"There is; Jerry Sullivan, it's his daughter that's the beauty--_Gra Gal_ Sullivan. Little she knows what's preparin' for her!"

"How am I to go to Skinadre's from this?" asked the woman.

"Up by that road there; any one will tell you as you go along."

"Thank you, dear," replied the woman, tenderly; "G.o.d bless you; you are a wild girl, sure enough; but above all things, afore I go, don't forget the box for--for--och, for--Charley Hanlon. G.o.d bless you, a _colleen machree_, an' make you what you ought to be!"

Sarah, during many a long day, had not heard herself addressed in an accent of kindness or affection; for it would be wrong to bestow upon the rude attachment which her father entertained for her, or his surly mode of expressing it, any term that could indicate tenderness, even in a remote degree. She looked, therefore, at the woman earnestly, and as she did, her whole manner changed to one of melancholy and kindness. A soft and benign expression came like the dawn of breaking day over her features, her voice fell into natural melody and sweetness, and, approaching her companion, she took her hand and exclaimed--

"May G.o.d bless you for them words! it's many a day since I heard the voice o' kindness. I'll get the box, if it's to be had, if it was only for your own sake."

She then pa.s.sed on to her neighbor's house, and the next appearance of her companion was that in which the reader caught, a glimpse of her in the house of Darby Skinadre, from which she followed Nelly M'Gowan and Mave Sullivan with an appearance of such interest.

CHAPTER IX. -- Meeting of Strangers--Mysterious Dialogue.

_Gra Gal_ Sullivan and the prophet's wife, having left the meal-shop, proceeded in the direction of Aughamurran, evidently in close, and if one could judge by their gestures, deeply important conversation. The strange woman followed them at a distance, meditating, as might be perceived by her hesitating manner, upon the most seasonable moment of addressing either one or both, without seeming to interrupt or disturb their dialogue. Although the actual purport of the topic they discussed could not be known by a spectator, yet even to an ordinary observer, it was clear that the elder female uttered something that was calculated to warn or alarm the younger.

She raised her extended forefinger, looked earnestly into the face of her companion, then upwards solemnly, and, clasping her hands with vehemence, appeared to close her a.s.sertion by appealing to heaven in behalf of its truth; the younger looked at her with wonder, seemed amazed, paused suddenly on her step, raised her hands, and looked as if about to express terror; but, checking herself, appeared as it were perplexed by uncertainty and doubt. After this the elder woman seemed to confide some secret or sorrow to the other, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands as if with remorse, whilst her companion looked like one who had been evidently transformed into an impersonation of pure and artless sympathy. She caught the rough hand of the other--and, ere she had proceeded very far in her narrative, a few tears of compa.s.sion stole down her youthful cheek--after which she began to administer consolation in a manner that was at once simple and touching. She pressed the hand of the afflicted woman between hers, then wiped her eyes with her own handkerchief, and soothed her with a natural softness of manner that breathed at once of true tenderness and delicacy.

As soon as this affecting scene had been concluded, the strange woman imperceptibly mended her pace, until her proximity occasioned them to look at her with that feeling which prompts us to recognize the wish of a person to address us, as it is often expressed, by an appearance of mingled anxiety and diffidence, when they approach us. At length Mave Sullivan spoke--

"Who is that strange woman that is followin' us, an' wants to say something, if one can judge by her looks?"

"Well, I don't know," replied Nelly; "but whatsomever it may be, she wishes to speak to you or me, no doubt of it."

"She looks like a poor woman,'"* said Mave, "an' yet she didn't ask anything in Skinadre's, barring a drink of water; but, G.o.d pity her if she's comin' to us for relief poor creature! At any rate, she appears to have care and distress in her face; I'll spake to her."

* A common and compa.s.sionate name for a person forced to ask alms.

She then beckoned the female to approach them, who did so; but they could perceive as she advanced, that they had been mistaken in supposing her to be one of those unhappy beings whom the prevailing famine had driven to mendicancy. There was visible in her face a feeling of care and anxiety certainly, but none of that supplicating expression which is at once recognized as the characteristic of the wretched cla.s.s to which they supposed her to belong. This circ.u.mstance particularly embarra.s.sed the inexperienced girl, whose gentle heart at the moment sympathized with the stranger's anxieties, whatever they may have been, and she hesitated a little, when the woman approached, in addressing her. At length she spoke:

"We wor jist sayin' to one another," she observed, "that it looked as if you wished to spake to either this woman or me."

"You're right enough, then," she replied; "I have something to say to her, and a single word to yourself, too."

"An' what is it you have to say to me?" asked Nelly; "I hope it isn't to borrow money from me, bekase if it is, my banker has failed, an' left me as poor as a church mouse."

"Are you in distress, poor woman," inquired the generous and kind-hearted girl. "Maybe you're hungry; it isn't much we can do for you; but little as it is, if you come home with me, you'll come to a family that won't scruple to share the little they have now with any one that's worse off than themselves."

"Ay, you may well say 'now,'" observed the prophet's wife; "for until now, it's they that could always afford it; an' indeed it was the ready an' the willin' bit was ever at your father's table."

The stranger looked upon the serene and beautiful features of Mave with a long gaze of interest and admiration; after which she added, with a sigh:

"And you, I believe, are the girl they talk so much about for the fair face and good heart? Little pinetration it takes to see that you have both, my sweet girl. If I don't mistake, your name is Mave Sullivan, or _Gra Gal_, as the people mostly call you."

Mave, whose natural delicacy was tender and pure as the dew-drop of morning, on hearing her praises thus uttered by the lips of a stranger, blushed so deeply, that her whole neck and face became suffused with that delicious crimson of modesty which, alas! is now of such rare occurrence among the s.e.x, unconscious that, in doing so, she was adding fresh testimony to the impressions which had gone so generally abroad of her extraordinary beauty, and the many unostentatious virtues which adorned her humble life.

"Mave Sullivan is my name," she replied, smiling through her blushes: "as to the nickname, the people will call one what they like, no matther whether it's right or wrong."

"The people's seldom wrong, then, in givin' names o' the kind," returned the stranger; "but in your case, they're right at all events, as any one may know that looks upon you: that sweet face an' them fair looks is seldom if ever found with a bad heart. May G.o.d guard you, my purty and innocent girl, an' keep you safe from all evil, I pray his holy name."

The prophet's wife and Mave exchanged looks as the woman spoke: and the latter said:

"I hope you don't think there's any evil before me."

"Who is there," replied the stranger, "that can say there's not? Sure it's before us and about us every hour in the day; but in your case, darlin', I jist say, be on your guard, an' don't trust or put belief in any one that you don't know well. That's all I can say, an' indeed all I know."

"I feel thankful to you," replied Mave; "and now that you wish me well, (for I'm sure you do,) maybe you'd grant me a favor?"

"If it is widin the bounds of my power, I'll do it," returned the other; "but it's little I can do, G.o.d help me."

"Nelly," said Mave, "will you go on to the cross-roads there, an' I'll be with you in a minute."

The cross-roads alluded to were only a couple of hundred yards before them. The prophet's wife proceeded, and Mave renewed the conversation.

"What I want you to do for me is this--that is if you can do it--maybe you could bring a couple of stones of meal to a family of the name of--of--" here she blushed again, and her confusion became so evident that she felt it impossible to proceed until she had recovered in some degree her composure. "Only two or three years agone," she continued, "they were the daicentest farmers in the parish; but the world went against them as it has of late a'most against every one, owing to the fall of prices, and now they're out of their farm, very much reduced, and there's sickness amongst them, as well as want. They've been living," she proceeded, wiping away the tears which were now fast flowing, "in a kind of cabin or little cottage not far from the fine house an' place that was not long ago their own. Their name," she added, after a pause in which it was quite evident that she struggled strongly with her feelings, "is--is--Dal-ton."

"O was the young fellow one of them," asked the woman, "that was so outrageous awhile ago in the miser's? I think I heard the name given to him."

"Oh, I have nothing to say for him," replied Mave; "he was always wild, but they say never bad-hearted; it's the rest of the family I'm thinking about--and even that young man isn't more than three or four days up out o' the fever. What I want you to do is to bring the male I'm spakin' of to that family; any one will show you their little place; an' to leave it there about dusk this evenin', so that no one will ever know that you do it; an' as you love G.o.d an' hope for mercy, don't breathe my name in the business at all."

"I will do it for you," replied the other; "but in the meantime where am I to get the meal?"

"Why, at the miser's," replied Mave; "and when you go there, tell him that the person who told him they wouldn't forget it to him, sent you for it, an' you'll get it."

"G.o.d forbid I refused you that much," said the stranger; "an' although it'll keep me out longer than I expected, still I'll manage it for you, an' come or go what will, widout mentioning your name."

"G.o.d bless you for that," said Mave, "an grant that you may never be brought to the same hard pa.s.s that they're in, and keep you from ever having a heavy or a sorrowful heart."

"Ah, _acushla oge_," replied the woman with a profound sigh, "that prayer's too late for me; anything else than a heavy and sorrowful heart I've seldom had: for the last twenty years and upwards little but care and sorrow has been upon me.

"Indeed, one might easily guess as much," said Mave, "you have a look of heart-break and sorrow, sure enough. But answer me this: how do you know that there's evil before me or, about me?'

"I don't know much about it," returned the other; "but I'm afeard there's something to your disadvantage planned or plannin' against you.

When I seen you awhile ago I didn't know you till I heard your name; I'm a stranger here, not two weeks in the neighborhood, and know hardly anybody in it."

"Well," observed Mave, who had fallen back upon her own position, and the danger alluded to by the stranger, "I'll do nothing that's wrong myself, and if there's danger about me, as I hear there is, it's a good thing to know that G.o.d can guard me in spite of all that any one can do against me."

"Let that be your principle, ahagur--sooner or latter the hand o' G.o.d can and will make everything clear, and after all, dear, he is the best protection, blessed be his name!"

They had now reached the cross-roads already spoken of, where the prophet's wife again joined them for a short time, previous to her separation from Mave, whose way from that point lay in a direction opposite to theirs.

"This woman," said Mave, "wishes to go to Condy Dalton's in the course of the evening, and you, Nelly, can show her from the road the poor place they now live in, G.o.d help them."