Chapter VII.
IRISH FATALITY.
Dora was long in gaol before she could form an idea what was to become of her. The place was crowded, in consequence of the late disorders in her native district; and her child pined for want of the bracing air to which it had been accustomed from its birth. Night after night when she was kept awake by its wailing, day after day when she marked how its little limbs wasted, did the mother sigh to be one of those whose lot she had till now thought very wretched. She would fain have been among such as were driven from the glen to seek a subsistence in the towns, begging by day, and nestling wherever they could find a hole by night. When she was brought into the town, she met several of these, whose faces she well knew, changed as they were from the cheerful or thoughtful countenances of dwellers in a home to the listless or bold expression which characterises vagrants. She now envied them their freedom, however mournful their condition in other respects. They might carry their babes abroad into the free air, and if too much crowded in their noisome abodes, sleep under the open sky. They might meet their proscribed connexions, if such they had, without other restraints than their own prudence imposed: while she must see her infant languish for want of that which nature designed for all; and live on from day to day without hope of beholding husband or father, or of knowing what had become of them.
The first relief she found was in forming a desperate resolution respecting her infant. She had passed a long, wakeful night in such a state of distress as even she had seldom known. The heat was stifling, from many sleepers being collected within a small space. Her child would not lie still on her bosom one moment. Sometimes screaming, sometimes wailing, its signs of suffering wrung its mother’s heart. She was first irritated and then terrified by the complaints of all who were disturbed like herself, and who seemed to think it her fault that the child would not rest. Hour after hour was she kept on the stretch, watching for tokens of fatigue from the child, or of mercy from her neighbours; but the heat increased, fresh cries wore her nerves, and new threats of getting rid of the nuisance made her feel as if every pulse in her body would burst. She threw herself down on her pallet, on the side of which she had been sitting, and closed her eyes and ears, muttering—
“God help me! and take me and my child where we may sleep in peace and no waking! My mind is just going as it did one night before; and let it go, if my child was but safe with its father. Little would it matter then what became of me; for Dan and I shall never meet more. O! hush, my child! hush! I could part with you for ever if I could only ease you from wailing, and from this sore strife. There is a curse upon me, and upon you while you live on my bosom. You never caress me, my child; you struggle out of my grasp! Other babes clasp their mothers, but you push me away. Well you may! God gave you free and strong limbs and an easy breath; and ’tis I that have laid a withering curse on your flesh, and a heavy load on your little breast. ’Tis I that have dropped poison in your veins. You shall go, my child. I will bear to be haunted all my days with your screams and your throes; I will bear to lie down without you, and wake, feeling for you in vain; I will bear to fold my empty arms when I see babes laughing in the sunshine, and wonder whether you are playing on the sod or lying beneath it,—if I can free you from my curse, and trust your little life to those who can nourish it better than I. O hush! my child. Bear with me this last night! If I could but see you but once more quiet, if you would only once lay your little hand on my lips, if you would but look at me!—Again, again, again! your life will be spent, my child; you will die before I can save you!—O, neighbours! do ye think it’s my will that my child should suffer this way? Do you think its cries do not pierce my ears more than yours? Is it worse for you to lose a night’s sleep than for me to be parting with my child for ever?”
The softened grumblers inquired the meaning of her words, and praised her for intending to send the babe out of the gaol immediately, only complaining that it had not been done long before. All were ready to help her with suggestions how to dispose of it; none of which suggestions, however, satisfied her.
All difficulty on this head was removed the next day by the appearance of Father Glenny, who came, as he had done once or twice before, to administer to the religious wants of several of his flock who had found their way hither. He was shocked at the change in Dora since he last saw her, and thought the child dying. He engaged at once to have it carried out of the prison and conveyed into safe hands. Whose hands these were, he could not disclose, as Sullivan’s retreat was made known to him under the seal of confession, and the circumstances must not be revealed even to the old man’s only child. Of Dan the priest had heard nothing. No one had seen or heard of him since some days previous to Dora’s capture.
The only thing which struck the priest as remarkable in Dora’s state of mind was her utter indifference respecting her approaching trial. It seemed never to occur to her; and when she was reminded of it, it appeared to be regarded as a slight and necessary form preliminary to her going away for ever. She never took in the idea of acquittal, or remembered that she had a part to perform, and that she was one of two contending parties, with either of whom success might rest. She made no complaints of being a passive instrument in the hand of power, or of any hardship in the treatment she had experienced or was still to bear. She made no preparation of her thoughts for defence or for endurance. She was utterly unmindful of what was coming, taking for granted that she should never more see her husband, and beyond this, having no thought where she was to spend her days, or how she was to end them. This state appeared so unnatural, that the priest, after enlarging in vain on her accusation and means of defence, ventured to rouse her by mentioning a report he had heard that an attempt was to be made to rescue her and her companions by breaking the gaol before the trials, or by attacking the guard which should conduct some to the gibbet and others to the coast, when their doom was to be enforced. For a moment a gleam of hope kindled in her eyes; but she immediately observed that if the report was abroad, the magistrates were no doubt on their guard, and the whiteboys would ascertain the attempt to be vain before they committed themselves. After this, however, it was observed that she could recollect nothing. She had nothing to confess, nothing to ask for, no messages to leave, no desires to express. With a dull, drowsy expression of countenance, she looked at the priest when he rose to leave her, and seemed to ask why he stood waiting.
“Your child, my daughter,” said he, extending his arms to receive the babe.
With a start and a flushed cheek, she hastened to wrap it in the only garment of her own which she could spare to add to its scanty clothing. After a cold kiss, she placed it in the arms of its new guardian, saying with a stiff smile,