The Black Prophet Part 8

"Troth I pity them--from my heart I pity them now they're helpless and ould--especially for havin' sich a daughter as you are; but if it was my own father an' mother, G.o.d rest them, I couldn't give meal out on credit. There's not in the parish a poorer man than I am. I'm done wid givin' credit now, thank goodness; an' if I had been so long ago, it isn't robbed, and ruined, an' beggared by rogues I'd be this day, but a warm, full man, able and willin' too to help my neighbors; an' it is not empty handed I'd send away any messenger from your father or mother, as I must do, although my heart bleeds for them this minute."

Here once more he wiped away the rheum, with every appearance of regret and sorrow. In fact, one would almost suppose that by long practice he had trained one of his eyes--for we ought to have said that there was one of them more sympathetic than the other--to shed its hypocritical tear at the right place, and in such a manner, too, that he might claim all the credit of partic.i.p.ating in the very distresses which he refused to relieve, or by which he ama.s.sed his wealth.

The poor heart-broken looking girl, who by the way carried an unfortunate baby in her arms, literally tottered out of the room, sobbing bitterly, and with a look of misery and despair that it was woeful to contemplate.

"Ah, then, Harry Hacket," said he, pa.s.sing to another, "how are you?

an' how are you all over in Derrycloony, Harry? not forgettin' the ould couple?"

"Throth, middlin' only, Darby. My fine boy, Denis, is down wid this illness, an' I'm wantin' a barrel of meal from you till towards Christmas."

"Come inside, Harry, to this little nest here, till I tell you something; an', by the way, let your father know I've got a new prayer that he'll like to learn, for it's he that's the pious man, an' attinds to his duties--may G.o.d enable him! and every one that has the devotion in the right place; _amin a Chiernah!_"

He then brought Hacket into a little out-shot behind the room in which the scales were, and shutting the door, thus proceeded in a sweet, confidential kind of whisper--

"You see, Harry, what I'm goin' to say to you is what I'd not say to e'er another in the parish, the divil a one--G.o.d pardon me for swearin'--_amin a Chiernah!_ I'm ruined all out--smashed down and broke horse and foot; there's the Slevins that wint to America, an' I lost more than thirty pounds by them."

"I thought," replied Hacket, "they paid you before they went; they were always a daicent and an honest family, an' I never heard any one speak an ill word o' them."

"Not a penny, Harry."

"That's odd, then, bekaise it was only Sunday three weeks, that Murty Slevin, their cousin, if you remember, made you acknowledge that they paid you, at the chapel green."

"Ay, an' I do acknowledge; bekaise, Harry, one may as well spake charitably of the absent as not; it's only in private to you that I'm lettin' out the truth."

"Well, well," exclaimed the other, rather impatiently, "what have they to do wid us?"

"Ay, have they; it was what I lost by them an' others--see now, don't be gettin' onpatient, I bid you--time enough for that when you're refused--that prevints me from bein' able to give credit as I'd wish.

I'm not refusin' you, Harry; but _achora_, listen; you'll bring your bill at two months, only I must charge you a trifle for trust, for chances, or profit an' loss, as the schoolmasther says; but you're to keep it a saicret from livin' mortal, bekaise if it 'ud get known in these times that I'd do sich a thing, I'd have the very flesh ait off o' my bones by others wantin' the same thing; bring me the bill, then, Harry, an' I'll fill it up myself, only be _dhe husth_ (* hold your tongue) about it."

Necessity forces those who are distressed to comply with many a rapacious condition of the kind, and the consequence was that Hacket did what the pressure of the time compelled him to do, pa.s.sed his bill to Skinadre, at a most usurious price, for the food which was so necessary to his family.

It is surprising how closely the low rustic extortioner and the city usurer upon a larger scale resemble each other in the expression of their sentiments, in their habits of business, their plausibility, natural tact, and especially, in that hardness of heart and utter want of all human pity and sympathy, upon which the success of their black arts of usury and extortion essentially depends. With extortion in all its forms Skinadre, for instance, was familiar. From those who were poor but honest, he got a bill such as he exacted from Hacket, because he knew that, cost what it might to them, he was safe in their integrity.

If dishonest, he still got a bill and relied upon the law and its cruel list of hara.s.sing and fraudulent expenses for security. From others he got property of all descriptions; from some, b.u.t.ter, yarn, a piece of frieze, a pig, a cow, or a heifer. In fact, nothing that possessed value came wrong to him, so that it is impossible to describe adequately the web of mischief which this blood-sucking old spider contrived to spread around him, especially for those whom he knew to be too poor to avail themselves of a remedy against his villany.

"Molly Ca.s.sidy, how are you?" he said, addressing a poor looking woman who carried a parcel of some description rolled up under her cloak; "how are all the family, achora?"

"Glory be to G.o.d for it, they can scarcely be worse;" replied the woman, in that spirit of simple piety and veneration for the Deity, which in all their misery characterizes the Irish people; "but sure we're only sufferin' like others, an' indeed not so bad as many; there's Mick Kelly has lost his fine boy Lanty; and his other son, young Mick, isn't expected to live, an' all wid this sickness, that was brought on them, as it is everywhere, wid bad feedin'."

"They're miserable times, Molly, at least I find them so; for I dunna how it happens, but every one's disappointment falls upon me, till they have me a'most out of house an' home--throth it 'ud be no wondher I'd get hard-hearted some day wid the way I'm thrated an' robbed by every one; aye, indeed, bekase I'm good-natured, they play upon me."

The poor creature gave a faint smile, for she knew the man's character thoroughly.

"I have a dish of b.u.t.ther here, Darby," she said, "an' I want meal instead of it."

"b.u.t.ther, Molly; why thin, Molly, sure it isn't to me you're bringing b.u.t.ther--me that has so much of it lyin' on my hands here already. Sure, any way, it's down to dirt since the wars is over--b.u.t.ther is; if it was anything else but b.u.t.ther, Molly: but--it's of no use; I've too much of it."

"The sorra other thing I have, thin, Mr. Skinadre; but sure you had betther look at it, an' you'll find it's what b.u.t.ther ought to be, firm, claine, and sweet."

"I can't take it, achora; there's no market for it now."

"Here, as we're distressed, take it for sixpence a pound, and that's the lowest price--G.o.d knows, if we wern't as we are, it isn't for that you'd get it."

"Troth, I dar' say, you're ill off--as who isn't in these times? an'

it's worse they're gettin' an' will be gettin' every day. Troth, I say, my heart bleeds for you; but we can't dale; oh, no! b.u.t.ther, as I said, is only dirt now."

"For G.o.d's sake, thin," exclaimed the alarmed creature, "take it for whatever you like."

"It 'ud go hard wid me to see your poor family in a state of outther want," he replied, "an' it's not in my nature to be harsh to a struggling person---so whether I lose or gain, I'll allow you three-pence a pound for it."

A shade of bitterness came across her features at this iniquitous proposal; but she felt the truth of that old adage in all its severity, that necessity has no law.

"G.o.d help us," she exclaimed--"threepence a pound for such b.u.t.ther as this!--however, it's the will of G.o.d sure, an' it can't be helped--take it."

"Ay, it's aisy said, take it; but not to say what'll I do wid it, when I have it; however, that's the man I am, an' I know how it'll end wid me--sarvin' every one, workin' for every one, an' thinkin' of every one but myself, an' little thanks or grat.i.tude for all--I know I'm not fit for sich a world--but still it's a consolation to be doin' good to our fellow-creatures when we can, an' that's what lightens my heart."

A woman now entered, whose appearance excited general sympathy, as was evident from the subdued murmurs of compa.s.sion which were breathed from the persons a.s.sembled, as soon as she entered the room. There was something about her which, in spite of her thin and worn dress, intimated a consciousness of a position either then or at some previous time, above that of the common description of farmer's wives. No one could mistake her for a highly-educated woman--but there was in her appearance that decency of manner resulting from habits of independence and from moral feeling, which at a first glance, whether it be accompanied by superior dress or not, indicates something which is felt to ent.i.tle its proprietor to unquestionable respect. The miser, when she entered, had been putting away the dish of b.u.t.ter into the outshot we have mentioned, so that he had not yet an opportunity of seeing her, and, ere he returned to the scales, another female possessing probably not less interest to the reader, presented herself--this was Mave or Mabel, the young and beautiful daughter of the pious and hospitable Jerry Sullivan.

Skinadre on perceiving the matron who preceded her, paused for a moment, and looked at her with a wince in his thin features that might be taken for an indication of either pleasure or pain. He' closed the sympathetic eye, and wiped it--but this not seeming to satisfy him, he then closed both, and blew his nose with a little skeleton mealy handkerchief that lay on a sack beside him for that purpose.

"Hem--a-hem! why, thin, Mrs. Dalton, it isn't to my poor place I expected you would come."

"Darby," she replied, "there is no use for any length of conversation between you and me--I'm here contrary to the wishes of my family--but I am a mother, and cannot look upon their dest.i.tution without feeling that I should not allow my pride to stand between them and death: we are starving, I mean--they are; and I'm come to ask you for credit; if we are ever able to pay you, we will; if not, it's only one good act done to a family that often did many to you when they thought you grateful."

"I'm the worst in the world--I'm the worst in the world," replied Skinadre; "but it wasn't till I knew that you'd be put out o' your farm that I offered for it, and now you've taken away my carrecther, an'

spoken ill o' me everywhere, an' said that I bid for it over your heads; ay, indeed, an' that it was your husband that set me up, by the way--oh, yes--an' supposin' it was, an' I'm not denyin' it, but is that any raisin that I'd not bid for a good farm, when I knew that yez 'ud be put out of it?"

"I am now spakin' about the distress of our family," said Mrs. Dalton, "you know that sickness has been among us, and is among us--poor Tom is just able to be up, but that's all."

"Troth, an' it 'ud be well for you all, an' for himself too, that he had been taken away afore he comes in a bad end. What he will come too, if G.o.d hasn't said it. I hope he feels the affliction he brought on poor Ned Munay an' his family by the hand he made of his unfortunate daughter."

"He does feel it. The death of her brother and their situation has touched his heart, an' he's only waitin' for better health and better times to do her justice; but now what answer do you give me?"

"Why, this: I'm harrished by what I've done for every one; an'--an'--the short and the long of it is, that I've naither male nor money to throw away. I couldn't afford it and I can't. I'm a rogue, Mrs. Dalton--a miser, an extortioner, an ungrateful knave, and everything that is bad an' worse than another; an' for that raison, I say, I have naither male nor money to throw away. That's what I'd say if I was angry; but I'm not angry. I do feel for you an' them; still I can't afford to do what you want, or I'd do it, for I like to do good for evil, bad as I am. I'm strivin' to make up my rent an' to pay an unlucky bill that I have due to-morrow, and doesn't know where the money's to come from to meet both."

"Mave Sullivan, achora, what can I--"

Mrs. Dalton, from her position in the room, could not have noticed the presence of Mave Sullivan, but even had she been placed otherwise, it would have been somewhat difficult to get a glimpse of the young creature's face. Deeply did she partic.i.p.ate in the sympathy which was felt for the mother of her mother, and so naturally delicate were her feelings, that she had drawn up the hood of her cloak, lest the other might have felt the humiliation to which Mave's presence must have exposed her by the acknowledgment of her distress. Neither was this all the gentle and generous girl had to suffer. She experienced, in her own person, as well as Mrs. Dalton did, the painful sense of degradation which necessity occasions, by a violation of that hereditary spirit of decent pride and independence which the people consider as the prestige of high respect, and which, even while it excites compa.s.sion and sympathy, is looked upon, to a certain extent, as diminished by even a temporary visitation of poverty. When the meal-man, therefore, addressed her, she unconsciously threw the hood of her cloak back, and disclosed to the spectators a face burning with blushes and eyes filled with tears. The tears, however, were for the distress of Mrs. Dalton and her family, and the blushes for the painful circ.u.mstances which compelled her at once to witness them, and to expose those which were left under her own careworn father's roof. Mrs. Dalton, however, on looking round and perceiving what seemed to be an ebullition merely of natural shame, went over to her with a calm but mournful manner that amounted almost to dignity.

"Dear Mave," she said, "there is nothing here to be ashamed of. G.o.d forbid that the struggle of an honest family with poverty should bring a blot upon either your good name or mine. It does not, nor it will not: so dry your tears, my darlin' girl; there are better times before us all, I trust. Darby Skinadre," she added, turning to the miser, "you are both hard-hearted and ungrateful, or you would remember, in our distress, the kindness we showed you in yours. If you can cleanse your conscience from the stain of ingrat.i.tude, it must be by a change of life."

"Whatever stain there may be on my ungrateful conscience," he replied, turning up his red eyes, as it were with thanksgiving, "there's not the stain of blood and murdher on it--that's one comfort."

Mrs. Dalton did not seem to hear him, neither did she seem to look in the direction of where he stood. As the words were uttered she had been in the act of extending her hand to Mave Sullivan, who had hers stretched out to receive it. There now occurred, however, a mutual pause. Her hand was withdrawn, as was that of Mave also, who had suddenly become pale as death.

"G.o.d bless you, my darlin' girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Dalton, sighing, as if with some hidden sorrow; "G.o.d bless you and yours, prays my unhappy heart this day!"

And with these words she was about to depart, when Mave, trembling and much agitated, laid her hand gently and timidly upon her,--adding, in a low, sweet, tremulous voice,

"My heart is free from that suspicion--I can't tell why--but I don't believe it."