Inone of the most desolate regions of Ireland, scarcely ever visited even by the most inquisitive traveller or the most eager sportsman, stood, nearly sixty years ago, a row of low and miserable hovels. They were formed of rough stones rudely piled together, and, at a little distance, looked more like the heaps of stones which in ancient times were thrown together to mark the spot upon which slept the dead, than houses intended to shelter human beings. Upon a closer examination, however, an observer might perceive, if the mould, moss, and mud did not succeed in concealing them from his searching glance, rude doors made of unplaned boards roughly nailed together, without either latch or bolt, with little holes irregularly bored throughthem to admit the blessed light of heaven, which cheers the poor as well as the rich, within these dark and miserable walls. Notwithstanding this proof, he might still continue to gaze on in doubt, asking his sinking heart if it could be indeed possible that these unformed masses of stone were really intended for homes for beings endowed with quick susceptibilities, and the godlike powers of human reason. But as he inspected the tottering roof, thatched with rushes and covered with turf, he might observe heavy clouds of thick gray smoke curling and eddying from a hole in the top; then his last doubt must cease, and, breathing a deep sigh for the wretchedness surrounding him, he is forced to confess that nowhere throughout the whole extent of civilized Europe are such comfortless dwellings for men and women to be found.
Only those who know something of the poverty and misery endured by the Irish people, even at the present date, when the ardent friends of humanity have succeeded in winning for this oppressed and injured racesome of the political rights hitherto denied them in consequence of their obstinate adherence to the faith of their ancestors, can form any conception of the state of utter destitution in which they formerly lived.
In one of the hovels which we have just described, and whose interior is if possible more repulsive than its exterior, two forms present themselves to our readers. The one is that of a young maiden scarcely sixteen, who kneels upon the earthen hearth, close beside a suspended kettle. The glimmering fire, which she now succeeds in stirring into a bright flame, shows us a slender form, a soft and clear blue eye, long, fair hair, and a pale, pale face, whose features are rendered strangely attractive by the deep melancholy imprinted upon their youthful lines. Her left arm, whose dazzlingly white skin glitters through the holes in the coarse, dark, worn-out garment, holds a child, who stretches one of its little meagre hands towards the cheerful blaze, while with the other it tries to cover its naked knees with its short, torn frock. It shudders as it finds all its efforts vain. Coweringand sinking upon the shoulder of the elder, it murmurs,—
"I am so cold, Molly!—oh! so, so cold, Molly! and so, so hungry!"
"Poor little Kitty!" answered the elder maiden, gently, "have patience only for a few minutes more; the potatoes in the pot are already beginning to boil, and on Sunday you shall have something more than potatoes, for father promised to bring a little piece of pork for you home with him."
"Molly, won't he bring some stuff with him too, to make a new frock for me, for this one is so short that it won't cover my legs? He promised me he would, and father has never told a single story to his poor little blind Kitty."
"We will see about that," answered the sister, soothingly; yet in every tone which breathed so softly from the quivering lips might be read the secret of the bitter suffering which she struggled to repress. "If our father really promised it to you, he will be sure to keep his word. But don't you remember, as he was going away, he called back to youthrough the open door, 'If I can possibly do it, my little Kitty!'"
The child raised her large, sad eyes towards the face of her sister, while the big tears rolled rapidly over her sunken cheeks; at last she stammered through her broken sobs,—
"Are we, then, so very poor, Molly?"
"Oh! very, very poor indeed, Kitty."
As if to convince herself of the truth of the words which she had just uttered, she suffered her eyes to wander through the miserable room in which she was seated. All they owned in this world stood in this chamber. One corner of it was separated from the rest by a partition of boards: the space thus inclosed was intended either for the pig or the goat of the family. She could scarcely see through the larger apartment for the thick and blinding clouds of smoke; but she knew where the coarse pine table stood, and the low wooden stool. She had herself spread a little moss and a few handfuls of reeds under the wretched beds, to keep them as much as possible from becoming damp and mouldy on the earthen floor. There was but little tocount. Apparently not much consoled by the consideration of their possessions, she turned away her melancholy eyes, and again assumed her first position. But the changing expression of her face, and the head, sometimes raised as if in eager expectation, and sometimes sinking as if in despair upon her bosom, gave sufficient evidence that she was in a state of restless anxiety. At last she said to her little sister, who, apparently exhausted by her fit of weeping, was now lying quietly in her arms,—
"Do you hear nothing, Kitty?"
After a short pause, the child answered,—
"No; I hear nothing. Nothing at all!"
"Nor I, Kitty; and yet father should have been back long ago. Often and often I thought I heard the sound of his footsteps; but I must have been mistaken, or he would now be here. It seems to be growing dark already. If you would only promise me not to stir from this spot, not to move any closer to the fire, I would go a few steps from the door, and look if I could see him coming. I feel so restless and anxious to-day. May the HolyVirgin guard us, and keep any new misfortune from falling upon us!"
"Go, sister," answered the little girl; "you need not feel uneasy about me, for indeed I will not stir from this spot, in which you have put me, until you come back. But, Molly, don't stay too long, don't leave me too long alone, because I am so much afraid when you are not with me, and when I cannot hear your voice. I think the angels that mother used to tell us so often about must be just like you, Molly,—so kind and so good."
Touched by these simple words, Molly bent down, pressed her lips upon the brow white as marble in its famished pallor, and said softly,—
"God has taken away from us the mother who loved us so dearly, and made an angel of her, because she was so kind and good. When you are good, Kitty, she is glad; and in the blessed place in which she now lives, she feels her happiness redoubled. So you must always be very good, my little sister. How could it be possible that you would do anything which would make your motherand sister feel sad? Don't be afraid if I leave you for a little while. Only think of your dear mother, that she is always near you, that she takes care of you with the truest love, although even from the very day upon which you were born she was so weak and suffered so constantly that she could scarcely be numbered among the living; and I have often spent whole nights upon my knees, with the hot tears running down my cheeks, praying the Merciful One to take the poor sufferer we loved to himself, that she might rest with Him above. At last, Kitty, He took her to heaven!"
Then Molly again stirred the fire, seated her little sister upon an old coverlid, the ends of which she tenderly wrapped round the emaciated, half-naked limbs, and left the hovel. The long autumn night was already falling upon the earth, and covered the landscape with its dull, gray veil; the cheerful sky was thickly overcast with dusky clouds, which, constantly changing their fantastic forms, seemed hunting each other through the vaulted gloom. A rough north-wind metpoor Molly as she emerged from the hovel, tore the heavy door out of her slight hand, and blew it with a loud crash against the wall. She shuddered with fright, but, almost immediately regaining her self-possession, she attentively examined the door, to ascertain if any of the boards had been broken in the sudden jar; and having soon convinced herself that nothing had been injured, with considerable effort she succeeded in rolling a heavy stone to the door, to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of a like accident. Then she stooped to look again at her little sister through one of the holes which served as windows to the hut. Kitty sat as motionless as she had promised to do, and Molly, apparently satisfied that she would continue to do so, hastened forward upon a narrow footpath, so little frequented that its slight traces were scarcely distinguishable in the increasing gloom. From time to time she stopped, sometimes to look around her, and listen anxiously for the desired footsteps, sometimes to get breath, for a strong and piercing north-wind blew directly in her face, and greatly increasedthe difficulty of her lonely search. After she had struggled on for a considerable distance, she thought she heard the longed-for sounds; and before she had ventured to give herself fully up to the hope that the so long expected one was indeed near, a tall form stood before her, whom with a loud cry of joy she immediately greeted as "Father!"
But there was no response given to her joyful welcome. In utter silence, the tall man grasped the slight girl round her slender waist. Almost carrying her forward, for her feet scarcely even touched the ground, he reached the entrance of his wretched dwelling. With a powerful kick, so that it rolled entirely over, he tossed away the heavy stone from the door, drew, or rather bore, his daughter into the inside of the now dimly lighted hut, rapidly flung the rope which was fastened to the door round a post which seemed planted in the floor for that purpose, and with a few strides stood directly in front of the fire. He then seized the coarse sack which he had carried upon his broad shoulders, and threw it upon the ground with such force that thechild who was lying near his feet, and who had probably been asleep, started up with a loud cry of fright.
"Don't be frightened, Kitty," said Molly, soothingly, as she threw a handful of shavings into the now sinking fire; "don't be afraid now, for our dear father is with us; the potatoes are cooked enough, and you shall no longer be so very, very hungry."
"Is my father indeed here?" said the little girl, at once forgetting both hunger and cold. "Where are you, father? Just speak one word, that your poor little blind Kitty may know where to find you. O, you have been away so long to-day! and yet Molly told me it was not far to the village to which you were going, and that you had not much to do there."
But no sound escaped the lips of the one so warmly welcomed. Motionless and with folded arms he still stood before the fire, darkly gazing into its cheerful glow. His eldest daughter then softly approached him; by the blaze of a lighted shaving which she held in her hand, she saw the expressive face of herfather, with its weather-beaten skin and labor-wrinkled brow, and with the deepest sorrow impressed upon every line of the manly and handsome countenance. The tears which were hanging upon his long eyelashes, the spasmodic quivering which wreathed its torture round his mouth, could not escape her searching glance, rendered keen through the power of love. Trembling before the recital of some new and dire misfortune, which she felt he was now about to make to her, she leaned her innocent head upon the breast of the beloved and true-hearted father, whose life had been so often and fatally darkened by misfortune. But almost roughly he pushed her away.
"Child!" he cried, with an expression of the deepest agony in his fine face, "why do you continue to love a wretch whom the whole world has forsaken? You, too, had better forsake him! Fly,—fly now,—instantly, or he will draw you into a far deeper misery,—a suffering for which there are no words, in comparison with which all you have already endured will seem to you a lot worthy of envy, a destiny full of blessings."
Molly fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, while her soft blue eyes gazed pleadingly into his face.
"You would drive me from you?" she asked, with trembling tones; "you yourself would rob me of my last hope, my only support? No, father; you cannot mean it so, you cannot be in earnest! There is no happiness which I would not willingly resign, unless it were to be shared with you! All the suffering and agony which God may choose to inflict upon us will I bear without a murmur, with a firm and unblenching spirit, so long as He tears me not from your side! Father, drive me not from you!"
Deeply touched, the man gazed upon his fair child.
"So said your mother, also," he murmured in a tone of voice scarcely audible, "when her stern father renounced her on my account. She joyfully offered up to me comfort and wealth; through all the bitter renunciations which our poverty forced upon us, her spirit remained unbroken; and even when her eye grew dim with the gathering mists of death,the last breath which escaped from her pale lips was still fraught with blessings, with consolation, with undying love for me!"
"My mother was, indeed, good and pious," answered Molly, "and her memory will always be dear to my heart. The heavenly cheerfulness with which she bore all her sorrows and sufferings will always remain in my remembrance, and encourage me to imitate it. But you are not less dear to me than she was. How could my mother find any sacrifice hard which was to be made for your sake? Her father must have been very wicked when he would have forced her to marry a man who was generally despised, only because he was rich, although she frankly confessed to him that she could never be happy with any one but you. When she told the man whom her father would have forced upon her that she could not love him, and when he in consequence ceased to urge his suit, then her father was so enraged at her candor that he renounced and cursed his only child. But you remained true; you clasped the disinherited girl with more love to your bosom than ifshe had brought you all the wealth of which her father had deprived her. To render her life less laborious, you have yourself suffered tortures. You have never rested night or day, you have shunned no fatigue, you have avoided no hardships; and when at last she fell sick, and grew weaker and weaker every day, and in spite of all your weary struggling you could not procure for her the little comforts which you thought necessary to lighten her sufferings, then you went secretly and sold your farm for a third of its value, because upon no less stringent terms would the heartless purchaser consent to pay you any ready money upon it, and permit you still to remain in possession of it until the dying wife should have closed her eyes in death. For the physician had already said she must soon die, and more significantly than even the prophecy of the skilful doctor did her always increasing weakness whisper it to our sinking hearts. You would not suffer the tranquillity of her rapidly passing hours to be broken, and thus she was never informed of the heavy sacrifice you had made to insureher comfort. Softly she slumbered her life away, for she was never tortured by any fears for the future of her loved ones."
"Why do you stop, Molly?" vividly asked the father, as the daughter suddenly ceased in her narration. "O, go on! go on! Confess at once that you have often thought whether your father had not been unwise thus to sacrifice his little farm, which was all he possessed; whether he had not been imprudent to give up his only hope of subsistence for himself and his children, to keep alive, only for a few days longer, the flickering flame of life in the heart of the wife, who, under all possible circumstances of alleviation, was doomed soon to die?"
"Is it possible that you can think so meanly of me?" said Molly, hastily, while the indignant blood rushed to her pale cheek, which glowed for a moment like the summer rose.
"If a thought so degrading has ever once flitted through my soul, may God and the Virgin forsake me in my hour of need!"
A loud cry from Kitty now interrupted them. Tired of the long conversation of which shecould understand so little, the child, who had not before ventured to leave the spot upon which her sister had seated her, had at last risen, and, in her attempt to approach the speakers, had fallen over the sack which her father had thrown on the floor on his entrance.
"Don't cry, darling," said the soft voice of Molly, as she lovingly caressed the little girl, who was trying to dry the ever-gushing tears with the corner of her apron. "You have not hurt yourself very much, have you, Kitty? It don't pain you now, does it, love? Don't cry any more, and I will tell you what is in the sack over which you fell. May be we shall find some calico in it to make a little frock for you, or some wool to knit stockings for you. I will make them long and thick for you, so that your poor feet will no longer be frozen." So saying, Molly opened the sack, but she quickly drew her hand out again.
"What is the matter?" asked her father. "Why do you look so frightened? That which is in the sack cannot possibly hurt you now. I would willingly have spared you thesight, Molly, but you must know it, and perhaps it is better you should hear it now than to-morrow, because you will then have time to make the necessary preparations."
As he spoke, he stooped down and lifted up the sack, which was dotted over with dark red spots resembling blood. For a moment he stood as if irresolute, as if his heart failed him; then, with a sudden effort, he raised from the sack the head of a pig, which looked as if it had just been cut off, and held it immediately over the flame, so that his daughter could clearly see it. Molly could not suppress a faint shriek.
"Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed, as she covered her face with both hands, from which every trace of color now vanished. "What will become of us! O, I never could have believed it possible that Wilkins would carry his dreadful threat into execution! I never thought that any man would be guilty of such a barbarous deed! He has torn the last hope from the heart of the poor! It is frightful,—horrible,—it must draw down the wrath of God upon him! O merciful God! what will become of us?"
"I can soon tell you that," replied her father, with assumed tranquillity. "They will be here early to-morrow to tear all our remaining property from us. As it will not, however, pay more than half the debt, they will then drive us all out of the cabin, and—and—that is all,—that is all, Molly! You can form no idea of what I have lived through to-day. The blood still boils in my veins as I think of it. I was on my way home from the village, where I had changed our few spare potatoes for some other things which we could not do without. I was only about three hundred steps from our own door, when I heard a gun fired close by me. I stopped, and looked round in every direction to see from whence the shot came, when I perceived Wilkins standing in the neighboring field, who in the same moment recognized me, and burst into a loud fit of laughter. 'You ragged rascal!' he cried to me, 'just come a little nearer and look about you, then tell me if I am a bad shot, for your brute lies stone dead upon my first fire.' With these words, he gave a kick to something which lay at his feet. I drewnearer to look at it; it was a pig,—our pig,—the pig which I had intended to sell this very week, so as to be able to pay the rent now due upon the hut;—our pig, to which we have so often given our own meals, and have so often been forced to do without food ourselves that we might fatten it for sale. I was struck dumb! I could force no words through my quivering lips. I felt as if some huge hand, which I could not remove, were grasping my throat, and slowly twisting my neck round. But my horror, my despair, was only pleasure to this inhuman wretch.
"With his fierce gray eyes sparkling with malice, he said, in a tone of wild triumph,—'Look now, fellow, didn't I tell before how it would be? It was only yesterday I said to your daughter, You had better tie your pig up tight, for if I ever find him in my field I will without any warning send a ball through his head. And now I have shot it. You had better look out and get the money to pay your back rent. Ha! ha! ha! But we will go shares in the carcass of the pig; for I must be paid for my shot, or else I willhave wasted my powder.' 'Halloo, fellows! come here, will you?' he cried to some of his people who were at work in the field; then, cutting off the head of the dead brute with his jackknife, he ordered them to carry the rest of it to his own house.
"Then life and motion at once returned to my paralyzed limbs. Before he was aware of my intention, I had seized him by the shoulders, lifted him from the ground, and shaken him violently. He literally foamed with rage, when he found he could not loose himself from the iron grasp of my powerful arms. At last I sat him down again, but not very softly, as you may suppose. No sooner had he felt the ground fairly under his feet, than he ran off as fast as possible; but when he thought himself at a sufficient distance from me to be safe, he turned round and screamed to me,—'Day before yesterday the new landlord arrived here; he is no such milksop as the old one was; he is determined to have his rent, and you may be sure that you must either pay it to-morrow or find another house before night.'
"The last cruel words of this barbarous man died away in the wind. I put the head of the pig, which he had designated as my half, into the sack, and then seated myself upon a stone to think how I could tell all this to you, how I could soften it for you, Molly. I thought it over and over until it grew dark, for I could not bear to bring such bad news home, when I remembered that you would be wondering what had become of me; and I had just set out again on my return when I heard you cry, 'Father!' God be thanked that you now know all! I breathe already more freely, for my breast felt as heavy, and my heart as much crushed, as if the weight of the world had pressed upon them!
"Now, children, let us eat our supper and go to bed; it is, in all probability, the last night we shall ever spend in this house. However that may be, He who clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens will not desert us. Even if men wearing the human form, yet without compassion for their fellows, should drive us from our only shelter, and force us to take up our abode with the beasts of the field, or thewild things of the forest, yet will He find for us a shelter in which we can lay down our weary heads in safety!"
Molly had listened in utter silence to the sad recital of her father. She now poured the potatoes out of the pot into a large, black earthen dish, sprinkled a little salt over them, placed them upon the table, pushed the two wooden stools close to it, and kindled a thin stick of pine, which she put into a hole in the wall, that it might throw its uncertain light over the last meal they were ever to eat together in their present home. Taking little Kitty upon her lap, she sometimes helped her father to a potato, sometimes gave one to the hungry child, but she tasted none herself. Large tears, like pearls, ran unceasingly down her pale cheeks; but no other trace of suffering betrayed the bitter emotions which struggled in her soul. The scanty meal was soon ended; after half an hour had passed, nothing was to be seen in the dark room, nothing heard save the measured breathing of a sleeping child, from time to time the gasping of a suppressed sob, or a deep, yet half-stifled sigh.