Part 23 (2/2)
* Herb-Men of Darby's cast were often in the habit of collecting rare medicinal plants for the apothecaries; and not bad botanists some of them were.
”Darby, achora,” said Mrs. Reillaghan, ”don't cra.s.s the gintleman, an'
him sthrivin' to do his best. Here, Paddy Gormly, bring some wather till the docthor washes his hands.”
”Darby,” replied the Doctor, to whom he was well known, ”you are a good herbalist, but even although you should not serve me as usual in that capacity, yet I cannot say exactly either life or death. The case is too critical a one; but I do not despair, Darby, if that will satisfy you.”
”More power to you, Docthor, achora. h.e.l.l-an-age, where's that bottle?
bring it here. Thank you, Vread. Docthor, here's wis.h.i.+n' you all happiness, an' may you set Mike on his legs wanst more! See, Docthor--see, man alive--look at this purty girl here, wid her wet cheeks; give her some hope, ahagur, if you can; keep the crathur's spirits up, an' I'll furnish you wid every yarrib in Europe, from the nettle to the rose.”
”Don't despair, my good girl,” said the Doctor, addressing Peggy. ”I hope, I trust, that he may recover; but he must be kept easy and quiet.”
”May the blessing of G.o.d, sir, light down on you for the same words,”
replied Peggy, in a voice tremulous, with grat.i.tude and joy.
”Are you done wid him, Docthor?” said old Reillaghan.
”At present,” replied the Doctor, ”I can do nothing more for him; but I shall see him early to-morrow morning.”
”Bekase, sir,” continued the worthy man, ”here's Darby More, who's afflicted with a comflamboration, or some sich thing, inwardly, an' if you should ase him, sir, I'd pay the damages, whatever they might be.”
The Doctor smiled slightly. ”Darby's complaint,” said he, ”is beyond my practice; there is but one cure for it, and that is, if I have any skill, a little of what's in the bottle here, taken, as our prescriptions sometimes say, 'when the patient is inclined for it.'”
”By my sou--sanct.i.ty, Docthor,” said Darby, ”you're a man of skill, any how, an' that's well known, sir. Nothin', as Father Hoolaghan says, but the sup of whiskey does this sarra of a configuration good. It rises the wind off o' my stomach, Docthor!”
”It does, Darby, it does. Now let all be peace and quietness,” continued the Doctor: ”take away a great part of this fire, and don't attempt to remove him to any other bed until I desire you. I shall call again tomorrow morning early.”
The Doctor's attention to his patient was unremitting; everything that human skill, joined to long experience and natural talent, could do to restore the young man to his family was done; and in the course of a few weeks the friends of Keillaghan had the satisfaction of seeing him completely out of danger.
Mike declared, after his recovery, that though incapable of motion on the mountains, he was not altogether insensible to what pa.s.sed around him. The loud tones of their conversation he could hear. The oath which young M'Kenna uttered in a voice so wild and exalted, fell clearly on his ear, and he endeavored to contradict it, in order that he might be secured and punished in the event of his death. He also said; that the pain he suffered in the act of being conveyed home, occasioned him to groan feebly; but that the sobs, and cries, and loud conversation of those who surrounded him, prevented his moans from being heard. It is probable, after all, that were it not for the accidental fall of Owen upon his body, he might not have survived the wound, inasmuch as the medical skill, which contributed to restore him, would not have been called in.
Though old Frank M'Kenna and his family felt an oppressive load of misery taken off their hearts by the prospect of Reillaghan's recovery, yet it was impossible for them to be insensible to the fate of their son, knowing as they did, that he must have been out among the mountains during the storm. His unhappy mother and Rody sat up the whole night, expecting his return, but morning arrived without bringing him home.
For six days afterwards the search for him was general and strict; his friends and neighbors traversed the mountain wastes until they left scarcely an acre of them unexplored. On the sixth day there came a thaw, and towards the close of the seventh he was found a ”stiffened corpse,”
_upon the very spot where he had shot his rival_, and on which he had challenged the Almighty to stretch him in death, without priest or prayer, if he were guilty of the crime with which he had been charged.
He was found lying with a, circle drawn round him, his head pillowed upon the innocent blood which he had shed with the intention of murder, and a b.l.o.o.d.y cross marked upon his breast and forehead. It was thought that in the dread of approaching death he had formed it with his hand, which came accidentally in contact with the blood that lay in clots about him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 886-- Upon the very spot where he had shot his rival]
The manner of his death excited a profound and wholesome feeling among the people, with respect to the crime which he attempted to commit. The circ.u.mstances attending it, and his oath upon the spot where he shot Reillaghan, are still spoken of by the fathers of the neighboring villages, and even by some who were present at the search for his body, it was also doubly remarkable on account of a case of spectral illusion which it produced, and which was ascribed to the effect of M'Kenna's supernatural appearance at the time. The daughter of a herdsman in the mountains was strongly affected by the spectacle of his dead body borne past her father's door. In about a fortnight afterwards she a.s.sured her family that he appeared to her. She saw the apparition, in the beginning, only at night; but ere long it ventured, as she imagined, to appear in day-light. Many imaginary conversations took place between them; and the fact of the peasantry flocking to the herd's house to satisfy themselves as to the truth of the rumor, is yet well remembered in the parish. It, was also affirmed, that as the funeral of M'Kenna pa.s.sed to the churchyard, a hare crossed it, which some one present struck on the side with a stone. The hare, says the tradition, was not injured, but the sound of the stroke resembled that produced on striking an empty barrel.
We have nearly wound up our story, in which we have feebly endeavored to ill.u.s.trate scenes that were, some time ago, not unusual in Irish life.
There is little more to be added, except that Mike Reillaghan almost miraculously recovered; that he and Peggy Gartland were happily married, and that Darby More lost his character as a dreamer in that parish, Mike, with whom, however, he still continued a favorite, used frequently to allude to the speaking crucifix, the dream aforesaid, and his bit of fiction, in a.s.suring his mother that he had dissuaded him against ”tracing” on that eventful day.
”Well, avourneen,” Darby would exclaim, ”the holiest of us has our failins; but, in throth, the truth of it is, that myself didn't know what I was sayin', I was so _through other_ (* agitated); for I renumber that I was badly afflicted with this thief of a configuration inwardly at the time. That, you see, and your own throubles, put my mind ashanghran for 'a start. But, upon my sanct.i.ty,--an' sure that's a great oath wid me--only for the Holy Carol you bought from me the night before, an' above all touchin' you wid the blessed Cruciwhix, you'd never a' got over the same accident. Oh, you may smile an' shake your head, but it's thruth whether or not! Glory be to G.o.d!”
The priest of the parish, on ascertaining correctly the incidents mentioned in this sketch, determined to deprive the people of at least one pretext for their follies. He represented the abuses connected with such a ceremony to the bishop; and from that night to the present time, the inhabitants of Kilnaheery never had, in their own parish, an opportunity of hearing a Midnight Ma.s.s.
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