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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




"Why we can't--hut, what was I goin' to say?" replied his companion; "we
can't--complain--ershi--mishi!--why, then, God help us, it's we that can
complain, Donnel, if there was any use in it; but, mavrone, there isn't;
so all I can say is, that we're jist mixed middlin', like the praties in
a harvest, or hardly that same, indeed, since this woful change that has
come on us."

"Ay, ay," replied the other; "but if that change has come on you, you
know it didn't come without warnin' to the counthry; there's a man
livin' that foretould as much--that seen it comin'--ay, ever since
the pope was made prisoner, for that was what brought Bonaparte's
fate--that's now the cause of the downfall of everything upon him."

"An' it was the hard fate for us, as well as for himself," replied
Sullivan, "little he thought, or little he cared, for what he made us
suffer, an' for what he's makin' us suffer still, by the come-down that
the prices have got."

"Well, but he's sufferin' himself more than any of us," replied Donnel;
"however, that was prophesied too; it's read of in the ould Chronicles.
'An eagle will be sick,' says St. Columbkill, 'but the bed of the sick
eagle is not a tree, but a rock; an' there, he must suffer till the
curse of the Father* is removed from him; an' then he'll get well, an'
fly over the world.'"

* This is--the Pope, in consequence of Bonaparte having
imprisoned him.

"Is that in the prophecy, Donnel?"

"It's St. Columbian's words I'm spakin'."

"Throth, at any rate," replied Sullivan, "I didn't care we had back the
war prices again; aither that, or that the dear rents were let down to
meet the poor prices we have now. This woeful saison, along wid the low
prices and the high rents, houlds out a black and terrible look for the
counthry, God help us!"

"Ay," returned the Black Prophet, for it was he, "if you only knew it."

"Why, was that, too, prophesied?" inquired Sullivan.

"Was it? No; but ax yourself is it. Isn't the Almighty in his wrath,
this moment proclaimin' it through the heavens and the airth? Look
about you, and say what is it you see that does not foretel
famine--famine--famine! Doesn't the dark wet day, an' the rain, rain,
rain, foretel it? Doesn't the rotten' crops, the unhealthy air, an' the
green damp foretel it? Doesn't the sky without a sun, the heavy clouds,
an' the angry fire of the West, foretel it? Isn't the airth a page of
prophecy, an' the sky a page of prophecy, where every man may read of
famine, pestilence, an' death? The airth is softened for the grave,
an' in the black clouds of heaven you may see the death-hearses movin'
slowly along--funeral afther funeral--funeral afther funeral--an'
nothing to folly them but lamentation an' wo, by the widow an'
orphan--the fatherless, the motherless, an' the childless--wo an'
lamentation--lamentation an' wo."

Donnel Dhu, like every prophecy man of his kind--a character in Ireland,
by the way, that has nearly, if not altogether, disappeared--was
provided with a set of prophetic declamations suited to particular
occasions and circumstances, and these he recited in a voice of high and
monotonous recitative, that caused them to fall with a very impressive
effect upon the minds and feeling of his audience. In addition to this,
the very nature of his subject rendered a figurative style and suitable
language necessary, a circumstance which, aided by a natural flow of
words, and a felicitious illustration of imagery--for which, indeed, all
prophecy-men were remarkable--had something peculiarly fascinating and
persuasive to the class of persons he was in the habit of addressing.
The gifts of these men, besides, were exercised with such singular
delight, that the constant repetition of their oracular exhibitions by
degrees created an involuntary impression on themselves, that ultimately
rose to a kind of wild and turbid enthusiasm, partaking at once of
imposture and fanaticism. Many of them were, therefore, nearly as
much the dupes of the delusions that proceeded from their own heated
imaginations as the ignorant people who looked upon them as oracles;
for we know that nothing at all events so much generates imposture as
credulity.

"Indeed, Donnel," replied Sullivan, "what you say is unfortunately too
thrue. Everything we can look upon appears to have the mark of God's
displeasure on it; but if we have death and sickness now, what'll become
of us this time twelve months, when we'll feel this failure most?"

"I have said it," replied the prophet; "an' if my tongue doesn't tell
truth, the tongue that never tells a lie will."

"And what tongue is that?" asked his companion.

"The tongue of the death-bell will tell it day afther day to every
parish in the land. However, we know that death's before us, an' the
grave, afther all, is our only consolation."

"God help us," exclaimed Sullivan, "if we hadn't betther and brighter
consolation than the grave. Only for the hopes in our Divine Redeemer
an' his mercy, it's little consolation the grave could give us. But
indeed, Donnel, as you say, everything about us is enough to sink
the heart within one--an' no hope at all of a change for the betther.
However, God is good, and, if it's His will that we should suffer, it's
our duty to submit to it."

The prophet looked around him with a gloomy aspect, and, truth to say,
the appearance of everything on which the eye could rest, was such as
gave unquestionable indications of wide-spread calamity to the country.

The evening, which was now far advanced, had impressed on it a character
of such dark and hopeless desolation as weighed down the heart with a
feeling of cold and chilling gloom that was communicated by the dreary
aspect of every thing around. The sky was obscured by a heavy canopy of
low, dull clouds that had about them none of the grandeur of storm, but
lay overhead charged with those wintry deluges which we feel to be so
unnatural and alarming in autumn, whose bounty and beauty they equally
disfigure and destroy. The whole summer had been sunless and wet--one,
in fact, of ceaseless rain which fell, day after day, week after week,
and month after month, until the sorrowful consciousness had arrived
that any change for the better must now come too late, and that nothing
was certain but the terrible union of famine, disease, and death
which was to follow. The season, owing to the causes specified, was
necessarily late, and such of the crops as were, ripe had a sickly and
unthriving look, that told of comparative failure, while most of the
fields which, in our autumns, would have been ripe and yellow, were now
covered with a thin, backward crop, so unnaturally green that all hope
of maturity was out of the question. Low meadows were in a state of
inundation, and on alluvial soils the ravages of the floods Were
visible in layers of mud and gravel that were deposited over many of the
prostrate corn fields. The peat turf lay in oozy and neglected heaps,
for there had not been sun enough to dry it sufficiently for use, so
that the poor had want of fuel, and cold to feel, as well as want of
food itself. Indeed, the appearance of the country, in consequence of
this wetness in the firing, was singularly dreary and depressing. Owing
to the difficulty with which it burned, or rather wasted away, without
light or heat, the eye, in addition to the sombre hue which the absence
of the sun cast over all things, was forced to dwell upon the long black
masses of smoke which trailed slowly over the whole country, or hung,
during the thick sweltering calms, in broad columns that gave to
the face of nature an aspect strikingly dark and disastrous, when
associated, as it was, with the destitution and suffering of the great
body of the people. The general appearance of the crops was indeed
deplorable. In some parts the grain was beaten down by the rain; in
airier situations it lay cut but unsaved, and scattered over the fields,
awaiting an occasional glance of feeble sunshine; and in other and
richer soils, whole fields, deplorably lodged, were green with the
destructive exuberance of a second growth. The season, though wet, was
warm; and it is unnecessary to say that the luxuriance of all weeds
and unprofitable production was rank and strong, while an unhealthy
fermentation pervaded every thing that was destined for food. A brooding
stillness, too, lay over all nature; cheerfulness had disappeared, even
the groves and hedges were silent, for the very birds had ceased
to sing, and the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching
calamity, as well as for that which had been already felt. The whole
country, in fact, was weltering and surging with the wet formed by the
incessant overflow of rivers, while the falling cataracts, joined to a
low monotonous hiss, or what the Scotch term _sugh_, poured their faint
but dismal murmurs on the gloomy silence which otherwise prevailed
around.

Such was the aspect of the evening in question: but as the men advanced,
a new element of desolation soon became visible. The sun, ere he sank
among the dark western clouds, shot out over this dim and miserable
prospect a light so angry, yet so ghastly, that it gave to the whole
earth a wild, alarming, and spectral hue, like that seen in some feverish
dream. In this appearance there was great terror and sublimity, for as
it fell on the black shifting clouds, the effect was made still more
awful by the accidental resemblance which they bore to coffins, hearses,
and funeral processions, as observed by the prophecy-man, all of which
seemed to have been lit up against the deepening shades of evening
by some gigantic death-light that superadded its fearful omens to the
gloomy scenes on which it fell.

The sun, as he then appeared, might not inaptly be compared to some
great prophet, who, clothed with the majesty and terror of I an
angry God, was commissioned to launch! his denunciations against the
iniquities of nations, and to reveal to them, as they lay under the
shadow of his wrath, the terrible calamities with which he was about to
visit their transgressions.

The two men now walked on in silence for some time, Donnel Dhu having
not deemed it necessary to make any reply to the pious and becoming
sentiments uttered by Sullivan.

At length the latter spoke.

"Barrin' what we all know, Donnel, an' that's the saison an' the
sufferin' that's in it, is there no news stirrin' at all? Is it thrue
that ould Dick o' the Grange is drawin' near to his last account?"

"Not so bad as that; but he's still complainin'. It's one day up and
another day down wid' him--an' of coorse his laise of life can't be long
now."

"Well, well," responded Sullivan, "it's not for us to pass judgment on
our fellow-creatures; but by all accounts he'll have a hard reckonin'."

"That's his own affair, you know," said Donnel Dhu; "but his son, master
Richard, or 'Young Dick,' as they call him, will be an improvement upon
the ould stock."

"As to that, some says ay, an' some says no; but I believe myself, that
he has, like his father, both good and bad in him; for the ould man, if
the maggot bit him, or that if he took the notion, would do one a good
turn; an' if he took a likin' to you, he'd go any lin'th to sarve you;
but, then, you were never sure of him--nor he didn't himself know this
minute what he'd do the next."

"That's thrue enough," replied Donnel Dhu; "but lavin' him to shift for
himself, I'm of opinion that you an' I are likely to get wet jackets
before we're much oulder. Ha! Did you see that lightnin'? God presarve
us! it was terrible--an'--ay, there it is--the thundher! God be about
us, thundher at this hour is very fearful. I would give a thrifle to be
in my own little cabin, an' indeed I'm afeard that I won't be worth the
washin' when I get there, if I can go back sich a night as it's goin' to
be."

"The last few years, Donnel, has brought a grievous change,upon me and
mine," replied Sullivan. "The time was, an' it's not long since, when I
could give you a comfortable welcome as well as a willin' one; however,
thank God, it isn't come to sich a hard pass wid me yet that I haven't
a roof an' a bit to ait to offer you; an' so to sich as it is you're
heartily welcome. Home! oh, you mustn't talk of home this night. Blood,
you know, is thicker than wather, an' if it was only on your wife
Nolly's account, you should be welcome. Second an' third cousins by the
mother's side we are, an' that's purty strong. Oh, no, don't talk of
goin' home this night."

"Well," replied the other, "I'm thankful to you, Jerry, an' indeed as
the night's comin' on so hard and stormy, I'll accept your kind offer;
a mouthful of any thing will do me, an' a dry sate at your hearth till
mornin'."

"Unfortunately, as I said," replied Sullivan, "it's but poor an' humble
treatment I can give you; but if it was betther you should be jist as
welcome to it, an' what more can I say?"

"What more can you say, indeed! I know your good heart, Jerry, as who
doesn't? Dear me, how it's poorin' over there towards the south--ha,
there it is again, that thundher! Well, thank goodness, we haven't far
to go, at any rate, an' the shower hasn't come round this far yet. In
the mean time let us step out an' thry to escape it if we can."

"Let us cross the fields, then," said Sullivan, "an' get up home by the
Slang, an' then behind our garden: to be sure, the ground is in a sad
plash, but then it will save a long twist round the road, an' as you
say, we may escape the rain yet."

Both accordingly struck off the highway, and took a short path across
the fields, while at every step the water spurted up out of the spongy
soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to their knees, so thoroughly
saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen.
After toiling thro' plashy fields, they at length went up, as Sullivan
had said, by an old unfrequented footpath, that ran behind his garden,
the back of which consisted of a thick elder hedge, through which
scarcely the heaviest rain could penetrate. At one end of this garden,
through a small angle, forming a _cul de sac_, or point, where the
hedge was joined by one of white thorn, ran the little obsolete pathway
alluded to, and as another angle brought them at once upon the spot we
are describing, it would so happen that if any one had been found there
when they appeared, it would be impossible to leave it if they wished
to do so, without directly meeting them, there being no other mode of
egress from it except by the footpath in question.

In that sheltered nook, then, our travellers found a young man about two
or three and twenty, holding the unresisting hand of a very beautiful
and bashful-looking girl, not more than nineteen, between his. From
their position, and the earnestness with which the young peasant
addressed her, there could be but little doubt as to the subject matter
of their conversation. If a bolt from the thunder which had been rolling
a little back among the mountains, and which was still faintly heard in
the distance, had fallen at the feet of the young persons in question,
it could not have filled them with more alarm than the appearance of
Sullivan and the prophet. The girl, who became pale and red by turns,
hung her head, then covered her face with her hands; and after a short
and ineffectual struggle, burst into tears, exclaiming--

"Oh, my God, it is my father!"

The youth, for he seemed scarcely to have reached maturity, after a
hesitating glance at Sullivan, seemed at once to have determined the
course of conduct he should pursue. His eye assumed a bold and resolute
look--he held himself more erect--and, turning towards the girl, without
removing his gaze from her father, he said in a loud and manly tone--

"Dear Mave, it is foolish to be frightened. What have you done that
ought to make you aither ashamed or afeared? If there's blame anywhere,
it's mine, not yours, and I'll bear it."

Sullivan, on discovering this stolen interview--for such it was--felt
precisely as a man would feel, who found himself unexpectedly within the
dart of a rattlesnake, with but one chance of safety in his favor and
a thousand against him. His whole frame literally shook with the
deadly depth of his resentment; and in a voice which fully betrayed its
vehemence, he replied--

"Blame! ay, shame an' blame--sin an' sorrow there is an' ought to rest
upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin'! Blame! surely, an' as
I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be
a just God in Heaven, if she's not yet punished for holdin' this
guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle's blood--my
brother's blood--on his hand of murdher--"


[Illustration: PAGE 785-- "It's false," replied the young fellow]


"It's false," replied the young fellow, with kindling eye; "it's
false, from your teeth to your marrow. I know my father's heart an'
his thought--an' I say that whoever charges him with the murder of your
brother, is a liar--a false and damnable li--"

He checked himself ere he closed the sentence.

"Jerry Sullivan," said he, in an altered voice, "I ax your pardon for
the words---it's but natural you should feel as you do; but if it was
any other man than yourself that brought the charge of blood against my
father, I would thramp upon him where he stands."

"An' maybe murdher him, as my poor brother was murdhered. Dalton, I see
the love of blood in your eye," replied Sullivan, bitterly.

"Why," replied the other, "you have no proof that the man was murdered
at all. His body was never found; and no one can say what became of him.
For all that any one knows to the contrary, he may be alive still."

"Begone, sirra," said Sullivan, in a burst of impetuous resentment which
he could not restrain, "if I ever know you to open your lips to that
daughter of mine--if the mane crature can be my daughter--I'll make it
be the blackest deed but one that ever a Dalton did; and as for you--go
in at wonst--I'll make you hear me by and by."

Dalton looked at him once more with a kindling but a smiling eye.

"Speak what you like," said he--"I'll curb myself. Only, if you wish
your daughter to go in, you had better leave the way and let her pass."

Mave--for such was her name--with trembling limbs, burning blushes and
palpitating heart, then passed from the shady angle where they stood;
but ere she did, one quick and lightning glance was bestowed upon her
lover, which, brief though it was, he felt as a sufficient consolation
for the enmity of her father.

The prophet had not yet spoken; nor indeed had time been given him to do
so, had he been inclined. He looked on, however, with' surprise, which
soon assumed the appearance, as well as the reality, of some malignant
satisfaction which he could not conceal.

He eyed Dalton with a grin of peculiar bitterness.

"Well," said he, "it's the general opinion that if any one knows or
can tell what the future may bring about, I can; an', if my knowledge
doesn't desave me, Dalton, I think, while you're before me, that I'm
lookin' at a man that was never born to be drowned at any rate. I
prophecy that, die when you may, you'll live to see your own funeral."

"If you're wise," replied the young man, "you'll not provoke me now
Jerry Sullivan may say what he wishes--he's safe, an he knows why; but I
warn you, Donnel Dhu, to take no liberty with me; I'll not bear it.

"Troth, I don't blame Jerry Sullivan," rejoined the prophet. "Of coorse
no man would wish to have a son-in-law hanged. It's in the prophecy that
you'll go to the surgeons yet."

"Did you foresee in your prophecies this mornin' that you'd get yourself
well drubbed before night?" asked Dalton, bristling up.

"No," said the other; "my prophecy seen no one able to do it."

"You and your prophecy are liars, then," retorted the other: "an' in
the doom you're kind enough to give me, don't be too sure but you meant
yourself. There's more of murdher an' the gallows in your face than
there is in mine. That's all I'll say, Donnel. Anything else you'll get
from me will be a blow; so take care of yourself."

"Let him alone, Donnel," said Sullivan; "it's not safe to meddle with
one of his name. You don't know what harm he may do you."

"I'm not afeard of him," said the prophet, with a sneer; "he'll find
himself a little mistaken, if he tries his hand. It won't be for me
you'll hang, my lad."

The words were scarcely uttered when a terrific blow on the eye, struck
with the rapidity of lightning, shot him to the earth, where he lay for
about half a minute, apparently insensible. He then got up, and after
shaking his head, as if to rid himself of a sense of confusion and
stupor, looked at Dalton for some time.

"Well," said he, "it's all over now--but the truth is, the fault was my
own. I provoked him too much, an' without any occasion. I'm sorry
you struck me, Condy, for I was only jokin' all the time. I never had
ill-will against you; an' in spite of what has happened, I haven't now."

A feeling of generous regret, almost amounting to remorse, instantly
touched Dalton's heart; he seized the hand of Donnel, and expressed his
sorrow for the blow he had given him.

"My God," he exclaimed, "why did I strike you? But sure no one could for
a minute suppose that you weren't in earnest."

"Well, well," said the other, "let it be a warnin' to both of us; to me,
in the first place, never to carry a joke too far; and to you, never to
allow your passion to get the betther of you, afaird that you might give
a blow in anger that you'd have cause to repent of all the days of your
life. My eye and cheek is in a frightful state; but no matther, Condy, I
forgive you, especially in the hope that you'll mark my advice."

Dalton once more asked his pardon, and expressed his unqualified sorrow
at what had occurred; after which he again shook hands with Dalton and
departed.

Sullivan felt surprised at this rencontre, especially at the nature of
its singular termination; he seemed, however, to fall into a meditative
and gloomy mood, and observed when Dalton had gone--

"If I ever had any doubt, Donnel, that my poor brother owed his death to
a Dalton, I haven't it now."

"I don't blame you much for sayin' so," replied Donnel. "I'm sorry
myself for what has happened, and especially as you were present. I'm
afeard, indeed', that a man's life would be but little in that boy's
hands under a fit of passion. I provoked him too much, though."

"I think so," said Sullivan. "Indeed, to tell you the truth, I had as
little notion that you wore jokin' as he had."

"That's my drame out last night, at all events," said Donnel.

"How is that?" asked Sullivan, as they approached the door.

"Why," said he, "I dreamed that I was lookin' for a hammer at your
house, an' I thought that you hadn't one to give me; but your daughter
Mave came to me, and said, 'here's a hammer for you, Donnel, an' take
care of it, for it belongs to Condy Dalton.' I thought I took it, an'
the first thing I found myself doin' was drivin' a nail in what appeared
to be my own coffin. The same dhrame would alarm me but that I know that
dhrames goes by contrairies, as I've reason to think this will."

"No man understands these things better than yourself, Donnel," said
Sullivan; "but, for my part, I think there's a dangerous kick in the boy
that jist left us; and I'm much mistaken or the world will hear of it
an' know it yet."

"Well, well," said Donnel Dhu, in a very Christian-like spirit, "I fear
you're right, Jerry; but still let us hope for the best."

And as he spoke, they entered the house.




CHAPTER III. -- A Family on the Decline--Omens.


Jerry Sullivan's house and place had about them all the marks and tokens
of gradual decline. The thatch on the roof had begun to get black, and
in some places was sinking into rotten ridges; the yard was untidy and
dirty; the walls and hedges were broken and dismantled; and the gates
were lying about, or swinging upon single hinges. The whole air of the
premises was uncomfortable to the spectator, who could not avoid feeling
that there existed in the owner either wilful neglect or unsuccessful
struggle. The chimneys, from which the thatch had sank down, stood
up with the incrustations of lime that had been trowelled round their
bases, projecting uselessly out from them; some of the quoins had fallen
from the gable; the plaster came off the walls in several places, and
the whitewash was sadly discolored.

Inside, the aspect of everything was fully as bad, if not worse.
Tables and chairs, and the general furniture of the house, had all that
character of actual cleanliness and apparent want of care which poverty
superinduces upon the most strenuous efforts of industry. The floor
was beginning to break up into holes; tables and chairs were crazy; the
dresser, though clean, had a cold, hungry, unfurnished look; and, what
was unquestionably the worst symptom of all, the inside of the chimney
brace, where formerly the sides and flitches of deep, fat bacon, grey
with salt, were arrayed in goodly rows, now presented nothing but the
bare and dust-covered hooks, from which they had depended in happier
times. About a dozen of herrings hung at one side of a worn salt-box,
and at the other a string of onions that was nearly Stripped, both
constituting the principal kitchen, varied, perhaps, with a little
buttermilk,--which Sullivan's family were then able to afford themselves
with their potatoes.

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