""Sorra bit," says the men, looking strangely at each other, for my grandfather was agitated, and trembling, between anger and a kind of fear; just as he said afterwards, "as if there was something dreadful going to happen him!" "Them was terrible cries, anyway!" says my grandfather; and with that he turned back to the cottage, and it was then that he found the master lying dead on his face, and the axe in his skull. He tried to lift him up, or turn him over on his back, and that was the way he bloodied his hands and all the front of his clothes. That was all he had to say, and to swear before the sight of Heaven that he didn"t do it!
"No matter! they hanged him for it! Ay, and I have an ould newspaper in my trunk this minit, where there "s a great discourse about the wickedness of a crayture going out of the world wid a lie on his last breath!"
"And you think he was innocent?" said I.
"Sure, we know it! sure, the priest said to my father,--"Take courage,"
says he, "your father is n"t in a bad place if he "s in purgatory,"
says he," he "s not over the broken bridge, where the murderers does be, but in the meadows, where the stream is shallow, and stepping-stones in it! and every stone costs ten ma.s.ses--sorra more! "G.o.d help us! but blood is a dreadful thing!" And with this reflection, uttered in a voice of fervent feeling, the hardy peasant laid down his pipe; and I could see, by his muttering lips and clasped hands, that he was offering up a prayer for the soul"s rest of his unhappy kinsman.
"And what became of Cafferty?" said I, as he finished his devotions.
""T was never rightly known; for, after he gave evidence on the trial, the people did n"t like him, and he left the place; some say he went to his mother"s relations down in Kerry!"
The deep-drawn breathings of the sleepers around us; the unbroken stillness of the night; the fast-expiring embers, which only flickered at intervals,--contributed their aid to make the story more deeply affecting; and I sat pondering over it, and canva.s.sing within my mind all the probabilities of the condemned man"s guilt or innocence; nor, I must own it, were all my convictions on the side of the narrator"s belief; but even that very doubt heightened the interest considerably.
As for Cullinane, his thoughts were evidently less with the incidents of the characters as they lived, than with that long pilgrimage of expiation, in which his imagination pictured his poor relative still a wanderer beyond the grave.
The fire now barely flickered, throwing from time to time little jets of light upon the sleeping figures around us, and then leaving all in dark indistinctness. My companion also, crouching down, hid his face within his hands, and either slept or was lost in deep thought, and I alone of all the party was left awake, my mind dwelling on the tale I had just heard, with a degree of interest to which the place and the hour strongly contributed.
I had been for some time thus, when the sound of feet moving heavily overhead attracted my attention; they were like the sluggish footsteps of age, but pa.s.sing to and fro with what seemed haste and eagerness. I could hear a voice, too, which even in its indistinctness I recognized as that of the old woman; and once or twice fancied I could detect another, whose accents sounded like pain and suffering. The shuffling footsteps still continued, and I heard the old crazy sash of the window open, and after an interval shut again, while I distinctly could catch the old hag"s voice saying, "It "s all dark without; there "s no use "trying "!" a low whining sound followed; and then I heard the old woman slowly descending the stairs, and, by the motion of her hand along the wall, I conjectured that she had no light.
She stopped as she came to the door, and seemed to listen to the long-drawn breathing of the sleepers; and then she pushed open the door and entered. With a strange dread of what this might mean, I still resolved to let the event take its course; and, feigning deepest sleep, I lay back against the wall and watched her well.
Guiding herself along by the wall, she advanced slowly, halting every second or third step to listen,--a strange precaution, since her own asthmatic breathing was enough to mask all other sounds. At last she neared the grate; and then her thin and cord-like fingers pa.s.sed from the wall, to rest upon my head. It was with a kind of thrill I felt them; for I perceived by the touch that she did not know on what her hand was placed. She knelt down now, close beside me, and, stooping over, stirred the embers with her fingers till she discovered some faint resemblance to fire, amid the dark ashes. To brighten this into flame, she blew upon it for several minutes, and, even taking the live embers in her hands, tried in every way to kindle them.
With a patience that seemed untirable, she continued at this for a long time; now selecting from the hearth some new material to work upon, and now abandoning it for another; till, when I had almost grown drowsy in watching this monotonous process, a thin bright light sprung up, and I saw that she had lighted a little piece of candle that she held in her hand. I think even now I have her before me, as, crouched down upon her knees, and sheltering the candle from the current air of the room, she took a stealthy, but searching, glance at the figures, who, in every att.i.tude of weariness, were sleeping heavily around.
It was not without a great effort that she regained her feet, for she was very old and infirm; and now she retraced her steps cautiously as she came,--stooping at intervals to listen, and then resuming her way as before. I watched her till she pa.s.sed out; and then, as I heard her first heavy footstep on the stair, I slipped off my shoes and followed her.
My mind throughout the whole of that night had been kept in a state of tension that invariably has the effect of magnifying the significance of every, even the very commonest, occurrences. It resembles that peculiar condition in certain maladies when the senses become preternaturally acute; in such moments the reason is never satisfied with drawing only/row inferences for any fact before it; it seeks for more, and in the effort becomes lost in the mazes of mere fancy. I will own that as, with stealthy step and noiseless gesture, I followed that old hag, there was a kind of ecstasy in my terror which no mere sense of pleasure could convey. The light seemed to show ghastly shapes, as she pa.s.sed, on the green and mouldy walls, and her head, with its ma.s.ses of long and straggling gray hair, nodded in shadow like some unearthly spectre.
As she came nigh the top, I heard a weak and whining cry, something too deep for the voice of infancy, but seeming too faint for manhood. "Ay, ay," croaked the hag, harshly, "I"m coming, I"m coming!" and as she said this, she pushed open a door and entered a room, which, by the pa.s.sing gleam of light as she went, I perceived lay next to the roof, for the rafters and the tiles were both visible, as there was no ceiling.
I held my breath as I slowly stole along, and then, reaching the door as it lay half ajar, I crouched down and peeped in.
CHAPTER XVII. A "SCENE" AND "MY LUCUBRATIONS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE."
When the light of the candle which the old woman carried had somewhat dissipated the darkness, I could see the whole interior of the room; and certainly, well habituated as I had been from my earliest years to such sights, poverty like this I never had seen before! Not a chair nor table was there; a few broken utensils for cooking, such as are usually thrown away as useless among rubbish, stood upon the cold hearth. A few potatoes on one broken dish, and a little meat on another, were the only things like food. It was not for some minutes that I perceived in the corner a miserable bed of straw confined within a plank, supported by two rough stones; nor was it till I had looked long and closely that I saw that the figure of a man lay extended on the bed, his stiffened and outstretched limbs resembling those of a corpse. Towards this the old woman now tottered with slow steps, and, setting the small piece of candle upright in a saucer, she approached the bed. "There it is, now; look at it, and make yer mind aisy," said she, placing it on the floor beside the bed, in such a position that he could see it.
The sick man turned his face round, and as his eyes met the light, there came over his whole features a wondrous change. Livid and clammy with the death-sweat, the rigid muscles relaxed, and in the staring eyeb.a.l.l.s and the parted lips there seemed a perfect paroxysm of emotion. "Is that it?--are ye sure that"s it?" cried he, in a voice to which the momentary excitement imparted strength.
"To be sure I am; I seen Father Ned bless it himself, and sprinkle it too!" said she.
"Oh, the heavenly--" He stopped, and in a lower voice added, "Say it for me, Molly!--say it for me, Molly! I can"t say it myself."
"Keep your eyes on the blessed candle!" said the hag, peevishly; ""t is a quarter dollar it cost me."
"Wouldn"t he come, Molly?--did he say he wouldn"t come?"
"Father Ned! arrah, "tis likely he"d come here at night, with the Tapageers on their rounds, and nothing to give him when he kem!"
"Not to hear my last words!--not to take my confession!" cried he, in a kind of shriek. "Oh, "tis the black list of sins I have to own to!"
"Whisht, whisht!" cried the hag. ""T is many a year ago now; maybe it"s all forgot."
"No, it"s not," cried the dying man, with a wild energy he did not seem to have strength for. "When you wor away, Molly, he was here, standing beside the bed."
The old hag laughed with a horrid sardonic laugh.
"Don"t--don"t, for the love of--ah--I can"t say--I can"t say it," cried he; and the voice died away in the effort.
"What did he say to ye when he kem?" said she, in a scoffing tone.
"He never spoke a word, but he pressed back the cloth that was on his head, and I saw the deep cut in it, down to the very face!"
"Well, I am sure it had time to heal before this time," said the woman, with a tone of mockery that at last became palpable to the dying man.
"Where"s Dan, Molly,--did he never come back since?"
"Sorra bit; he said he"d go out of the house, and never come back to it. You frightened the boy with the terrible things you say in your ravings."
"Oh, murther--murther! My own flesh and blood desart me!"
"Then why won"t you be raisonable,--why won"t you hould your peace about what happened long agone?"
"Because I can"t," said he, with a peevish eagerness. "Because I"m going where it"s all known a"ready."
"Faix, and I would n"t be remindin" them, anyway!" said the hag, whose sarcastic impiety added fresh tortures to the dying sinner.
"I wanted to tell Father Ned all; I wanted to have ma.s.ses for him that"s gone,--the man that suffered instead of me! Oh, dear!--Oh, dear!--and n.o.body will come to me."
"If ye cry that loud, I "ll leave you too," said the hag. "They know already "tis the spotted fever ye have, and the Tapageers would burn the house under ye, if I was to go."
"Don"t go, Molly,--don"t leave me," he cried, with heart-rending anguish. "Bring the blessed candle nearer; I don"t see it well."
"You"ll see less of it soon; "tis nigh out," said she, snuffing the wick with her fingers.
The dying man now stretched out his fleshless fingers towards the light, and I could see by his lips that he was praying. "They "re calling me now," cried he, "Molly,"--and his voice of a sudden grew strong and full,--"don"t ye hear them? There it is again,--"Maurice Cafferty, Maurice Cafferty, yer wantin""."
"Lie down and be at peace," said she, rudely pushing him back on the bed.
"The blessed candle, where"s the blessed candle?" shrieked he.
""T is out," said the hag; and as she spoke, the wick fell into the saucer, and all was dark.
A wild and fearful cry broke from the sick man and re-echoed through the silent house; and ere it died away I had crept stealthily back to my place beside my companions.
""Did ye hear anything, or was I dreamin"?" said Joe to me; "I thought I heard the most dreadful scream,--like a man drownin"."