Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee Part 15

"For Heaven's sake," said Father Mulcahy, "what do you mean?--are you mad?"

"Oh! uncle dear! don't you hear?--don't you hear?--listen an' sure you will--all hope's gone now--gone--gone! The dead rattle!--listen!--the dead rattle's in her throat!"--

The priest bent his ear a moment, and distinctly heard the gurgling noise produced by the phlegm, which is termed with wild poetical accuracy, by the peasantry--the "dead rattle," or "death rattle,"

because it is the immediate and certain forerunner of death.

"True," said the priest--"too true; the last shadow of hope is gone. We must now make as much of the time as possible. Leave the room for a few minutes till I anoint her, I will then call you in."

They accordingly withdrew, but in about fifteen or twenty minutes he once more summoned them to the bed of the dying woman.

"Come in," said he, "I have anointed her--come in, and kneel down till we offer up a Rosary to the Blessed Virgin, under the hope that she may intercede with G.o.d for her, and cause her to pa.s.s out of life happily.

She was calling for you, Peter, in your absence; you had better stay with her."

"I will," said Peter, in a broken voice; "I'll stay nowhere else."

"An'I'll kneel at the bed-side," said the daughter. "She was the kind mother to me, and to us all; but to me in particular. 'Twas with me she took her choice to live, when they war all striving for her. Oh," said she, taking her mother's hand between hers, and kneeling-down to kiss it, "a Vahr dheelis.h.!.+ (* sweet mother) did we ever think to see you departing from us this way! snapped away without a minute's warning! If it was a long-sickness, that you'd be calm and sinsible in, but to be hurried away into eternity, and your mind dark! Oh, Vhar dheelish, my heart is broke to see you this way!"

"Be calm," said the priest; "be quiet till I open the Rosary."

He then offered up the usual prayers which precede its repet.i.tion, and after having concluded them, commenced what is properly called the Rosary itself, which consists of fifteen Decades, each Decade containing the Hail Mary repeated ten times, and the Lord's Prayer once. In this manner the Decade goes round from one to another, until, as we have said above, it is repeated fifteen times; or, in all, the Ave Maria's one hundred and sixty-five times, without variation. From the indistinct utterance, elevated voice, and rapid manner in which it is p.r.o.nounced, it certainly has a wild effect, and is more strongly impressed with the character of a mystic rite, or incantation, than with any other religious ceremony with which we could compare it.

"When the priest had repeated the first part, he paused for the response: neither the husband nor daughter, however, could find utterance.

"Denis," said he, to his nephew, "do you take up the next."

His nephew complied; and with much difficulty Peter and his daughter were able to join in it, repeating here and there a word or two, as well as their grief and sobbings would permit them.

The heart must indeed have been an unfeeling one, to which a scene like this would not have been deeply touching and impressive. The poor dying woman reclined with her head upon her husband's bosom; the daughter knelt at the bed-side, with her mother's hand pressed against her lips, she herself convulsed with sorrow--the priest was in the att.i.tude of earnest supplication, having the stole about his neck, his face and arms raised towards heaven--the son-in-law was bent over a chair, with his face buried in his hands. Nothing could exceed the deep, the powerful expression of entreaty, which marked every tone and motion of the parties, especially those of the husband and daughter. They poured an energy into the few words which they found voice to utter, and displayed such a concentration of the faculties of the soul in their wild unregulated att.i.tudes, and streaming, upturned eyes, as would seem to imply that their own salvation depended upon that of the beloved object before them. Their words, too, were accompanied by such expressive tokens of their attachment to her, that the character of prayer was heightened by the force of the affection which they bore her. When Peter, for instance, could command himself to utter a word, he pressed his dying wife to his bosom, and raised his eyes to heaven in a manner that would have melted any human heart; and the daughter, on joining occasionally in the response, pressed her mother's hand to her heart, and kissed it with her lips, conscious that the awful state of her parent had rendered more necessary the performance of the two tenderest duties connected with a child's obedience--prayer and affection.

When the son-in-law had finished his Decade, a pause followed, for there was none now to proceed but her husband, or her daughter.

"Mary, dear," said the priest, "be a woman; don't let your love for your mother prevent you from performing a higher duty. Go on with the prayer--you see she is pa.s.sing fast."

"I'll try, uncle," she replied--"I'll try; but--but--it's hard, hard, upon me."

She commenced, and by an uncommon effort so far subdued her grief, as to render her words intelligible. Her eyes, streaming with tears, were fixed with a mixture of wildness, sorrow, and devotedness, upon the countenance of her mother, until she had completed her Decade.

Another pause ensued. It was now necessary, according to the order and form of the Prayer, that Peter should commence and offer up his supplications for the happy pa.s.sage from life to eternity of her who had been his inward idol during a long period. Peter knew nothing about sentiment, or the philosophy of sorrow; but he loved his wife with the undivided power of a heart in which nature had implanted her strongest affections. He knew, too, that his wife had loved him with a strength of heart equal to his own. He loved her, and she deserved his love.

The pause, when the prayer had gone round to him, was long; those who were present at length turned their eyes towards him, and the priest, now deeply affected, cleared his voice, and simply said, "Peter," to remind him that it was his duty to proceed with the Rosary.

Peter, however, instead of uttering the prayer, burst out into a tide of irrepressible sorrow.--"Oh!" said he, enfolding her in his arms, and pressing his lips to hers: "Ellish, ahagur machree! sure when I think of all the goodness, an' kindness, an' tendherness that you showed me--whin I think of your smiles upon me, whin you wanted me to do the right, an'

the innocent plans you made out, to benefit me an' mine!--Oh! where was your harsh word, avillish?--where was your could brow, or your bad tongue? Nothin' but goodness--nothin' but kindness, an' love, an'

wisdom, ever flowed from these lips! An' now, darlin', pulse o' my broken heart! these same lips can't spake to me--these eyes don't know me--these hands don't feel me--nor your ears doesn't hear me!"

"Is--is--it you?" replied his wife feebly--"is it--you?--come--come near me--my heart--my heart says it misses you--come near me!"

Peter again pressed her in an embrace, and, in doing so, unconsciously received the parting breath of a wife whose prudence and affection had saved him from poverty, and, probably, from folly or crime.

The priest, on turning round to rebuke Peter for not proceeding with the prayer, was the first who discovered that she had died; for the grief of her husband was too violent to permit him to notice anything with much accuracy.

"Peter," said he, "I beg your pardon; let me take the trouble of supporting her for a few minutes, after which I must talk to you seriously--very seriously."

The firm, authoritative tone in which the priest spoke, together with Peter's consciousness that he had acted wrongly by neglecting to join in the Rosary, induced him to retire from the bed with a rebuked air. The priest immediately laid back the head' of Mrs. Connell on the pillow, and composed the features of her lifeless face with his own hands. Until this moment none of them, except himself, knew that she was dead.

"Now," continued he, "all her cares, and hopes, and speculations, touching this world, are over--so is her pain; her blood will soon be cold enough, and her head will ache no more. She is dead. Grief is therefore natural; but let it be the grief of a man, Peter. Indeed, it is less painful to look upon her now, than when she suffered such excessive agony. Mrs. Mulcahy, hear me! Oh, it's in vain! Well, well, it is but natural; for it was an unexpected and a painful death!"

The cries of her husband and daughter soon gave intimation to her servants that her pangs were over. From the servants it immediately went to the neighbors, and thus did the circle widen until it reached the furthest ends of the parish. In a short time, also, the mournful sounds of the church-bell, in slow and measured strokes, gave additional notice that a Christian soul had pa.s.sed into eternity.

It is in such scenes as these that the Roman Catholic clergy knit themselves so strongly into the affections of the people. All men are naturally disposed to feel the offices of kindness and friends.h.i.+p more deeply, when tendered at the bed of death or of sickness, than under any other circ.u.mstances. Both the sick-bed and the house of death are necessarily the sphere of a priest's duty, and to render them that justice which we will ever render, when and wheresoever it may be due, we freely grant that many s.h.i.+ning, nay, n.o.ble instances of Christian virtue are displayed by them on such occasions.

When the violence of grief produced by Ellish's death had subsided, the priest, after giving them suitable exhortations to bear the affliction which had just befallen them with patience, told Peter, that as G.o.d, through the great industry and persevering exertions of her who had then departed to another world, had blessed him abundantly with wealth and substance, it was, considering the little time which had been allowed her to repent in a satisfactory manner for her transgressions, his bounden and solemn duty to set aside a suitable portion of that wealth for the delivery of her soul from purgatory, where, he trusted, in the mercy of G.o.d, it was permitted to remain.

"Indeed, your Reverence," replied Peter, "it wasn't necessary to mintion it, considherin' the way she was cut off from among us, widout even time to confess."

"But blessed be G.o.d," said the daughter, "she received the ointment at any rate, and that of itself would get her to purgatory."

"And I can answer for her," said Peter, "that she intended, as soon as she'd get everything properly settled for the childhre, to make her sowl."

"Ah! good intentions," said the priest, "won't do. I, however, have forewarned you of your duty, and must now leave the guilt or the merit of relieving her departed spirit, upon you and the other members of her family, who are all bound to leave nothing undone that may bring her from pain and fire, to peace and happiness."

"Och! och! asth.o.r.e, asth.o.r.e! you're lyin' there--an', oh, Ellish, avourneen, could you think that I--I--would spare money--trash--to bring you to glory wid the angels o' heaven! No, no, Father dear. It's good, an' kind, an' thoughtful of you to put it into my head; but I didn't intind to neglect or forget it. Oh, how will I live wantin' her, Father? When I rise in the mornin', avillish, where 'ud be your smile and your voice? We won't hear your step, nor see you as we used to do, movin' pleasantly about the place. No--you're gone, avoumeen--gone--an'

we'll see you and hear you no more!"

His grief was once more about to burst forth, but the priest led him out of the room, kindly chid him for the weakness of his immoderate sorrow, and after making arrangements about the celebration of ma.s.s for the dead, pressed his hand, and bade the family farewell.

The death of Ellish excited considerable surprise, and much conversation in the neighborhood. Every point of her character was discussed freely, and the comparisons inst.i.tuted between her and Peter were anything but flattering to the intellect of her husband.

"An' so Ellish is whipped off, Larry," said a neighbor to one of Peter's laboring men, "Faix, an' the best feather in their wing is gone."

"Ay, sure enough, Risthard, you may say that. It was her cleverness made them what they are. She was the best manager in the three kingdoms."

"Ah, she was the woman could make a bargain. I only hope she hasn't brought the luck o' the family away wid her!"

"Why, man alive, she made the sons and daughters as clever as herself--put them up to everything. Indeed, it's quare to think of how that one woman brought them ris them to what they are!"

"They shouldn't forget themselves as they're doin', thin; for betune you an' me, they're as proud as Turks, an' G.o.d he sees it ill becomes them--sits very badly on them, itself, when everything knows that their father an' mother begun the world wid a bottle of private whiskey an'

half a pound of smuggled tobaccy."

"Poor Pether will break his heart, any way. Oh, man, but she was the good wife. I'm livin' wid them going an seven year, an' never hard a cross word from the one to the other. It's she that had the sweet tongue all out, an' did manage him; but, afther all, he was worth the full o'

the Royal George of her. Many a time, when some poor craythur 'ud come to ax whiskey on score to put over* some o' their friends, or for a weddin', or a christenin', maybe, an' when the wife 'ud refuse it, Pether 'ud send what whiskey they wanted afther them, widout lettin' her know anything about it. An', indeed, he never lost anything by that; for if they wor to sell their cow, he should be ped, in regard of the kindly way he gave it to them."

* To put over--the corpse of a friend, to be drunk at the wake and funeral.

"Well, we'll see how they'll manage now that she's gone; but Pether an'

the youngest daughter, Mary, is to be pitied."

"The sarra much; barrin' that they'll miss her at first from about the place. You see she has left them above the world, an' full of it.

Wealth and substance enough may they thank her for; and that's very good comfort for sorrow, Risthard."