The Poor Scholar Part 9

"There it is, _a bouchal_, on the shovel. Musha if myself rightly knows what side you're lyin' an, or I'd put it as near your lips as I could.

Come, man, be stout, don't be cast down at all at all; sure, bud-an-age, we' shovelin' the way to you, any how."

"I have it," replied the boy--"oh, I have it. May G.o.d never forget this to you, whoever you are."

"Faith, if you want to know who I am; I'm Pettier Connor the mower, that never seen to-morrow. Be Gorra, poor boy, you mustn't let your spirits down at all at all. Sure the neighbors is all bint to watch an' take care of you.--May I take away the shovel?--an' they've built a brave snug shed here beside yours, where they'll stay wid you time about until you get well. We'll feed you wid whay enough, bekase we've made up our minds to stale lots o' sweet milk for you. Ned Branagan an' I will milk Kody Hartigan's cows to-night, wid the help o' G.o.d. Divil a bit sin in it, so there isn't, an' if there is, too, be my sowl there's no harm in it any way--for he's but a nager himself, the same Rody. So, acushla, keep a light heart, for, be Gorra, you're sure o' the thin pair o'

throwsers, any how. Don't think you're desarted--for you're not. It's all in regard o' bein' afeard o' this faver, or it's not this way you'd be; but, as I said a while agone, when you want anything, spake, for you'll still find two or three of us beside you here, night an' day.

Now, won't you promise to keep your mind asy, when you know that we're beside you?"

"G.o.d bless you," replied Jemmy, "you've taken a weight off of my heart.

I thought I'd die wid n.o.body near me at all."

"Oh, the sorra fear of it. Keep your heart up. We'll stale lots o' milk for you. Bad scran to the baste in the parish but we'll milk, sooner nor you'd want the whay, you crathur you."

The boy felt relieved, but his malady increased; and were it not that the confidence of being thus watched and attended to supported him, it is more than probable he would have sunk under it.

When the hour of closing the day's labor arrived, Major ------ came down to inspect the progress which his mowers had made, and the goodness of his crop upon his meadows. No sooner was he perceived at a distance, than the scythes were instantly resumed, and the mowers pursued their employment with an appearance of zeal and honesty that could not be suspected.

On arriving at the meadows, however, he was evidently startled at the miserable day's work they had performed.

"Why, Connor," said he, addressing the nurse-tender, "how is this? I protest you have not performed half a day's labor! This is miserable and shameful."

"Bedad, Major, it's thrue for your honor, sure enough. It's a poor day's work, the I never a doubt of it. But be all the books; that never was opened or shut, busier men! than we wor since mornin' couldn't be had; for love or money. You see, Major, these meadows, bad luck to them!--G.o.d pardon me for cursin' the harmless crathurs, for sure 'tisn't their fau't, sir: but you see, Major, I'll insinse you into it. Now look here, your honor. Did you ever see deeper: meadow nor that same, since you war foal---hem--sintce you war born, your honor? Maybe, your honor, Major, 'ud just take the scythe an' sthrive to cut a swaythe?"

"Nonsense, Connor; don't you know I cannot."

"Thin, be Gorra, sir, I wish you could; thry it. I'd kiss the book, we did more labor, an' worked harder this day, nor any day for the last fortnight. If it was light gra.s.s, sir--see here, Major, here's alight bit--now, look at how the scythe runs through it! Thin look at here agin--just observe this, Major--why, murdher alive, don't you see how slow she goes through that where the gra.s.s is heavy! Bedad, Major, you'll be made up this suson wid your hay, any how. Divil carry the finer meadow ever I put the scythe in nor this same meadow, G.o.d bless it!"

"Yes, I see it, Connor; I agree with you as to its goodness. But the reason of that is, Connor, that I always direct my steward myself in laying it down for gra.s.s. Yes, you're right, Connor; if the meadow were light, you could certainly mow comparatively a greater s.p.a.ce in a day."

"Be the livin' farmer, G.o.d pardon me for swearin', it's a pleasure to have dalins wid a gintleman like you, that knows things as cute as if you war a mower yourself, your honor. Bedad, I'll go bail, sir, it wouldn't be hard to tache you that same."

"Why, to tell you the truth, Connor, you have hit me off pretty well.

I'm beginning to get a taste for agriculture."

"But," said Connor, scratching his head, "won't your honor allow us the price of a gla.s.s, or a pint o' portlier, for our hard day's work. Bad cess to me, sir, but this meadow 'ill play the puck wid us afore we get it finished.--Atween ourselves, sir--if it wouldn't be takin'

freedoms--if you'd look to your own farmin' yourself. The steward, sir, is a dacent kind of a man; but, sowl, he couldn't hould a candle to your honor in seein' to the best way of doin' a thing, sir. Won't you allow us gla.s.ses apiece, your honor? Faix, we're kilt entirely, so we are."

"Here is half-a-crown among you, Connor; but don't get drunk."

"Dhrunk! Musha, long may you reign, Sir! Be the scythe in my hand, I'd rather--Och, faix, you're one o' the ould sort, sir--the raal Irish gintleman, your honor. An' sure your name's far and near for that, any how."

Connor's face would have done the heart of Brooke or Cruikshank good, had either of them seen it charged with humor so rich as that which beamed upon it, when the Major left them to enjoy their own comments upon what had happened.

"Oh, be the livin' farmer," said Connor, "are we all alive at all afther doin' the Major! Pp., thin, the curse o' the crows upon you, pijor, darlin', but you are a Ma.n.u.s!* The d.a.m.n' rip o' the world, that wouldn't give the breath he breathes to the poor for G.o.d's sake, and he'll threwn a man half-a-crown that 'll blarney him for farmin', and him doesn't know the differ atween a Cork-red a Yellow-leg."**

* A soft b.o.o.by easily hoaxed.

**Different kinds of potatoes.

"Faith, he's the boy that knows how to make a Judy of himself any way, Pether," exclaimed another. "The divil a hapurt'h asier nor to give these Quality the bag to hould, so there isn't. An' they think themselves so cute, too!"

"Augh!" said a third, "couldn't a man find the soft side o' them as asy as make out the way to' his own nose, widout being led to it. Divil a sin it is to do them, any way. Sure, he thinks we wor tooth an' nail at the meadow all day; an' me thought I'd never recover it, to see Pether here--the rise he tuck out of him! Ha, ha, ha--och, och, murdher, oh!"

"Faith," exclaimed Connor, "'twas good, you see, to help the poor scholar; only for it we couldn't get shkamin' the half-crown out of him.

I think we ought to give the crathur half of it, an' him so sick: he'll be wantin' it worse nor ourselves."

"Oh, be Gorra, he's fairly ent.i.tled to that. I vote him fifteen pince."

"Surely!" they exclaimed unanimously. "Tundher-an'-turf! wasn't he the manes of gettin' it for us?"

"Jemmy, a bouchal," said Connor, across the ditch to M'Evoy, "are you sleepin'?"

"Sleepin'! Oh, no," replied Jemmy; "I'd give the wide world for one wink of asy sleep."

"Well, aroon, here's fifteen pince for you, that we skham--Will I tell him how we cot it?"

"No, don't," replied his neighbors; "the boy's given to devotion, and maybe might scruple to take it."

"Here's fifteen pince, avourneen, on the shovel, that we're givin' you for G.o.d's sake. If you over * this, won't you offer up a prayer for us?

Won't you, avick?"

*That is--to get over--to survive.

"I can never forget your kindness," replied Jemmy; "I will always pray for you, and may G.o.d for ever bless you and yours!

"Poor crathur! May the Heavens above have prosthration on him! Upon my sowl, it's good to have his blessin' an' his prayer. Now don't fret, Jemmy; we're lavin' you wid a lot o' neighbors here. They'll watch you time about, so that whin you want anything, call, avourneen, an'

there'll still be some one here to answer. G.o.d bless you, an' restore you, till we come wid the milk we'll stale for you, wid the help o' G.o.d.

Bad cess to me, but it 'ud be a mortual sin, so it would, to let the poor boy die at all, an' him so far from home. For, as the Catechiz says 'There is but one Faith, one Church, and one Baptism!' Well, the readin' that's in that Catechiz is mighty improvin', glory be to G.o.d!"

It would be utterly impossible to detail the affliction which our poor scholar suffered in this wretched shed, for the s.p.a.ce of a fortnight, notwithstanding the efforts of those kind-hearted people to render his situation comfortable.

The little wigwam they had constructed near him was never, even for a moment, during his whole illness, without two or three persons ready to attend him. In the evening their numbers increased; a fire was always kept burning, over which a little pot for making whey or gruel was suspended. At night they amused each other with anecdotes and laughter, and occasionally with songs, when certain that their patient was not asleep. Their exertions to steal milk for him were performed with uncommon glee, and related among themselves with great humor. These thefts would have been unnecessary, had not the famine which then prevailed through the province been so excessive. The crowds that swarmed about the houses of wealthy farmers, supplicating a morsel to keep body and soul together, resembled nothing which our English readers ever had an opportunity of seeing. Ragged, emaciated creatures, tottered about with an expression of wildness and voracity in their gaunt features; fathers and mothers reeled under the burthen of their beloved children, the latter either sick, or literally expiring for want of food; and the widow, in many instances, was compelled to lay down her head to die, with the wail, the feeble wail, of her withered orphans mingling with her last moans! In such a state of things it was difficult to procure a sufficient quant.i.ty of milk to allay the natural thirst even of one individual, when parched by the scorching heat of a fever.

Notwithstanding this, his wants were for the most part antic.i.p.ated, so far as their means would allow them; his shed was kept waterproof; and either shovel or pitchfork always ready to be extended to him, by way of subst.i.tution for the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p.

When he called for anything, the usual observation was, "Husht! the crathur's callin'. I must take the shovel an' see what he wants."

There were times, it is true, when the mirth of the poor fellows was'

very low, for hunger was generally among themselves; there were times when their own little shed presented a touching and melancholy spectacle--perhaps we ought also to add, a n.o.ble one; for, to contemplate a number of men, considered rude and semi-barbarous, devoting themselves, in the midst of privations the most cutting and oppressive, to the care and preservation of a strange lad, merely because they knew him to be without friends and protection, is to witness a display of virtue truly magnanimous. The food on which some of the persons were occasionally compelled to live, was blood boiled up with a little oatmeal; for when a season of famine occurs in Ireland, the people usually bleed the cows and bullocks to preserve themselves from actual starvation. It is truly a sight of appalling misery to behold feeble women gliding across the country, carrying their cans and pitchers, actually trampling upon fertility, and fatness, and collected in the corner of some grazier's farm waiting, gaunt and ravenous as Ghouls, for their portion of blood. During these melancholy periods of want, everything in the shape of an esculent disappears. The miserable creatures will pick up chicken-weed, nettles, sorrell, bug-loss, pres.h.a.gh, and sea-weed, which they will boil and eat with the voracity of persons writhing under the united agonies of hunger and death! Yet the very country thus groaning under such a terrible sweep of famine is actually pouring from all her ports a profusion of food, day after day; flinging it from her fertile bosom, with the wanton excess of a prodigal oppressed by abundance.

Despite, however, of all the poor scholar's nurse-guard suffered, he was attended with a fidelity of care and sympathy which no calamity could shake. Nor was this care fruitless; after the fever had pa.s.sed through its usual stages he began to recover. In fact, it has been observed very truly, that scarcely any person has been known to die under circ.u.mstances similar to those of the poor scholar. These sheds, the erection of which is not unfrequent in case of fever, have the advantage of pure free air, by which the patient is cooled and refreshed. Be the cause of it what it may, the fact has been established, and we feel satisfaction in being able to adduce our humble hero as an additional proof of the many recoveries which take place in situations apparently so unfavorable to human life. But how is it possible to detail what M'Evoy suffered during this fortnight of intense agony? Not those who can command the luxuries of life--not those who can reach its comforts--nor those who can supply themselves with its bare necessaries--neither the cotter who struggles to support his wife and helpless children--the mendicant who begs from door to door--nor even the felon in his cell--can imagine what he felt in the solitary misery of his feverish bed. Hard is the heart that cannot feel his sorrows, when, stretched beside the common way, without a human face to look on, he called upon the mother whose brain, had she known his situation, would have been riven--whose affectionate heart would have been broken, by the knowledge of his affliction. It was a situation which afterwards appeared to him dark and terrible. The pencil of the painter could not depict it, nor the pen of the poet describe it, except like a dim vision, which neither the heart nor the imagination are able to give to the world as a tale steeped in the sympathies excited by reality.

His whole heart and soul, as he afterwards acknowledged, were, during his trying illness, at home. The voices of his parents, of his sisters, and of his brothers, were always in his ears; their countenances surrounded his cold and lonely shed; their hands touched him; their eyes looked upon him in sorrow--and their tears bedewed him. Even there, the light of his mother's love, though she herself was distant, shone upon his sorrowful couch; and he has declared, that in no past moment of affection did his soul ever burn with a sense of its presence so strongly as it did in the heart-dreams of his severest illness. But G.o.d is love, and "temporeth the wind to the shorn lamb."

Much of all his sufferings would have been alleviated, were it not that his two best friends in the parish, Thady and the curate, had been both prostrated by the fever at the same time with himself. There was consequently no person of respectability in the neighborhood cognizant of his situation. He was left to the humbler cla.s.s of the peasantry, and honorably did they, with all their errors and ignorance, discharge those duties which greater wealth and greater knowledge would, probably, have left unperformed.

On the morning of the last day he ever intended to spend in the shed, at eleven o'clock he h.o.a.rd the sounds of horses' feet pa.s.sing along the road, The circ.u.mstance was one quite familiar to him; but these hors.e.m.e.n, whoever they might be, stopped, and immediately after, two respectable looking men, dressed in black, approached him. His forlorn state and frightfully wasted appearance startled them, and the younger of the two asked, in a tone of voice which went directly to his heart, how it was that they found him in a situation so desolate.

The kind interest implied by the words, and probably a sense of his utterly dest.i.tute state, affected him strongly, and he burst into tears.