The Tithe-Proctor / The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two

by William Carleton

The vengeance of the people against Purcel and his sons had now risen or was fast rising, to its height. This intrepid man and these resolute young men, aided by the writs of rebellion and the executive authorities, had nerved themselves up to the collection of tithe, through a spirit that was akin to vengeance. In fact, they felt an inhuman delight—at least the father and his eldest son did—in levying the execution of the writs in the most pitiless and oppressive manner. They themselves provided horses and carts, and under protection of the military and police—for both were now necessary—they swept off cattle, crops, and furniture, at a ruinous value to the defaulters. At length they proceeded to the house of a struggling widow, whose only son, exasperated at the ruin which their proceedings had wrought upon his mother, in an unguarded moment, induced a few thoughtless boys like himself to resist the law. It was an act of folly for which his life paid the penalty. He was shot dead on the spot, and his death proved the signal for raising the gloomy curtain that veils the last of the drama in which the tithe-proctor makes his appearance.

Soon after the death of this youth, John Parcel had occasion to go to Dublin, to transact some business with the Rev. Dr. Turbot, and on his way to the metropolis he was obliged to stop for more than an hour at the county town, to await the arrival of the mail-coach. As he lingered about the door of the coach-office, he noticed a crowd of persons corning down the street, bearing something that resembled a human figure on a beir. It was evidently the corpse of some person, but at the same time he felt it could not have been a funeral, inasmuch as he saw that it came from the churchyard instead of going to it. The body was covered with a mort-cloth, so that he could not ascertain whether it was that of a man or a woman. Walking at its head as a chief mourner does at a funeral, was an old man with gray hair, who appeared to have every feature of his venerable countenance impressed with the character of an affliction which no language could express. He neither spoke nor looked to either side of him, but walked onward in a stupor of grief that was evidently too deep for tears—for he shed none, his face was pale even unto ghastliness, whilst at the same time there was a darkness over it, which evidently proceeded from the gloom of a broken down and hopeless heart.

John Purcel, after making some inquiry as to the cause of this singular procession, was enabled, from several of the by-standers, to ascertain the following affecting and melancholy particulars. The reader cannot forget the conversation between the proctor and his sons, concerning the murder of a certain farmer named Murray, in the early part of this narrative. The poor youth who had been appointed, under the diabolical system of Whiteboyism, to perpetrate that awful crime, was the very young man who, during the journey of the Whiteboys to the mountains, had held a kind of sotto voce conversation with the mysterious person who proved himself to be so sincere a friend to Frank M'Carthy. A misunderstanding for several years, or rather a feeling of ill-will, had subsisted between his father and Murray, and as this circumstance was known, the malignant and cowardly miscreants availed themselves of it to give a color of revenge to the murder, in order to screen themselves. At all events, the poor misguided youth, who had been stimulated with liquor, and goaded on to the commission of the crime, from fear of a violent death if he refused it, was tried, found guilty, and executed, leaving his childless father and mother, whose affections were centred in him, in a state of the most indescribable despair and misery. By the intercession and influence of friends, his body was restored to them, and interred in the churchyard, from which the procession just mentioned had issued. The heart, however—or to come nearer the truth—the reason of the mother—that loving mother—could not bear the blow that deprived her of her innocent boy—her pride, her only one. In about a week after his interment she proceeded one morning to his grave, bearing with her the breakfast which the poor youth had been accustomed to take. This, in fact, became her daily habit, and here she usually sat for hours, until in most cases her woe-stricken husband, on missing her, was obliged, by some pardonable fiction, to lure her home under the expectation of seeing him. This continued during spring, summer, autumn, and the greater portion of winter—up in fact until the preceding night. She had, some time during the course of that night, escaped from her poor, husband while he slept, and having entered the grave-yard by stone steps that were in a part of the wall—for a passage went through it—she reached her boy's grave, where it was supposed, after having for some time, probably until lassitude and sorrow, and a frame worn down by her peculiar calamity, had induced sleep—she was found dead in the course of the morning—an afflicting but beautiful instance of that undying love of a mother's heart, which survives the wreck of all the other faculties that compose her being.

Her miserable husband and friends were then bearing her body home, in order that it might be waked decently and with due respect, ere it should mingle with the ashes of him whom she had loved so well. So much for the consequences of being concerned in those secret and criminal confederacies, that commit such fatal ravages, not only in society, but in domestic life, and stand so strongly opposed to the laws of both God and man.

Purcel, on reaching the metropolis, was a great deal astonished at the change which he observed in Dr. Turbot. That gentleman's double chin had followed the carnal fortunes of the church that supported it. The rosy dewlap, in fact, was no longer visible, if we except a slight pendulous article, which defied the whole nomenclature of colors to classify its tint, and was only visible when his head and neck assumed a peculiar attitude. In fact, the change appeared to Purcel to have been an exceedingly beneficial one. The gross carnal character of his whole appearance was gone; his person had become comparatively thin, and had a far and distant, but still an approximating, tendency to something of the apostolic. He was now leading by compulsion, a reasonable and natural life, and one not so much at variance with the simple principles of his religion, whatever it might be with those of the then establishment. His horses and carriages and powdered servants were all gone too, so was the rich air of wealth and costly luxury which formerly breathed throughout his fine mansion, in one of the most fashionable streets of the metropolis. His eye, no longer loaded by the bloodshot symptoms of an over-fed and plethoric constitution, was now clear and intellectual, and there appeared to be an unencumbered activity about his jaws that argued a vigor and quickness of execution in matters of a sumptuary character, which, when gross and unwieldy from luxury, they never could reach. He was by no means in his usual spirits, it is true, but then he was in much better health, and a vague report of something in the shape of a loan to the clergy, to the tune of a million, gave him a considerable degree of cheerfulness.

John Purcel, having dispatched his business with him as quickly as he could, called upon M'Carthy in college. This gentleman having, in fact, heard such an account of the threats and determinations of vengeance with which the Purcel family were threatened, had felt deep anxiety as to their fate. He had written more than once to them on the subject, entreating that, as their wealth had rendered them independent, they would remove either to Lisnagola or Dublin. This, however, was a determination to which they had come recently themselves, and one portion of John's business to the metropolis was connected with it.

On the day previous to Purcel's visit to M'Carthy, that young man had received the following short and somewhat mysterious communication from the country:—

“Mr. M'Carthy.—Sir—If you wish to save some of Mr. Purcel's family—save them all you cannot—and if you have courage, and isn't afraid to risk your life, you will come down to Longshot Lodge and wait there till you here more from 'One that has proved himself your Friend'.”

This determined M'Carthy; and when John Purcel asked him to spend the Christmas with them, he felt gratified at the alacrity with which the other embraced his offer. The next morning they started for Longshot Lodge, and in due time were cordially greeted by the proctor and his family.

The day before Christmas—universally known as Christmas Eve—at length arrived. On that morning, our friend Mr. Temple and his family were seated at breakfast with easy and cheerful hearts, when the following conversation took place; and we introduce it for the purpose of gratifying our readers, who, we are certain, will rejoice in hearing the circumstances that form its subject matter.