St. Patrick's Eve Part 5

"So I am, Owen Connor--these is the busy times wid me--I streaked five to-day, early as it is, and I'm going now over to Phil Joyce's. What's the matter wid yourself, Owen? sit down, avich, and taste this."

"What's wrong at Phil's?" asked Owen, with a choking fulness in his throat.

"It's the little brother he has; Billy's got it, they say.

"Is Mary Joyce well--did ye hear?"

"Errah! she's well enough now, but she may be low before night,"

muttered the crone; while she added, with a fiendish laugh, "her purty faytures won't save her now, no more nor the rest of us."

"There's a bottle of port wine, Peggy; take it with ye, dear. 'Tis the finest thing at all, I'm tould, for keeping it off--get Mary to take a gla.s.s of it; but mind now, for the love o' ye, never say it was me gav it. There's bad blood between the Joyces and me, ye understand."

"Ay, ay, I know well enough," said the hag, clutching the bottle eagerly, while opening a gate on the roadside, she hobbled on her way towards Phil Joyce's cabin.

It was near evening as Owen was enabled to turn homewards; for besides having a great many places to visit, he was obliged to stop twice to get poor Patsy something to eat, the little fellow being almost in a state of starvation. At length he faced towards the mountain, and with a sad heart and weary step plodded along.

"Is poor Ellen buried?" said he, as he pa.s.sed the carpenter's door, where the coffin had been ordered.

"She's just laid in the mould--awhile ago."

"I hope Martin bears up better;--did you see him lately?"

"This is for him," said the carpenter, striking a board with his hammer; "he's at peace now."

"Martin! sure he's not dead?--Martin Neale, I mean."

"So do I too; he had it on him since morning, they say; but he just slipped away without a word or a moan."

"O G.o.d, be good to us, but the times is dreadful!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Owen.

"Some says it's the ind of the world's comin'," said an old man, that sat moving his stick listlessly among the shavings; "and 'twould be well for most of us it was too."

"Thrue for you, Billy; there's no help for the poor."

No sentiment could meet more general acceptance than this--none less likely to provoke denial. Thrown upon each other for acts of kindness and benevolence, they felt from how narrow a store each contributed to another's wants, and knew well all the privations that charity like this necessitated, at the same time that they felt themselves deserted by those whose generosity might have been exercised without sacrificing a single enjoyment, or interfering with the pursuit of any accustomed pleasure.

There is no more common theme than the ingrat.i.tude of the poor--their selfishness and hard-heartedness; and unquestionably a life of poverty is but an indifferent teacher of fine feelings or gentle emotions. The dreary monotony of their daily lives, the unvarying sameness of the life-long struggle between labour and want, are little suggestive of any other spirit than a dark and brooding melancholy: and it were well, besides, to ask, if they who call themselves benefactors have been really generous, and not merely just? We speak more particularly of the relations which exist between the owner of the land and those who till it; and where benevolence is a duty, and not a virtue depending on the will: not that they, in whose behalf it is ever exercised, regard it in this light--very far from it! Their thankfulness for benefits is generally most disproportioned to their extent; but we are dissatisfied because our charity has not changed the whole current of their fortunes, and that the favours which cost us so little to bestow, should not become the ruling principle of their lives.

Owen reflected deeply on these things as he ascended the mountain-road.

The orphan child he carried in his arms pressed such thoughts upon him, and he wondered why rich men denied themselves the pleasures of benevolence. He did not know that many great men enjoyed the happiness, but that it was made conformable to their high estate by inst.i.tutions and establishments; by boards, and committees, and guardians; by all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of stuccoed buildings and liveried attendants.

That to save themselves the burden of memory, their good deeds were chronicled in lists of "founders" and "life-subscribers," and their names set forth in newspapers; while, to protect their finer natures from the rude a.s.saults of actual misery, they deputed others to be the stewards of their bounty.

Owen did not know all this, or he had doubtless been less unjust regarding such persons. He never so much as heard of the pains that are taken to ward off the very sight of poverty, and all the appliances employed to exclude suffering from the gaze of the wealthy. All his little experience told him was, how much of good might be done within the sphere around him by one possessed of affluence. There was not a cabin around, where he could not point to some object claiming aid or a.s.sistance. Even in seasons of comparative comfort and abundance, what a deal of misery still existed; and what a blessing it would bring on him who sought it out, to compa.s.sionate and relieve it! So Owen thought, and so he felt too; not the less strongly that another heart then beat against his own, the little pulses sending a gush of wild delight through his bosom as he revelled in the ecstacy of benevolence. The child awoke, and looked wildly about him; but when he recognised in whose arms he was, he smiled happily, and cried, "Nony, Nony," the name by which Owen was known among all the children of the village and its neighbourhood.

"Yes, Patsy," said Owen, kissing him, "your own Nony! you're coming home with him to see what a nice house he has upon the mountain for you, and the purty lake near it, and the fish swimming in it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 104]

The little fellow clapped his hands with glee, and seemed delighted at all he heard.

"Poor darlin'," muttered Owen, sorrowfully; "he doesn't know 'tis the sad day for him;" and as he spoke, the wind from the valley bore on it the mournful cadence of a death-cry, as a funeral moved along the road.

"His father's berrin'!" added he. "G.o.d help us! how fast misfortune does be overtaking us at the time our heart's happiest! It will be many a day before he knows all this morning cost him."

The little child meanwhile caught the sounds, and starting up in Owen's arms, he strained his eyes to watch the funeral procession as it slowly pa.s.sed on. Owen held him up for a few seconds to see it, and wiped the large tears that started to his own eyes. "Maybe Martin and poor Ellen's looking down on us now!" and with that he laid the little boy back in his arms and plodded forward.

It was but seldom that Owen Connor ascended that steep way without halting to look down on the wide valley, and the lake, and the distant mountains beyond it. The scene was one of which he never wearied; indeed, its familiarity had charms for him greater and higher than mere picturesque beauty can bestow. Each humble cabin with its little family was known to him; he was well read in the story of their lives; he had mingled in all their hopes and fears from childhood to old age; and, as the lights trembled through the dark night, and spangled the broad expanse, he could bring before his mind's eye the humble hearths round which they sat, and think he almost heard their voices. Now, he heeded not these things, but steadily bent his steps towards home.

At last, the twinkle of a star-like light shewed that he was near his journey's end. It shone from the deep shadow of a little glen, in which his cabin stood. The seclusion of the spot was in Owen's eyes its greatest charm. Like all men who have lived much alone, he set no common store by the pleasures of solitude, and fancied that most if not all of his happiness was derived from this source. At this moment his grat.i.tude was more than usual, as he muttered to himself, "Thank G.o.d for it! we've a snug little place away from the sickness, and no house near us at all;" and with this comforting reflection he drew near the cabin. The door, contrary to custom at nightfall, lay open; and Owen, painfully alive to any suspicious sign, from the state of anxiety his mind had suffered, entered hastily.

"Father! where are you?" said he quickly, not seeing the old man in his accustomed place beside the fire; but there was no answer. Laying the child down, Owen pa.s.sed into the little chamber which served as the old man's bedroom, and where now he lay stretched upon the bed in his clothes. "Are ye sick, father? What ails ye, father dear?" asked the young man, as he took his hand in his own.

"I'm glad ye've come at last, Owen," replied his father feebly. "I've got the sickness, and am going fast."

"No--no, father! don't be down-hearted!" cried Owen, with a desperate effort to suggest the courage he did not feel; for the touch of the cold wet hand had already told him the sad secret. "'Tis a turn ye have."

"Well, maybe so," said he, with a sigh; "but there's a cowld feeling about my heart I never knew afore. Get me a warm drink, anyway."

While Owen prepared some cordial from the little store he usually dispensed among the people, his father told him, that a boy from a sick house had called at the cabin that morning to seek for Owen, and from him, in all likelihood, he must have caught the malady. "I remember,"

said the old man, "that he was quite dark in the skin, and was weak in his limbs as he walked."

"Ayeh!" muttered Owen, "av it was the 'disease' he had, sorra bit of this mountain he'd ever get up. The strongest men can't lift a cup of wather to their lips, when it's on them; but there's a great scarcity in the glen, and maybe the boy eat nothing before he set out."

Although Owen's explanation was the correct one, it did not satisfy the old man's mind, who, besides feeling convinced of his having the malady, could not credit his taking it by other means than contagion. Owen never quitted his side, and multiplied cares and attentions of every kind; but it was plain the disease was gaining ground, for ere midnight the old man's strength was greatly gone, and his voice sunk to a mere whisper.

Yet the malady was characterised by none of the symptoms of the prevailing epidemic, save slight cramps, of which from time to time he complained. His case seemed one of utter exhaustion. His mind was clear and calm; and although unable to speak, except in short and broken sentences, no trait of wandering intellect appeared. His malady was a common one among those whose fears, greatly excited by the disease, usually induced symptoms of prostration and debility, as great, if not as rapid, as those of actual cholera. Meanwhile his thoughts were alternately turning from his own condition to that of the people in the glen, for whom he felt the deepest compa.s.sion. "G.o.d help them!" was his constant expression. "Sickness is the sore thing; but starvation makes it dreadful. And so Luke Clancy's dead! Poor ould Luke! he was seventy-one in Michaelmas. And Martin, too! he was a fine man."

The old man slept, or seemed to sleep, for some hours, and on waking it was clear daylight. "Owen, dear! I wish," said he, "I could see the Priest; but you mustn't lave me: I couldn't bear that now."

Poor Owen's thoughts were that moment occupied on the same subject, and he was torturing himself to think of any means of obtaining Father John's a.s.sistance, without being obliged to go for him himself.

"I'll go, and be back here in an hour--ay, or less," said he, eagerly; for terrible as death was to him, the thought of seeing his father die unanointed, was still more so.

"In an hour--where'll I be in an hour, Owen dear? the blessed Virgin knows well, it wasn't my fault--I'd have the Priest av I could--and sure, Owen, you'll not begrudge me ma.s.ses, when I'm gone. What's that?

It's like a child crying out there."

"'T'is poor Martin's little boy I took home with me--he's lost father and mother this day;" and so saying, Owen hastened to see what ailed the child. "Yer sarvent, sir," said Owen, as he perceived a stout-built, coa.r.s.e-looking man, with a bull-terrier at his heels, standing in the middle of the floor; "Yer sarvent, sir. Who do ye want here?"

"Are you Owen Connor?" said the man, gruffly.

"That same," replied Owen, as st.u.r.dily.

"Then this is notice for you to come up to Mr. Lucas's office in Galway before the twenty-fifth, with your rent, or the receipt for it, which ever you like best."

"And who is Mr. Lucas when he's at home?" said Owen, half-sneeringly.

"You'll know him when you see him," rejoined the other, turning to leave the cabin, as he threw a printed paper on the dresser; and then, as if thinking he had not been formal enough in his mission, added, "Mr.

Lucas is agent to your landlord, Mr. Leslie; and I'll give you a bit of advice, keep a civil tongue in your head with him, and it will do you no harm."

This counsel, delivered much more in a tone of menace than of friendly advice, concluded the interview, for having spoken, the fellow left the cabin, and began to descend the mountain.