“So,” thought he, “you were feelin' my pulse, were you? I don't think it's hard to guess whereabouts you are; however I'll think of your advice at any rate, an' see what good may be in it. But, in the name of all that's wondherful, how does it come to pass that that red ruffian has sich authority over Sarah M'Gowan as to make her fetch me the very thing I want?—that tobacco-box; an' at sich a place, too, an' sich an hour! An' yet he says that she doesn't like a bone in his skin, which I b'lieve! I'm fairly in the dark here; however time will make it all clear, I hope; an' for that we must wait.”
He then resumed his employment.
Donnel Dhu, who was a man of much energy and activity, whenever his purposes required it, instead of turning his steps homewards, directed them to the house of our kind friend Jerry Sullivan, with whose daughter, the innocent and unsuspecting Mave, it was his intention to have another private interview. During the interval that had elapsed since his last journey to the house of this virtuous and hospitable family, the gloom that darkened the face of the country had become awful, and such as wofully bore out to the letter the melancholy truth of his own predictions. Typhus fever had now set in, and was filling the land with fearful and unexampled desolation. Famine, in all cases the source and origin of contagion, had done, and was still doing, its work. The early potato crop, for so far as it had come in, was a pitiable failure; the quantity being small, and the quality watery and bad. The oats, too, and all early grain of that season's growth, were still more deleterious as food, for it had all fermented and become sour, so that the use of it, and of the bad potatoes, too, was the most certain means of propagating the pestilence which was sweeping away the people in such multitudes. Scarcely any thing presented itself to him as he went along that had not some melancholy association with death or its emblems. To all this, however, he paid little or no attention. When a funeral met him, he merely turned back three steps in the direction it went, as was usual; but unless he happened to know the family from which death had selected its victim, he never even took the trouble of inquiring who it was they bore to the grave—a circumstance which strongly proved the utter and heartless selfishness of the man's nature. On arriving at Sullivan's, however, he could not help feeling startled, hard and without sympathy as was his heart, at the wild and emaciated evidences of misery and want which a couple of weeks' severe suffering had impressed upon them. The gentle Mave herself, patient and uncomplaining as she was, had become thin and cheerless; yet of such a character was the sadness that rested upon her, that it only added a mournful and melancholy charm to her beauty—a charm that touched the heart of the beholder at once with love and compassion. As yet there had been no sickness among them; but who could say to-day that he or she might not be stricken down at once before to-morrow.
“Donnel,” said Sullivan, after he had taken a seat, “how you came to prophecy what would happen, an' what has happened, is to me a wondher; but sure enough, fareer gair, (* bitter misfortune) it has all come to pass.”
“I can't tell myself,” replied the other, “how I do it; all I know is, that the words come into my mouth, an' I can't help spakin' them. At any rate, that's not surprisin'. I'm the seventh son of the seventh son, afther seven generations; that is I'm the seventh seventh son that was in our family; an' you must know that the knowledge increases as they go on. Every seventh son knows more than thim that wint before him till it comes to the last, and he knows more than thim all. There were six seventh sons before me, so that I'm the last; for it was never known since the world began that ever more than seven afther one another had the gift of prophecy in the same family. That's the raison, you see, that I have no sons—the knowledge ends wid me.”
“It's very strange,” replied Sullivan, “an' not to be accounted for by any one but God—glory be to his name!”
“It is strange—an' when I find that I'm goin' to foretell any thing that's bad or unlucky, I feel great pain or uneasiness in my mind—but on the other hand, when I am to prophesy what's good, I get quite light-hearted and aisy—I'm all happiness. An' that's the way I feel now, an' has felt for the last day or two.”
“I wish to God, Donnel,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “that you could prophesize something good for us.”
“Or,” continued her charitable and benevolent husband, “for the thousands of poor creatures that wants it more still than we do—sure it's thankful to the Almighty we ought to be—an' is, I hope—that this woful sickness hasn't come upon us yet. Even Condy Dalton an' his family—ay, God be praised for givin' me the heart to do it—I can forgive him and them.”
“Don't say them, Jerry ahagur,” observed his wife, “we never had any bad feelin' against them.”