"A d----d ni-nice point to decide, when they're on-on duty," replied Phil.
"If he escapes me--" said Val in a soliloquy;--"but no matter," he added, speaking aloud; "I'm a fool for putting such a question to you.
Go to bed, and sleep yourself sober."
Phil staggered out of the room in a very musical mood, slamming' the door after him with a force that made the house shake. He had not gone a hundred yards from the hall door when Raymond appeared in the distance, beckoning him forward; a signal for which he was looking out with that kind of drunken eagerness which is incapable of forethought, or any calculation whatsoever that might aid in checking the gross and onward impulses of blind and savage appetite. Phil's instinctive cowardice, however, did not abandon him. In the course of the day he primed and loaded his pistols, in order to be prepared against any of those contingencies which the fears of pusillanimous men never fail to create.
On meeting with Raymond, who had been waiting for him outside, at a place previously agreed on between them, he pulled, out the fire-arms, and showed them to the fool, with a swaggering air, which, despite his intoxication, sorely belied what he felt. They then proceeded together by the mountain path, the moon occasionally showing herself by glimpses--for the night, although cloudy, was not dark, but on the contrary, when the clouds passed away, she almost might be said to flash out with singular brilliancy.
We now leave them on their way to the place of appointment, as it had been arranged by Raymond, and beg our readers to accompany us to the church-yard in the mountains, where all that were dear and so devotedly beloved by poor Mary O'Regan slept. This unhappy woman, though closely watched by her friends and neighbors, always contrived, with the ingenuity peculiar to maniacs and insane persons, to escape from time to time from under their surveillance, and make her way to the spot, which, despite the aberrations of reason and intellect, maintained all its sacred and most tender influences over her pure and noble heart. For some time past, moved probably by some unconscious impression of the pastoral attention and kindness of the amiable Father Roche, she had made his house her home; and indeed nothing could exceed the assiduity and care with which she was there watched and tended. Everything that could be done for her was done; but all sympathy and humanity on their part came too late. Week after week her strength wasted away, in a manner that was painfully perceptible to those who felt an interest in her. Her son Ned was still in the country, but had no fixed residence, and merely remained for the purpose of seeing her freed from all her miseries, and laid in her last unbroken sleep beside those whom she had loved so well. On the evening in question, she appeared to be so feeble and exhausted, that the good priest's family did not for a moment imagine that any particular vigilance was necessary. Between six and seven o'clock, then, she had performed the last of those pilgrimages of the heart which time after time had been made by her to the solitary church-yard in the mountains--containing, as it did, the only humble shrine from which her bruised and broken spirit could draw that ideal happiness, of which God in His mercy had not bereft her.
On arriving at the old ruin, she felt so completely enfeebled, that a little rest was absolutely necessary previous to her reaching the graves she came to visit, although they were only a few yards distant from the spot which afforded the poor creature the requisite shelter while recruiting her exhausted powers. At length she arose, and having tottered over to the graves, she sat down, and clasping her hands about her knees, she rocked her body to and fro, as Irish women do when under the influence of strong grief. She then chaunted a verse or two of an old song, whose melancholy notes were not out of keeping with either the scene or the hour; nor an unsuitable burthen for the wild night breeze which wailed through the adjoining ruins in tones that might almost be supposed to proceed from the spirit of death itself, as it kept its lonely watch over those who lay beneath.
"I wonder," said she, "that they do not speak to me before this, for they know I'm here. Ah," she proceeded, "there's his voice!--my white-haired Brian's voice! what is it, 'darling? I'm listenin'!
"'Come, mother, come,' he says, 'we are waitin'!'
"Is it for me, _a lanna dhas oge_?
"'Yes,' he says, 'for you, mother dear, for you!'
"Well, Brian darlin', I'll come.
"'Yes, come,' he says, 'for we are wait-in'!'
"And," she proceeded, "who is this again? ah, sure I needn't ax; Torley, my heart, I'm here!
"'Come, mother dear,' he says, 'for we are waitin'!'
"Is it for me, my manly son?
"'Yes,' he says, 'for you, mother--mother dear, for you?'
"Well, Torley darlin', I'll come.
"'Yes, come,' he says, 'for we are waitin'?'
"Ah," she proceeded, "here is my own Hugh, my brave husband, that I fought for, what does he say? Whisht!
"'Come, Mary dear--come, the distracted, the lovin,' but the heart-broken--come to us, my fair-haired Mary, for we are waitin'; our hearts love you even 'in heaven, and long for you to be with us.'
"Husband of my heart, I will come; and here sure I feel as you all do in heaven--for there is one thing that nothing can kill, and will never die, that is the light that's in a lovin' wife's heart--the light that shines in a mother's love--Hugh, _asthore machree_, I'll come, for sure I'm jist ready.
"You are not sick now, Brian," she proceeded; "it isn't the cowld pratee, and the black sickenin' bog water you have there!
"'No, mother dear,' he said, 'but we want you; oh, don't stay away from us, for our hearts long for you.'
"I will come, avillish--sure I'm jist ready. Torley," she proceeded, sustaining a dialogue that proceeded, as it were, out of the accumulated affection of a heart whose tenderness shed its light where that of reason failed,--"Torley, my manly son, your young cheek is not pale now, nor your eye dim--you don't fear the hard-hearted. Agent, nor his bloodhounds, nor the cowld and bitther storm that beat upon your poor head, an' you dyin'--you don't fear them now, my brave boy--you neither feel nor fear any of these things now, Torley, my son!
"'No mother,' he says 'all we want now is to have you wid us. Our hearts long for you, and why do you stay away from us?--Oh! come mother dear, for we're waitin'!'
"Torley, my manly son, I'll come, for I'm jist ready.
"Hugh, husband of my heart, you're not now lyin' sick upon the damp cowld straw, as you war in the cabin on the mountains--your head has no pain now, avick machree--nor is your heart low and sorrowful wid your own illness and our want.--The voices of the Dashers, or Blood-hounds, aren't now in your ears, nor need you be afraid that they will disturb your bed of death--an' distract your poor sowl wid their blasphemin', when you ought to think of God's mercy.--Oh! no, avillish, sure you feel none of that now, Hugh dear?
"'Oh, no,' he says, 'nothing of that do we feel now--nothing of that do we fear. But, come, Mary, oh, come, come to us--and we think the time long till we see you again.'"
These affecting dialogues, or rather "dreams of a broken heart," were literally nothing else than the mere echoes of her own afliction; for it was obvious that the love she felt for her husband and children, unconscious as she then was of it, gave form to the sentiments which her excited imagination had clothed in language that was so highly figurative. For some time she was silent, or muttered to herself such fragments of unconnected language as rose to her fancy--and ultimately laid down her head upon the little grassy mound which constituted their graves. Here she had not lain long, when, overcome by the fatigue of the journey, she closed her eyes, and despite the chilliness of a biting night, sank into an unbroken slumber.
Sleep on, poor sufferer--and let those whose crimes have placed thy distracted head upon that cold and unnatural pillow, reflect that they have a judge to meet, who will, in another life, not overlook the deeds done in this. Who is there who would, even in this thy most pitiable destitution, exchange thy innocent, but suffering spirit, for M'Clutchy's heart, or the dark crimes which it festers.
At length she awoke, but whether it was that the keen and piercing air had cooled the pulsation of her beating brain, or that the restoration to reason, which is called, when applied to the insane--a lightening before death--had taken place, it is impossible to say with anything like certainty. At all events, on awakening, the first sensations she experienced were those of surprise and wonder, and immediately did she feel her mind filled with a train of shocking and fearful reminiscences.
Her physical sufferings were also great. She felt benumbed and chilled; her heart was cold, and a shivering sickness ran through her whole frame, with a deadly presage of approaching dissolution. She looked up to the sky, then round her at the graves, and in a moment recognized the burying-place of her husband and children. All the circumstances then connected with the Extermination scene at Drum Dim, and that of the treble death in the mountains, rushed upon her recollection with a force at once vivid and powerful.
"Father of heaven,"* she exclaimed, "I have been driven out of my raison by too much sorrow, and here I am restored to it on the very graves where those that I love!"
* The reader is to remember, that she is supposed to give utterance to all her feelings and sentiments in the Irish language.
She then endeavored to rise, but found on making the attempt, that she had not strength for it. The consciousness of this filled her heart with woe almost unutterable.
"Merciful father," she again exclaimed, "do not--oh, do not suffer me to die on this wild mountain side, far from the face or voice of a human being! There is nothing too powerful for your hand, or beyond your strength or your mercy, to them that put their humble trust in you. Save me, oh, God, from this frightful and lonely death, and do not let me perish here without the consolations of religion! But if it's thy blessed and holy will to let me do so, then it is my duty to submit!
Give me strength, then, to bow to thy will, and to receive with faith and thanksgivin' whatever you choose to bestow upon me! And above all things O Lord, grant me a repentant heart, and that my bleak and lonely death-bad may have the light of glory upon it! Grant me this, O God, and I will die happy even here; for where your blessed presence is there can be nothing wantin'."
Her piety and faith in the mercy of God were not without their own reward. The last words were scarcely uttered, when Father Roche, accompanied by her son Ned, advanced to the grave on which she sat. He had been absent on a sick call, and would not have been aware of her escape to the mountains, were it not for her son, who, having met him on his return, requested permission to see her, only for a few minutes, if not too late. The priest granted him so reasonable a request, and it was on seeking for her that the discovery of her absence took place, the rest of the family having been of opinion that she had gone to bed in the early part of the evening, as was mostly her habit. The priest suspected, from her weak state of health and shattered constitution, that such a journey would probably prove fatal, and with his usual discrimination he calculated upon the restoration to reason which actually occurred.
"In that case," said he, "the administration of the last rites will console her on her bed of death, and God forbid that she should depart without them. It is my duty that she shall not."
"Poor woman!" said he, as they approached her, "this chilly night will be a severe trial upon her."
"What wouldn't I give, my dear mother,--oh, what wouldn't I give," said Ned, tenderly taking her hand, "to see your senses restored to you!"
"Thank the Almighty, then!" she returned feebly--"what!--my darling son Ned! and Father Roche! Oh, was I not right in sayin' that there is nothing too powerful for God's strength and love?" she exclaimed; she then kissed her son, who burst into tears, and tenderly embraced her.
"See how unexpectedly He can surround even this cowld death-bed with his mercy."
"Don't say a death-bed", my dear mother, for now that the blight of raison has left you, I hope you'll get new strength."
"I will," she replied, with a feeble but Mournful smile, "I will Ned; but it'll be in heaven with them I love, and that love me. My dear Ned, all my cares are now over--my affections past--I will soon be out of sorrow and out of pain: this heart will suffer no more, and this head will no longer be distracted! Oh, the hopes of heaven, but they're sweet and consolin' on the bed of death!"
"Cherish them, dear Mary," said Father Roche; "for I believe you will soon--very soon indeed--realize them. Her pulse," he added, "is scarcely perceptible, and you hear how very feeble her voice is."
"What are we to do, then?" asked her son; "do you think, my dear mother, that you could bear removal?"
"No--ah, no,"--she replied, "No--I feel that I am going fast--my feet and limbs are like marble, and the cowld is gettin' into my heart."
"Ah, my darling mother," said the son, in tears, "but that was the warm and the lovin' heart!"
Father Roche then having put on his stole, went to her side, and, as is usual in all cases of approaching death, where a priest is in attendance, administered to her the last rites of religion. Here in the mountain solitude did he cheer her departing spirit, as he had that of her husband, with the sustaining hopes of a glorious immortality.
"Now," said she, "I know that I die happy; for here where I couldn't expect it, has the light of God's mercy shone upon me. He has brought my son to my side--He has brought the consolations of religion to my heart, when I was lyin' helpless and alone in this mountain desert. Yes," she said, "I forgive all those who ill-treated both me and mine--and the worst I wish them is, to pray that God may forgive them, and turn their hearts. And now, Hugh, I am ready--Tor-ey, my manly son, and my own Brian, with the fair locks, we'll soon be all united again--and never to part any more--never to part anymore! Ned," said she, "kiss me; you are all I now lave behind me out of my fine family; but God's will be done! I need not bid you," she added, "to bury me here, for I know you will--and I wish you would put little Brian's coffin on mine, in order that my darling child may sleep where I'd have him sleep, until the Resurrection Day--that is, upon this lovin' mother's breast. But what is this?" she asked; "is there a light--a bright light--about me? I feel happy--happy. Oh sure this is the love of God that is to recompense me for all!"