Part 12 (1/2)
”That's what's the matter! Now go 'way wid your blarney, and don't be talking to me. It's Mike O'Shane that has a soft spot in his heart, but he can't do no more for ye. That's the truth, and ye must move to-day.”
The landlord went into the house again, for more of the furniture. As he had represented, it was, doubtless, a hard case for him; but it was infinitely harder for the poor woman, and f.a.n.n.y was too deeply interested now to leave the spot. What she had known of human misery was as nothing compared with the suffering of this poor mother.
”What's the matter, ma'am?” asked f.a.n.n.y of her, when the harsh landlord had gone into the house.
”This man is my landlord, and he is turning me out of the house because I cannot pay him the rent,” sobbed the woman. ”I wouldn't care, if it wasn't for poor Jenny.”
”Who is Jenny?”
”She is my daughter. She has been sick, very sick, for nearly a year, and she cannot live much longer. The doctor gave her up six months ago.”
”How old is Jenny?”
”She is fourteen; and she is such a patient child! She never complains of anything, though I am not able to do much for her,” replied the afflicted mother, as her tears broke forth afresh at the thought of the sufferer.
”Haven't you any place to go if this man turns you out of the house?”
asked f.a.n.n.y.
”No, no!” groaned the woman, bursting out into a terrible paroxysm of grief.
”I know it's hard for you, Mrs. Kent, but it's harder for me to do it than it is for you to have it done,” continued Mr. O'Shane, as he came out of the house with a rocking chair in his hands.
”O mercy! that is poor Jenny's chair!” almost screamed Mrs. Kent. ”What have you done with her?”
The mother, in her agony, rushed into the house to ascertain if any harm had come to her suffering daughter, who had been deprived of the easy chair in which she was accustomed to sit. f.a.n.n.y was moved to the depths of her nature--moved as she had never been moved before. She couldn't have believed that such scenes were real. She had read of them in romances, and even in the newspapers; but she had never realized that a man could be so hard as Mr. O'Shane, or that a woman could suffer so much as Mrs. Kent. Between her grief and indignation she was almost overwhelmed.
”You are a cruel man,” said she, with something like fierceness in her tones.
”That's very foine for the likes of you to say to the likes of me; but it don't pay me rint,” replied Mr. O'Shane, not as angry as might have been expected at this interference.
”You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a mean thing!” added f.a.n.n.y, her black eyes snapping with the living fire of her indignation.
”Shall I let me own childer starve for another man's childer?” answered the landlord, who, we must do him the justice to say, was ashamed of himself.
”How much does the woman owe you?” demanded f.a.n.n.y.
”A matther of a hundred dollars--for a whole year's rint. Sure, miss, it isn't many min that would wait a twelvemonth for the rint, and not get it thin.”
”And her daughter is sick?”
”Troth she is; there's no lie in that; she's got the consoomption, and she's not long for this world,” replied the landlord, moving towards the door of the house, again to complete the work of desolation he had begun.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRUEL LANDLORD. Page 103.]
”Stop, sir!” said f.a.n.n.y, in tones so imperative that the man could not help obeying her.
”What would I stop for?” asked Mr. O'Shane, rather vacantly.