Part 20 (1/2)

”Heavens above us!” exclaimed his mother, ”what ails you?”

He only replied by das.h.i.+ng his hat upon the ground, and exclaiming, ”Up wid yez!--up wid yez!--quit your dinners! Oh, Rody! what'll be done?

Go down to Owen Reillaghan's--go 'way--go down--an' tell thim--Oh, vick-na-hoie! but this was the unfortunate day to us all? Mike reillaghan is shot with my gun; she went off in his hand goin' over a snow wreath, an' he's lyin' dead in the mountains?”

The screams and the wailing which immediately rose in the family were dreadful. Mrs. M'Kenna almost fainted; and the father, after many struggles to maintain his firmness, burst into the bitter tears of disconsolation and affliction. Rody was calmer, but turned his eyes from one to another with a look of deep compa.s.sion, and again eyed Frank keenly and suspiciously.

Frank's eye caught his, and the glance which had surveyed him with such a scrutiny did not escape his observation. ”Rody,” said he, ”do you go an' brake it to the, Reillaghans: you're the best to do it; for, when we were settin' out, you saw that he-carried the gun, an' not me.”

”Thrue for you,” said Rody; ”I saw that, Frank, and can swear to it; but that's all I did see. I know nothing of what happened in the mountains.”

”d.a.m.nho sheery orth! (* Eternal perdition on you!) What do you mane, you villain?” exclaimed Prank, seizing the tongs, and attempting to strike him: ”do you dar to suspect that I had any hand in it.”

”Wurrah dheelish, Frank,” screamed the sisters, ”are you goin' to murdher Rody?”

”Murdher,” he shouted, in a paroxysm of fury, ”Why the curse o' G.o.d upon you all, what puts murdher into your heads? Is it my own family that's the first to charge me wid it?”

”Why, there's no one chargin' you wid it,” replied Rody; ”not one, whatever makes you take it to yourself.”

”An' what did you look at me for, thin, the way you did? What did you look at me for, I say?”

”Is it any wondher,” replied the servant coolly, ”when you had sich a dreadful story to tell?”

”Go off,” replied Frank, now hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion--”go off! an' tell the Reillaghans what happened; but, by all the books that ever was opened or shut, if you breathe a word about murdher--about--if you do, you villain, I'll be the death o' you!”

When Rody was gone on this melancholy errand, old M'Kenna first put the tongs, and everything he feared might be used as a weapon by his frantic son, out of his reach; he then took down the book on which he had the night before sworn so rash and mysterious an oath, and desired his son to look upon it.

”Frank,” said he, solemnly, ”you swore on that blessed book last night, that Mike Reillaghan never would be the husband of Peggy Gartland--he's a corpse to-day! Yes,” he continued, ”the good, the honest, the industhrious boy is”--his sobs became so loud and thick that he appeared almost suffocated. ”Oh,” said he, ”may G.o.d pity us! As I hope to meet my blessed Savior, who was born on this day, I would rather you wor the corpse, an' not Mike Reillaghan!”

”I don't doubt that,” said the son, fiercely; ”you never showed me much grah, (* affection) sure enough.”

”Did you ever desarve it?” replied the father. ”Heaven above me knows it was too much kindness was showed you. When you ought to have been well corrected, you got your will an' your way, an' now see the upshot.”

”Well,” said the son, ”it's the last day ever I'll stay in the family; thrate me as bad as you plase. I'll take the king's bounty, an' list, if I live to see to-morrow.”

”Oh, thin, in the name o' Goodness, do so,” said the father; ”an' so far from previntin' you, we'll bless you when you're gone, for goin'.”

”Arrah, Frank, aroon,” said Mrs. M'Kenna, who was now recovered, ”maybe, afther all, it was only an accident: sure we often hard of sich things.

Don't you remimber Squire Elliott's son, that shot himself by accident, out fowlin'? Frank, can you clear yourself before us?”

”Ah, Alley! Alley!” exclaimed the father, wiping away his tears, ”don't you remimber his oath, last night?”

”What oath?” inquired the son, with an air of surprise--”What oath, last night? I know I was drunk last night, but I remimber nothing about an oath.”

”Do you deny it, you hardened boy?”

”I do deny it; an' I'm not a hardened boy. What do you all mane? do you want to dhrive me mad? I know nothin' about any oath last night;”

replied the son in a loud voice. The grief of the mother and daughters was loud during the pauses of the conversation. Micaul, the eldest son, sat beside his father in tears.

”Frank,” said he, ”many an advice I gave you between ourselves, and you know how you tuck them. When you'd stale the oats, an' the meal, and the phaties, an' hay, at night, to have money for your cards an' dhrinkin', I kept it back, an' said nothin' about it. I wish I hadn't done so, for it wasn't for your good: but it was my desire to have, as much pace and quietness as possible.”

”Frank,” said the father, eyeing him solemnly, ”it's possible that you do forget the oath you made last night, for you war in liquor: I would give the wide world that it was thrue. Can you now, in the presence of G.o.d, clear yourself of havin' act or part in the death of Mike Reillaghan?”

”What 'ud ail me,” said the son, ”if I liked?”