Fardorougha, The Miser Part 23

"Ninety!"--with a husky shriek

"No, no."

"A hundhre'--a hundhre'--a hundhre'," he shouted; "a hundhre', when I'm gone--when I'm gone!"

One solemn and determined No, that precluded all hopes of any such arrangement, was the only reply.

The old man leaped up again, and looked impatiently and wildly and fiercely about him.

"What are you?" he shouted; "what are you? You're a divil--a born divil.

Will nothing but my death satisfy you? Do you want to rob me--to starve me--to murdher me? Don't you see the state I'm in by you? Look at me--look at these thremblin' limbs--look at the sweat powerin' down from my poor ould face! What is it you want? There--there's my gray hairs to you. You have brought me to that--to more than that--I'm dyin' this minute--I'm dyin'--oh, my boy--my boy, if I had you here--ay, I'm--I'm--"

He staggered over on his seat, his eyes gleaming in a fixed and intense glare at the attorney; his hands were clenched, his lips parched, and his mummy-like cheeks sucked, as before, into his toothless jaws. In addition to all this, there was a bitter white smile of despair upon his features, and his thin gray locks, that were discomposed in the paroxysm by his own hands, stood out in disorder upon his head. We question, indeed, whether mere imagination could, without having actually witnessed it in real life, conceive any object so frightfully ill.u.s.trative of the terrible dominion which the pa.s.sion of avarice is capable of exercising over the human heart.

"I protest to Heaven," exclaimed the attorney, alarmed, "I believe the man is dying--if not dead, he is motionless."

"O'Donovan, what's the matter with you?"

The old man's lips gave a dry, hard smack, then became desperately compressed together, and his cheeks were drawn still further into his jaws. At length he sighed deeply, and changed his fixed and motionless att.i.tude.

"He is alive, at all events," said one of his young men.

Fardorougha turned his eyes upon the speaker, then upon his master, and successively upon two other a.s.sistants who were in the office.

"What is this?" said he, "what is this?--I'm very weak--will you get me a dhrink o' wather? G.o.d help me--G.o.d direct me! I'm an unhappy man; get me a dhrink, for Heaven's sake! I can hardly spake, my mouth and lips are so dry."

The water having been procured, he drank it eagerly, and felt evidently relieved.

"This business," he continued, "about the money--I mane about my poor boy. Connor, how will it be managed, sir?"

"I have already told you that there is but one way of managing it, and that is, as the young man's life is at stake, to spare no cost."

"And I must do that?"

"You ought, at least, remember that he's an only son, and that if you lose him--"

"Lose him!--I can't--I couldn't--I'd die--die--dead--"

"And by so shameful a death," proceeded Ca.s.sidy, "you will not only be childless, but you will have the bitter fact to reflect on that he died in disgrace. You will blush to name him! What father would not make any sacrifice to prevent his child from meeting such a fate? It's a trying thing and a pitiable calamity to see a father ashamed to name the child that he loves."

The old man arose, and, approaching Ca.s.sidy, said, eagerly, "How much will do? Ashamed to name you, alanna, Ghierna--Ghierna--ashamed to name you, Connor! Oh! if the world knew you, as th.o.r.e, as well as I an' your poor mother knows you, they'd say that we ought to be proud to hear your name soundin' in our ears. How much will do? for, may G.o.d stringthen me, I'll do it."

"I think about forty guineas; it may be more, and it may be less, but we will say forty."

"Then I'll give you an ordher for it on a man that's a good mark. Give me pin an' paper, fast."

"The paper was placed before him, and he held the pen in his hand for some time, and, ere he wrote, turned a look of deep distress on Ca.s.sidy.

"G.o.d Almighty pity me!" said he; "you see--you see that I'm a poor heart--broken creature--a ruined man I'll be--a ruined man!"

"Think of your son, and of his situation."

"It's before me--I know it is--to die like a dog behind a ditch wid hunger!"

"Think of your son, I say, and, if possible, save him from a shameful death."

"What! Ay--yis--yis--surely--surely--oh, my poor boy--my innocent boy--I will--I will do it."

He then sat down, and, with a tremulous hand, and lips tightly drawn together, wrote an order on P----, the county treasurer, for the money.

Ca.s.sidy, on seeing it, looked alternately at the paper and the man for a considerable time.

"Is P----your banker?" he asked.

"Every penny that I'm worth he has."

"Then you're a ruined man," he replied, with cool emphasis. "P---- absconded the day before yesterday, and robbed half the county. Have you no loose cash at home?"

"Robbed! who robbed?"

"Why, P----has robbed every man who was fool enough to trust him; he's off to the Isle of Man, with the county funds in addition to the other prog."

"You don't mane to say," replied Fardorougha, with a hideous calmness of voice and manner; "you don't, you can't mane to say he has run off wid my money?"

"I do; you'll never see a shilling of it, if you live to the age of a Hebrew patriarch. See what it is to fix the heart upon money. You are now, what you wish the world to believe you to be, a poor man."

"Ho! ho!" howled the miser, "he darn't, he darn't--wouldn't G.o.d consume him if he robbed the poor--wouldn't G.o.d stiffen him, and pin him to the airth, if he attempted to run off wid the hard earnings of strugglin'

honest men? Where 'ud G.o.d be, an' him to dar to do it! But it's a falsity, an' you're thryin' me to see how I'd bear it--it is, it is, an'

may Heaven forgive you!"

"It's as true as the Gospel," replied the other; "why, I'm surprised you didn't hear it before now--every one knows it--it's over the whole country."

"It's a lie--it's a lie!" he howled again; "no one dar to do such an act. You have some schame in this--you're not a safe man; you're a villain, an' nothin' else; but I'll soon know; which of these is my hat?"

"You are mad, I think," said Ca.s.sidy.

"Get me my hat, I say; I'll soon know it; but sure the world's all in a schame against me--all, all, young an' ould--where's my hat, I say?"

"You have put it upon your head this moment," said the other.

"An' my stick?"

"It's in your hand."

"The curse o' Heaven upon you," he shrieked, "whether it's thrue or false!" and, with a look that might scorch him to whom it was directed, he shuffled in a wild and frantic mood out of the house.

"The man is mad," observed Ca.s.sidy; "or, if not, he will soon be so; I never witnessed such a desperate case of avarice. If ever the demon of money lurked in any man's soul, it's in his. G.o.d bless me! G.o.d bless me! it's dreadful! Richard, tell the gentleman in the dining-room I'm at leisure to see him."