Fardorougha, The Miser / The Works of William Carleton, Volume One

by William Carleton

She then stooped down and affectionately kissed him, and, having wished him good night, she retired to Connor's bed, where, ever since the day of his incarceration, this well-tried mother and enduring Christian slept.

At this stage of our story we will pause, for a moment, to consider the state of mind and comparative happiness of the few persons who are actors in our humble drama.

To a person capable of observing only human action, independently of the motives by which it is regulated, it may appear that the day which saw Connor O'Donovan consigned to a premature and shameful death, was one of unmingled happiness to Bartle Flanagan. They know little of man's heart, however, who could suppose this to be the case, or, who could even imagine that he was happier than those on whom his revenge and perfidy had entailed such a crushing load of misery. It is, indeed, impossible to guess what the nature of that feeling must be which arises from the full gratification of mean and diabolic malignity. Every action of the heart at variance with virtue and truth is forced to keep up so many minute and fearful precautions, all of which are felt to be of vast moment at the time, that we question if ever the greatest glut of vengeance produced, no matter what the occasion may have been, any satisfaction capable of counterbalancing all the contigencies and apprehensions by which the mind is distracted both before and after its preparation. The plan and accomplishment must both be perfect in all their parts—for if either fail only in a single point, all is lost, and the pleasure arising from them resembles the fruit which is said to grow by the banks of the Dead Sea—it is beautiful and tempting to the eye, but bitterness and ashes to the taste.

The failing of the county treasurer, for instance, deprived Bartle Flanagan of more than one half his revenge. He was certainly far more anxious to punish the father than the son, and were it not that he saw no other mode of effecting his vengeance on Fardorougha, than by destroying the only object on earth that he loved next to his wealth, he would have never made the innocent pay the penalty of the guilty. As he had gone so far, however, self-preservation now made him anxious that Connor should die; as he knew his death would remove out of his way the only person in existence absolutely acquainted with his villany. One would think, indeed, that the sentence pronounced upon his victim ought to have satisfied him on that head. This, however, it failed to do. That sentence contained one clause, which utterly destroyed the completeness of his design, and filled his soul with a secret apprehension either of just retribution, or some future ill which he could not shake off, and for which the reward received for Connor's apprehension was but an ineffectual antidote. The clause alluded to in the judge's charge, viz.—“the recommendation of the jury to the mercy of the Crown, in consideration of your youth, and previous good conduct, shall not be overlooked”—sounded in his ears like some mysterious sentence that involved his own fate, and literally filled his heart with terror and dismay. Independently of all this his villanous projects had involved him in a systematic course of guilt, which was yet far from being brought to a close. In fact, he now found by experience how difficult it is to work out a bad action with success, and how the means, and plans, and instruments necessary to it must multiply and become so deep and complicated in guilt, that scarcely any single intellect, in the case of a person who can be reached by the laws, is equal to the task of executing a great crime against society, in a perfect manner. If this were so, discovery would be impossible, and revenge certain.

With respect to Connor himself it is only necessary to say that a short but well-spent life, and a heart naturally firm, deprived death of its greatest terrors. Still he felt it, in some depressed moods, a terrible thing indeed to reflect, that he, in the very fullness of strength and youth, should be cut down from among his fellows—a victim without a crime, and laid with shame in the grave of a felon. But he had witnessed neither his mother's piety nor her example in vain, and it was in the gloom of his dungeon that he felt the light of both upon his spirit.

“Surely,” said he, “as I am to die, is it not better that I should die innocent than guilty? Instead of fretting that I suffer, a guiltless man, surely I ought to thank God that I am so; an' that my soul hasn't to meet the sin of such a revengeful act as I'm now condemned for. I'll die, then, like a Christian man, putting my hope and trust in the mercy of my Redeemer—ever an' always hoping that by His assistance I will be enabled to do it.”

Different, indeed, were the moral state and position of these two young men; the one, though lying in his prison cell, was sustained by the force of conscious innocence, and that reliance upon the mercy of God, which constitutes the highest order of piety, and the noblest basis of fortitude; the other, on the contrary, disturbed by the tumultuous and gloomy associations of guilt, and writhing under the conviction, that, although he had revenge, he had not satisfaction. The terror of crime was upon him, and he felt himself deprived of that best and only security, which sets all vain apprehensions at defiance, the consciousness of inward integrity. Who, after all, would barter an honest heart for the danger arising from secret villany, when such an apparently triumphant villain as Bartle Flanagan felt a deadly fear, of Connor O'Donovan in his very dungeon? Such, however, is guilt, and such are the terrors that accompany it.

The circumstances which, in Ireland, usually follow the conviction of a criminal, are so similar to each other, that we feel it, even in this case, unnecessary to do more than give a mere sketch of Connor's brief life as a culprit. We have just observed that the only clause in the judge's charge which smote the heart of the traitor, Flanagan, with a presentiment of evil, was that containing the words in which something like a, hope of having his sentence mitigated was held out to him, in consequence of the recommendation to mercy by which the jury accompanied their verdict. It is very strange, on the other hand, that, at the present stage of our story, neither his father nor mother knew anything whatsoever of the judge having given expression to such a hope. The old man, distracted as he was at the time, heard nothing, or at least remembered nothing, but the awful appearance of the black cap, or, as they term it in the country, the barradh dhu, and the paralyzing words in which the sentence of death was pronounced upon his son. It consequently happened that the same clause in the charge actually, although in a different sense, occasioned the misery of Bartle Flanagan on the one hand, and of Connor's parents on the other.

The morning after the trial, Fardorougha was up as early as usual, but his grief was nearly as vehement and frantic as on the preceding night. It was observed, however—such is the power of sorrow to humanize and create sympathy in the heart—that, when he arose, instead of peevishly and weakly obtruding his grief and care upon those about him, as he was wont to do, he now kept aloof from the room in which Honor slept, from an apprehension of disturbing her repose—a fact which none who knew his previous selfishness would have believed, had he not himself expressed in strong terms a fear of awakening her. Nor did this new trait of his character escape the observation of his own servants, especially of his honest monitor, Nogher M'Cormick.

“Well, well,” exclaimed this rustic philosopher; “see what God's affliction does. Faith, it has brought Fardorougha to feel a trifle for others, as well as for himself. Who knows, begad, but it may take the millstone out of his heart yet; and if it does, my word to you, he may thank his wife, undher God, for it.”