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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




"It in a hard case upon them, as every body allows," said Mave, "but
it's over now, and can't be helped. Good-bye, Nelly, an' God bless you;
an' God bless you too," she added, addressing the strange woman, whose
hand she shook and pressed. "You are a great deal oulder than I am,
an' as I said, every one may read care an' sorrow upon your face. Mine
doesn't show it yet, I know, but for all that the heart within me is
full of both, an' no likelihood of its ever bein' otherwise with me."

As she spoke, the tears again gushed down her cheeks; but she checked
her grief by an effort, and after a second hurried good-bye, she
proceeded on her way home.

"That seems a mild girl," said the strange woman, "as she is a lovely
creature to look at."

"She's better than she looks," returned the prophet's wife, "an' that's
a great deal to say for her."

"That's but truth," replied the stranger, "and I believe it; for indeed
she has goodness in her face."

"She has and in her heart," replied Nelly; "no wondher, indeed, that
every one calls her the _Gra Gal_, for it's she that well deserves it. I
You are bound for Condy Dalton's, then?" she added, inquiringly. "I
am," said the other. "I think you must be a stranger in the country,
otherwise I'd know your face," continued Nelly--"but maybe you're a
relation of theirs."

"I am a stranger," said the other; "but no relation."

"The Daltons," proceeded Nelly, "are daicent people,--but hot and hasty,
as the savin' is. It's the blow before the word wid them always."

"Ah, tut they say," returned her companion, "that a hasty heart was
never a bad one."

"Many a piece o' nonsense they say as well as that," rejoined Nelly; "I
know them that 'ud put a knife into your heart hastily enough--ay,
an' give you a hasty death, into the bargain. They'll first break
your head--cut you to the skull, and then, indeed, they'll give you a
plaisther. That was ever an' always the carrecther of the same Daltons;
an', if all accounts be thrue, the hand of God is upon them, an' will be
upon them till the bloody deed is brought to light."

"How is that?" inquired the other, with intense interest, whilst her
eyes became riveted upon Nelly's hard features.

"Why, a murdher that was committed betther than twenty years ago in this
neighborhood."

"A murdher!" exclaimed the stranger. "Where?--when?--how?"

"I can tell you where, an' I can tell you when," replied Nelly; "but
there I must stop--for unless I was at the committin' of it, you might
know very well I couldn't tell you how."

"Where then?" she asked, and whilst she did so, it was by a considerable
effort that she struggled to prevent her agitation from being noticed by
the prophet's wife.

"Why, near the Grey Stone at the crossroads of Mallybenagh--that's the
where!"

"An' now for the when?" asked the stranger, who almost panted with
anxiety as she spoke.

"Let me see," replied Nelly, "fourteen and six makes twenty, an' two
before that or nearly--I mane the year of the rebellion, Why it's not
all out two-and-twenty years, I think."

"Aisey," said the other, "I'm but very weak an' feeble--will you jist
wait till I rest a minute upon this green bank by the road."

"What ails you?" asked Nelly. "You look as if you got suddenly ill."

"I did get a little--but it'll soon pass away," she answered--"thrue
enough," she added in a low voice, and as if in a soliloquy; "God is a
just Judge--he is--he is! Well, but--oh, I'll soon get better--well, but
listen, what became of the murdhered man?--was the body ever got?"

"Nobody knows that--the body was never got--that is to say nobody knows
where it's now lyin', snug enough too."

"Ha!" thought the stranger, eying her furtively--"snug enough!--there's
more knowledge where that came from. What do you mane by snug enough?"
she asked abruptly.

"Mane!" replied the other, who at once perceived the force of the
unguarded expression she had used;--"mane, why what could I mane, but
that whoever did the deed, hid the body where very few would be likely
to find it."

Her companion now stood up, and approaching the prophet's wife, raised
her hand, and said in a tone that was both startling and emphatic--

"I met you this day as you may think, by accident; but take my word for
it, and, as sure as we must both account for our acts, it was the hand
o' God that brought us together. I now look into your face, and I tell
you that I see guilt and throuble there--ay, an' the dark work of a
conscience that's gnawin' your heart both night and day."

Whilst speaking, she held her face within about a foot of Nelly's, into
which she looked with an expression so searching and dreadful in its
penetration, that the other shrunk back, and felt for a moment as if
subdued by a superior spirit. It was, however, only for a moment; the
sense of her subjection passed away, and she resumed that hard and
imperturbable manner, for which she had been all her life so remarkable,
unless, like Etna and Vesuvius, she burst out of this seeming coldness
into fire and passion. There, however, they stood looking sternly into
each others' faces, as if each felt anxious that the other should quail
before her gaze--the stranger, in order that her impressions might be
confirmed, and the prophet's wife, that she should, by the force of her
strong will, fling off those traces of inquietude which she knew very
well were often too legible in her countenance.

"You are wrong," said Nelly, "an' have only mistaken my face for a
lookin'-glass. It was your own you saw, all it was your own you wor
spaking of--for if ever I saw a face that publishes an ill-spent life on
the part of its owner, yours is it."

"Care an' sorrow I have had," replied the other, "an' the sin that
causes sorrow, I grant; but there's somethin' that's weighin' down your
heart, an' that won't let you rest until you give it up. You needn't
deny it, for you can't hide it--hard your eye is, but it's not clear,
and I see that it quivers, and is unaisy before mine."

"I said you're mistaken," replied the other; "but even supposin' you wor
not, how is it your business whether my mind is aisy or not? You won't
have my sins to answer for."

"I know that," said the stranger; "and God sees my own account will be
too long and too heavy, I doubt. I now beg of you, as you hope to meet
judgment, to think of what I said. Look into your own heart, and it will
tell you whether I am right or whether I am wrong. Consult your husband,
and if he has any insight at all into futurity, he must tell you that,
unless you clear your conscience, you'll have a hard death-bed of it."

"You're goin' to Condy Dalton's," replied Nelly, with much coolness, but
whether assumed or not it is difficult to say; "look into his face, and
try what you can find there. At any rate, report has it that there's
blood upon his hand, an' that the downfall of himself and his family is
only the vengeance of God, an' the curse of murdher that's pursuin' him
and them."

"Why," inquired the other, eagerly, "was he accused of it?"

"Ay, an' taken up for it; but bekaise the body wasn't found, they could
do nothing to him."

"May Heaven assist me!" exclaimed the stranger, "but this day
is----however, God's will be done, as it will be done! Are you goin'?"

"I'm goin'," replied Nelly; "by crossin' the fields here, I'll save
a great deal of ground; and when you get as far as the broken bridge,
you'll see a large farm-house widout any smoke from it; about a quarter
of a mile or less beyant that you'll find the house you're lookin'
for--the house where Condy Dalton lives."

Having thus directed the stranger, the prophet's wife entered a gap that
led into a field, and proceeded on her way homewards, having, ere
she parted, glanced at her with a meaning which rendered it extremely
difficult to say whether the singular language addressed to her had left
behind it any such impression as the speaker wished to produce. Their
glances met and dwelt on each other for a short time: the strange
woman pointed solemnly towards the sky, and the prophet's wife smiled
carelessly; but yet, by a very keen eye, it might have been noticed
that, under this natural or affected indifference, there lurked a blank
or rather an unquiet expression, such as might intimate that something
within her had been moved by the observations of her strange companion.




CHAPTER X. -- The Black Prophet makes a Disclosure.


The latter proceeded on her way home, having marked the miserable hovel
of Condy Dalton. At present our readers will accompany us once more to
the cabin of Donnel Dhu, the prophet.

His wife, as the reader knows, had been startled into something like
remorse, by the incidents which had occurred within the last two days,
and especially by the double discovery of the dead body and the Tobacco
box. Sarah, her step-daughter, was now grown, and she very reasonably
concluded, her residence in the same house with this fiery and violent
young female was next to an impossibility.--The woman herself was
naturally coarse and ignorant; but still there was mixed, up in her
character a kind of apathetic or indolent feeling of rectitude or
vague humanity, which rendered her liable to occasional visitations of
compunction for whatever she did that was wrong. The strongest principle
in her, however, was one which is frequently to be found among her
class--I mean such a lingering impression of religious feeling as is
not sufficiently strong to prevent the commission of crime, but yet
is capable by its influence to keep the conscience restless and uneasy
under its convictions. Whether to class this feeling with weakness or
with virtue, is indeed difficult; but to whichsoever of them it may
belong, of one thing we are certain, that many a mind, rude and hardened
by guilt, is weak or virtuous only on this single point. Persons so
constituted are always remarkable for feelings of strong superstition,
and are easily influenced by the occurrence of slight incidents, to
which they are certain to attribute a peculiar significance, especially
when connected with anything that may occasion them uneasiness for the
time, or which may happen to occupy their thoughts, or affect their own
welfare or interests.

The reader need not be surprised, therefore, on learning that this
woman, with all her apathy of character on the general matters of life,
was accessible to the feeling or principle we have just described, nor
that the conversation she had just had with the strange woman, both
disturbed and alarmed her.

On returning, she found her husband and step-daughter both at home; the
latter hacking up some white thorn wood with an old hatchet, for the
fire, and the other sitting with his head bent gloomily upon his hand,
as if ruminating upon the vicissitudes of a troubled or ill-spent life.

Having deposited her burthen, she sat down, and drawing a long breath,
wiped her face with the corner of a blue praskeen which she always wore,
and this she did with a serious and stern face, intimating, as it were,
that her mind was engaged upon matters of deep interest, whatever they
might have been.

"What's that you're doin'?" she inquired of Sarah, in a grave, sharp
voice.

"Have you no eyes?" replied the other; "don't you see what I am doin'?"

"Where did you get them white thorns that you're cuttin' up?"

"Where did I get them, is it?"

"Ay; I said so."

"Why, where they grew--ha, ha, ha! There's information for you."

"Oh, God help you! how do you expect to get through life at all?"

"Why, as well as I can--although not, maybe, as well as I wish."

"Where did you cut them thorns, I ax?"

"An' I tould you; but since that won't satisfy you, I cut them on the
_Rath_ above there."

"Heaven presarve us, you hardened jade, have you no fear of anything
about you?"

"Divil a much that I know of, sure enough."

"Didn't you know that them thorns belongs to the fairies, and that some
evil will betide any one that touches or injures a single branch o'
them."

"Divil a single branch I injured," replied Sarah, laughing; "I cut down
the whole tree at wanst."

"My sowl to glory, if I think its safe to live in the house wid you, you
hardened divil."

"Troth, I think you may well say so, afther yesterday's escape,"
returned Sarah; "an' I have no objection that you should go to glory,
body an' soul; an' a purty piece o goods will be in glory when you're
there--ha, ha, ha!"

"Throw out them thorns, I bid you."

"Why so? Don't we want them for the fire?"

"No matther for that; we don't want to bring 'the good people'--this
day's Thursday, the Lord stand between us an' harm--amin!--about our
ears. Out wid them."

"No, the sorra branch."

"Out wid them, I say, Are you afeard of neither God nor the divil?"

"Not overburdened with much fear of either o' them," replied the daring
young creature.

"Aren't you afeard o' the good people, then?"

"If they're good people, why should we be afeard o' them? No, I'm not."

"Put the thorns out, I bid you again."

"Divil a chip, mother dear; if your own evil conscience or your dirty
cowardice makes you afeard o' the fairies, don't think I am. I don't
care that about them. These same thorns must boil the dinner in spite
of all the fairies in Europe; so don't fret either yourself or me on the
head o' them."

"Oh, I see what's to come! There's a doom over this house, that's all,
an' over some, if not all o' them that's in it. Everything's leadin' to
it; an' come it will."

"Why, mother, dear, at this rate you'll leave my father nothin' to say.
You're keepin' all the black prophecies to yourself. Why don't you rise
up, man alive," she added, turning to him, "and let her hear how much
of the divil's lingo you can give?--It's hard, if you can't prophesy as
much evil as she can. Shake yourself, ruffle your feathers, or clap your
wings three times, in the divil's name, an' tell her she'll be hanged;
or, if you wish to soften it, say she'll go to Heaven in a string. Ha,
ha, ha!"

At this moment, a poor, famine-struck looking woman, with three or four
children, the very pictures of starvation and misery, came to the door,
and, in that voice of terrible destitution, which rings feeble and
hollow from an empty and exhausted frame, she implored them for some
food.

"We haven't it for you, honest woman," said Nelly, in her cold,
indifferent voice--"it's not for you now."

The hope of relief was nearly destroyed by the unfeeling tones of the
voice in which she was answered. She looked, however, at her famishing
children, and once more returned to the door, after having gone a few
steps from it.

"Oh, what will become of these?" she added, pointing to the children. "I
don't care about myself--I think my cares will soon be over."

"Go to the divil out o' that!" shouted the prophet--"don't be tormentin'
us wid yourself and your brats."

"Didn't you hear already," repeated his wife, "that you got your answer?
We're poor ourselves, and we can't help every one that comes to us. It's
not for you now."

"Don't you hear that there's nothing for you?" again cried the prophet,
in an angry voice; "yet you'll be botherin' us!"

"Indeed, we haven't it, good woman," repeated Nelly; "so take your
answer."

"Don't you know that's a lie?" said Sarah, addressing her step-mother.
"You have it, if you wish to give it."

"What's a lie?" said her father, starting, for he had again relapsed into
his moodiness. "What's a lie?--who--who's a liar?"

"You are!" she replied, looking him coolly and contemptuously in the
face; "you tell the poor woman that there's nothing for her. Don't you
know that's a lie? It may be very well to tell a lie to them that can
bear it--to a rich bodagh, or his proud lady of a wife--although it's a
mean thing even to them; but to tell a lie to that heartbroken woman
and her poor childhre--her childhre--aren't they her own?--an' who would
spake for them if she wouldn't. If every one treated the poor that way,
what would become of them? Ay, to look in her face, where there's want
an' hunger, and answer distress wid a lie--it's cruel--cruel!"

"What a kind-hearted creature she is," said her step-mother, looking
towards her father--"isn't she?"

"Come here, poor woman," said Sarah, calling her back; "it is for
you. If these two choose to let you and your childhre die or starve, I
won't;" and she went to the meal to serve them as she spoke.

The woman returned, and looked with considerable surprise at her; but
Nelly went also to the meal, and was about to interpose, when Sarah's
frame became excited, and her eyes flashed, as they always did when in a
state of passion.

"If you're wise, don't prevent me," she said. "Help these creatures I
will. I'm your match now, an' more than your match, thank God; so be
quiet."

"If I was to die for it, you won't have your will now, then," said
Nelly.

"Die when you like, then," replied Sarah; "but help that poor woman an'
her childhre I will."

"Fight it out," said Donnel Dhu, "its a nice quarrel, although Sal has
the right on her side."

"If you prevent me," said she, disregarding her step-mother, "you'll
rue it quickly; or hould--I'm beginnin' to hate this kind of
quarrellin'--here, let her have as much meal as will make my supper;
I'll do without any for the sake of the childhre, this night."

This was uttered in a tone of voice more mitigated, but at the same
time so resolute, that Nelly stepped back and left her to pursue her own
course.

She then took a wooden trencher, and with a liberal hand assisted the
poor creatures, who began to feel alarmed at the altercation which their
distress had occasioned in the family.

"You're starvin', childre," said she, whilst emptying the meal into the
poor woman's bag.

"May the blessin' of God rest upon you," whispered the woman, "you've
saved my orphans;" and, as she uttered the words, her hollow eyes
filled, and a few tears ran slowly down her cheeks.

Sarah gave a short, loud laugh, and snatching up the youngest of the
children, stroked its head and patted its cheek, exclaiming--

"Poor thing; you won't go without your supper this night, at any rate."

She then laughed again in the same quick, abrupt manner, and returned
into the house.

"Why, then," said her step-mother, looking at her with mingled anger
and disdain, "is it tears you're sheddin'--cryin', no less! Afther that,
maricles will never cease."

Sarah turned towards her hastily; the tears, in a moment, were dried
upon her cheeks, and as she looked at her hard, coarse, but well-shaped
features, her eyes shone with a brilliant and steady light for more than
a minute. The expression was at once; lofty and full of strong contempt,
and, as she stood in this singular but striking mood, it would indeed be
difficult to conceive a finer type of energy, feeling, and beauty,
than that which was embodied in her finely-turned and exquisite figure.
Having thus contemplated the old woman for some time, she looked upon
the ground, and her face passed rapidly into a new form and expression
of beauty. It at once became soft and full of melancholy, and might have
been mistaken for an impersonation of pity and sorrow.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed, in a low voice, that was melody itself;
"I never got it from either the one or the other--the kind or soft
word--an' it's surely no wondher that I am as I am."

And as she spoke she wept. Her heart had been touched by the distress of
her fellow creatures, and became, as it were, purified and made tender
by its own sympathies, and she wept. Both of them looked at her; but as
they were utterly incapable of understanding what she felt, this natural
struggle of a great but neglected spirit excited nothing on their part
but mere indifference.

At this moment, the prophet, who seemed laboring under a fierce but
gloomy mood, rose suddenly up, and exclaimed--

"Nelly--Sarah!--I can bear this, no longer; the saicret must come out. I
am--"

"Stop," screamed Sarah, "don't say it--don't say it! Let me leave the
counthry. Let me go somewhere--any where--let me--let me--die first."

"I am----," said he.

"I know it," replied his wife; "a murdherer! I know it now--I knew it
since yesterday mornin'."

"Give him justice," said Sarah, now dreadfully excited, and seizing
him by the breast of his coat,--"give him common justice--give the man
justice, I say. You are my father, aren't you? Say how you did it. It
was a struggle--a fight; he opposed you--he did, and your blood riz, and
you stabbed him for fear he might stab you. That was it. Ha! ha! I know
it was, for you are my father, and I am your daughter; and that's what I
would do like a man. But you never did it--ah! you never did it in cowld
blood, or like a coward."

There was something absolutely impressive and commanding in her
sparkling eyes, and the energetic tones of her voice, whilst she
addressed him.

"Donnel," said the wife, "it's no saicret to me; but it's enough now
that you've owned it. This is the last night that I'll spend with a
murdherer. You know what I've to answer for on my own account; and so,
in the name of God, we'll part in the mornin'."

"Ha!" exclaimed Sarah, "you'd leave him now, would you? You'd desart him
now; now that all the world will turn against him; now that every tongue
will abuse him; that every heart will curse him; that every eye will
turn away from him with hatred; now that shame, an' disgrace, an' guilt
is all upon his head; you'd leave him, would you, and join the world
against him? Father, on my knees I go to you;" and she dropped down as
she spoke; "here on my knees I go to you, an' before you spake, mark,
that through shame an' pain, an' sufferin', an' death, I'll stay by you,
an' with you. But, I now kneel to you--what I hardly ever did to God--an
for his sake, for God's sake, I ask you; oh say, say that you did not
kill the man in cowld blood; that's all! Make me sure of that, and I'm
happy."

"I think you're both mad," replied Donnel. "Did I say that I was a
murdherer? Why didn't you hear me out?"

"You needn't," returned Nelly; "I knew it since yestherday mornin'."

"So you think," he replied, "an' it's but nathural you should, I was
at the place this day, and seen where you dug the _Casharrawan_. I have
been strugglin' for years to keep this saicret, an' now it must come
out; but I'm not a murdherer."

"What saicret, father, if you're not a murdherer?" asked Sarah; "what
saicret; but there is not murder on you; do you say that?"

"I do say it; there's neither blood nor murdher on my head! but I know
who the murdherer is, an' I can keep the saicret no longer!"

Sarah laughed, and her eyes sparkled up with singular vividness.
"That'll do," she exclaimed; "that'll do; all's right now; you're not
a murdherer, you killed no man, aither in cowld blood or otherwise; ha!
ha! you're a good father; you're a good father; I forgive you all now,
all you ever did."

Nelly stood contemplating her husband with a serious, firm, but
dissatisfied look; her chin was supported upon her forefinger and thumb;
and instead of seeming relieved by the disclosure she had just heard,
which exonerated him from the charge of blood, she still kept her eyes
riveted upon him with a stern and incredulous aspect.

"Spake out, then," she observed coolly, "an' tell us all, for I am not
convinced."

Sarah looked as if she would have sprang at her.

"You are not convinced," she exclaimed; "you are not convinced! Do you
think he'd tell a lie on such a subject as this?" But no sooner had
she uttered the words than she started as if seized by a spasm. "Ah,
father," she exclaimed, "it's now your want of truth comes against you;
but still, still I believe you."

"Tell us all about it," said Nelly, coldly; "let us hear all."

"But you both promise solemnly, in the sight of God, never to breathe
this to a human being till I give yez lave."

"We do; we do," replied Sarah; "in the sight of God, we do."

"You don't spake," said he, addressing Nelly.

"I promise it."

"In the sight of God?" he added, "for I know you."

"Ay." said she, "in the sight of God, since you must have it so."

"Well, then," said he, "the common report is right; the man that
murdhered him is Condy Dalton. I have kept it in till I can bear it no
longer. It's my intention to go to a magistrate's as soon as my face
gets well. For near two-and-twenty years, now, this saicret is lyin'
hard upon me; but I'll aise my mind, and let justice take it's coorse.
Bad I have been, but never so bad as to take my fellow-crature's life."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said his wife; "an' now I can undherstand
you."

"And I'm both glad and sorry," exclaimed Sarah; "sorry for the sake of
the Daltons. Oh! who would suppose it! and what will become of them?"

"I have no peace," her father added; "I have not had a minute's peace
ever since it happened; for sure, they say, any one that keeps their
knowledge of murdher saicret and won't tell it, is as bad as the
murdherer himself. There's another thing I have to mention," he added,
after a pause; "but I'll wait for a day or two; it's a thing I lost,
an', as the case stands now, I can do nothing widout it."

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