The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 35

The wretched man put his hand upon his eyes, and groaned as if his heart would burst, and for some moments was unable to make any reply.

"What can this mean?" thought the stranger; "the man's features, though wild and hollow, are not those of a ruffian."

"My good friend," he added, speaking in a milder tone, "you seem distressed. Pray let me know what is the matter with you?"

"Don't be angry with me," replied the man, addressing him with dry, parched lips, whilst his Herculean breast heaved up and down with agitation; "I didn't intend to do it, or to break in upon it, but now I must, for it's life or death with the three that's left me; and I durstn't go into the town to ask it there. I have lost four already.

Maybe, sir, you could change this pound note for me? For the sake of the Almighty, do; as you hope for mercy don't refuse me. That's all I ask.

I know that you stop in the inn in the town there above--that you're a friend of our good priest's--and that you are well spoken of by every one."

Now, it fortunately happened that the stranger had, on leaving the inn, put thirty shillings of silver in his pocket, not only that he might distribute through the hands of Father M'Mahon some portion of a.s.sistance to the poor whom that good man had on his list of distress, but visit some of the hovels on his way back, in order personally to witness their condition, and, if necessary, relieve them. The priest, however, was from home, and he had not an opportunity of carrying the other portion of his intentions into effect, as he was only a quarter of a mile from the good man's residence, and no hovels of the description he wished to visit had yet presented themselves.

"Change for a pound!" he exclaimed, with a good deal of surprise. "Why, from your appearance, poor fellow, I should scarcely suspect to find such a sum in your possession. Did you expect to meet me here?"

"No, sir, I was on my way to the priest, to open my heart to him, for if I don't, I know I'll be ragin' mad before forty-eight hours. Oh, sir, if you have it, make haste; every minute may cost me a life that's dearer to me a thousand times than my own. Here's the note, sir."

The stranger took the note out of his hand, and on looking at the face of it made no observation, but, upon mechanically turning up the back, apparently without any purpose of examining it, he started, looked keenly at the man, and seemed sunk in the deepest possible amazement, not unrelieved, however, by an air of satisfaction. The sudden and mysterious disappearance of Fenton, taken in connection with the discovery of the note which he himself had given him, and now in the possession of a man whose appearance was both desperate and suspicious, filled him with instant apprehensions for the safety of Fenton.

His brow instantly became stern, and in a voice full of the most unequivocal determination, he said,

"Pray, sir, how did you come by this note?"

"By the temptation of the devil; for although it was in my possession, it didn't save my two other darlins from dying. A piece of a slate would be as useful as it was, for I couldn't change it--I durstn't."

"You committed a robbery for this note, sir?"

The man glared at him with something like incipient fury, but paused, and looking on him with a more sorrowful aspect, replied,

"That is what the world will call it, I suppose; but if you wish to get anything out of me, change the tone of your voice. I haven't at the present time, much command over my temper, and I'm now a desperate man, though I wasn't always so. Either give me the change or the note back again."

The stranger eyed him closely. Although desperate, as he said, still there were symptoms of an honest and manly feeling, even in the very bursts of pa.s.sion which he succeeded with such effort in restraining.

"I repeat it, that this note came into your hands by an act of robbery--perhaps of murder."

"Murder!" replied the man, indignantly. "Give me back the note, sir, and provoke me no farther."

"No," replied the other, "I shall not; and you must consider yourself my prisoner. You not only do not deny, but seem to admit, the charge of robbery, and you shall not pa.s.s out of my hands until you render me an account of the person from whom you took this note. You see," he added, producing a case of pistols--for, in accordance with the hint he had received in the anonymous note, he resolved never to go out without them--"I am armed, and that resistance is useless."

The man gave a proud but ghastly smile, as he replied--dropping his stick, and pulling from his bosom a pair of pistols much larger, and more dangerous than those of the stranger,

"You see, that if you go to that I have the advantage of you."

"Tell me," I repeat, "what has become of Mr. Fenton, from whom you took it."

"Fenton!" exclaimed the other, with surprise; "is that the poor young man that's not right in his head?"

"The same."

"Well, I know nothing about him."

"Did you not rob him of this note?"

"No."

"You did, sir; this note was in his possession; and I fear you have murdered him I besides. You must come with me,"--and as he spoke, our friend, Trailcudgel, saw two pistols, one in each hand, levelled at him.

"Get on before me, sir, to the town of Ballytrain, or, resist at your peril."

Almost at the same moment the two pistols, taken from Sir Thomas Gourlay, were levelled at the stranger.

"Now," said the man, whilst his eyes shot fire and his brow darkened, "if it must be, it must; I only want the sheddin' of blood to fill up my misery and guilt; but it seems I'm doomed, and I can't help it. Sir,"

said he, "think of yourself. If I submit to become your prisoner, my life's gone. You don't know the villain you are goin' to hand me over to. I'm not afraid of you, nor of anything, but to die a disgraceful death through his means, as I must do."

"I will hear no reasoning on the subject," replied the other; "go on before me."

The man kept his pistols presented, and there they stood, looking sternly into each other's faces, each determined not to yield, and each, probably, on the brink of eternity.

At length the man dropped the muzzles of the weapons, and holding them reversed, approached the stranger, saying, in a voice and with an expression of feeling that smote the other to the heart,

"I will be conqueror still, sir! Instead of goin' with you, you will come with me. There are my pistols. Only come to a house of misery and sorrow and death, and you will know all."

"This is not treachery," thought the stranger. "There can be no mistaking the anguish--the agony--of that voice; and those large tears bear no testimony to the crime of murder or robbery."

"Take my pistols, sir," the other repeated, "only follow me."

"No," replied the stranger, "keep them: I fear you not--and what is more, I do not now even suspect you. Here are thirty shillings in silver--but you must allow me to' keep this note."

We need not describe anew the scene to which poor Trailcudgel introduced him. It is enough to say, that since his last appearance in our pages he had lost two more of his children, one by famine and the other by fever; and that when the stranger entered his hovel--that libel upon a human habitation--that disgrace to landlord inhumanity--he saw stretched out in the stillness of death the emaciated bodies of not less than four human beings--to wit, this wretched man's wife, their daughter, a sweet girl nearly grown,--and two little ones. The husband and father looked at them for a little, and the stranger saw a singular working or change, taking place on his features. At length he clasped his hands, and first smiled--then laughed outright, and exclaimed, "Thank G.o.d that they,"

pointing to the dead, "are saved from any more of this,"--but the scene--the effort at composure--the sense of his guilt--the condition of the survivors--exhaustion from want of food, all combined, overcame him, and he fell senseless on the floor.

The stranger got a porringer of water, bathed his temples, opened his teeth with an old knife, and having poured some of it down his throat, dragged him--and it required all his strength to do so, although a powerful man--over to the cabin-door, in order to get him within the influence of the fresh air. At length he recovered, looked wildly about him, then gazed up in the face of the stranger, and made one or two deep respirations.

"I see," said he, "I remember--set me sittin' upon this little ditch beside the door--but no, no--" he added, starting--"come away--I must get them food--come--quick, quick, and I will tell you as we go along."

He then repeated the history of his ruin by Sir Thomas Gourlay, of the robbery, and of the scene of death and dest.i.tution which drove him to it.

"And was it from Sir Thomas you got this note?" asked the stranger, whose interest was now deeply excited.

"From him I got it, sir; as I tould you," he replied, "and I was on my way to the priest to give him up the money and the pistols, when the situation of my children, of my family of the livin' and the dead, overcame me, and I was tempted to break in upon one pound of it for their sakes. Sir, my life's in your hands, but there is something in your face that tells my heart that you won't betray me, especially afther what you have seen."

The stranger had been a silent and attentive listener to this narrative, and after he had ceased he spoke not for some time. He then added, emphatically but quickly, and almost abruptly:

"Don't fear me, my poor fellow. Your secret is as safe as if you had never disclosed it. Here are other notes for you, and in the meantime place yourself in the hands of your priest, and enable him to restore Sir Thomas Gourlay his money and his pistols, I shall see you and your family again."

The man viewed the money, looked at him for a moment, burst into tears, and hurried away, without saying a word, to procure food for himself and his children.

Our readers need not imagine for a moment that the scenes with which we have endeavored to present them, in,the wretched hut of Trailcudgel, are at all overdrawn. In point of fact, they fall far short of thousands which might have been witnessed, and were witnessed, during the years of '47, '48, '49, and this present one of '50. We are aware that so many as twenty-three human beings, of all ages and s.e.xes, have been found by public officers, all lying on the same floor, and in the same bed--if bed it can be termed--nearly one-fourth of them stiffened and putrid corpses. The survivors weltering in filth, fever, and famine, and so completely maddened by despair, delirium, and the rackings of intolerable pain, in its severest shapes--aggravated by thirst and hunger--that all the impulses of nature and affection were not merely banished from the heart, but superseded by the most frightful peals of insane mirth, cruelty, and the horrible appet.i.te of the ghoul and vampire. Some were found tearing the flesh from the bodies of the carca.s.ses that were stretched beside them. Mothers tottered off under the woful excitement of misery and frenzy, and threw their wretched children on the sides of the highways, leaving them there, with shouts of mirth and satisfaction, to perish or be saved, as the chances might turn out--whilst fathers have been known to make a wolfish meal upon the dead bodies of their own offspring. We might, therefore, have carried on our description up to the very highest point of imaginable horror, without going beyond the truth.

It is well for the world that the schemes and projects of ambition depend not in their fulfilment upon the means and instruments with which they are sought to be accomplished. Had Sir Thomas Gourlay, for instance, not treated his daughter with such brutal cruelty, an interview must have taken place between her and Lord Cullamore, which would, as a matter of course, have put an end forever to her father's hopes of the high rank for which he was so anxious to sacrifice her.

The good old n.o.bleman, failing of the interview he had expected, went immediately to London, with a hope, among other objects, of being in some way useful to his son, whom he had not seen for more than two years, the latter having been, during that period, making the usual tour of the Continent.