in my power
now, and damn my hon-honor, may be we won't give you a chase a-across
the country that'll put mettle into your heels; hip, hip, hurrah! Ay,
and may be we won't give big M'--M'Cabe, or M'Flail, a ran that will do
him good too, hip, hip--so good--good-night till I see you-you just as
you ought to be--knitting your stock-cooking like Biddy O'Doherty; hip!”
He then staggered on homewards, half stupid from the strangulation
scene, and very far removed from sobriety, in consequence of the copious
libations of brandy he had swallowed in the course of the day and
evening.
“Good night, Captain Phil,” cried Raymond after him; “when will you come
to the hills to meet Bet M'Cracken again?--Ha ha there now, that's one.”
“Poor infatuated young man,” exclaimed Father Roche; “if you were not so
completely an object of contempt, you would surely be one of compassion.
May God in his mercy pity and relieve the unfortunate people whose
destinies, domestic comforts, and general happiness, are to such an
extent in the keeping of men like you and your wretched father--men who
breathe an atmosphere rank with prejudices of the worst description, and
hot with a spirit of persecution that is as free from just policy as
it is from common sense! When will this mad spirit of discord between
Christians--mad, I call it, whether it poison religion, politics, or
inflame religion--be banished by mutual charity, and true liberty, from
our unhappy country? and when will the rulers of that country learn
that most important secret, how to promote the happiness of the people
without degradation on the one hand, or insolent triumph on the other?”
O'Regan's return with the neighbors from the lower country, was
somewhat, and yet not much, more protracted than Father Roche had
expected. Considering everything, however, there was little time lost,
for he had brought about a dozen and a half of the villagers with him.
Having reached the cold bed where she lay, and where all her affections
had dwelt, they placed her upon a door, and having covered her body with
a cloak brought for the purpose, the little solitary procession directed
their steps to that humble roof which had been, ever since Father
Roche occupied it, a sheltering one to destitution, and poverty, and
repentance.
As they began to move away, O'Regan said--
“Excuse me for a few minutes--I wish to go back to the spot where my
father and brothers sleep; that surely is but natural, and I will soon
overtake you.”
They then proceeded, and he remained at the graves of his relatives. He
stood over them in silence for many minutes, keeping his face covered
with his hands. At length he knelt down and sobbed out aloud.
“Father,” said he, “I have fulfilled my oath--Torley, I have fulfilled
my oath--Brian, my sweet and fair-haired child--your brother, when none
was left to do you justice but myself, has fulfilled his oath. Listen to
me and rest quiet in your, graves. The oppressor is no more--the scourge
of the poor--the persecutor--the robber that trampled upon all law--that
laughed at justice--that gave vent to his bad passions, because he knew
that there was neither law, nor justice in the country to protect people
like you or to punish himself;--that oppressor--that scourge of the
poor--that persecutor--that robber, is this night sent to his account by
my hand--for by no other had such a right to fall.--Sleep quiet and
contented in your graves my father--and Torley and poor Brian! As we had
no law for us in this country--I was his law--I was his justice--and so
may God prosper me, if there is not a heavy load taken off of my heart
by the fate that has come on the villain by my hand!”
He spoke these words m tears and deep sobs after which he composed
himself, so that he might appear in his usual mood, that of simple
grief, on rejoining his companions.
The morning of the following day, the town, and neighborhood of Castle
Cumber were in a state of extraordinary excitement and tumult.
“Valentine M'Clutchy, Esq.,” said the True Blue, “the excellent and
humane Agent of the Castle Cumber property, was most barbarously shot
dead in his parlor, about ten o'clock on the previous night. By this
diabolical act, the poor of that admirably managed property,” continued
his brother Orangeman, “have lost, &c, &c.”
But it is really sickening to read these unprincipled vindications of
the scoundrels who drive the people into crime and bloodshed by their
rack-renting and oppression. It is time that honest men should speak
out, and fasten upon these scourges of their country, their proper
appellative. To this murder, as to others of a similar character, there
never was any clew found; notwithstanding the large rewards that were
subscribed by the gentry of the county and by government. Phil was too
drunk the evening before to remember anything distinctly. His pistols
were never found, nor was any other discovery made which could fasten
even suspicion on any particular individual.
If Phil, however, were drunk the night before his father's death, he was
sober enough the night after it. On that night there was not a hill
head on all the Castle Cumber estate which had not its bonfire and
its rejoicing--for the re-appointment of Mr. Hickman to the agency. It
might, however, be observed in-general--and it is frightful to be
forced to record such a surfeit of things--that the tenantry, one and
all appeared to feel a singular complacency of temper on the occasion--a
strong sense as it were, of great relief--a revival of good spirits--a
cherishing of rational hope--associated with dreams of domestic comfort,
reasonable indulgence, sympathy, and common justice.
[Illustration: PAGE 355-- Such was the end of Valentine M'Clutchy]
Such was the end of Valentine M'Clutchy--and as we have only one other
fact in connection with him to record, we may as well record it here. On
the morning after his death, his mother, Kate Clank, was found dead on
the steps of Castle Cumber gaol, whither, it would seem, she had come,
as if from a principle of early recollection, to the spot where she had
first drawn her breath in innocence; and who can tell, or will any one
dare to say, that she died in guilt, or unforgiven? That is only known
to God, by whom she was to be judged.