Part 21 (2/2)
”Murdher!” rejoined Frank: ”no! I confess no murdher: you villain, do you want to make me guilty;--do you want to make me guilty, you deep villain?”
It seemed as if the current of his thoughts and feelings had taken a new direction, though it is probable that the excitement which appeared to be rising within him was only the courage of fear.
”You all wish to find me guilty,” he added: ”but I'll show you that I'm not guilty.”
He immediately walked towards the corpse, and stooping down, touched the body with one hand, holding the gun in the other. The interest of that moment was intense, and all eyes were strained towards the spot.
Behind the corpse, at each shoulder--for the body lay against a small snow-wreath, in a rec.u.mbent position--stood the father of the deceased and the father of the accused, each wound up by feelings of a directly opposite character to a pitch of dreadful excitement over them, in his fantastic dress and white beard, stood the tall mendicant, who held up his crucifix to Frank, with an awful menace upon his strongly marked countenance. At a little distance to the left of the body stood other men who were a.s.sembled, having their torches held aloft in their hands, and their forms bent towards the corpse, their laces indicating expectation, dread, and horror The female relations of the deceased nearest his remains, their torches extended in the same direction, their visages exhibiting the pa.s.sions of despair and grief in their wildest characters, but as if arrested by some supernatural object immediately before their eyes, that produced a new and more awful feeling than grief. When the body was touched, Frank stood as if himself bound by a spell to the spot. At length he turned his eyes to the mendicant, who stood silent and motionless, with the crucifix still extended in his hand.
”Are you satisfied now?” said he.
”That's wanst,” said the pilgrim: ”you're to touch it three times.”
Frank hesitated a moment, but immediately stooped again, and touched it twice in succession; but it remained still and unchanged as before! His father broke the silence by a fervent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of thanksgiving to G.o.d for the vindication of his son's character which he had just witnessed.
”Now!” exclaimed M'Kenna, in a loud, exulting tone, ”you all see that I did not murdher him!”
”You did!” said a voice, which was immediately recognized to be that of the deceased.
M'Kenna shrieked aloud, and immediately fled with his gun towards the mountains, pursued by Reillaghan's other son. The crowd rushed in towards the body, whilst sorrow, affright, exultation, and wonder, marked the extraordinary scene which ensued.
”Queen o' Heaven!” exclaimed old M'Kenna, ”who could believe this only they hard it?”
”The murdher wouldn't lie?” shrieked out Mrs. Reillaghan--”the murdher wouldn't lie!--the blood o' my darlin' son spoke it!--his blood spoke it; or G.o.d, or his angel, spoke it for him!”
”It's beyant anything ever known!” some exclaimed, ”to come back an'
tell the deed upon his murdherer! G.o.d presarve us, an' save us, this night! I wish we wor at home out o' this wild place!”
Others said they had heard of such things; but this having happened before their own eyes, surpa.s.sed anything that could be conceived.
The mendicant now advanced, and once more mysteriously held up his crucifix.
”Keep silence!” said he, in a solemn, sonorous voice: ”Keep silence, I say, an' kneel I down all o' yez before what I've in my hand. If you want to know who or what the voice came from, I can tell yez:--it was the crucifix THAT SPOKE!!”
This communication was received with a feeling of devotion too deep for words. His injunction was instantly complied with: they knelt, and bent down in wors.h.i.+p before it in the mountain wilds.
”Ay,” said he, ”little ye know the virtues of that crucifix! It was consecrated by a friar so holy that it was well known there was but the shadow of him upon the earth, the other part of him bein' night an' day in heaven among the archangels. It shows the power of this Cra.s.s, any way; an you may tell your frinds, that I'll sell bades touched wid it to the faithful at sixpence apiece. They can be put an your padareens as Dicades, wid a blessin'. Oxis Doxis Glorioxis--Amin! Let us now bear the corpse home, antil it's dressed and laid out dacently as it ought to be.”
The body was then placed upon an easy litter, formed of great-coats b.u.t.toned together, and supported by the strongest men present, who held it one or two at each corner. In this manner they advanced at a slow pace, until they reached Owen Reillaghan's house, where they found several of the country-people a.s.sembled, waiting for their return.
It was not until the body had been placed in an inner room, where none were admitted until it should be laid out, that the members of the family first noticed the prolonged absence of Reillaghan's other son.
The moment it had been alluded to, they were seized with new alarm and consternation.
”_Hanim an diouol!_” said Reillaghan, bitterly, in Irish, ”but I doubt the red-handed villain has cut short the lives of my two brave sons!
I only hope he may stop in the country: I'm not widout friends an'
followers that 'ud think it no sin in a just cause to pay him in his own coin, an' to take from him an' his a pound o' blood for every ounce of ours they shed.”
A number of his friends instantly volunteered to retrace their way to the mountains, and search for the other son. ”There's little danger of his life,” said a relation; ”it's a short time Frank 'ud stand him particularly as the gun wasn't charged. We'll go, at any rate, for 'fraid he might lose himself in the mountains, or walk into some o' the lochs on his way home. We had as good bring some whiskey wid us, for he may want it badly.”
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