The room had been nearly darkened, but as there were no curtains to the bed, Herbert could see his mother's face as she knelt on a stool at the bedside. His father was turned away from him, and lay with his hand inside his wife's, and Emmeline was sitting on the foot of the bed, with her face between her hands, striving to stifle her sobs. "Here is Herbert now, dearest," said Lady Fitzgerald, with a low, soft voice, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to cause no effort in the hearing. "I knew that he would not be long." And Herbert, obeying the signal of his mother's eye, passed round to the other side of the bed.
"Father," said he, "are you not so well to-day?"
"My poor boy, my poor ruined boy!" said the dying man, hardly articulating the words as he dropped his wife's hand and took that of his son. Herbert found that it was wet, and clammy, and cold, and almost powerless in its feeble grasp.
"Dearest father, you are wrong if you let that trouble you; all that will never trouble me. Is it not well that a man should earn his own bread? Is it not the lot of all good men?" But still the old man murmured with his broken voice, "My poor boy, my poor boy!"
The hopes and aspirations of his eldest son are as the breath of his nostrils to an Englishman who has been born to land and fortune. What had not this poor man endured in order that his son might be Sir Herbert Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond? But this was no longer possible; and from the moment that this had been brought home to him, the father had felt that for him there was nothing left but to die. "My poor boy," he muttered, "tell me that you have forgiven me."
And then they all knelt round the bed and prayed with him; and afterwards they tried to comfort him, telling him how good he had been to them; and his wife whispered in his ear that if there had been fault, the fault was hers, but that her conscience told her that such fault had been forgiven; and while she said this she motioned the children away from him, and strove to make him understand that human misery could never kill the soul, and should never utterly depress the spirit. "Dearest love," she said, still whispering to him in her low, sweet voice—so dear to him, but utterly inaudible beyond—"if you would cease to accuse yourself so bitterly, you might yet be better, and remain with us to comfort us."
But the slender, half-knit man, whose arms are without muscles and whose back is without pith, will strive in vain to lift the weight which the brawny vigour of another tosses from the ground almost without an effort. It is with the mind and the spirit as with the body; only this, that the muscles of the body can be measured, but not so those of the spirit. Lady Fitzgerald was made of other stuff than Sir Thomas; and that which to her had cost an effort, but with an effort had been done surely, was to him as impossible as the labour of Hercules. "My poor boy, my poor ruined boy!" he still muttered, as she strove to comfort him.
"Mamma has sent for Mr. Townsend," Emmeline whispered to her brother, as they stood together in the bow of the window.
"And do you really think he is so bad as that?"
"I am sure that mamma does. I believe he had some sort of a fit before you came. At any rate, he did not speak for two hours."
"And was not Finucane here?" Finucane was the Mallow doctor.
"Yes; but he had left before papa became so much worse. Mamma has sent for him also."
But I do not know that it boots to dally longer in a dying chamber. It is an axiom of old that the stage curtain should be drawn before the inexorable one enters in upon his final work. Doctor Finucane did come, but his coming was all in vain. Sir Thomas had known that it was in vain, and so also had his patient wife. There was that mind diseased, towards the cure of which no Doctor Finucane could make any possible approach. And Mr. Townsend came also, let us hope not in vain; though the cure which he fain would have perfected can hardly be effected in such moments as those. Let us hope that it had been already effected. The only crying sin which we can lay to the charge of the dying man is that of which we have spoken; he had endeavoured by pensioning falsehood and fraud to preserve for his wife her name, and for his son that son's inheritance. Even over this, deep as it was, the recording angel may have dropped some cleansing tears of pity.
That night the poor man died, and the Fitzgeralds who sat in the chambers of Castle Richmond were no longer the owners of the mansion. There was no speech of Sir Herbert among the servants as there would have been had these tidings not have reached them. Dr. Finucane had remained in the house, and even he, in speaking of the son, had shown that he knew the story. They were strangers there now, as they all knew—intruders, as they would soon be considered in the house of their cousin Owen; or rather not their cousin. In that he was above them by right of his blood, they had no right to claim him as their relation.
It may be said that at such a moment all this should not have been thought of; but those who say so know little, as I imagine, of the true effect of sorrow. No wife and no children ever grieved more heartily for a father; but their grief was blacker and more gloomy in that they knew that they were outcasts in the world.
And during that long night as Herbert and his sisters sat up cowering round the fire, he told them of all that had been said at Hap House. "And can it not be as he says?" Mary had asked.
"And that Herbert should give up his wife!" said Emmeline.
"No; but that other thing."
"Do not dream of it," said Herbert. "It is all, all impossible. The house that we are now in belongs to Sir Owen Fitzgerald."
And now I will beg my readers to suppose a month to have passed by since Sir Thomas Fitzgerald died. It was a busy month in Ireland. It may probably be said that so large a sum of money had never been circulated in the country in any one month since money had been known there; and yet it may also be said that so frightful a mortality had never occurred there from the want of that which money brings. It was well understood by all men now that the customary food of the country had disappeared. There was no longer any difference of opinion between rich and poor, between Protestant and Roman Catholic; as to that, no man dared now to say that the poor, if left to themselves, could feed themselves, or to allege that the sufferings of the country arose from the machinations of money-making speculators. The famine was an established fact, and all men knew that it was God's doing,—all men knew this, though few could recognize as yet with how much mercy God's hand was stretched out over the country.
Or may it not perhaps be truer to say that in such matters there is no such thing as mercy—no special mercies—no other mercy than that fatherly, forbearing, all-seeing, perfect goodness by which the Creator is ever adapting this world to the wants of His creatures, and rectifying the evils arising from their faults and follies?Sed quo Musa tendis?Such discourses of the gods as these are not to be fitly handled in such small measures.
At any rate, there was the famine, undoubted now by any one; and death, who in visiting Castle Richmond may be said to have knocked at the towers of a king, was busy enough also among the cabins of the poor. And now the great fault of those who were the most affected was becoming one which would not have been at first sight expected. One would think that starving men would become violent, taking food by open theft—feeling, and perhaps not without some truth, that the agony of their want robbed such robberies of its sin. But such was by no means the case. I only remember one instance in which the bakers' shops were attacked; and in that instance the work was done by those who were undergoing no real suffering. At Clonmel, in Tipperary, the bread was one morning stripped away from the bakers' shops; but at that time, and in that place, there was nothing approaching to famine. The fault of the people was apathy. It was the feeling of the multitude that the world and all that was good in it was passing away from them; that exertion was useless, and hope hopeless. "Ah, me! your honour," said a man to me, "there'll never be a bit and a sup again in the county Cork! The life of the world is fairly gone!"
And it was very hard to repress this feeling. The energy of a man depends so much on the outward circumstances that encumber him! It is so hard to work when work seems hopeless—so hard to trust where the basis of our faith is so far removed from sight! When large tracts of land went out of cultivation, was it not natural to think that agriculture was receding from the country, leaving the green hills once more to be brown and barren, as hills once green have become in other countries? And when men were falling in the highways, and women would sit with their babes in their arms, listless till death should come to them, was it not natural to think that death was making a huge success—that he, the inexorable one, was now the inexorable indeed?
There were greatly trusting hearts that could withstand the weight of this terrible pressure, and thinking minds which saw that good would come out of this great evil; but such hearts and such minds were not to be looked for among the suffering poor; and were not, perhaps, often found even among those who were not poor or suffering. It was very hard to be thus trusting and thoughtful while everything around was full of awe and agony.
The people, however, were conscious of God's work, and were becoming dull and apathetic. They clustered about the roads, working lazily while their strength lasted them; and afterwards, when strength failed them for this, they clustered more largely in the poor-houses. And in every town—in every assemblage of houses which in England would be called a village, there was a poor-house. Any big barrack of a tenement that could be obtained at a moment's notice, whatever the rent, became a poor-house in the course of twelve hours;—in twelve, nay, in two hours. What was necessary but the bare walls, and a supply of yellow meal? Bad provision this for all a man's wants,—as was said often enough by irrational philanthropists; but better provision than no shelter and no yellow meal! It was bad that men should be locked up at night without any of the appliances of decency; bad that they should be herded together for day after day with no resource but the eating twice a day of enough unsavoury food to keep life and soul together;—very bad, ye philanthropical irrationalists! But is not a choice of evils all that is left to us in many a contingency? Was not even this better than that life and soul should be allowed to part, without any effort at preserving their union?
And thus life and soul were kept together, the government of the day having wisely seen what, at so short a notice, was possible for them to do, and what was absolutely impossible. It is in such emergencies as these that the watching and the wisdom of a government are necessary; and I shall always think—as I did think then—that the wisdom of its action and the wisdom of its abstinence from action were very good. And now again the fields in Ireland are green, and the markets are busy, and money is chucked to and fro like a weathercock which the players do not wish to have abiding with them; and the tardy speculator going over to look for a bit of land comes back muttering angrily that fancy prices are demanded. "They'll run you up to thirty-three years' purchase," says the tardy speculator, thinking, as it seems, that he is specially ill used. Agricultural wages have been nearly doubled in Ireland during the last fifteen years. Think of that, Master Brook. Work for which, at six shillings a week, there would be a hundred hungry claimants in 1845,—in the good old days before the famine, when repeal was so immediately expected—will now fetch ten shillings, the claimants being by no means numerous. In 1843 and 1844, I knew men to work for fourpence a day—something over the dole on which we are told, being mostly incredulous as we hear it, that a Coolie labourer can feed himself with rice in India;—not one man or two men, the broken down incapables of the parish, but the best labour of the country. One and twopence is now about the cheapest rate at which a man can be hired for agricultural purposes. While this is so, and while the prices are progressing, there is no cause for fear, let Bishops A and B, and Archbishops C and D fret and fume with never so great vexation touching the clipped honours of their father the Pope.
But again; Quo Musa tendis? I could write on this subject for a week were it not that Rhadamanthus awaits me, Rhadamanthus the critic; and Rhadamanthus is, of all things, impatient of an episode.
Life and soul were kept together in those terrible days;—that is, the Irish life and soul generally. There were many slips, in which the union was violently dissolved,—many cases in which the yellow meal allowed was not sufficient, or in which it did not reach the sufferer in time to prevent such dissolution,—cases which when numbered together amounted to thousands. And then the pestilence came, taking its victims by tens of thousands,—but that was after the time with which we shall have concern here; and immigration followed, taking those who were saved by hundreds of thousands. But the millions are still there, a thriving people; for His mercy endureth for ever.
During this month, the month ensuing upon the death of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Herbert could of course pay no outward attention to the wants or relief of the people. He could make no offer of assistance, for nothing belonged to him; nor could he aid in the councils of the committees, for no one could have defined the position of the speaker. And during that month nothing was defined about Castle Richmond. Lady Fitzgerald was still always called by her title. The people of the country, including the tradesmen of the neighbouring towns, addressed the owner of Hap House as Sir Owen; and gradually the name was working itself into common use, though he had taken no steps to make himself legally entitled to wear it. But no one spoke of Sir Herbert. The story was so generally known, that none were so ignorant as to suppose him to be his father's heir. The servants about the place still called him Mr. Herbert, orders to that effect having been specially given; and the peasants of the country, with that tact which graces them, and with that anxiety to abstain from giving pain which always accompanies them unless when angered, carefully called him by no name. They knew that he was not Sir Herbert; but they would not believe but what, perchance, he might be so yet on some future day. So they took off their old hats to him, and passed him silently in his sorrow; or if they spoke to him, addressed his honour simply, omitting all mention of that Christian name, which the poor Irishman is generally so fond of using. "Mister Blake" sounds cold and unkindly in his ears. It is the "Masther," or "His honour," or if possible "Misther Thady." Or if there be any handle, that is used with avidity. Pat is a happy man when he can address his landlord as "Sir Patrick."
But now the "ould masther's son" could be called by no name. Men knew not what he was to be, though they knew well that he was not that which he ought to be. And there were some who attempted to worship Owen as the rising sun; but for such of them as had never worshipped him before that game was rather hopeless. In those days he was not much seen, neither hunting nor entertaining company; but when seen he was rough enough with those who made any deep attempt to ingratiate themselves with his coming mightiness. And during this month he went over to London, having been specially invited so to do by Mr. Prendergast; but very little came of his visit there, except that it was certified to him that he was beyond all doubt the baronet. "And there shall be no unnecessary delay, Sir Owen," said Mr. Prendergast, "in putting you into full possession of all your rights." In answer to which Owen had replied that he was not anxious to be put in possession of any rights. That as far as any active doing of his own was concerned, the title might lie in abeyance, and that regarding the property he would make known his wish to Mr. Prendergast very quickly after his return to Ireland. But he intimated at the same time that there could be no ground for disturbing Lady Fitzgerald, as he had no intention under any circumstances of living at Castle Richmond.
"Had you not better tell Lady Fitzgerald that yourself?" said Mr. Prendergast, catching at the idea that his friend's widow—my readers will allow me so to call her—might be allowed to live undisturbed at the family mansion, if not for life, at any rate for a few years. If this young man were so generous, why should it not be so? He would not want the big house, at any rate, till he were married.
"It would be better that you should say so," said Owen. "I have particular reasons for not wishing to go there."
"But allow me to say, my dear young friend—and I hope I may call you so, for I greatly admire the way in which you have taken all these tidings—that I would venture to advise you to drop the remembrance of any unpleasantness that may have existed. You should now feel yourself to be the closest friend of that family."
"So I would if—," and then Owen stopped short, though Mr. Prendergast gave him plenty of time to finish his sentence were he minded to do so.
"In your present position," continued the lawyer, "your influence will be very great."
"I can't explain it all," said Owen; "but I don't think my influence will be great at all. And what is more, I do not want any influence of that sort. I wish Lady Fitzgerald to understand that she is at perfect liberty to stay where she is,—as far as I am concerned. Not as a favour from me, mind; for I do not think that she would take a favour from my hands."
"But, my dear sir!"
"Therefore you had better write to her about remaining there."
Mr. Prendergast did write to her, or rather to Herbert: but in doing so he thought it right to say that the permission to live at Castle Richmond should be regarded as a kindness granted them by their relative. "It is a kindness which, under the circumstances, your mother may, I think, accept without compunction; at any rate, for some time to come,—till she shall have suited herself without hurrying her choice; but, nevertheless, it must be regarded as a generous offer on his part; and I do hope, my dear Herbert, that you and he will be fast friends."
But Mr. Prendergast did not in the least comprehend the workings of Owen's mind; and Herbert, who knew more of them than any one else, did not understand them altogether. Owen had no idea of granting any favour to his relatives, who, as he thought, had never granted any to him. What Owen wanted,—or what he told himself that he wanted,—was justice. It was his duty as a just man to abstain from taking hold of those acres, and he was prepared to do his duty. But it was equally Herbert's duty as a just man to abstain from taking hold of Clara Desmond, and he was resolved that he would never be Herbert's friend if Herbert did not perform that duty. And then, though he felt himself bound to give up the acres,—though he did regard this as an imperative duty, he nevertheless felt also that something was due to him for his readiness to perform such a duty,—that some reward should be conceded to him; what this reward was to be, or rather what he wished it to be, we all know.
Herbert had utterly refused to engage in any such negotiation; but Owen, nevertheless, would not cease to think that something might yet be done. Who was so generous as Clara, and would not Clara herself speak out if she knew how much her old lover was prepared to do for this newer lover? Half a dozen times Owen made up his mind to explain the whole thing to Mr. Prendergast; but when he found himself in the presence of the lawyer, he could not talk about love. Young men are so apt to think that their seniors in age cannot understand romance, or acknowledge the force of a passion. But here they are wrong, for there would be as much romance after forty as before, I take it, were it not checked by the fear of ridicule. So Owen stayed a week in London, seeing Mr. Prendergast every day; and then he returned to Hap House.
In the mean time life went on at a very sad pace at Desmond Court. There was no concord whatever between the two ladies residing there. The mother was silent, gloomy, and sometimes bitter, seldom saying a word about Herbert Fitzgerald or his prospects, but saying that word with great fixity of purpose when it was spoken. "No one," she said, "should attribute to her the poverty and misery of her child. That marriage should not take place from her house, or with her consent." And Clara for the most part was silent also. In answer to such words as the above she would say nothing; but when, as did happen once or twice, she was forced to speak, she declared openly enough that no earthly consideration should induce her to give up her engagement.
And then the young earl came home, brought away from his school in order that his authority might have effect on his sister. To speak the truth, he was unwilling enough to interfere, and would have declined to come at all could he have dared to do so. Eton was now more pleasant to him than Desmond Court, which, indeed, had but little of pleasantness to offer to a lad such as he was now. He was sixteen, and manly for his age; but the question in dispute at Desmond Court offered little attraction even to a manly boy of sixteen. In that former question as to Owen he had said a word or two, knowing that Owen could not be looked upon as a fitting husband for his sister; but now he knew not how to counsel her again as to Herbert, seeing that it was but the other day that he had written a long letter, congratulating her on that connection.
Towards the end of the month, however, he did arrive, making glad his mother's heart as she looked at his strong limbs and his handsome open face. And Clara, too, threw herself so warmly into his arms that he did feel glad that he had come to her. "Oh, Patrick, it is so sweet to have you here!" she said, before his mother had had time to speak to him.
"Dearest Clara!"
"But, Patrick, you must not be cruel to me. Look here, Patrick; you are my only brother, and I so love you that I would not offend you or turn you against me for worlds. You are the head of our family, too, and nothing should be done that you do not like. But if so much depends on you, you must think well before you decide on anything."
He opened his young eyes and looked intently into her face, for there was an earnestness in her words that almost frightened him. "You must think well of it all before you speak, Patrick; and remember this, you and I must be honest and honourable, whether we be poor or no. You remember about Owen Fitzgerald, how I gave way then because I could do so without dishonour. Butnow—"
"But, Clara, I do not understand it all as yet."
"No; you cannot,—not as yet—and I will let mamma tell you the story. All I ask is this, that you will think of my honour before you say a word that can favour either her or me." And then he promised her that he would do so; and his mother, when on the following morning she told him all the history, found him reserved and silent.
"Look at his position," said the mother, pleading her cause before her son. "He is illegitimate,and—"
"Yes, but mother—"
"I know all that, my dear; I know what you would say; and no one can pity Mr. Fitzgerald's position more than I do; but you would not on that account have your sister ruined. It is romance on her part."
"But what does he say?"
"He is quite willing to give up the match. He has told me so, and said as much to his aunt, whom I have seen three times on the subject."
"Do you mean that he wishes to give it up?"
"No,—at least I don't know. If he does, he cannot express such a wish, because Clara is so headstrong. Patrick, in my heart I do not believe that she cares for him. I have doubted it for some time."
"But you wanted her to marry him."
"So I did. It was an excellent match, and in a certain way she did like him; and then, you know, there was that great danger about poor Owen. It was a great danger then. But now she is so determined about this, because she thinks it would be ungenerous to go back from her word; and in this way she will ruin the very man she wishes to serve. Of course he cannot break off the match if she persists in it. What I want you to perceive is this, that he, utterly penniless as he is, will have to begin the world with a clog round his neck, because she is so obstinate. What could possibly be worse for him than a titled wife without a penny?" And in this way the countess pleaded her side of the question before her son.
It was quite true that she had been three times to Castle Richmond, and had thrice driven Aunt Letty into a state bordering on distraction. If she could only get the Castle Richmond people to take it up as they ought to do! It was thus she argued with herself,—and with Aunt Letty also, endeavouring to persuade her that these two young people would undoubtedly ruin each other, unless those who were really wise and prudent, and who understood the world—such as Aunt Letty, for instance—would interfere to prevent it.
Aunt Letty on the whole did agree with her, though she greatly disliked her. Miss Fitzgerald had strongly planted within her bosom the prudent old-world notion, that young gentlefolks should not love each other unless they have plenty of money; and that, if unfortunately such did love each other, it was better that they should suffer all the pangs of hopeless love than marry and trust to God and their wits for bread and cheese. To which opinion of Aunt Letty's, as well as to some others entertained by that lady with much pertinacity, I cannot subscribe myself as an adherent.
Lady Desmond had wit enough to discover that Aunt Letty did agree with her in the main, and on this account she was eager in seeking her assistance. Lady Fitzgerald of course could not be seen, and there was no one else at Castle Richmond who could be supposed to have any weight with Herbert. And therefore Lady Desmond was very eloquent with Aunt Letty, talking much of the future miseries of the two young people, till the old lady had promised to use her best efforts in enlisting Lady Fitzgerald on the same side. "You cannot wonder, Miss Fitzgerald, that I should wish to put an end to the cruel position in which my poor girl is placed. You know how much a girl suffers from that kind of thing."
Aunt Letty did dislike Lady Desmond very much; but, nevertheless, she could not deny the truth of all this; and therefore it may be said that the visits of the countess to Castle Richmond were on the whole successful.
And the month wore itself away also in that sad household, and the Fitzgeralds were gradually becoming used to their position. Family discussions were held among them as to what they should do, and where they should live in future. Mr. Prendergast had written, seeing that Owen had persisted in refusing to make the offer personally himself—saying that there was no hurry for any removal. "Sir Owen," he said,—having considered deeply whether or no he would call him by the title or no, and having resolved that it would be best to do so at once—"Sir Owen was inclined to behave very generously. Lady Fitzgerald could have the house and demesne at any rate for twelve months, and by that time the personal property left by Sir Thomas would be realized, and there would be enough," Mr. Prendergast said, "for the three ladies to live 'in decent quiet comfort.'" Mr. Prendergast had taken care before he left Castle Richmond that a will should be made and duly executed by Sir Thomas, leaving what money he had to his three children by name,—in trust for their mother's use. Till the girls should be of age that trust would be vested in Herbert.
"Decent quiet comfort!" said Mary to her brother and sister as they conned the letter over; "how comfortless it sounds!"
And so the first month after the death of Sir Thomas passed by, and the misfortunes of the Fitzgerald family ceased to be the only subject spoken of by the inhabitants of county Cork.
At the end of the month, Herbert began to prepare himself for facing the world. The first question to be answered was that one which is so frequently asked in most families, but which had never yet been necessary in this—What profession would he follow? All manners of ways by which an educated man can earn his bread had been turned over in his mind, and in the minds of those who loved him, beginning with the revenues of the Archbishop of Armagh, which was Aunt Letty's idea, and ending with a seat at a government desk, which was his own. Mr. Prendergast had counselled the law; not his own lower branch of the profession, but a barrister's full-blown wig, adding, in his letter to Lady Fitzgerald, that if Herbert would come to London, and settle in chambers, he, Mr. Prendergast, would see that his life was made agreeable to him. But Mr. Somers gave other advice. In those days Assistant Poor-Law Commissioners were being appointed in Ireland, almost by the score, and Mr. Somers declared that Herbert had only to signify his wish for such a position, and he would get it. The interest which he had taken in the welfare of the poor around him was well known, and as his own story was well known also, there could be no doubt that the government would be willing to assist one so circumstanced, and who when assisted would make himself so useful. Such was the advice of Mr. Somers; and he might have been right but for this, that both Herbert and Lady Fitzgerald felt that it would be well for them to move out of that neighbourhood,—out of Ireland altogether, if such could be possible.
Aunt Letty was strong for the Church. A young man who had distinguished himself at the University so signally as her nephew had done, taking his degree at the very first attempt, and that in so high a class of honour as the fourth, would not fail to succeed in the Church. He might not perhaps succeed as to Armagh; that she admitted, but there were some thirty other bishoprics to be had, and it would be odd if, with his talents, he did not get one of them. Think what it would be if he were to return to his own country as Bishop of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross, as to which amalgamation of sees, however, Aunt Letty had her own ideas. He was slightly tainted with the venom of Puseyism, Aunt Letty said to herself; but nothing would dispel this with so much certainty as the theological studies necessary for ordination. And then Aunt Letty talked it over by the hour together with Mrs. Townsend, and both those ladies were agreed that Herbert should get himself ordained as quickly as possible;—not in England, where there might be danger even in ordination, but in good, wholesome, Protestant Ireland, where a Church of England clergyman was a clergyman of the Church of England, and not a priest, slipping about in the mud half way between England and Rome.
Herbert himself was anxious to get some employment by which he might immediately earn his bread, but not unnaturally wished that London should be the scene of his work. Anywhere in Ireland he would be known as the Fitzgerald who ought to have been Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond. And then too, he, as other young men, had an undefined idea, that as he must earn his bread London should be his ground. He had at first been not ill inclined to that Church project, and had thus given a sort of ground on which Aunt Letty was able to stand,—had, as it were, given her some authority for carrying on an agitation in furtherance of her own views; but Herbert himself soon gave up this idea. A man, he thought, to be a clergyman should have a very strong predilection in favour of that profession; and so he gradually abandoned that idea,—actuated, as poor Aunt Letty feared, by the agency of the evil one, working through the means of Puseyism.
His mother and sisters were in favour of Mr. Prendergast's views, and as it was gradually found by them all that there would not be any immediate pressure as regarded pecuniary means, that seemed at last to be their decision. Herbert would remain yet for three or four weeks at Castle Richmond, till matters there were somewhat more thoroughly settled, and would then put himself into the hands of Mr. Prendergast in London. Mr. Prendergast would select a legal tutor for him, and proper legal chambers; and then not long afterwards his mother and sisters should follow, and they would live together at some small villa residence near St. John's Wood Road, or perhaps out at Brompton.
It is astonishing how quickly in this world of ours chaos will settle itself into decent and graceful order, when it is properly looked in the face, and handled with a steady hand which is not sparing of the broom. Some three months since, everything at Castle Richmond was ruin; such ruin, indeed, that the very power of living under it seemed to be doubtful. When first Mr. Prendergast arrived there, a feeling came upon them all as though they might hardly dare to live in a world which would look at them as so thoroughly degraded. As regards means, they would be beggars! and as regards position, so much worse than beggars! A broken world was in truth falling about their ears, and it was felt to be impossible that they should endure its convulsions and yet live.
But now the world had fallen, the ruin had come, and they were already strong in future hopes. They had dared to look at their chaos, and found that it still contained the elements of order. There was much still that marred their happiness, and forbade the joyousness of other days. Their poor father had gone from them in their misery, and the house was still a house of mourning; and their mother too, though she bore up so wonderfully against her fate, and for their sakes hoped and planned and listened to their wishes, was a stricken woman. That she would never smile again with any heartfelt joy they were all sure. But, nevertheless, their chaos was conquered, and there was hope that the fields of life would again show themselves green and fruitful.
On one subject their mother never spoke to them, nor had even Herbert dared to speak to her: not a word had been said in that house since Mr. Prendergast left it as to the future whereabouts or future doings of that man to whom she had once given her hand at the altar. But she had ventured to ask by letter a question of Mr. Prendergast. Her question had been this: What must I do that he may not come to me or to my children? In answer to this Mr. Prendergast had told her, after some delay, that he believed she need fear nothing. He had seen the man, and he thought that he might assure her that she would not be troubled in that respect.
"It is possible," said Mr. Prendergast, "that he may apply to you by letter for money. If so, give him no answer whatever, but send his letters to me."
"And are you all going?" asked Mrs. Townsend of Aunt Letty, with a lachrymose voice soon after the fate of the family was decided. They were sitting together with their knees over the fire in Mrs. Townsend's dining-parlour, in which the perilous state of the country had been discussed by them for many a pleasant hour together.
"Well, I think we shall; you see, my sister would never be happy here."
"No, no; the shock and the change would be too great for her. Poor Lady Fitzgerald! And when is that man coming into the house?"
"What, Owen?"
"Yes! Sir Owen I suppose he is now."
"Well, I don't know; he does not seem to be in any hurry. I believe that he has said that my sister may continue to live there if she pleases. But of course she cannot do that."
"They do say about the country," whispered Mrs. Townsend, "that he refuses to be the heir at all. He certainly has not had any cards printed with the title on them—I know that as a fact."
"He is a very singular man, very. You know I never could bear him," said Aunt Letty.
"No, nor I either. He has not been to our church once these six months. But it's very odd, isn't it? Of course you know the story?"
"What story?" asked Aunt Letty.
"About Lady Clara. Owen Fitzgerald was dreadfully in love with her before your Herbert had ever seen her. And they do say that he has sworn his cousin shall never live if he marries her."
"They can never marry now, you know. Only think of it. There would be three hundred a year between them.—Not at present, that is," added Aunt Letty, looking forward to a future period after her own death.
"That is very little, very little indeed," said Mrs. Townsend, remembering, however, that she herself had married on less. "But, Miss Fitzgerald, if Herbert does not marry her do you think this Owen will?"
"I don't think she'd have him. I am quite sure she would not."
"Not when he has all the property, and the title too?"
"No, nor double as much. What would people say of her if she did? But, however, there is no fear, for she declares that nothing shall induce her to give up her engagement with our Herbert."
And so they discussed it backward and forward in every way, each having her own theory as to that singular rumour which was going about the country, signifying that Owen had declined to accept the title. Aunt Letty, however, would not believe that any good could come from so polluted a source, and declared that he had his own reasons for the delay. "It's not for any love of us," she said, "if he refuses to take either that or the estate." And in this she was right. But she would have been more surprised still had she learned that Owen's forbearance arose from a strong anxiety to do what was just in the matter.
"And so Herbert won't go into the Church?"
And Letty shook her head sorrowing.
"Æneas would have been so glad to have taken him for a twelvemonth's reading," said Mrs. Townsend. "He could have come here, you know, when you went away, and been ordained at Cork, and got a curacy close in the neighbourhood, where he was known. It would have been so nice; wouldn't it?"
Aunt Letty would not exactly have advised the scheme as suggested by Mrs. Townsend. Her ideas as to Herbert's clerical studies would have been higher than this. Trinity College, Dublin, was in her estimation the only place left for good Church of England ecclesiastical teaching. But as Herbert was obstinately bent on declining sacerdotal life, there was no use in dispelling Mrs. Townsend's bright vision.
"It's all of no use," she said; "he is determined to go to the bar."
"The bar is very respectable," said Mrs. Townsend, kindly.
"And you mean to go with them, too?" said Mrs. Townsend, after another pause. "You'll hardly be happy, I'm thinking, so far away from your old home."
"It is sad to change at my time of life," said Aunt Letty, plaintively. "I'm sixty-two now."
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Townsend, who, however, knew her age to a day.
"Sixty-two if I live another week, and I have never yet had any home but Castle Richmond. There I was born, and till the other day I had every reason to trust that there I might die. But what does it matter?"
"No, that's true of course; what does it matter where we are while we linger in this vale of tears? But couldn't you get a little place for yourself somewhere near here? There's Callaghan's cottage, with the two-acre piece for a cow, and as nice a spot of a garden as there is in the county Cork."
"I wouldn't separate myself from her now," said Aunt Letty, "for all the cottages and all the gardens in Ireland. The Lord has been pleased to throw us together, and together we will finish our pilgrimage. Whither she goes, I will go, and where she lodges, I will lodge; her people shall be my people, and her God my God." And then Mrs. Townsend said nothing further of Callaghan's pretty cottage, or of the two-acre piece.
But one reason for her going Aunt Letty did not give, even to her friend Mrs. Townsend. Her income, that which belonged exclusively to herself, was in no way affected by these sad Castle Richmond revolutions. This was a comfortable,—we may say a generous provision for an old maiden lady, amounting to some six hundred a year, settled upon her for life, and this, if added to what could be saved and scraped together, would enable them to live comfortably as far as means were concerned, in that suburban villa to which they were looking forward. But without Aunt Letty's income that suburban villa must be but a poor home. Mr. Prendergast had calculated that some fourteen thousand pounds would represent the remaining property of the family, with which it would be necessary to purchase government stock. Such being the case, Aunt Letty's income was very material to them.
"I trust you will be able to find some one there who will preach the gospel to you," said Mrs. Townsend, in a tone that showed how serious were her misgivings on the subject.
"I will search for such a one at any rate," said Aunt Letty. "You need not be afraid that I shall be a backslider."
"But they have crosses now over the communion tables in the churches in England," said Mrs. Townsend.
"I know it is very bad," said Aunt Letty. "But there will always be a remnant left. The Lord will not utterly desert us." And then she took her departure, leaving Mrs. Townsend with the conviction that the land to which her friend was going was one in which the light of the gospel no longer shone in its purity.
It was not wonderful that they should all be anxious to get away from Castle Richmond, for the house there was now not a pleasant one in which to live. Let all those who have houses and the adjuncts of houses think how considerable a part of their life's pleasures consists in their interest in the things around them. When will the sea-kale be fit to cut, and when will the crocuses come up? will the violets be sweeter than ever? and the geranium cuttings, are they thriving? we have dug, and manured, and sown, and we look forward to the reaping, and to see our garners full. The very furniture which ministers to our daily uses is loved and petted; and in decorating our rooms we educate ourselves in design. The place in church which has been our own for years,—is not that dear to us, and the voice that has told us of God's tidings—even though the drone become more evident as it waxes in years, and though it grows feeble and indolent? And the faces of those who have lived around us, do we not love them too, the servants who have worked for us, and the children who have first toddled beneath our eyes and prattled in our ears, and now run their strong races, screaming loudly, splashing us as they pass—very unpleasantly? Do we not love them all? Do they not all contribute to the great sum of our enjoyment? All men love such things, more or less, even though they know it not. And women love them even more than men.
And the Fitzgeralds were about to leave them all. The early buds of spring were now showing themselves, but how was it possible that they should look to them? One loves the bud because one expects the flower. The sea-kale now was beyond their notice, and though they plucked the crocuses, they did so with tears upon their cheeks. After much consideration the church had been abandoned by all except Aunt Letty and Herbert. That Lady Fitzgerald should go there was impossible, and the girls were only too glad to be allowed to stay with their mother. And the schools in which they had taught since the first day in which teaching had been possible for them, had to be abandoned with such true pangs of heartfelt sorrow.
From the time when their misery first came upon them, from the days when it first began to be understood that the world had gone wrong at Castle Richmond, this separation from the schools had commenced. The work had been dropped for a while, but the dropping had in fact been final, and there was nothing further to be done than the saddest of all leavetaking. The girls had sent word to the children, perhaps imprudently, that they would go down and say a word of adieu to their pupils. The children had of course told their mothers, and when the girls reached the two neat buildings which stood at the corner of the park, there were there to meet them, not unnaturally, a concourse of women and children.
In former prosperous days the people about Castle Richmond had, as a rule, been better to do than their neighbours. Money wages had been more plentiful, and there had been little or no subletting of land; the children had been somewhat more neatly clothed, and the women less haggard in their faces; but this difference was hardly perceptible any longer. To them, the Miss Fitzgeralds, looking at the poverty-stricken assemblage, it almost seemed as though the misfortune of their house had brought down its immediate consequences on all who had lived within their circle; but this was the work of the famine. In those days one could rarely see any member of a peasant's family bearing in his face a look of health. The yellow meal was a useful food—the most useful, doubtless, which could at that time be found; but it was not one that was gratifying either to the eye or palate.
The girls had almost regretted their offer before they had left the house. It would have been better, they said to themselves, to have had the children up in the hall, and there to have spoken their farewells, and made their little presents. The very entering those schoolrooms again would almost be too much for them; but this consideration was now too late, and when they got to the corner of the gate, they found that there was a crowd to receive them. "Mary, I must go back," said Emmeline, when she first saw them; but Aunt Letty, who was with them, stepped forward, and they soon found themselves in the schoolroom.
"We have come to say good-bye to you all," said Aunt Letty, trying to begin a speech.
"May the heavens be yer bed then, the lot of yez, for ye war always good to the poor. May the Blessed Virgin guide and protect ye wherever ye be;"—a blessing against which Aunt Letty at once entered a little inward protest, perturbed though she was in spirit. "May the heavens rain glory on yer heads, for ye war always the finest family that war ever in the county Cork!"
"You know, I dare say, that we are going to leave you," continued Aunt Letty.
"We knows it, we knows it; sorrow come to them as did it all. Faix, an' there'll niver be any good in the counthry, at all at all, when you're gone, Miss Emmeline; an' what'll we do at all for the want of yez, and when shall we see the likes of yez? Eh, Miss Letty, but there'll be sore eyes weeping for ye; and for her leddyship too; may the Lord Almighty bless her, and presarve her, and carry her sowl to glory when she dies; for av there war iver a good woman on God's 'arth, that woman is Leddy Fitzgerald."
And then Aunt Letty found that there was no necessity for her to continue her speech, and indeed no possibility of her doing so even if she were so minded. The children began to wail and cry, and the mothers also mixed loud sobbings with their loud prayers; and Emmeline and Mary, dissolved in tears, sat themselves down, drawing to them the youngest bairns and those whom they had loved the best, kissing their sallow, famine-stricken, unwholesome faces, and weeping over them with a love of which hitherto they had been hardly conscious.
There was not much more in the way of speech possible to any of them, for even Aunt Letty was far gone in tender wailing; and it was wonderful to see the liberties that were taken even with that venerable bonnet. The women had first of all taken hold of her hands to kiss them, and had kissed her feet, and her garments, and her shoulders, and then behind her back they had made crosses on her, although they knew how dreadfully she would have raged had she caught them polluting her by such doings; and they grasped her arms and embraced them, till at last, those who were more daring, reached her forehead and her face, and poor old Aunt Letty, who in her emotion could not now utter a syllable, was almost pulled to pieces among them.
Mary and Emmeline had altogether surrendered themselves, and were the centres of clusters of children who hung upon them. And the sobs now were no longer low and tearful, but they had grown into long, protracted groanings, and loud wailings, and clapping of hands, and tearings of the hair. O, my reader, have you ever seen a railway train taking its departure from an Irish station, with a freight of Irish emigrants? if so, you know how the hair is torn, and how the hands are clapped, and how the low moanings gradually swell into notes of loud lamentation. It means nothing, I have heard men say,—men and women too. But such men and women are wrong. It means much; it means this: that those who are separated, not only love each other, but are anxious to tell each other that they so love. We have all heard of demonstrative people. A demonstrative person, I take it, is he who is desirous of speaking out what is in his heart. For myself I am inclined to think that such speaking out has its good ends. "The faculty of silence! is it not of all things the most beautiful?" That is the doctrine preached by a great latter-day philosopher; for myself, I think that the faculty of speech is much more beautiful—of speech if it be made but by howlings, and wailings, and loud clappings of the hand. What is in a man, let it come out and be known to those around him; if it be bad it will find correction; if it be good it will spread and be beneficent.
And then one woman made herself audible over the sobs of the crowding children; she was a gaunt, high-boned woman, but she would have been comely, if not handsome, had not the famine come upon her. She held a baby in her arms, and another little toddling thing had been hanging on her dress till Emmeline had seen it, and plucked it away; and it was now sitting in her lap quite composed, and sucking a piece of cake that had been given to it. "An' it's a bad day for us all," said the woman, beginning in a low voice, which became louder and louder as she went on; "it's a bad day for us all that takes away from us the only rale friends that we iver had, and the back of my hand to them that have come in the way, bringin' sorrow, an' desolation, an' misery on gentlefolks that have been good to the poor since iver the poor have been in the land; rale gentlefolks, sich as there ain't no others to be found nowadays in any of these parts. O'hone, o'hone! but it's a bad day for us and for the childer; for where shall we find the dhrop to comfort us or the bit to ate when the sickness comes on us, as it's likely to come now, when the Fitzgeralds is out of the counthry. May the Lord bless them, and keep them, and presarve them, and the Holy Virgin have them in her keepin'!"
"Wh—i—s—h—h," said Aunt Letty, who could not allow such idolatry to pass by unobserved or unrebuked.
"An' shure the blessin' of a poor woman cannot haram you," continued the mother; "an' I'll tell you what, neighbours, it'll be a bad day for him that folk call the heir when he puts his foot in that house."
"'Deed an' that's thrue for you, Bridget Magrath," said another voice from among the crowd of women.
"A bad day intirely," continued the woman, with the baby; "av the house stans over his head when he does the like o' that, there'll be no justice in the heavens."
"But, Mrs. Magrath," said Aunt Letty, trying to interrupt her, "you must not speak in that way; you are mistaken in supposing that Mr.Owen—"
"We'll all live to see," said the woman; "for the time's comin' quick upon us now. But it's a bad law that kills our ould masther over our heads, an' takes away from us our ould misthress. An' as for him they calls Mr.Owen—"
But the ladies found it impossible to listen to her any longer, so with some difficulty they extricated themselves from the crowd by which they were surrounded, and once more shaking hands with those who were nearest to them escaped into the park, and made their way back towards the house.
They had not expected so much demonstration, and were not a little disconcerted at the scene which had taken place. Aunt Letty had never been so handled in her life, and hardly knew how to make her bonnet sit comfortably on her head; and the two girls were speechless till they were half across the park.
"I am glad we have been," said Emmeline at last, as soon as the remains of her emotion would allow her to articulate her words.
"It would have been dreadful to have gone away without seeing them," said Mary. "Poor creatures, poor dear creatures; we shall never again have any more people to be fond of us like that!"
"There is no knowing," said Aunt Letty; "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and blessed is the name of the Lord. You are both young, and may come back again; but forme—"
"Dear Aunt Letty, if we come back you shall come too."
"If I only thought that my bones could lie here near my brother's. But never mind; what signifies it where our bones lie?" And then they were silent for a while, till Aunt Letty spoke again. "I mean to be quite happy over in England; I believe I shall be happiest of you all if I can find any clergyman who is not half perverted to idolatry."
This took place some time before the ladies left Castle Richmond,—perhaps as much as three weeks; it was even before Herbert's departure, who started for London the day but one after the scene here recorded; he had gone to various places to take his last farewell; to see the Townsends at the parsonage; to call on Father Barney at Kanturk, and had even shaken hands with the Rev. Mr. Creagh, at Gortnaclough. But one farewell visit had been put off for the last. It was now arranged that he was to go over to Desmond Court and see Clara before he went. There had been some difficulty in this, for Lady Desmond had at first declared that she could not feel justified in asking him into her house; but the earl was now at home, and her ladyship had at last given her consent: he was to see the countess first, and was afterwards to see Clara—alone. He had declared that he would not go there unless he were to be allowed an interview with her in private. The countess, as I have said, at last consented, trusting that her previous eloquence might be efficacious in counteracting the ill effects of her daughter's imprudence. On the day after that interview he was to start for London; "never to return," as he said to Emmeline, "unless he came to seek his wife."
"But you will come to seek your wife," said Emmeline, stoutly; "I shall think you faint-hearted if you doubt it."
On the day before his departure for London, Herbert Fitzgerald once more got on his horse—the horse that was to be no longer his after that day—and rode off towards Desmond Court. He had already perceived how foolish he had been in walking thither through the mud and rain when last he went there, and how much he had lost by his sad appearance that day, and by his want of personal comfort. So he dressed himself with some care—dressing not for his love, but for the countess,—and taking his silver-mounted whip in his gloved hand, he got up on his well-groomed nag with more spirit than he had hitherto felt.
Nothing could be better than the manner in which, at this time, the servants about Castle Richmond conducted themselves. Most of them—indeed, all but three—had been told that they must go; and in so telling them, the truth had been explained. It had been "found," Aunt Letty said to one of the elder among them, that Mr. Herbert was not the heir to the property, and therefore the family was obliged to go away. Mrs. Jones of course accompanied her mistress. Richard had been told, both by Herbert and by Aunt Letty, that he had better remain and live on a small patch of land that should be provided for him. But in answer to this he stated his intention of removing himself to London. If the London air was fit for "my leddy and Miss Letty," it would be fit for him. "It's no good any more talking, Mr. Herbert," said Richard, "I main to go." So there was no more talking, and he did go.
But all the other servants took their month's warning with tears and blessings, and strove one beyond another how they might best serve the ladies of the family to the end. "I'd lose the little fingers off me to go with you, Miss Emmeline; so I would," said one poor girl,—all in vain. If they could not keep a retinue of servants in Ireland, it was clear enough that they could not keep them in London.
The groom who held the horse for Herbert to mount, touched his hat respectfully as his young master rode off slowly down the avenue, and then went back to the stables to meditate with awe on the changes which had happened in his time, and to bethink himself whether or no he could bring himself to serve in the stables of Owen the usurper.
Herbert did not take the direct road to Desmond Court, but went round as though he were going to Gortnaclough, and then turning away from the Gortnaclough road, made his way by a cross lane towards Clady and the mountains. He hardly knew himself whether he had any object in this beyond one which he did not express even to himself,—that, namely, of not being seen on the way leading to Desmond Court. But this he did do, thereby riding out of the district with which he was most thoroughly acquainted, and passing by cabins and patches of now deserted land which were strange to him. It was a poor, bleak, damp, undrained country, lying beyond the confines of his father's property, which in good days had never been pleasant to the eye, but which now in these days—days that were so decidedly bad, was anything but pleasant. It was one of those tracts of land which had been divided and subdivided among the cottiers till the fields had dwindled down to parts of acres, each surrounded by rude low banks, which of themselves seemed to occupy a quarter of the surface of the land. The original landmarks, the big earthen banks,—banks so large that a horse might walk on the top of them,—were still visible enough, showing to the practised eye what had once been the fields into which the land had been divided; but these had since been bisected and crossected, and intersected by family arrangements, in which brothers had been jealous of brothers, and fathers of their children, till each little lot contained but a rood or two of available surface.
This had been miserable enough to look at, even when those roods had been cropped with potatoes or oats; but now they were not cropped at all, nor was there preparation being made for cropping them. They had been let out under the con-acre system, at so much a rood, for the potato season, at rents amounting sometimes to ten or twelve pounds the acre; but nobody would take them now. There, in that electoral division, the whole proceeds of such land would hardly have paid the poor rates, and therefore the land was left uncultivated.
The winter was over, for it was now April, and had any tillage been intended, it would have been commenced—even in Ireland. It was the beginning of April, but the weather was still stormy and cold, and the east wind, which, as a rule, strikes Ireland with but a light hand, was blowing sharply. On a sudden a squall of rain came on,—one of those spring squalls which are so piercingly cold, but which are sure to pass by rapidly, if the wayfarer will have patience to wait for them. Herbert, remembering his former discomfiture, resolved that he would have such patience, and dismounting from his horse at a cabin on the road-side, entered it himself, and led his horse in after him. In England no one would think of taking his steed into a poor man's cottage, and would hardly put his beast into a cottager's shed without leave asked and granted; but people are more intimate with each other, and take greater liberties in Ireland. It is no uncommon thing on a wet hunting-day to see a cabin packed with horses, and the children moving about among them, almost as unconcernedly as though the animals were pigs. But then the Irish horses are so well mannered and good-natured.
The cabin was one abutting as it were on the road, not standing back upon the land, as is most customary; and it was built in an angle at a spot where the road made a turn, so that two sides of it stood close out in the wayside. It was small and wretched to look at, without any sort of outside shed, or even a scrap of potato-garden attached to it,—a miserable, low-roofed, damp, ragged tenement, as wretched as any that might be seen even in the county Cork.
But the nakedness of the exterior was as nothing to the nakedness of the interior. When Herbert entered, followed by his horse, his eye glanced round the dark place, and it seemed to be empty of everything. There was no fire on the hearth, though a fire on the hearth is the easiest of all luxuries for an Irishman to acquire, and the last which he is willing to lose. There was not an article of furniture in the whole place; neither chairs, nor table, nor bed, nor dresser; there was there neither dish, nor cup, nor plate, nor even the iron pot in which all the cookery of the Irish cottiers' menage is usually carried on. Beneath his feet was the damp earthen floor, and around him were damp, cracked walls, and over his head was the old lumpy thatch, through which the water was already dropping; but inside was to be seen none of those articles of daily use which are usually to be found in the houses even of the poorest.
But, nevertheless, the place was inhabited. Squatting in the middle of the cabin, seated on her legs crossed under her, with nothing between her and the wet earth, there crouched a woman with a child in her arms. At first, so dark was the place, Herbert hardly thought that the object before him was a human being. She did not move when he entered, or speak to him, or in any way show sign of surprise that he should have come there. There was room for him and his horse without pushing her from her place; and, as it seemed, he might have stayed there and taken his departure without any sign having been made by her.
But as his eyes became used to the light he saw her eyes gleaming brightly through the gloom. They were very large and bright as they turned round upon him while he moved—large and bright, but with a dull, unwholesome brightness,—a brightness that had in it none of the light of life.
And then he looked at her more closely. She had on her some rag of clothing which barely sufficed to cover her nakedness, and the baby which she held in her arms was covered in some sort; but he could see, as he came to stand close over her, that these garments were but loose rags which were hardly fastened round her body. Her rough short hair hung down upon her back, clotted with dirt, and the head and face of the child which she held was covered with dirt and sores. On no more wretched object, in its desolate solitude, did the eye of man ever fall.
In those days there was a form of face which came upon the sufferers when their state of misery was far advanced, and which was a sure sign that their last stage of misery was nearly run. The mouth would fall and seem to hang, the lips at the two ends of the mouth would be dragged down, and the lower parts of the cheeks would fall as though they had been dragged and pulled. There were no signs of acute agony when this phasis of countenance was to be seen, none of the horrid symptoms of gnawing hunger by which one generally supposes that famine is accompanied. The look is one of apathy, desolation, and death. When custom had made these signs easily legible, the poor doomed wretch was known with certainty. "It's no use in life meddling with him; he's gone," said a lady to me in the far west of the south of Ireland, while the poor boy, whose doom was thus spoken, stood by listening. Her delicacy did not equal her energy in doing good,—for she did much good; but in truth it was difficult to be delicate when the hands were so full. And then she pointed out to me the signs on the lad's face, and I found that her reading was correct.
The famine was not old enough at the time of which we are speaking for Herbert to have learned all this, or he would have known that there was no hope left in this world for the poor creature whom he saw before him. The skin of her cheek had fallen, and her mouth was dragged, and the mark of death was upon her; but the agony of want was past. She sat there listless, indifferent, hardly capable of suffering, even for her child, waiting her doom unconsciously.
As he had entered without eliciting a word from her, so might he have departed without any outward sign of notice; but this would have been impossible on his part. "I have come in out of the rain for shelter," said he, looking down on her.
"Out o' the rain, is it?" said she, still fixing on him her glassy bright eyes. "Yer honour's welcome thin." But she did not attempt to move, nor show any of those symptoms of reverence which are habitual to the Irish when those of a higher rank enter their cabins.
"You seem to be very poorly off here," said Herbert, looking round the bare walls of the cabin. "Have you no chair, and no bed to lie on?"
"'Deed no," said she.
"And no fire?" said he, for the damp and chill of the place struck through to his bones.
"'Deed no," she said again; but she made no wail as to her wants, and uttered no complaint as to her misery.
"And are you living here by yourself, without furniture or utensils of any kind?"
"It's jist as yer honour sees it," answered she.
For a while Herbert stood still, looking round him, for the woman was so motionless and uncommunicative that he hardly knew how to talk to her. That she was in the lowest depth of distress was evident enough, and it behoved him to administer to her immediate wants before he left her; but what could he do for one who seemed to be so indifferent to herself? He stood for a time looking round him till he could see through the gloom that there was a bundle of straw lying in the dark corner beyond the hearth, and that the straw was huddled up, as though there were something lying under it. Seeing this he left the bridle of his horse, and stepping across the cabin moved the straw with the handle of his whip. As he did so he turned his back from the wall in which the small window-hole had been pierced, so that a gleam of light fell upon the bundle at his feet, and he could see that the body of a child was lying there, stripped of every vestige of clothing.
For a minute or two he said nothing—hardly, indeed, knowing how to speak, and looking from the corpselike woman back to the lifelike corpse, and then from the corpse back to the woman, as though he expected that she would say something unasked. But she did not say a word, though she so turned her head that her eyes rested on him.
He then knelt down and put his hand upon the body, and found that it was not yet stone cold. The child apparently had been about four years old, while that still living in her arms might perhaps be half that age.
"Was she your own?" asked Herbert, speaking hardly above his breath.
"'Deed, yes!" said the woman. "She was my own, own little Kitty." But there was no tear in her eye or gurgling sob audible from her throat.
"And when did she die?" he asked.
"'Deed, thin, and I don't jist know—not exactly;" and sinking lower down upon her haunches, she put up to her forehead the hand with which she had supported herself on the floor—the hand which was not occupied with the baby, and pushing back with it the loose hairs from her face, tried to make an effort at thinking.
"She was alive in the night, wasn't she?" he said.
"I b'lieve thin she was, yer honour. 'Twas broad day, I'm thinking, when she guv' over moaning. She warn't that way when he went away."
"And who's he?"
"Jist Mike, thin."
"And is Mike your husband?" he asked. She was not very willing to talk; but it appeared at last that Mike was her husband, and that having become a cripple through rheumatism, he had not been able to work on the roads. In this condition he and his should of course have gone into a poor-house. It was easy enough to give such advice in such cases when one came across them, and such advice when given at that time was usually followed; but there were so many who had no advice, who could get no aid, who knew not which way to turn themselves! This wretched man had succeeded in finding some one who would give him his food—food enough to keep himself alive—for such work as he could do in spite of his rheumatism, and this work to the last he would not abandon. Even this was better to him than the poor-house. But then, as long as a man found work out of the poor-house, his wife and children would not be admitted into it. They would not be admitted if the fact of the working husband was known. The rule in itself was salutary, as without it a man could work, earning such wages as were adjudged to be needful for a family, and at the same time send his wife and children to be supported on the rates. But in some cases, such as this, it pressed very cruelly. Exceptions were of course made in such cases, if they were known: but then it was so hard to know them!
This man Mike, the husband of that woman, and the father of those children, alive and dead, had now gone to his work, leaving his home without one morsel of food within it, and the wife of his bosom and children of his love without the hope of getting any. And then looking closely round him, Herbert could see that a small basin or bowl lay on the floor near her, capable of holding perhaps a pint; and on lifting it he saw that there still clung to it a few grains of uncooked Indian corn-flour—the yellow meal, as it was called. Her husband, she said at last, had brought home with him in his cap a handful of this flour, stolen from the place where he was working—perhaps a quarter of a pound, then worth over a farthing, and she had mixed this with water in a basin; and this was the food which had sustained her, or rather had not sustained her, since yesterday morning—her and her two children, the one that was living and the one that was dead.
Such was her story, told by her in the fewest of words. And then he asked her as to her hopes for the future. But though she cared, as it seemed, but little for the past, for the future she cared less. "'Deed, thin, an' I don't jist know." She would say no more than that, and would not even raise her voice to ask for alms when he pitied her in her misery. But with her the agony of death was already over.
"And the child that you have in your arms," he said, "is it not cold?" And he stood close over her, and put out his hand and touched the baby's body. As he did so, she made some motion as though to arrange the clothing closer round the child's limbs, but Herbert could see that she was making an effort to hide her own nakedness. It was the only effort that she made while he stood there beside her.
"Is she not cold?" he said again, when he had turned his face away to relieve her from her embarrassment.
"Cowld," she muttered, with a vacant face and wondering tone of voice, as though she did not quite understand him. "I suppose she is could. Why wouldn't she be could? We're could enough, if that's all." But still she did not stir from the spot on which she sat; and the child, though it gave from time to time a low moan that was almost inaudible, lay still in her arms, with its big eyes staring into vacancy.
He felt that he was stricken with horror as he remained there in the cabin with the dying woman and the naked corpse of the poor dead child. But what was he to do? He could not go and leave them without succour. The woman had made no plaint of her suffering, and had asked for nothing; but he felt that it would be impossible to abandon her without offering her relief; nor was it possible that he should leave the body of the child in that horribly ghastly state. So he took from his pocket his silk handkerchief, and, returning to the corner of the cabin, spread it as a covering over the corpse. At first he did not like to touch the small naked dwindled remains of humanity from which life had fled; but gradually he overcame his disgust, and kneeling down, he straightened the limbs and closed the eyes, and folded the handkerchief round the slender body. The mother looked on him the while, shaking her head slowly, as though asking him with all the voice that was left to her, whether it were not piteous; but of words she still uttered none.
And then he took from his pocket a silver coin or two, and tendered them to her. These she did take, muttering some word of thanks, but they caused in her no emotion of joy. "She was there waiting," she said, "till Mike should return," and there she would still wait, even though she should die with the silver in her hand.