Part 11 (1/2)
The tattered creature approached him with a gleam of expectation in his eyes that appeared like insanity.
”G.o.d bless your honor for your goodness,” exclaimed Paddy. ”It's me that's in it, sir!--Paddy Dunn, sir, sure enough; but, indeed, I'm the next thing to my own ghost, sir, now G.o.d help me!”
”What, and for whom are you cooking?”
”Jist the smallest dhrop in life, sir, o' gruel, to keep the sowl in that lonely crathur, sir, the poor scholar.”
”Pray how long is it since you have eaten anything yourself?”
The tears burst from the eyes of the miserable creature as he replied--
”Before G.o.d in glory, your honor, an' in the presence of his Lords.h.i.+p here, I only got about what 'ud make betther nor half a male widin the last day, sir. 'Twas a weeshy grain o' male that I got from a friend; an' as Ned Connor here tauld me that this crathur had nothin' to make the gruel for him, why I shared it wid him, bekase he couldn't even beg it, sir, if he wanted it, an' him not able to walk yit.”
The worthy pastor's eyes glistened with a moisture that did him honor.
Without a word of observation, he slipped a crown into the hand of Dunn, who looked at it as if he had been paralyzed.
”Oh thin,” said he, fervently, ”may every hair on your honor's head become a mould-candle to light you into glory! The world's goodness is in your heart, sir; an' may all the blessin's of Heaven rain down upon you an' yours!”
The two gentlemen then gave a.s.sistance to the poor scholar, whom the Bishop addressed in kind and encouraging language:
”Come to me, my good boy,” he added, ”and if, on further inquiry, I find that your conduct has been such as I believe it to have been, you may rest a.s.sured, provided also you continue worthy of my good opinion, that I shall be a friend and protector to you. Call on me when you got well, and I will speak to you at greater length.”
”Well,” observed Connor, when they were gone, ”the divil's own hard puzzle the Bishop had me in, about stalin' the milk. It went agin' the grain wid me to tell him the lie, so I had to invint a bit o' truth to keep my conscience clear; for sure there was not a man among us that could tell him, barrin' we said that we oughtn't to say. Doesn't all the world know that a man oughtn't to condimn himself? That was thruth, any way; but divil a scruple I'd have in blammin' the other--not but that he's one o' the best of his sort. Paddy Dunn, quit lookin' at that crown, but get the shovel an' give the boy his dhrink--he's wantin' it.”
The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy's cheering interview with the Bishop was, for three days afterwards, somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence. In less than a week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O'Rorke's family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had expected.
When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to recommence his studies under his tyrant master. He certainly knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress. The severity to be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater than that which he had already suffered; he therefore decided, if possible, to complete his education under him.
The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more than an hour a.s.sembled, but the thinness of the attendance not only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue's vinegar aspect into an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy. When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:--
”Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude immediately. No school ever can prosper in which that _hirudo_, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than mine.”
”I only entrate you,” replied our poor hero, ”to suffer me to join the cla.s.s I left while I was sick, for about another year. I'll be very quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do everything you wish me.”
”Ah! you are a crawling reptile,” replied the savage, ”and, in my opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you have imposed yourself upon Mr. O'Brien for what you are not; that is, the son of an honest man. I have no doubt, but many of your nearest relations died after having seen their own funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't your father's wife, I'll be bail.”
The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes flashed, and his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indignation.
”It is false,” he exclaimed; ”it is as false as your own cruel and cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant! In everything you have said of my father, mother, and friends, and of myself, too, you are' a liar, from the hat on your head to the dirt undher your feet--a liar, a coward, and a villain!”
The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable:--he ran at the still feeble lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless to the earth.
There were now no large boys in the school to curb his resentment, he therefore kicked him in the back when he fell. Many voices exclaimed in alarm--”Oh, masther! sir; don't kill him! Oh, sir! dear, don't kill him!
Don't kill poor Jemmy, sir, an' him still sick!”
”Kill him!” replied the master; ”kill him, indeed! Faith, he'd be no common man who could kill him; he has as many lives in him as a cat!
Sure, he can live behind a ditch, wid the faver on his back, wid-out dying; and he would live if he was stuck on the spire of a steeple.”
In the meantime the boy gave no symptoms of returning life, and the master, after desiring a few of the scholars to bring him oat to the air, became pale as death with apprehension. He immediately withdrew to his private apartment, which joined the schoolroom, and sent out his wife to a.s.sist in restoring him to animation. With some difficulty this was accomplished. The unhappy boy at once remembered what had just occurred; and the bitter tears gushed from his eyes, as he knelt down, and exclaimed ”Merciful Father of heaven and earth, have pity on me! You see my heart, great G.o.d! and that what I did, I did for the best!”
”Avourneen,” said the woman, ”he's pa.s.sionate, an' never mind him. Come in an' beg his pardon for callin' him a liar, an' I'll become spokesman for you myself. Come, acushla, an' I'll get lave for you to stay in the school still.”