Molly and Kitty, or Peasant Life in Ireland; with Other Tales

by Olga Eschenbach; Maria Burg

O'Neil now pressed up to the side of the horse upon which the speaker was seated, and, throwing himself upon his knees, wringing his hands in his wild despair, passionately prayed, "Have pity! O, have mercy upon us! For the sake of the harmless, helpless children!"

"Is the rascal mad?" said the angry landlord; "tear him from under the feet of my horse, or I'll drive the iron hoofs into his brain. If he refuses to go away from the cabin willingly, let the bloodhounds loose upon him, and I'll warrant you they'll soon put an end to his Irish howls."

Yet again would O'Neil, for the sake of his helpless children, have tried to touch the heart of the barbarous landlord. Again he raised his pleading eyes to the hard face; but its fierce expression told him all hope was vain, and a frightful, shrill cry, almost like a death-shriek, forced its way from his agonized breast. As if suddenly overcome by utter despair, he sprang up with a wild movement from the earth upon which he had thrown himself, took little Kitty in the one arm, while he threw the other round the half-fainting Molly, lifted her entirely from the ground, and, as if hunted and pursued by relentless furies, rushed rapidly away. But scarcely had he lost sight of his wretched hovel, when he fell, completely exhausted, to the ground.

The poor occupants of the neighboring cabins, who had been silent, yet indignant, witnesses of the horrible scene which we have just attempted to portray, now approached with various little offerings for the banished and homeless family. One brought a cake of oatmeal, shaped like our pancakes, but as thin as a sheet of paper, and as hard as a stone; another offered a little bag of potatoes, some salt, and a small piece of pork; an old woman presented Molly with a yard or two of coarse linen, and a pair of knit stockings; and a young girl wrapped up the half-naked Kitty in a large piece of heavy cloth spun from wool. Each gave what he had to spare, not only food, but some of the most indispensable utensils for cooking; indeed, many gave more than they could well spare, and the good people would certainly have taken the unhappy, homeless family into their own hovels, if they had not stood in awe of the rage of the landlord, and feared the revenge of his heartless agent. So true is it that compassion dwells rather in the hut of the poor than in the palace of the rich.

Silent from excess of feeling, and with many grateful and heartfelt pressures of the hand, O'Neil parted from his kind neighbors. Unsteadily and doubtingly he gazed into the distance. As he threw a despairing glance above, the dark clouds parted; and the bright sun looked cheerful and glad as the heavy folds of his cloud-veil were lifted, and joyously he sent his mild rays upon the moist earth.

"This way, this way, dear father. O, let us take this path: it leads to the hills!" said Molly, pointing to a hill down whose side trickled, singing, a little stream. The drops of water sparkled like bright tears as the rays of the sun shone upon them, and the rippling of the brook, as it kissed the pebbles, was soft and tender as the distant echo of a cradle-song, chanted by some fond mother to prolong the sleep of her slumbering child. Silently O'Neil turned into the path which Molly had begged him to take, holding the poor blind child in his arms, who, through her unconscious and innocent questions, constantly added to the tortures of his sick heart. His whole soul was now filled with but one thought, one wish,—the desire to find before nightfall some cleft in the rock, some cavern, which might serve as a temporary shelter for the beings he loved. If he should be able to succeed in gaining any place of refuge, and what means it would be best to take, in order to find some spot in which he could leave his children, while he labored to keep them from dying of hunger, were the questions which filled his soul, and tasked all the powers of his mind to answer. He struggled with all his strength to suppress every other thought, to banish every emotion of anger or hatred from his heart, in order to be able to give every faculty of his being to the solving of these pressing questions. Yet, with all his thinking, with all his struggling, with all his suffering, he could find no egress from the dark labyrinth of cares in which he was involved, in which he perpetually wandered; for although a thousand plans passed through his whirling brain, he was always obliged again to relinquish them, because of some obstacle which rendered their execution impossible.

If this man, the lineal descendant of the first possessors of green Erin, now driven about without home, without shelter, to preserve his own miserable life, or to still the painful cries of a frightful death from famine, which was already fastening its accursed fangs in the heart of his children, had been driven in his agony to scorn the laws made by his oppressors, and, like the wild beast, had sprung from his inaccessible cleft in the rock, his last refuge from the cruelty of man, and had carried his booty home to sustain life in his dying children,—to whom should the crime be justly attributed?

CHAPTER III.

THE STORM.