Tom"s clutches were again at his throat. "Another lie," he exclaimed, "and you"r a gone man. Do what I bid you."
Skinadre appeared, in point of fact, unable to do so, and Dalton seeing this, weighed the unhappy young woman a stone of oatmeal, which, on finding it too heavy for her feeble strength, he was about to take up himself when he put his hands to his temples, then staggered and fell.
They immediately gathered about him to ascertain the cause of this sudden attack, when it appeared that he had become insensible. His brow was now pale and cold as marble, and a slight dew lay upon his broad forehead; his shirt was open, and exposed to view a neck and breast, which, although sadly wasted, were of surpa.s.sing whiteness and great manly beauty.
Margaret, on seeing him fall, instantly placed her baby in the hands of another woman, and flying to him, raised his head and laid it upon her bosom; whilst the miser, who had now recovered, shook his head, lifted his hands, and looked as if he felt that his house was undergoing pollution. In the meantime, the young woman bent her mouth down to his ear, and said, in tones that were wild and hollow, and that had more of despair than even of sorrow in them--
"Tom, oh, Tom, are you gone?--hear me!"
But he replied not to her. "Ah! there was a day," she added, looking with a mournful smile around, "when he loved to listen to my voice; but that day has pa.s.sed forever."
He opened his eyes as she spoke; hers were fixed upon him. He felt a few warm tears upon his face, and she exclaimed in a low voice, not designed for other ears--
"I forgive you all, Tom, dear--I forgive you all!"
He looked at her, and starting to his feet, exclaimed--
"Margaret, my own Margaret, hear me! She is dyin"," he shouted, in a hoa.r.s.e and excited voice--"she is dyin" with want. I see it all. She"s dead!"
It was too true; the unhappy girl had pa.s.sed into another life; but, whether from a broken heart, caused by sin, shame, and desertion, or from famine and the pressure of general dest.i.tution and distress, could never properly be ascertained.
"I see!" exclaimed Dalton, his eyes again blazing, and his voice hollow with emotion--"I see--there she lies; and who brought her to that? But I intended to set all right. Ay--there she lies. An" again, how are we at home? Brought low down, down to a mud cabin! Now, d.i.c.k o" the Grange, an" now, Darby Skinadre--now for revenge. The time is come. I"ll take my place at the head of them, and what"s to be done, must be done. Margaret Murtagh, you"re lying dead before me, and by the broken heart you died of--"
He could add no more; but with these words, tottering and frantic, he rushed out of the miser"s house.
"Wid the help o" G.o.d, the young savage is as mad as a March hare,"
observed Skinadre, coolly; "but, as it"s all over wid the unfortunate crature, I don"t see why an honest man should lose his own, at any rate."
Whilst uttering these words, he seized the meal, and deliberately emptied it back into the chest from which young Dalton had taken it.
CHAPTER VIII. -- A Middle Man and Magistrate--Master and Man.
Having mentioned a strange woman who made her appearance at Skinadre"s, it may be necessary, or, at least, agreeable to the reader, that we should account for her presence under the roof of that worthy individual, especially as she is likely to perform a part of some interest in our tale. We have said already that she started on hearing Mave Sullivan"s name mentioned, and followed her and the Black Prophet"s wife like a person who watched their motions, and seemed to feel some peculiar interest in either one or both. The reader must return, then, to the Grey Stone already alluded to, which to some of the characters in our narrative will probably prove to be a "stone of destiny."
Hanlon, having departed from Sarah M"Gowan in a state of excitement, wended his way along a lonely and dreary road, to the residence of his master, d.i.c.k o" the Grange. The storm had increased, and was still increasing at every successive blast, until it rose to what might be termed a tempest. It is, indeed, a difficult thing to describe the peculiar state of his feelings as he struggled onwards, sometimes blown back to a stand-still, and again driven forward by the gloomy and capricious tyranny of the blast, as if he were its mere plaything.
In spite, however, of the conflict of the external elements as they careered over the country around him, he could not shake from his imagination the impression left there by the groan which he had heard at the Grey Stone. A supernatural terror, therefore, was upon him, and he felt as if he were in the presence of an accompanying spirit--of a spirit that seemed anxious to disclose the fact that murder would not rest; and so strongly did this impression gain upon him, that in the fitful howling of the storm, and in its wild wailing and dying sobs among the trees and hedges, as he went along, he thought he could distinguish sounds that belonged not to this life. Still he proceeded, his terrors thus translating, as it were, the noisy conflict of the elements into the voices of the dead, or thanking Heaven that the strong winds brought him to a calmer sense of his position, by the necessity that they imposed of preserving himself against their violence. In this anomalous state he advanced, until he came to a grove of old beeches that grew at the foot of one of the hill-ranges we have described, and here the noises he heard were not calculated to diminish his terrors. As the huge trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his ears were a.s.sailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached them before. The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repet.i.tion of hoa.r.s.e moanings, m.u.f.fled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere transition from extreme cowardice to reckless indifference.
Still he advanced homewards, repeating his prayers with singular energy, his head uncovered notwithstanding the severity of the night, and the rain pouring in torrents upon him, when he found it necessary to cross a level of rough land, at all times damp and marshy, but in consequence of the rains of the season, now a perfect mora.s.s. Over this he had advanced about half a mile, and got beyond the frightful noises of the woods, when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the voice of undiscovered murder was groaning on the blast--shrieking, as it were, for vengeance in the terrible voice of the tempest. He once more blessed himself, repeated a fresh prayer, and struggled forward, weak, and nearly exhausted, until at length he reached the village adjoining which his master, d.i.c.k o" the Grange, resided.
The winds now, and for some minutes previously, had begun to fall, and the lulls in the storm were calmer and more frequent, as well as longer in duration. Hanlon proceeded to his master"s, and peering through the shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest; then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was admitted by a thin, tall female.
"G.o.d protect us, dear, you"re lost!--blessed father, sich a night! Oh!
my, my! Well, well; sit near the spark o" fire, sich as it is; but, indeed, it"s little you"ll benefit by it. Any way, sit down."
Hanlon sat on a stool, and laying his hat beside him on the floor, he pressed the rain as well as he could out of his drenched hair, and for some time did not speak, whilst the female, squatted upon the ground, somewhat like a hare in her form, sat with the candle in her hand, which she held up in the direction of his face, whilst her eyes were riveted on him with a look of earnest and solemn inquiry.
"Well," she at length said, "did your journey end, as I tould you it would, in nothing? And yet, G.o.d presarve me, you look--eh!--what has happened?--you look like one that was terrified, sure enough. Tell me, at wanst, did the dhrame come out thrue?"
"I"ll not have a light heart this many a day," he replied; "let no one say there"s not a Providence above us to bring murdher to light."
"G.o.d of glory be about us!" she exclaimed, interrupting him; "something has happened! Your looks would frighten one, an" your voice isn"t like the voice of a livin" man. Tell me--and yet, for all so curious as I feel, I"m thremblin" this minute--but tell me, did the dhrame come out thrue, I say?"
"The dhrame came out thrue," he replied, solemnly. "I know where the tobaccy box is that he had about him; the same that transported my poor uncle, or that was partly the means of doin" it."
The woman crossed herself, muttered a short ejaculatory prayer, and again gathered her whole features into an expression of mingled awe and curiosity.
"Did you go to the place you dhramed of?" she asked.
"I went to the Grey Stone," he replied, "an" offered up a prayer for his sowl, afther puttin" my right hand upon it in his name, jist as I did on yesterday; afther I got an account of the tobaccy box, I heard a groan at the spot--as heaven"s above me, I did."
"Savior of earth, _gluntho shin!_"
"But that wasn"t all. On my way home, I heard, as I was pa.s.sin" the ould trees at the Rabbit Bank, things that I can"t find words to tell you of."
"Well acushla, glory be to G.o.d for everything! it"s all his will, blessed be his name! What did you hear, avick?--but wait till I throw a drop o" the holy wather that I have hangin" in the little bottle at the bed-post upon us."
She rose whilst speaking and getting the bottle alluded to, sprinkled both herself and him, after which she hung it up again in its former position.
"There, now, nothin" harmful, at any rate, can come near us afther that, blessed be his name. Well, what did you hear comin" home?--I mean at the Rabbit Bank. Wurrah," she added, shuddering, "but it"s it that"s the lonely spot after night! What was it, dear?"
"Indeed, I can scarcely tell you--sich groans, an" wild shoutins, an"
shrieks, man"s ears never hard in this world, I think; there I hard them as I was comin" past the trees, an" afther I pa.s.sed them; an" when I left them far behind me, I could hear, every now and then, a wild shriek that made my blood run cowld. But there was still worse as I crossed the Black Park; something got up into the air out o" the rushes before me, an" went off wid a noise not unlike what Jerry Hamilton of the Band makes when he rubs his middle finger up against the tamborine."
"Heaven be about us!" she exclaimed, once more crossing herself, and uttering a short prayer for protection from evil; "but tell me, how did you know it was his Box, and how did you find it out?"
"By the letters P. M., and the broken hinge," he replied.
"Blessed be the name of G.o.d!" she exclaimed again--"He won"t let the murdher lie, that"s clear. But what I want to know is, how did your goin" to the Grey Stone bring you to the knowledge of the box?"
He then gave her a more detailed account of his conversation with Sarah M"Gowan, and the singular turn which it chanced to take towards the subject of the handkerchief, in the first instance; but when the coincidence of the letters were mentioned, together with Sarah"s admission that she had the box in her possession, she clasped her hands, and looking upwards exclaimed--
"Blessed be the name of the Almighty for that! Oh, I feel there is no doubt now the hand of G.o.d is in it, an" we"ll come at the murdher or the murdherers yet."
"I hope so," he replied; "but I"m lost Wid wet an" cowld; so in the meantime I"ll be off home, an" to my bed. I had something to say to you about another matther, but I"ll wait till mornin"; dear knows, I"m in no condition to spake about anything else to-night. This is a snug little cabin; but, plaise G.o.d, in the coorse of a week or so, I"ll have you more comfortable than you are. If my own throuble was over me, I wouldn"t stop long in the neighborhood; but as the hand of G.o.d seems to be in this business, I can"t think of goin" till it"s cleared up, as cleared up it will be, I have no doubt, an" can have none, afther what has happened this awful night."
Hanlon"s situation with his master was one with which many of our readers are, no doubt, well acquainted. He himself was a clever, active, ingenious fellow, who could, as they say in the country, put a hand to anything, and make himself useful in a great variety of employments. He had in the spring of that year, been engaged as a common laborer by d.i.c.k o" the Grange, in which capacity he soon attracted his employer"s notice, by his extraordinary skill in almost everything pertaining to that worthy gentleman"s establishment. It is true he was a stranger in the country, of whom n.o.body knew anything--for there appeared to be some mystery about him; but as d.i.c.k cared little of either his place of birth or pedigree, it was sufficient for him to find that Hanlon was a very useful, not to say valuable young man, about his house, that he understood everything, and had an eye and hand equally quick and experienced. The consequence was, that he soon became a favorite with the father, and a kind of _sine qua non_ with the son, into whose rustic gallantries he entered, with a spirit that satisfied the latter of his capacity to serve him in that respect as well as others. Hanlon, in truth, was just the person for such a master, and for such an establishment as he kept. d.i.c.k o" the Grange was not a man who, either by birth, education, or position in society, could entertain any pretensions to rank with the gentry of the surrounding country. It is true he was a magistrate, but then he was a middleman, and as such found himself an interested agent in the operation of one of the worst and most cruel systems that ever cursed either the country or the people.
We of course mean that which suffered a third party to stand between the head landlord, and those who in general occupied the soil. Of this system, it may be with truth said, that the iniquity lay rather in the princ.i.p.al on which it rested, than in the individual who administered it; because it was next to an impossibility that a man anxious to aggrandize his family--as almost every man is--could, in the exercise of the habits which enable him to do so, avoid such a pressure upon those who were under him as amounted to great hardships and injustice. The system held out so many temptations to iniquity in the management of land, and in the remuneration of labor, that it required an amount of personal virtue and self-denial to resist them, that were scarcely to be expected from any one, so difficult was it to overlook or neglect the opportunities for oppression and fraud which it thus offered.
Old d.i.c.k, although bearing the character of being a violent and outrageous man, was, however, one of those persons of whom there will be always somebody found to speak favorably. Hot and ungovernable in temper, he unquestionably was, and capable of savage and cruel acts; but at the same time his capricious and unsteady impulses rendered him uncertain, whether for good or evil; so much so, indeed, that it was impossible to know when to ask him for a favor; nor was it extraordinary to find him a friend this day to the man whose avowed enemy he proclaimed himself yesterday; and this same point of character was true the other way---for whilst certain that you had him for a friend, perhaps you found him hard at work to oppress or over-reach you if he could. The consequence of this peculiarity was that he had a two-fold reputation in the country. Some were found to abuse him, and others to mention many acts of generosity and kindness which he had been known to perform under circ.u.mstances where they were least to be expected. This perhaps was one reason why they made so strong an impression upon the people, and were so distinctly remembered to his advantage. It is true he was a violent party man, but then he wanted coolness to adjust his principles, and thus make them subservient to his private interests. For this reason, notwithstanding his strong and out-spoken prejudices, it was a well know fact, that the Roman Catholic population preferred him as a magistrate to many who were remarkable for a more equal and even tenor of life, and in whom, under greater plausibility of manner, there existed something which they would have readily exchanged for his violent abuse of them and their creed.
Such was d.i.c.k o" the Grange, a man who, as a middleman and a magistrate, stood out a prominent representative of a cla.s.s that impressed themselves strongly upon their times, and who, whether as regards their position or office, would not find at the present day in the ranks of any party in Ireland a single man who could come forward and say they were not an oppressive evil to the country.
d.i.c.k o" the Grange, at this period of our narrative, was far advanced in years, and had, some time past, begun to feel what is known in men who have led a hard convivial life, as that breaking down of the const.i.tution, which is generally the forerunner of dissolution. On this account he had for some time past resigned the management of his property altogether to his son, young d.i.c.k, who was certainly wild and unreflecting, but neither so impulsively generous, nor so habitually violent as his father. The estimate of his character which went abroad was such as might be expected--many thought him better than the old man.
He was the youngest son and a favorite--two circ.u.mstances which probably occasioned his education to be neglected, as it had been. All his sisters and brothers having been for some years married and settled in life, he, and his father, who was a widower, kept a bachelor"s house, where we regret to say the parental surveillance over his morals was not so strict as it ought to have been. Young d.i.c.k was handsome, and so exceedingly vain of his person, that any one wishing to gain a favor either from himself or his worthy sire, had little more to do than dexterously apply a strong dose of flattery to this his weakest point, and the favor was sure to be granted, for his influence over old d.i.c.k was boundless.