Owen reflected deeply on these things as he ascended the mountain-road. The orphan child he carried in his arms pressed such thoughts upon him, and he wondered why rich men denied themselves the pleasures of benevolence. He did not know that many great men enjoyed the happiness, but that it was made conformable to their high estate by institutions and establishments; by boards, and committees, and guardians; by all the pomp and circumstance of stuccoed buildings and liveried attendants. That to save themselves the burden of memory, their good deeds were chronicled in lists of “founders” and “life-subscribers,” and their names set forth in newspapers; while, to protect their finer natures from the rude assaults of actual misery, they deputed others to be the stewards of their bounty.
Owen did not know all this, or he had doubtless been less unjust regarding such persons. He never so much as heard of the pains that are taken to ward off the very sight of poverty, and all the appliances employed to exclude suffering from the gaze of the wealthy. All his little experience told him was, how much of good might be done within the sphere around him by one possessed of affluence. There was not a cabin around, where he could not point to some object claiming aid or assistance. Even in seasons of comparative comfort and abundance, what a deal of misery still existed; and what a blessing it would bring on him who sought it out, to compassionate and relieve it! So Owen thought, and so he felt too; not the less strongly that another heart then beat against his own, the little pulses sending a gush of wild delight through his bosom as he revelled in the ecstacy of benevolence. The child awoke, and looked wildly about him; but when he recognised in whose arms he was, he smiled happily, and cried, “Nony, Nony,” the name by which Owen was known among all the children of the village and its neighbourhood.
“Yes, Patsy,” said Owen, kissing him, “your own Nony! you’re coming home with him to see what a nice house he has upon the mountain for you, and the purty lake near it, and the fish swimming in it.”
The little fellow clapped his hands with glee, and seemed delighted at all he heard.
“Poor darlin’,” muttered Owen, sorrowfully; “he doesn’t know ‘tis the sad day for him;” and as he spoke, the wind from the valley bore on it the mournful cadence of a death-cry, as a funeral moved along the road. “His father’s berrin’!” added he. “God help us! how fast misfortune does be overtaking us at the time our heart’s happiest! It will be many a day before he knows all this morning cost him.”
The little child meanwhile caught the sounds, and starting up in Owen’s arms, he strained his eyes to watch the funeral procession as it slowly passed on. Owen held him up for a few seconds to see it, and wiped the large tears that started to his own eyes. “Maybe Martin and poor Ellen’s looking down on us now!” and with that he laid the little boy back in his arms and plodded forward.
It was but seldom that Owen Connor ascended that steep way without halting to look down on the wide valley, and the lake, and the distant mountains beyond it. The scene was one of which he never wearied; indeed, its familiarity had charms for him greater and higher than mere picturesque beauty can bestow. Each humble cabin with its little family was known to him; he was well read in the story of their lives; he had mingled in all their hopes and fears from childhood to old age; and, as the lights trembled through the dark night, and spangled the broad expanse, he could bring before his mind’s eye the humble hearths round which they sat, and think he almost heard their voices. Now, he heeded not these things, but steadily bent his steps towards home.
At last, the twinkle of a star-like light shewed that he was near his journey’s end. It shone from the deep shadow of a little glen, in which his cabin stood. The seclusion of the spot was in Owen’s eyes its greatest charm. Like all men who have lived much alone, he set no common store by the pleasures of solitude, and fancied that most if not all of his happiness was derived from this source. At this moment his gratitude was more than usual, as he muttered to himself, “Thank God for it! we’ve a snug little place away from the sickness, and no house near us at all;” and with this comforting reflection he drew near the cabin. The door, contrary to custom at nightfall, lay open; and Owen, painfully alive to any suspicious sign, from the state of anxiety his mind had suffered, entered hastily.
“Father! where are you?” said he quickly, not seeing the old man in his accustomed place beside the fire; but there was no answer. Laying the child down, Owen passed into the little chamber which served as the old man’s bedroom, and where now he lay stretched upon the bed in his clothes. “Are ye sick, father? What ails ye, father dear?” asked the young man, as he took his hand in his own.
“I’m glad ye’ve come at last, Owen,” replied his father feebly. “I’ve got the sickness, and am going fast.”
“No – no, father! don’t be down-hearted!” cried Owen, with a desperate effort to suggest the courage he did not feel; for the touch of the cold wet hand had already told him the sad secret. “‘Tis a turn ye have.”
“Well, maybe so,” said he, with a sigh; “but there’s a cowld feeling about my heart I never knew afore. Get me a warm drink, anyway.”
While Owen prepared some cordial from the little store he usually dispensed among the people, his father told him, that a boy from a sick house had called at the cabin that morning to seek for Owen, and from him, in all likelihood, he must have caught the malady. “I remember,” said the old man, “that he was quite dark in the skin, and was weak in his limbs as he walked.”
“Ayeh!” muttered Owen, “av it was the ‘disease’ he had, sorra bit of this mountain he’d ever get up. The strongest men can’t lift a cup of wather to their lips, when it’s on them; but there’s a great scarcity in the glen, and maybe the boy eat nothing before he set out.”
Although Owen’s explanation was the correct one, it did not satisfy the old man’s mind, who, besides feeling convinced of his having the malady, could not credit his taking it by other means than contagion. Owen never quitted his side, and multiplied cares and attentions of every kind; but it was plain the disease was gaining ground, for ere midnight the old man’s strength was greatly gone, and his voice sunk to a mere whisper. Yet the malady was characterised by none of the symptoms of the prevailing epidemic, save slight cramps, of which from time to time he complained. His case seemed one of utter exhaustion. His mind was clear and calm; and although unable to speak, except in short and broken sentences, no trait of wandering intellect appeared. His malady was a common one among those whose fears, greatly excited by the disease, usually induced symptoms of prostration and debility, as great, if not as rapid, as those of actual cholera. Meanwhile his thoughts were alternately turning from his own condition to that of the people in the glen, for whom he felt the deepest compassion. “God help them!” was his constant expression. “Sickness is the sore thing; but starvation makes it dreadful. And so Luke Clancy’s dead! Poor ould Luke! he was seventy-one in Michaelmas. And Martin, too! he was a fine man.”
The old man slept, or seemed to sleep, for some hours, and on waking it was clear daylight. “Owen, dear! I wish,” said he, “I could see the Priest; but you mustn’t lave me: I couldn’t bear that now.”
Poor Owen’s thoughts were that moment occupied on the same subject, and he was torturing himself to think of any means of obtaining Father John’s assistance, without being obliged to go for him himself.
“I’ll go, and be back here in an hour – ay, or less,” said he, eagerly; for terrible as death was to him, the thought of seeing his father die unanointed, was still more so.
“In an hour – where’ll I be in an hour, Owen dear? the blessed Virgin knows well, it wasn’t my fault – I’d have the Priest av I could – and sure, Owen, you’ll not begrudge me masses, when I’m gone. What’s that? It’s like a child crying out there.”
“‘T’is poor Martin’s little boy I took home with me – he’s lost father and mother this day;” and so saying, Owen hastened to see what ailed the child. “Yer sarvent, sir,” said Owen, as he perceived a stout-built, coarse-looking man, with a bull-terrier at his heels, standing in the middle of the floor; “Yer sarvent, sir. Who do ye want here?”
“Are you Owen Connor?” said the man, gruffly.
“That same,” replied Owen, as sturdily.
“Then this is notice for you to come up to Mr. Lucas’s office in Galway before the twenty-fifth, with your rent, or the receipt for it, which ever you like best.”
“And who is Mr. Lucas when he’s at home?” said Owen, half-sneeringly.
“You’ll know him when you see him,” rejoined the other, turning to leave the cabin, as he threw a printed paper on the dresser; and then, as if thinking he had not been formal enough in his mission, added, “Mr. Lucas is agent to your landlord, Mr. Leslie; and I’ll give you a bit of advice, keep a civil tongue in your head with him, and it will do you no harm.”
This counsel, delivered much more in a tone of menace than of friendly advice, concluded the interview, for having spoken, the fellow left the cabin, and began to descend the mountain.
Owen’s heart swelled fiercely – a flood of conflicting emotions were warring within it; and as he turned to throw the paper into the fire, his eye caught the date, 16th March. “St. Patrick’s Eve, the very day I saved his life,” said he, bitterly. “Sure I knew well enough how it would be when the landlord died! Well, well, if my poor ould father doesn’t know it, it’s no matter. – Well, Patsy, acushla, what are ye crying for? There, my boy, don’t be afeard, ‘tis Nony’s with ye.”
The accents so kindly uttered quieted the little fellow in a moment, and in a few minutes after he was again asleep in the old straw chair beside the fire. Brief as Owen’s absence had been, the old man seemed much worse as he entered the room. “God forgive me, Owen darling,” said he, “but it wasn’t my poor sowl I was thinking of that minit. I was thinking that you must get a letter wrote to the young landlord about this little place – I’m sure he’ll never say a word about rent, no more nor his father; and as the times wasn’t good lately – ”
“There, there, father,” interrupted Owen, who felt shocked at the old man’s not turning his thoughts in another direction; “never mind those things,” said he; “who knows which of us will be left? the sickness doesn’t spare the young, no more than the ould.”
“Nor the rich, no more nor the poor,” chimed in the old man, with a kind of bitter satisfaction, as he thought on the landlord’s death; for of such incongruous motives is man made up, that calamities come lighter when they involve the fall of those in station above our own. “‘Tis a fine day, seemingly,” said he, suddenly changing the current of his thoughts; “and elegant weather for the country; we’ll have to turn in the sheep over that wheat; it will be too rank: ayeh,” cried he, with a deep sigh, “I’ll not be here to see it;” and for once, the emotions, no dread of futurity could awaken, were realised by worldly considerations, and the old man wept like a child.
“What time of the month is it?” asked he, after a long interval in which neither spoke; for Owen was not really sorry that even thus painfully the old man’s thoughts should be turned towards eternity.
“‘Tis the seventeenth, father, a holy-day all over Ireland!”
“Is there many at the ‘station?’ – look out at the door and see.”
Owen ascended a little rising ground in front of the cabin, from which the whole valley was visible; but except a group that followed a funeral upon the road, he could see no human thing around. The green where the “stations” were celebrated was totally deserted. There were neither tents nor people; the panic of the plague had driven all ideas of revelry from the minds of the most reckless; and, even to observe the duties of religion, men feared to assemble in numbers. So long as the misfortune was at a distance, they could mingle their prayers in common, and entreat for mercy; but when death knocked at every door, the terror became almost despair.
“Is the ‘stations’ going on?” asked the old man eagerly, as Owen re-entered the room. “Is the people at the holy well?”
“I don’t see many stirring at all, to-day,” was the cautious answer; for Owen scrupled to inflict any avoidable pain upon his mind.
“Lift me up, then!” cried he suddenly, and with a voice stronger, from a violent effort of his will. “Lift me up to the window, till I see the blessed cross; and maybe I’d get a prayer among them. Come, be quick, Owen!”
Owen hastened to comply with his request; but already the old man’s eyes were glazed and filmy. The effort had but hastened the moment of his doom; and, with a low faint sigh, he lay back, and died.
To the Irish peasantry, who, more than any other people of Europe, are accustomed to bestow care and attention on the funerals of their friends and relatives, the Cholera, in its necessity for speedy interment, was increased in terrors tenfold. The honours which they were wont to lavish on the dead – the ceremonial of the wake – the mingled merriment and sorrow – the profusion with which they spent the hoarded gains of hard-working labour – and lastly, the long train to the churchyard, evidencing the respect entertained for the departed, should all be foregone; for had not prudence forbid their assembling in numbers, and thus incurring the chances of contagion, which, whether real or not, they firmly believed in, the work of death was too widely disseminated to make such gatherings possible. Each had some one to lament within the limits of his own family, and private sorrow left little room for public sympathy. No longer then was the road filled by people on horseback and foot, as the funeral procession moved forth. The death-wail sounded no more. To chant the requiem of the departed, a few – a very few – immediate friends followed the body to the grave, in silence unbroken. Sad hearts, indeed, they brought, and broken spirits; for in this season of pestilence few dared to hope.
By noon, Owen was seen descending the mountain to the village, to make the last preparations for the old man’s funeral. He carried little Patsy in his arms; for he could not leave the poor child alone, and in the house of death. The claims of infancy would seem never stronger than in the heart sorrowing over death. The grief that carries the sufferer in his mind’s eye over the limits of this world, is arrested by the tender ties which bind him to life in the young. There is besides a hopefulness in early life – it is, perhaps, its chief characteristic – that combats sorrow, better than all the caresses of friendship, and all the consolations of age. Owen felt this now – he never knew it before. But yesterday, and his father’s death had left him without one in the world on whom to fix a hope; and already, from his misery, there arose that one gleam, that now twinkled like a star in the sky of midnight. The little child he had taken for his own was a world to him; and as he went, he prayed fervently that poor Patsy might be spared to him through this terrible pestilence.
When Owen reached the carpenter’s, there were several people there; some, standing moodily brooding over recent bereavements; others, spoke in low whispers, as if fearful of disturbing the silence; but all were sorrow-struck and sad.
“How is the ould man, Owen?” said one of a group, as he came forward.
“He’s better off than us, I trust in God!” said Owen, with a quivering lip. “He went to rest this morning.”
A muttered prayer from all around shewed how general was the feeling of kindness entertained towards the Connors.
“When did he take it, Owen?”
“I don’t know that he tuk it at all; but when I came home last night he was lying on the bed, weak and powerless, and he slept away, with scarce a pain, till daybreak; then – ”
“He’s in glory now, I pray God!” muttered an old man with a white beard. “We were born in the same year, and I knew him since I was a child, like that in your arms; and a good man he was.”
“Whose is the child, Owen?” said another in the crowd.
“Martin Neale’s,” whispered Owen; for he feared that the little fellow might catch the words. “What’s the matter with Miles? he looks very low this morning.”
This question referred to a large powerful-looking man, who, with a smith’s apron twisted round his waist, sat without speaking in a corner of the shop.
“I’m afeard he’s in a bad way,” whispered the man to whom he spoke. “There was a process-server, or a bailiff, or something of the kind, serving notices through the townland yesterday, and he lost a shoe off his baste, and would have Miles out, to put it on, tho’ we all tould him that he buried his daughter – a fine grown girl – that mornin’. And what does the fellow do, but goes and knocks at the forge till Miles comes out. You know Miles Regan, so I needn’t say there wasn’t many words passed between them. In less nor two minutes – whatever the bailiff said – Miles tuck him by the throat, and pulled him down from the horse, and dragged him along to the lake, and flung him in. ‘Twas the Lord’s marcy he knew how to swim; but we don’t know what’ll be done to Miles yet, for he was the new agent’s man.”
“Was he a big fellow, with a bull-dog following him?” asked Owen.
“No; that’s another; sure there’s three or four of them goin’ about. We hear, that bad as ould French was, the new one is worse.”
“Well – well, it’s the will of God!” said Owen, in that tone of voice which bespoke a willingness for all endurance, so long as the consolation remained, that the ill was not unrecorded above; while he felt that all the evils of poverty were little in comparison with the loss of those nearest and dearest. “Come, Patsy, my boy!” said he at last, as he placed the coffin in the ass-cart, and turned towards the mountain; and, leading the little fellow by the hand, he set out on his way – “Come home.”
It was not until he arrived at that part of the road from which the cabin was visible, that Owen knew the whole extent of his bereavement; then, when he looked up and saw the door hasped on the outside, and the chimney from which no smoke ascended, the full measure of his lone condition came at once before him, and he bent over the coffin and wept bitterly. All the old man’s affection for him, his kind indulgence and forbearance, his happy nature, his simple-heartedness, gushed forth from his memory, and he wondered why he had not loved his father, in life, a thousand times more, so deeply was he now penetrated by his loss. If this theme did not assuage his sorrows, it at least so moulded his heart as to bear them in a better spirit; and when, having placed the body in the coffin, he knelt down beside it to pray, it was in a calmer and more submissive frame of mind than he had yet known.
It was late in the afternoon ere Owen was once more on the road down the mountain; for it was necessary – or at least believed so – that the internment should take place on the day of death.
“I never thought it would be this way you’d go to your last home, father dear,” said Owen aloud and in a voice almost stifled with sobs; for the absence of all his friends and relatives at such a moment, now smote on the poor fellow’s heart, as he walked beside the little cart on which the coffin was laid. It was indeed a sight to move a sterner nature than his: the coffin, not reverently carried by bearers, and followed by its long train of mourners, but laid slant-wise in the cart, the spade and shovel to dig the grave beside it, and Patsy seated on the back of the ass, watching with infant glee the motion of the animal, as with careful foot he descended the rugged mountain. Poor child! how your guileless laughter shook that strong man’s heart with agony!
It was a long and weary way to the old churchyard. The narrow road, too, was deeply rutted and worn by wheel-tracks; for, alas, it had been trodden by many, of late. The grey daylight was fast fading as Owen pushed wide the old gate and entered. What a change to his eyes did the aspect of the place present! The green mounds of earth which marked the resting-place of village patriarchs, were gone; and heaps of fresh-turned clay were seen on every side, no longer decorated, as of old, with little emblems of affectionate sorrow; no tree, nor stone, not even a wild flower, spoke of the regrets of those who remained. The graves were rudely fashioned, as if in haste – for so it was – few dared to linger there!
Seeking out a lone spot near the ruins, Owen began to dig the grave, while the little child, in mute astonishment at all he saw, looked on.
“Why wouldn’t you stay out in the road, Patsy, and play there, till I come to you? This is a cowld damp place for you, my boy.”
“Nony! Nony!” cried the child, looking at him with an affectionate smile, as though to say he’d rather be near him.
“Well, well, who knows but you’re right? if it’s the will of God to take me, maybe you might as well go too. It’s a sore thing to be alone in the world, like me now!” And as he muttered the last few words he ceased digging, and rested his head on the cross of the spade.
“Was that you, Patsy? I heard a voice somewhere.”
The child shook his head in token of dissent.
“Ayeh! it was only the wind through the ould walls; but sure it might be nat’ral enough for sighs and sobs to be here: there’s many a one has floated over this damp clay.”
He resumed his work once more. The night was falling fast as Owen stepped from the deep grave, and knelt down to say a prayer ere he committed the body to the earth.
“Kneel down, darlin’, here by my side,” said he, placing his arm round the little fellow’s waist; “‘tis the likes of you God loves best;” and joining the tiny hands with his own, he uttered a deep and fervent prayer for the soul of the departed. “There, father!” said he, as he arose at last, and in a voice as if addressing a living person at his side; “there, father: the Lord, he knows my heart inside me; and if walking the world barefoot would give ye peace or ease, I’d do it, for you were a kind man and a good father to me.” He kissed the coffin as he spoke, and stood silently gazing on it.
Arousing himself with a kind of struggle, he untied the cords, and lifted the coffin from the cart. For some seconds he busied himself in arranging the ropes beneath it, and then ceased suddenly, on remembering that he could not lower it into the grave unassisted.
“I’ll have to go down the road for some one,” muttered he to himself; but as he said this, he perceived at some distance off in the churchyard the figure of a man, as if kneeling over a grave. “The Lord help him, he has his grief too!” ejaculated Owen, as he moved towards him. On coming nearer he perceived that the grave was newly made, and from its size evidently that of a child.
“I ax your pardon,” said Owen, in a timid voice, after waiting for several minutes in the vain expectation that the man would look up; “I ax your pardon for disturbing you, but maybe you’ll be kind enough to help me to lay this coffin in the ground. I have nobody with me but a child.”
The man started and looked round. Their eyes met; it was Phil Joyce and Owen who now confronted each other. But how unlike were both to what they were at their last parting! Then, vindictive passion, outraged pride, and vengeance, swelled every feature and tingled in every fibre of their frames. Now, each stood pale, care-worn, and dispirited, wearied out by sorrow, and almost brokenhearted. Owen was the first to speak.
“I axed your pardon before I saw you, Phil Joyce, and I ax it again now, for disturbing you; but I didn’t know you, and I wanted to put my poor father’s body in the grave.”
“I didn’t know he was dead,” said Phil, in a hollow voice, like one speaking to himself. “This is poor little Billy here,” and he pointed to the mound at his feet.
“The heavens be his bed this night!” said Owen, piously; “Good night!” and he turned to go away; then stopping suddenly, he added, “Maybe, after all, you’ll not refuse me, and the Lord might be more merciful to us both, than if we were to part like enemies.”
“Owen Connor, I ask your forgiveness,” said Phil, stretching forth his hand, while his voice trembled like a sick child’s. “I didn’t think the day would come I’d ever do it; but my heart is humble enough now, and maybe ‘twill be lower soon. Will you take my hand?”
“Will I, Phil? will I, is it? ay, and however ye may change to me after this night, I’ll never forget this.” And he grasped the cold fingers in both hands, and pressed them ardently, and the two men fell into each other’s arms and wept.
Is it a proud or a humiliating confession for humanity – assuredly it is a true one – that the finest and best traits of our nature are elicited in our troubles, and not in our joys? that we come out purer through trials than prosperity? Does the chastisement of Heaven teach us better than the blessings lavished upon us? or are these gifts the compensation sent us for our afflictions, that when poorest before man we should be richest before God? Few hearts there are which sorrow makes not wiser – none which are not better for it. So it was here. These men, in the continuance of good fortune, had been enemies for life; mutual hatred had grown up between them, so that each yearned for vengeance on the other; and now they walked like brothers, only seeking forgiveness of each other, and asking pardon for the past.
The old man was laid in his grave, and they turned to leave the churchyard.
“Won’t ye come home with me, Owen?” said Phil, as they came to where their roads separated; “won’t ye come and eat your supper with us?”
Owen’s throat filled up: he could only mutter, “Not to-night, Phil – another time, plaze God.” He had not ventured even to ask for Mary, nor did he know whether Phil Joyce in his reconciliation might wish a renewal of any intimacy with his sister. Such was the reason of Owen’s refusal; for, however strange it may seem to some, there is a delicacy of the heart as well as of good breeding, and one advantage it possesses – it is of all lands, and the fashion never changes.
Poor Owen would have shed his best blood to be able to ask after Mary – to learn how she was, and how she bore up under the disasters of the time; but he never mentioned her name: and as for Phil Joyce, his gloomy thoughts had left no room for others, and he parted from Owen without a single allusion to her. “Good night, Owen,” said he, “and don’t forget your promise to come and see us soon.”
“Good night, Phil,” was the answer; “and I pray a blessing on you and yours.” A slight quivering of the voice at the last word was all he suffered to escape him; and they parted.