“Ay,” said she, after he had gone; “little you know, you hardened and heartless profligate, how well I'm up to your schemes. Little you know that I heard your bargain this evenin' wid Clinton, and that you're now gone to meet the Hogans and Teddy Phats upon some dark business, that can't be good or they wouldn't be in it; an' little you know what I know besides. Anybody the misthress plaises may sit up for you, but I won't.”
CHAPTEE XI.—Death of a Virtuous Mother.
It could not be expected that Bryan M'Mahon, on his way home from Fethertonge's, would pass Gerald Cavanagh's without calling. He had, in his interview with that gentleman, stated the nature of his mother's illness, but at the same time without feeling any serious apprehensions that her life was in immediate danger. On reaching Cavanagh's, he found that family over-+shadowed with a gloom for which he could not account. Kathleen received him gravely, and even Hanna had not her accustomed jest. After looking around him for a little, he exclaimed—“What is the matther? Is anything wrong? You all look as if you were in sorrow.”
Hanna approached him and said, whilst her eyes filled with tears—“We are in sorrow, Bryan; for we are goin', we doubt, to lose a friend that we all love—as every one did that knew her.”
“Hanna, darling,” said Kathleen, “this won't do. Poor girl! you are likely to make bad worse; and besides there may, after all, be no real danger. Your mother, Bryan,” she proceeded, “is much worse than she has been. The priest and doctor have been sent for; but you know it doesn't follow that there is danger, or at any rate that the case is hopeless.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Bryan, “is it so? My mother—and such a mother! Kathleen, my heart this minute tells me it is hopeless. I must leave you—I must go.”
“We will go up with you,” said Kathleen. “Hanna, we will go up; for, if she is in danger, I would like to get the blessing of such a woman before she dies; but let us trust in G-od she won't die, and that it's only a sudden attack that will pass away.”
“Do so, Kathleen,” said her mother; “and you can fetch us word how she is. May the Lord bring her safe over it at any rate; for surely the family will break their hearts afther her, an' no wondher, for where was her fellow?”
Bryan was not capable of hearing these praises, which he knew to be so well and so justly her due, with firmness; nor could he prevent his tears, unless by a great effort, from bearing testimony to the depth of his grief. Kathleen's gaze, however, was turned on him with an expression which gave him strength; for indeed there was something noble and. sustaining in the earnest and consoling sympathy which he read in her dark and glorious eye. On their way to Carriglass there was little spoken. Bryan's eye every now and then sought that of Kathleen; and he learned, for the first time, that it is only in affliction that the exquisite tenderness of true and disinterested love can be properly appreciated and felt. Indeed he wondered at his own sensations; for in proportion as his heart became alarmed at the contemplation of his mother's loss, he felt, whenever he looked upon Kathleen, that it also burned towards her with greater tenderness and power—so true is it that sorrow and suffering purify and exalt all our nobler and better emotions.