“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Fardorougha,” she said calmly, placing her hand upon his shoulder, “are you sinsible that you're this minute afther blasphemin' your Creator?”
He gave her a quick, disturbed, and peevish look, but made no reply. She then proceeded:
“Fardorougha, I thought the loss of Connor the greatest punishment that could be put upon me; but I find I was mistaken. I would rather see him dead to-morrow, wid, wid the rope about his neck, than to hear his father blasphemin' the livin' God! Fardorougha, it's clear that you're not now fit to pray for yourself, but, in the name of our Saviour, I'll go an' pray for you. In the mean time, go to bed; sleep will settle your head, and you will be better, I trust, in the mornin'.”
The calm solemnity of her manner awed him, notwithstanding the vehemence of his grief. He stood and looked at her, with his hands tightly clasped, as she went to her son's bedroom, in order to pray for him. For a moment, he seemed abashed and stunned. While she addressed him, he involuntarily ceased to utter those sounds of anguish which were neither shrieks nor groans, but something between both. He theli resumed his pace, but with a more settled step, and for some minutes maintained perfect silence.
“Get me,” said he, at length, “get me a drink of wather; I'm in a flame wid drouth.”
When Biddy Nulty went out to fetch him this, he inquired of the rest what Honor meant by charging him with blasphemy.
“Surely to God, I didn't blasphame,” he said, peevishly; “no, no, I'm not that bad; but any how, let her pray for me; her prayer will be heard, if ever woman's was.”
When Biddy returned, he emptied the jug of water with the same trembling eagerness as before; then clasped his hands again, and commenced pacing the room, evidently in a mood of mind about to darken into all the wildness of his former grief.
“Fardorougha,” said Nogher M'Cormick; “I was undher this roof the night your manly son was born. I remimber it well; an' I remimber more betoken, I had to check you for flying in the face o' God that sent him to you. Instead o' feelin' happy and delighted, as you ought to ha' done, an' as any other man but yourself would, you grew dark an' sulky, and grumbled bekase you thought there was a family comin'. I tould you that night to take care an' not be committing sin; an' you may renumber, too, that I gev you chapter an' verse for it out o' Scripture: 'Woe be to the man that's born wid a millstone about his neck, especially if he's to be cast into the say.' The truth is, Fardorougha, you warn't thankful to God for him; and you see that afther all, it doesn't do to go to loggerheads wid the Almighty. Maybe, had you been thankful for him, he wouldn't be where he is this night. Millstone! Faith, it was a home thrust, that same verse; for if you didn't carry the millstone about your neck, you had it in your heart; an' you now see and feel the upshot. I'm now goin' fast into age myself; my hair is grayer than your own, and I could take it to my death,” said the honest fellow, while a tear or two ran slowly down his cheek; “that, exceptin' one o' my own childre', an' may God spare them to me! I couldn't feel more sorrow at the fate of any one livin', than at Connor's. Many a time I held him in these arms, an' many a little play I made for him; an' many a time he axed me why his father didn't nurse him as I did;' bekase,' he used to say, 'I would rather he would nurse me than anybody else, barring my mother; and, afther him, you, Nogher.'”
These last observations of his servant probed the heart of the old man to the quick; but the feeling which they excited was a healthy one; or, rather, the associations they occasioned threw Fardorougha's mind upon the memory of those affections, which avarice had suppressed, without destroying.