CHAPTER XVI. -- Mysterious Disappearance of the Tobacco-box.

M'Gowan's mind, at this period of our narrative, was busily engaged in arranging his plans--for we need scarcely add here, that whether founded on justice or not, he had more than one ripening. Still there preyed upon him a certain secret anxiety, from which, by no effort, could he succeed in ridding himself. The disappearance of the Tobacco-box kept him so ill at ease and unhappy, that he resolved, on his way home, to make a last effort at finding it out, if it could be done; and many a time did he heartily curse his own stupidity for ever having suffered it to remain in his house or about it, especially when it was so easy to destroy it. His suspicions respecting it most certainly rested upon.

Nelly, whom he now began to regard with a feeling of both hatred and alarm. Sarah, he knew, had little sympathy with him; but then he also knew that there existed less in common between her and Nelly. He thought, therefore, that his wisest plan would be to widen the breach of ill-feeling between them more and more, and thus to secure himself, if possible, of Sarah's co-operation and confidence, if not from affection or good feeling towards himself, at least from ill-will towards her step-mother. For this reason, therefore, as well as for others of equal, if not of more importance, he came to the determination of taking, to a certain extent, Sarah into his confidence, and thus making not only her quickness and activity, but her impetuosity and resentments, useful to his designs. It was pretty late that night, when he reached home; and, as he had devoted the only portion of his time that remained between his arrival and bed-time, to a description of the unsettled state of the country, occasioned by what were properly called the Famine Outrages, that were then beginning to take place, he made no allusion to anything connected with his projects, to either Nelly or his daughter, the latter of whom, by the way, had been out during the greater part of the evening. The next morning, however, he asked her to take a short stroll with him along the river, which she did; and both returned, after having had at least an hour's conversation--Sarah, with a flushed cheek and indignant eye, and her father, with his brow darkened, and his voice quivering from suppressed resentment; so that, so far as observation went, their interview and communication had not been very agreeable on either side. After breakfast, Sarah put on her cloak and bonnet, and was about to go out, when her father said--

"Pray, ma'am, where are you goin' now?"

"It doesn't signify," she replied; "but at all events you needn't ax me, for I won't tell you."

"What kind of answer is that to give me? Do you forget that I'm your father?"

"I wish I could; for indeed I am sorry you are."

"Oh, you know," observed Nelly, "she was always a dutiful girl--always a quiet good crathur. Why, you onbiddable sthrap, what kind o' an answer is that to give to your father?"

Ever since their stroll that morning, Sarah's eyes had been turned from time to time upon her step-mother with flash after flash of burning indignation, and now that she addressed her, she said--

"Woman, you don't know how I scorn you! Oh, you mane an' wicked wretch, had you no pride during all your life! It's but a short time you an'

I will be undher the same roof together--an' so far as I am consarned, I'll not stoop ever to bandy abuse or ill tongue with you again. I know only one other person that is worse an' meaner still than you are--an'

there, I am sorry to say, he stands in the shape of my father."

She walked out of the cabin with a flushed check, and a step that was full of disdain, and a kind of natural pride that might almost be termed dignity. Both felt rebuked; and Nelly, whose face got blanched and pale at Sarah's words, now turned upon the Prophet with a scowl."

"Would it be possible," said she, "that you'd dare to let out anything to that madcap?"

"Now," said he, "that the coast is clear, I desire you to answer me a question that I'll put to you--an' mark my words--by all that s above us, an' undher us, an' about us, if you don't spake thruth, I'll be apt to make short work of it."

"What is it?" she inquired, looking at him with cool and collected resentment, and an eye that was perfectly fearless.

"There was a Tobaccy-Box about this house, or in this house. Do you know anything about it?"

"A tobaccy-box--is it?"

"Ay, a tobaccy-box."

"Well, an' what about it? What do you want wid it? An ould, rusty Tobaccy-box; musha, is that what's throublin' you this mornin'?"

"Come," said he darkening, "I'll have no humbuggin'--answer me at wanst.

Do you know anything about it?"

"Is it about your ould, rusty Tobaccy-box? Arrah, what 'ud I know about it? What the sorra would a man like you do wid a Tobaccy-box, that doesn't ever smoke? Is it mad or ravin' you are? Somehow I think the stroll you had wid the vagabone gipsy of a daughter of yours, hasn't put you into the best of timper, or her aither. I hope you didn't act the villain on me: for she looks at me as if she could ait me widout salt.

But, indeed, she's takin' on her own hands finely of late; she's gettin'

too proud to answer me now when I ax her a question."

"Well, why don't you ax her as you ought?"

"She was out all yesterday evenin', and when I said 'You idle sthrap, where wor you?' she wouldn't even think it worth her while to give me an answer, the vagabone."

"Do you give me one in the manetime. What about the Box I want? Spake the truth, if you regard your health."

"I know nothing about your box, an' I wish I could say as much of yourself. However, I won't long trouble you, that I can tell you--ay, an' her too. She needn't fear that I'll be long undher the same roof wid her. I know, any way, I wouldn't be safe. She would only stick me in one of her fits, now that she's able to fight me."

"Now, Nelly," said the Prophet, deliberately shutting the door, "I know you to be a hardened woman, that has little fear in your heart. I think you know me, too, to be a hardened and a determined man. There, now, I have shut an' boulted the door an' by Him that made me, you'll never lave this house, nor go out of that door a livin' woman, unless you tell me all you know about that Tobaccy-Box. Now you know my mind an' my coorse--act as you like now."

"Ha, ha, ha! Do you think to frighten me?" she asked, laughing derisively. "Me!--oh, how much you're mistaken, if you think so! Not that I don't believe you to be dangerous, an' a man that one ought to fear; but I have no fear of you."

"Answer me quickly," he replied--and as he spoke, he seized the very same knife from which she had so narrowly escaped in her conflict with Sarah--"answer me, I say; an' mark, I have no reason to wish you alive."

And as he spoke, the glare in his eyes flashed and became fearful.

"Ah," said she, "there's your daughter's look an' the same knife, too, that was near doin' for me wanst. Well, don't think that it's fear makes me say what I'm goin' to say; but that's the same knife; an' besides I dhramed last night that I was dressed in a black cloak--an' a black cloak, they say, is death! Ay, death--an' I know I'm not fit to die, or to meet judgment, an' you know that too. Now, then, tell me what it is you want wid the Box."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 847-- I'll tell you nothing about it]

"No," he replied, sternly and imperatively, "I'll tell you nothing about it; but get it at wanst, before my pa.s.sion rises higher and deadlier."

"Well, then, mark me, I'm not afeard of you--but I have the box."

"An' how did you come by it?" he asked.

"Sarah was lookin' for a cobweb to stop the blood where she cut me in our fight the other day, an' it came tumblin' out of a cranny in the wall."

"An' where is it now?"

"I'll get it for you," she replied; "but you must let me out first."

"Why so?"

"Because it's not in the house."

"An' where is it? Don't think you'll escape me."

"It's in the thatch o' the roof."

The Prophet deliberately opened the door, and catching her by the shoulder, held her prisoner, as it were, until she should make her words good. The roof was but low, and she knew the spot too well to make any mistake about it.

"Here," said she, "is the cross I sc.r.a.ped on the stone undher the place."

She put up her hand as she spoke, and searched the spot--but in vain.

There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless--it had disappeared.

CHAPTER XVII. -- National Calamity--Sarah in Love and Sorrow.