“Who is that mad-woman?” said M'Clutchy. “Let her be removed. All I can say is, that she has taken a very unsuccessful method of staying the proceedings.”
“Who am I?” said she; “I will tell you that. Look at this,” she replied, exposing her bosom; “these are the breasts that suckled you—between them did you lie, you ungrateful viper! Yes, you may stare—it's many a long year since the name of Kate Clank reached your ears, and now that you have heard it, it is not to bless you. Well, you remember when you heard it last—on the day you hunted your dogs at me, and threatened to have me horse-whipped—ay, to horse-whip me with your own hands, should I ever come near your cursed house. Now, you know who I am, and now I have kept my word, which was never to die till I gave you a shamed face. Kate Clank, your mother, is before you!”
M'Clutchy took the matter very coolly certainly—laughed at her, and, in a voice of thunder, desired the ejectments to proceed.
But how shall we dwell upon this miserable work? The wailings and screams, the solicitations for mercy, their prayers, their imprecations and promises, were all sternly disregarded; and on went the justice of law, accompanied by the tumult of misery. The old were dragged out—the bedriden grand-mother had her couch of straw taken from under her. From the house of death, the corpse of an aged female was carried out amidst the shrieks and imprecations of both men and women! The sick child that clung with faintness to the bosom of its distracted mother, was put out under the freezing blast of the north; and on, on, onward, from house to house, went the steps of law, accompanied still by the increasing tumult of misery. This was upon Christmas eve—a day of “joy and festivity!”
At length they reached O'Regan's,and it is not our intention to describe the occurrence at any length. It could not be done. O'Regan clasped his hands, so did his wife; they knelt—they wept—they supplicated. They stated the nature of his malady—decline—from having ruptured a blood-vessel. They ran to M'Clutchy, to M'Slime, to the squat figure on horseback. They prayed to Darby, and especially entreated a ruffian follower who had been remarkable for, and wanton in, his inhumanity, but with no effect. Darby shook his head.
“It couldn't be done,” said he.
“No,” replied the other, whose name was Grimes, “we can't make any differ between one and another—so out he goes.”
“Father,” observed the meek boy, “let them. I will only be the sooner in heaven.”
He was placed sitting up in bed by the bailiff's, trembling in the cold rush of the blast; but the moment the father saw their polluted and sacrilegious hands upon him—he rushed forward accompanied by his mother.
“Stay,” he said, in a loud, hoarse voice, “since you will have him out, let our hands, not yours, be upon him.”