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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine by William Carleton

W >> William Carleton >> The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine




Old Dalton was sitting, as we have said, in the only memorial of his
former respectability now left him--the old arm-chair--when the men
bearing the warrant for his arrest presented themselves. The rain
was pouring down in that close, dark, and incessant fall, which gives
scarcely any hope of its ending, and throws the heart into that anxious
and gloomy state which every one can feel and perhaps no one describe.

The cabin in which the Daltons now lived was of the poorest description.
When ejected from their large holding by Dick o' the Grange, or in other
words, were auctioned out, they were unhappily at a loss where to find
a place in which they could take a temporary refuge. A kind neighbor who
happened to have the cabin in question lying unoccupied, or rather
waste upon his hands, made them an offer of it; not, as he said, in
the expectation that they could live in it for any length of time, but
merely until they could provide themselves with a more comfortable and
suitable abode.

"He wished," he added, "it was better for their sakes; and sorry he was
to see such a family brought so low as to live in it at all!"

Alas! he knew not at the time how deeply the unfortunate family in
question were steeped in distress and poverty. They accepted this
miserable cabin; but in spite of every effort to improve their
condition, days, weeks, and months passed, and still found them unable
to make a change for the better.

When Darby and Sarah entered, they found young Con, who had now
relapsed, lying in one corner of the cabin, on a wretched shake-down bed
of damp straw; while on another of the same description lay his amiable
and affectionate sister Nancy. The cabin stood, as we have said, in a
low, moist situation, the floor of it being actually lower--which is a
common case--than the ground about it outside. It served, therefore,
as a receptacle for the damp and under-water which the incessant
down-pouring of rain during the whole season had occasioned. It was
therefore, dangerous to tread upon the floor, it was so soft and
slippery. The rain, which fell heavily, now came down through the roof
in so many places that they were forced to put under it such vessels as
they could spare, not even excepting the beds over each of which were
placed old clothes, doubled up under dishes, pots, and little bowls,
in order, if possible, to keep them dry. The house--if such it could
be called--was almost destitute of furniture, nothing but a few pots,
dishes, wooden noggins, some spoons, and some stools being their
principal furniture, with the exception of one standing short-posted
bed, in a corner, near the fire. There, then, in that low, damp, dark,
pestilential kraal, without chimney or window, sat the old man, who,
notwithstanding its squalid misery, could have looked upon it as a
palace, had he been able to say to his own heart--I am not a murderer.

There, we say, he sat alone, surrounded by pestilence and famine in
their most fearful shapes, listening to the moanings of his sick family,
and the ceaseless dropping of the rain, which fell into the vessels that
were placed to receive it. Mrs. Dalton was "out," a term which was used
in the bitter misery of the period, to indicate that the person to whom
it applied had been driven to the last resource of mendicancy; and his
other daughter, Mary, had gone to a neighbor's house to beg a little
fire.

As the old man uttered the words, no language could describe the misery
which was depicted on his countenance.

"Take me," he exclaimed; "ah, no; for then what will become of these?"
pointing to his son and daughter, who were sick.

The very minions of the law felt for him; and the chief of them said, in
a voice of kindness and compassion:

"It's a distressin' case; but if you'll be guided by me, you won't say
anything that may be brought against yourself. I was never engaged,"
said he, looking towards Darby and Sarah, to whom he partly addressed
his discourse, "in anything so painful as this. A man of his age, now
afther so many years! However--well--it can't be helped; we must do our
duty."

"Where is the rest of your family?" asked another of them; "is this
young woman a daughter of yours?"

"Not at all," replied a third; "this is a daughter of the Black Prophet
himself; and, by japers, you hardened gipsey, it's a little too bad for
you to come to see how your blasted ould father's work gets on. It's his
evidence that's bringin' this dacent ould man from his family to a gaol,
this miserable evenin'. Be off out o' this, I desire you; I wondher
you're not ashamed to be present here, above all places in the world,
you brazen devil."

Sarah's whole soul, however, in all its best and noblest sympathies, had
passed into and mingled with the scene of unparalleled misery which was
then before her. She went rapidly to the bed in which young Con was I
stretched; stooped down, and looking closely at him, perceived that he
was in a broken and painful slumber. She then passed to that in which
his sister lay, and saw that she was also asleep. After a glance at
each, she rubbed her hands with a kind of wild satisfaction, and going
up to old Dalton, exclaimed--for she had not heard a syllable of the
language used towards her by the officer of justice--

"Ay," said she, laying her hand upon his white hairs; "you are to be
pitied this night, poor ould man; but which of you, oh, which of you
is to be pitied most, you or them! an' your wife, too; an' your other
daughter, an' your other son, too; but he's past under-standin' it;
oh, what will they do? At your age, too--at your age! Oh, couldn't you
die?--couldn't you contrive, someway, to die?--couldn't you give one
great struggle, an' then break your heart at wanst, an' forever!"

These words were uttered rapidly, but in a low and cautious voice, for
she still feared to awaken those who slept.

The old man had also been absorbed in, his own misery; for he looked
at her inquiringly, and only replied, "Poor girl, what is it you're
saying?"

"I'm biddin' you to die," she replied, "if you can, you needn't be
afeard of God--he has punished you enough for the crime you have
committed. Try an' die, if you can--or if you can't--oh," she exclaimed,
"I pray God that you--that he, there--" and she ran and bent over young
Con's bed for a moment; "that you--that you may never recover, or live
to see what you must see."

"It's a fact, that between hunger and this sickness," continued he who
had addressed her last, "they say an' I know that there's great number
of people silly; but I think this lady is downright mad; what do you
mane, you clip?"

Sarah stared at him impatiently, but without any anger.

"He doesn't hear me," she added, again putting her hand in a distracted
manner upon Dalton's gray hair; "no, no; but since it can't be so,
there's not a minute to be lost. Oh, take him away, now," she proceeded,
"take him away while they're asleep, an' before his wife and daughter
comes home--take him away, now; and spare him--spare them--spare them
all as much sufferin' as you can."

"There's not much madness in that, Jack," returned one of them; "I
think it would be the best thing we could do. Are you ready to come now,
Dalton?" asked the man.

"Who's that," said the old man, in a voice of indescribable woe
and sorrow; "who's that was talkin' of a broken heart? Oh, God," he
exclaimed, looking up to Heaven, with a look of intense agony, "support
me--support them; and if it be your blessed will, pity us all; but above
all things, pity them, oh, Heavenly Father, and don't punish them for my
sin!"

"It's false," exclaimed Sarah, looking on Dalton, and reasoning
apparently with herself; "he never committed a could blooded murdher;
an' the Sullivans are--are--oh--take him away," she said, still in
a low, rapid voice; "take him away! Come now," she added, approaching
Dalton again; "come--while they're asleep, an' you'll save them an'
yourself much distress. I'm not afeard of your wife--for she can bear
it if any wife could--but I do your poor daughter, an' she so weak an'
feeble afther her illness; come."

Dalton looked at her, and said:

"Who is this girl that seems to feel so much for me? but whoever she is,
may God bless her, for I feel that she's right. Take me away before they
waken! oh, she is right in every word she says, for I am not afeard of
my wife--her trust in God is too firm for anything to shake. I'm ready;
but I fear I'll scarcely be able to walk all the way--an' sich an
evenin' too--Young woman, will you break this business to these ones,
and to my wife, as you can?"

"Oh, I will, I will," she replied; "as well as I can; you did well to
say so," she added, in a low voice to herself; "an' I'll stay here with
your sick family, an' I'll watch an' attend them. Whatever can be done
by the like o' me for them, I'll do. I'll--I'll not lave them--I'll
nurse them--I'll take care of them--I'll beg for them--oh, what would I
not do for them?" and while speaking she bent over young Con's bed, and
clasping her hands, and wringing them several times, she repeated "oh
what wouldn't I do for you!"

"May God bless you, best of girls, whoever you are! Come, now, I'm
ready."

"Ay," said Sarah, running over to him, "that's right--I'll break the
bitter news to them as well as it can be done; come, now."

The old man stood, in the midst of his desolation, with his hat in his
hand, and he looked towards the beds.

"Poor things!" he exclaimed; "what a change has come over you, for what
you wanst, an' that not long since, wor. Never, my darlin' childhre--oh,
never did one harsh or undutiful word come from your lips to your
unhappy father. In my ould age and misery I'm now lavin' you--may be
forever--never, maybe, to see you again in this world; an' oh, my God,
if we are never to meet in the other; if the innocent and the guilty is
never to meet, then this is my last look at you, for everlastin', for
everlastin'! I can't do it," he added, weeping bitterly--"I must take my
lave of them; I must kiss their lips."

Sarah, while he spoke, had uttered two or three convulsive sobs; but she
shed no tears; on the contrary, her eyes were singularly animated and
brilliant. She put her arms about him, and said, in a soothing and
solicitous tone:

"Oh, no, it's all thrue; but if you kiss them, you'll disturb and waken
them; and then, you know, when they see you taken away in this manner,
an' hears what it's for, it may be their death."

"Thrue, achora; thrue: well, I will only look at them, then. Let me keep
my eyes on them for a little; may be they may go first, an' may be I may
go first; the last time, may be, for everlastin', that I'll see them!"

He went over, as he spoke, Sarah still having her hand upon his arm,
as if to intimate her anxiety to keep him under such control as might
prevent him from awakening them; and, standing first over the miserable
bed where Nancy slept, he looked down upon her.

"Ay," said he, while the tears showered down his cheeks, "there lies the
child that never vexed a parent's heart or ruffled one of our tempers.
May the blessin', if it is a blessin', or can be a blessin'--"

"It is, it is," said Sarah, with a quick, short sob; "it is a blessin',
an' a holy blessin'; but bless him--bless him, too!"

"May my blessin' rest upon you, or rather may the blessin' of Almighty
God, rest upon you, daughter of my heart! And you too," he proceeded,
turning to the other bed; "here is him that among them all I loved the
best; my youngest, an' called afther myself--may my blessin' an' the
blessin' of God and my Saviour rest upon you, my darlin' son; an' if
I never see either of you in this unhappy world, grant, oh, merciful
Father, that we may meet in the glory of Heaven, when that stain will be
taken away from me for that crime that I have repented for so long an'
so bittherly?"

Sarah, while he spoke, had let go his arm, and placing her two hands
over her eyes, her whole breast quivered; and the men, on looking at
her, saw the tears gushing out in torrents from between her finger. She
turned round, however, for a few moments, as if to compose herself;
and, when she again approached the old man, there was a smile--a smile,
brilliant, but agitated, in her eyes and upon her lips.

"There now," she proceeded; "you have said all you can say; come, go
with them. Ah," she exclaimed with a start of pain, "all we've done
or tried to do is lost, I doubt. Here's his wife and daughter. Come out
now," said she addressing him, "say a word or two to them outside."

Just as she spoke, Mrs. Dalton and the poor invalid, Mary, entered the
house: the one with some scanty supply of food, and the other bearing a
live coal between two turf, one under and the other over it.

"Wait," said Sarah, "I'll speak to them before they come in." And, ere
the words were uttered, she met them.

"Come here, Mrs. Dalton," said she; "stop a minute, speak to this poor
girl, and support her. These sogers, and the constables inside, is come
about Sullivan's business, long ago."

"I know it," replied Mrs. Dalton; "I've just heard all about it, there
beyond; but she," pointing to her daughter, "has only crossed the ditch
from the commons, and joined me this minute."

"Give me these," said Sarah to the girl, "and stay here till I come out
again, wet as it is. Your mother will tell you why."

She took the fire from her as she spoke, and, running in, laid it upon
the hearth, placing, at the same time, two or three turf about in a
hurried manner, but still in a way that argued great presence of mind,
amid all her distraction. On going out again, however, the first object
she saw was one of the soldiers supporting the body of poor Mary, who
had sunk under the intelligence. Mrs. Dalton having entered the
cabin, and laid down the miserable pittance of food which she had been
carrying, now waved her hand with authority and singular calmness, but
at the same time with a face as pallid as death itself.

"This is a solemn hour," said she, "an' a woful sight in this place of
misery. Keep quiet, all of you. I know what this is about, dear Condy,"
she said; "I know it; but what is the value of our faith, if it doesn't
teach us obedience? Kiss your child, here," said she, "an' go--or come,
I ought to say, for I will go with you. It's not to be wondhered at that
she couldn't bear it, weak, and worn, and nearly heartbroken as she is.
Bless her, too, before you go. An' this girl," she said, pointing at
Mary, and addressing Sarah, "you will spake to her, an' support her as
well as you can, and stay with them all for an hour or two. I can't lave
him."

Dalton, while she spoke, had taken Mary in his arms, kissed her, and, as
in the case of the others, blessed her with a fervor only surpassed by
his sorrow and utter despair.

"I will stay with them," said Sarah; "don't doubt that--not for an hour
or two, but till they come to either life or death; so I tould him."

"It's a bitther case," said Mrs. Dalton; "a bitther case; but then it's
God's gracious will, an' them that He loves He chastises. Blessed be His
name for all He does, and blessed be His name ever for this!"

Mary now recovered in her father's arms; and her mother, in a low but
energetic voice, pointing to the beds, said:

"Think of them, darlin'. There now, part with him. This world, I often
tould you dear, Mary, is not our place, but our passage; an' although
it's painful let us not forget that it is God Himself that is guidin'
and directin' us through it. Come, Con dear, come."

A long mournful embrace, and another sorrowful but fervent blessing,
and with a feeble effort at consolation, Dalton parted with the weeping
girl; and placing his hat on his white head, he gave one long look--one
indescribable look--upon all that was so dear to him in this scene of
unutterable misery, and departed. He had not gone far, however, when he
returned a step or two towards the door; and Mary, having noticed this,
went to him, and throwing her arms once more about his neck, exclaimed:

"Oh! Father, darlin' an' is it come to this? Oh, did we ever complain or
grumble about all we suffered, while we had you wid us? no, we wouldn't.
What was our sufferins, father, dear--nothing. But, oh, nothing ever
broke our hearts, or troubled us, but to see you in sich sorrow."

"It's thrue, Mary darlin'; you wor all--all a blessin' to me; but I feel,
threasure of my heart, that my sorrows an' my cares will soon be over.
It's about Tom I come back. Och, sure I didn't care what he or we might
suffer, if it had plased God to lave him in his senses; but maybe now
he's happier than we are. Tell him--if he can understand it, or when he
does understand it--that I lave my blessin' and God's blessin' with him
for evermore--for evermore: an' with you all; an' with you, too, young
woman, for evermore, amen! And now come; I submit myself to the will of
my marciful Saviour."

He looked up to heaven as he spoke, his two hands raised aloft; after
which he covered his venerable head, and, with this pious and noble
instance of resignation, did the affectionate old man proceed, as well
as his feeble limbs could support him, to the county prison, accompanied
by his pious and truly Christian wife.

As the men were about to go, he who had addressed Sarah so rudely,
approached her with as much regret on his face as its hardened and
habitual indifference to human misery could express, and said, tapping
her on the shoulder:

"I was rather rough to you, jist now, my purty girl--to' be jabers, it'
is you that is the purty girl. I dunna, by the way, how the ould Black
Prophet came by the likes o' you; but, then he was a handsome vagabond
in his day, himself, an' you are like him."

"What do you want to say?" she asked, impatiently; "but stand outside,
I won't speak to you here--your voice would waken a corpse. Here, now,"
she added, having gone out upon the causeway, "what is it?"

"Why, devil a thing," he replied; "only you're a betther girl than I
tuck you to be. It's a pitiful case, this--a woful case at his time o'
life. Be heaventhers, but I'd rather a thousand times see Black Boy,
your own precious father, swing, than this poor ould man."

A moment's temporary fury was visible, but she paused, and it passed
away; after which she returned slowly and thoughtfully into the cabin.

It is unnecessary to say, that almost immediately the general rumor
of Dalton's arrest for the murder had gone through the whole parish,
together with the fact that it was upon the evidence of the Black
Prophet and Red Rody Duncan, that the proof of it had been brought home
to him. Upon the former occasion there had been nothing against him,
but such circumstances of strong suspicion as justified the neighboring
magistrates in having him taken into custody. On this, however, the two
men were ready to point out the identical spot where the body had been
buried, and to identify it as that of Bartholomew Sullivan. Nothing
remained, therefore, now that Dalton was in custody, but to hold an
inquest upon the remains, and to take the usual steps for the trial
of Dalton at the following assizes, which were not very far distant.
Indeed, notwithstanding the desolation that prevailed throughout the
country, and in spite of the care and sorrow which disease and death
brought home to so many in the neighborhood, there was a very general
feeling of compassion experienced for poor old Dalton and his afflicted
family. And among those who sympathized with them, there was scarcely
one who expressed himself more strongly upon the subject than Mr.
Travers, the head agent of the property on which they had lived,
especially upon contrasting the extensive farm and respectable
residence, from which their middleman landlord had so harshly and
unjustly ejected them, with the squalid kennel in which they then
endured such a painful and pitiable existence. This gentleman had come
to the neighborhood, in order to look closely into the condition of the
property which had been entrusted to his management, in consequence of
a great number of leases having expired; some of which had been held
by extensive and wealthy middlemen, among the latter of whom was our
friend, Dick o' the Grange.

The estate was the property of an English, nobleman, who derived an
income of thirty-two or thirty-three thousand a year from it; and who
though, as landlords went, was not, in many respects, a bad one; yet
when called upon to aid in relieving the misery of those from whose toil
he drew so large an income, did actually remit back the munificent sum
of one hundred pounds! [A recent fact.] The agent, himself, was one of
those men who are capable of a just, but not of a generous action. He
could, for instance, sympathize with the frightful condition of the
people--but to contribute to their relief was no part of his duty. Yet
he was not a bad man. In his transactions with his landlord's tenancy,
he was fair, impartial, and considerate. Whenever he could do a good
turn, or render a service, without touching his purse, he would do it.
He had, it is true, very little intercourse with the poorer class of
under tenants, but, whenever circumstances happened to bring them
before him, they found him a hard, just man, who paid attention to their
complaints, but who, in a case of doubt, always preferred the interest
of his employer, or his own, to theirs. He had received many complaints
and statements against the middlemen who resided upon the property, and
he had duly and carefully considered them. His present visit, therefore,
proceeded from a determination to look closely into the state and
condition of the general tenancy, by which he meant as well those who
derived immediately from the head landlord, as those who held under
middlemen. One virtue he possessed, which, in an agent, deserves every
praise; he was inaccessible to bribery on the one hand, or flattery on
the other; and he never permitted his religious or political principles
to degenerate into prejudice, so far as to interfere with the impartial
discharge of his duty. Such was Robert James Travers, Esq., and we only
wish that every agent in the country at large would follow his example.




CHAPTER XXII. -- Re-appearance of the Box--Friendly Dialogue Between
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."

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