THE NEW LANDLORD.
THE NEW LANDLORD.
Morningnow dawned upon the earth, but no friendly smiles from the joyous sun announced the birth of the young day. The lonely hills in the distance were half veiled with thick gray mists, which, tossed and whirled by the fitful gusts of the dreary autumn wind, looked like the dim ghosts of the dead giants, driven on to judgment by the fell spirits of the gloomy air. As far as the eye could reach, no human form was visible. A flock of sheep were quietly browsing the scanty grass on the slope of a neighboring hill, while a few ravens fluttered and cawed above. Everything seemed dead, even in the little row of wretched hovels which we have described. At last the door of the most miserableamong them, with whose inmates we are already acquainted, opened, and Molly and her father stepped out in the bleak, raw morning air. At the same moment, they observed the forms of several men turning into the little footpath which led by these humble dwellings. From the enormous strides taken by them, they seemed to be hurrying forward with all their powers.
"Father, do you know those men who seem to be hastening towards us?" asked Molly.
"How can you doubt for an instant, my poor child? How fast they hurry on, as if they feared their human prey might escape them! Can you see them distinctly? Wilkins is with them. No doubt he is delighted that he is permitted to take any part in this inhuman act. Look! He has his two furious bloodhounds with him! It seems he has not forgotten the scene of yesterday, and has, therefore, deemed it best to bring his protectors with him. Yes, yes; the very worm will turn when it has been trodden upon."
The poor man sighed heavily and deeply, and then cast a pleading, almost a reproachful,glance towards the clouded heavens. He felt his hand suddenly seized, and a shower of hot, hot tears pour upon it; then he shook his head almost defiantly, as if ashamed of his momentary weakness. He pressed his daughter closely to his true heart.
"Courage, courage, my dear child!" he said to her. "To-day you will need it all! But the just Judge, the Merciful One, will surely aid us, although no way of safety seems at present open before us."
"O father!" answered Molly, sobbing, "what a terrible day! I never could live through it were you not near me. Look! Even the bright sun has wrapped himself in his thickest, darkest veils, that he may not be forced to gaze upon a scene so full of horror."
She closed her eyes as she rested her head upon his shoulder, but was soon frightened from her place of refuge by the furious howlings of the fierce hounds.
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Wilkins, who now stood within a few steps of the door, and gazed upon them with an expression of vindictive rage. "Are you contemplating thecharming country which surrounds you? Well, well, you will certainly have time enough to study nature in the open air, with no roof between you and the autumn stars. Therefore, perhaps you had better gaze upon the delights of your castle here, think what a charming place of residence it has always been for you, and that, if you really wish to enjoy the luxury of a shelter within its walls, you must pay immediately the rent which is due upon it; for you are in arrears seven months and ten days. Ha! ha! how is it? will you answer me? I must know instantly, O'Neil, whether you are ready to pay me the ready money, the sum due upon the rent, now, or not?"
O'Neil answered tranquilly, "You know I cannot pay it; and you know, too, why I cannot; for you yourself robbed me yesterday of the only means to do it which I possessed in the world."
Wilkins angrily interrupted him, saying, "What nonsensical stuff! What idle chattering! I know where I am, and what I am doing; and you shall soon know it too! Butif the keen wind should nip the nose of your dainty daughter, or freeze your own, then remember that it was warmer in this hut, and that it was no trifle to have handled an honorable sportsman like myself with your rough hands! Ha! ha! The morning air is somewhat bleak, but we shall have rain before night! Go ahead! go ahead, boys! go into the rascal's den, and bring out all you see there. Ha! ha! ha! No doubt you will find things of enormous value in it, for the lord tenant carries his head so high he must surely have thousands at his command!"
The men who were with him approached the door of the hovel, in order to execute his brutal commands; but Molly rushed on in advance of them to bring out her little sister, who, utterly unconscious of all the horrors that surrounded her, was still wrapped in peaceful slumber. As Molly lifted the scarcely wakened child tenderly in her protecting arms, she lightly murmured, "O that I, too, were blind! for even to sit in perpetual darkness must be a lighter affliction than to be forced to look upon such things as are nowoccurring, without possessing the least power to prevent them."
"Do you wish to become blind?" asked Kitty, who, almost as in a dream, had heard the sad words of her sister. "O, if you only knew how frightful it is to be blind, you would never, never say such a dreadful thing! O, what a constant happiness it must be to be able to see!" added the poor little blind girl, vividly, while her dead eyes seemed almost to kindle into life as she continued to speak. "Molly, my Molly, if I could only see you, and my dear father, and the blue sky, and all the glittering stars, which you have so often told me were so wonderfully beautiful, then I would willingly endure both hunger and cold, and I would never complain again, Molly!"
"Alas, my poor little blind one! hunger and cold you must soon endure, without being able to see the shining stars above, the faces of those you love, or the blue heaven-tent!" sighed Molly, as the rapid tears coursed down her cheeks. "O, my heart will surely break if I am to see my poor little Kitty pineand waste away before my eyes! There is no deeper anguish in this wretched world than to be forced to gaze upon the slow agonies of those whom we love and cannot aid. That is the real torture; that is far worse than death!"
In a few moments the men had succeeded in dragging out all the scanty furniture of the unhappy family. Wilkins measured it rapidly with his keen eyes, then turned them away with an expression of the utmost scorn. He muttered angrily between his teeth: "The whole property is good for nothing, except to split up and heat the stove. It would never be worth while to offer such wretched trash for sale, for the whole sum that could be raised upon it would not be enough to buy the most wretched goose that ever starved upon the bogs of Ireland."
Then suddenly and angrily turning to O'Neil, who stood, as if turned to stone, before the door of his hut, he said: "Now, O'Neil, what are you standing there for? You had better use the time before the arrival of the landlord, whom I already seein the distance. If you stay here until he comes, he will probably let you taste the delights of his hunting-whip, for he is very generous in the lavish use he is in the habit of making of it."
O'Neil shuddered as if stung by a rattlesnake; his hands were clenched as if in a convulsion; his eyes started almost out of his head, as if about to fall from their pained sockets.
"Pitiless! inhuman!" he cried, "what do you require from me? O, if indeed a human heart beats in your bosom, look upon these poor girls, and you cannot, I am sure you cannot, re-echo an order so cruel to their unhappy father! Take all that we possess, we will ask to retain nothing; but for the love of God, drive us not out naked, without a shelter, in the freezing autumn blasts! Give me only a respite for three months, and I will do everything. I will work day and night; I will never rest until I have gained enough to pay my rent!"
Wilkins looked upon him with a bitter smile, and answered with a harsh voice:"All this is useless. No delay can possibly be granted to you. And I advise you, as a friend, that you had better get out of the way before the new landlord comes."
But O'Neil did not seem to regard this warning.
"O God!" he cried, "where shall I find words to move this heart of stone?"
Then again turning himself towards his enemy, he plead yet more earnestly with him.
"Have mercy upon us, Wilkins, I conjure you by all that is holy or dear in your eyes; by the bones of the mother who loved you, and which are now mouldering under the sod; by the trembling head and silver hairs of your aged father; by the Eternal God who rules above the stars, and who suffers no cruelty to pass unpunished! You had a great deal of influence with the former landlord, and I have no doubt that a single word from you would induce the new one to grant me a short delay. Speak it, Wilkins!"
"Halloo! what's the matter there?" cried a rough, loud voice; and the speaker, mounted upon a powerful horse, rode towards them.
Wilkins bowed to the very ground. "It is the tenant," said he, "of whom I spoke to your worship yesterday; he won't leave the hut, and yet I have already promised it to another."
"He must go, and go immediately. There shall be no delay. Where is the rascal who dared to lay his insolent hands upon one of my agents."
O'Neil now pressed up to the side of the horse upon which the speaker was seated, and, throwing himself upon his knees, wringing his hands in his wild despair, passionately prayed, "Have pity! O, have mercy upon us! For the sake of the harmless, helpless children!"
"Is the rascal mad?" said the angry landlord; "tear him from under the feet of my horse, or I'll drive the iron hoofs into his brain. If he refuses to go away from the cabin willingly, let the bloodhounds loose upon him, and I'll warrant you they'll soon put an end to his Irish howls."
Yet again would O'Neil, for the sake of his helpless children, have tried to touch the heart of the barbarous landlord. Again heraised his pleading eyes to the hard face; but its fierce expression told him all hope was vain, and a frightful, shrill cry, almost like a death-shriek, forced its way from his agonized breast. As if suddenly overcome by utter despair, he sprang up with a wild movement from the earth upon which he had thrown himself, took little Kitty in the one arm, while he threw the other round the half-fainting Molly, lifted her entirely from the ground, and, as if hunted and pursued by relentless furies, rushed rapidly away. But scarcely had he lost sight of his wretched hovel, when he fell, completely exhausted, to the ground.
The poor occupants of the neighboring cabins, who had been silent, yet indignant, witnesses of the horrible scene which we have just attempted to portray, now approached with various little offerings for the banished and homeless family. One brought a cake of oatmeal, shaped like our pancakes, but as thin as a sheet of paper, and as hard as a stone; another offered a little bag of potatoes, some salt, and a small piece of pork; an old woman presented Molly with a yard or two of coarselinen, and a pair of knit stockings; and a young girl wrapped up the half-naked Kitty in a large piece of heavy cloth spun from wool. Each gave what he had to spare, not only food, but some of the most indispensable utensils for cooking; indeed, many gave more than they could well spare, and the good people would certainly have taken the unhappy, homeless family into their own hovels, if they had not stood in awe of the rage of the landlord, and feared the revenge of his heartless agent. So true is it that compassion dwells rather in the hut of the poor than in the palace of the rich.
Silent from excess of feeling, and with many grateful and heartfelt pressures of the hand, O'Neil parted from his kind neighbors. Unsteadily and doubtingly he gazed into the distance. As he threw a despairing glance above, the dark clouds parted; and the bright sun looked cheerful and glad as the heavy folds of his cloud-veil were lifted, and joyously he sent his mild rays upon the moist earth.
"This way, this way, dear father. O, let us take this path: it leads to the hills!" saidMolly, pointing to a hill down whose side trickled, singing, a little stream. The drops of water sparkled like bright tears as the rays of the sun shone upon them, and the rippling of the brook, as it kissed the pebbles, was soft and tender as the distant echo of a cradle-song, chanted by some fond mother to prolong the sleep of her slumbering child. Silently O'Neil turned into the path which Molly had begged him to take, holding the poor blind child in his arms, who, through her unconscious and innocent questions, constantly added to the tortures of his sick heart. His whole soul was now filled with but one thought, one wish,—the desire to find before nightfall some cleft in the rock, some cavern, which might serve as a temporary shelter for the beings he loved. If he should be able to succeed in gaining any place of refuge, and what means it would be best to take, in order to find some spot in which he could leave his children, while he labored to keep them from dying of hunger, were the questions which filled his soul, and tasked all the powers of his mind to answer. He struggled with all his strength to suppress every otherthought, to banish every emotion of anger or hatred from his heart, in order to be able to give every faculty of his being to the solving of these pressing questions. Yet, with all his thinking, with all his struggling, with all his suffering, he could find no egress from the dark labyrinth of cares in which he was involved, in which he perpetually wandered; for although a thousand plans passed through his whirling brain, he was always obliged again to relinquish them, because of some obstacle which rendered their execution impossible.
If this man, the lineal descendant of the first possessors of green Erin, now driven about without home, without shelter, to preserve his own miserable life, or to still the painful cries of a frightful death from famine, which was already fastening its accursed fangs in the heart of his children, had been driven in his agony to scorn the laws made by his oppressors, and, like the wild beast, had sprung from his inaccessible cleft in the rock, his last refuge from the cruelty of man, and had carried his booty home to sustain life in his dying children,—to whom should the crime be justly attributed?