CHAPTER V.
Rienvella village lay at the extremity of a narrow, deep fiord, which broadened into a small, serene bay, almost land-locked, and thus was sheltered from the wild white surges that broke along that iron-bounded coast. The Atlantic water, restrained into gentleness during its progress through the deep channel between the cliffs, lapped meekly upon a short strip of yellow sands. Fishermen drew their boats upon the quiet beach as a haven of refuge, and reared their cabins in the recess.
Steep and stony was the road descending into the hamlet, and built upon at both sides likewise, including some shops of the humblest outfit. In one of the first cottages, set a short way back from the road, and fronted by an attempt at an inclosure, lay poor Emily Connor, enduring the last days of her mournful disease. It is not a common ailment along the western shore of Ireland; the briny air, laden with ozone, seems to be a preventive from consumption. But so the little girl’s cough had been passed over as harmless till the harm was done. Then the dispensary doctor had been fetched “on a ticket” to see her, and being a man who used no honeyed phrases to his gratuitous patients, rather roughly declared her too ill for recovery, so that Eily could not bear the thought of a visit from him afterward. But Mrs. Bryan’s interest in the girl put quite another colouring on the case. He came and prescribed many an alleviation, which the lady took care was properly carried out.
With what tenacity the young heart cleaved to life! Scarcely would it tolerate the idea of dying, unless when pain and sleeplessness had worn out the very spirit, and made the longing for rest pre-eminent. But rest! what Romanist can hope for it beyond the grave? She must atone for the venial sins of her life in the fires of purgatory. Sometimes at night did the pictures of that terrible region, drawn by Father Devenish in certain of his sermons from the steps of the altar, come before her mind with all the vividness of nervous imaginings, and make her miserable. Then she would feel for her bunch of beads, (or rosary,) which hung at the bed’s head, and repeat paters and aves to a weary number, seeking so to make up some wretched little rag of righteousness as a set-off to her sins, and lie with the cross on her lips when exhaustion supervened, in a voiceless prayer to “the Lord and his blessed mother,” he being, to her thought, the severe Judge, while the Virgin was the kind mediator between him and the children of men for whom he died.
“An’ sure you never did any sin worth while, you crathur,” her mother would say when she found her thus. “Only a weeshy little bit of a lie, may be, that the Almighty wouldn’t take notice of; or a small bit of passion, like a puff of smoke. An’ you wor as reg’lar at the priest’s foot* as any girl in the parish; an’ for fear you left e’er a little sin forgetten, I’ll sind word to Mrs. Clare that I’ll give her sixpence an’ a plate of meal for the day’s work, to go and do rounds for you at the new blessed well the nuns have found out at Roonard.”
The sick girl smiled languidly, but she did not feel that the “rounds” would do her much good. Her soul was in a maze of dread and of regret, unless when the poor body was too weakly to let the mind think. O how Mrs. Bryan longed to dispel the horror of great darkness that lay upon the future, and open up the glorious vista of endless life! It were work for an angel; but such work as God commits to human beings alone when he promotes us to the unspeakable honor of being “workers together with him.”
The little English lady won golden opinions from the villagers for her frequent visits and other kindnesses to Eily. Blessings form the susceptible people pursued her as she came and went; favours to one of them were felt as favours to the neighbourhood. When she produced the Bible, and read aloud from the Gospels, no objection was made to the Protestant book, because it was in their lady’s hands. Every day now she made it a duty to visit the cabin, and tried to pour comfort into the poor heart that wanted it so much, praying earnestly for direction from above. She knew the true comfort to be Jesus Christ himself, revealed to the soul by faith, as Saviour and King; she touched upon no controverted point, she assailed no Romish error; it would have closed every avenue for the truth at once by rousing prejudice to the full. There was, indeed, no time for controversy in the short, ebbing existence to which she ministered. Eily’s life was probably to be measured by hours. Mrs. Bryan did not want to make her a Protestant, but to show her to God’s way of salvation—Jesus Christ and him crucified—unclouded by any human invention.
“The entrance of thy word giveth light;” and undoubtedly this poor soul became calmer, and less frightened by superstitious alarms, as the cross of her Saviour loomed clearer upon the inward sight, and her heart grasped the grand knowledge that he had suffered for her, and that, therefore, she need not suffer. True, there was a crucifix hung on the whitewashed wall, under a picture called “The Bleeding Heart of Jesus;” but it had never made this plain to her, though nothing was more familiar to her eyes.
Father Eusebius O’Donnell heard of the reading of the Gospels in the fisherman’s cabin, and how the neighbouring women gathered in to hear. He merely remarked to his officious informant (the zealous parish clerk and mass-server,) “Well, I’ve been preaching the Gospel to ye all my life; sure ‘tis all one an’ the same, if ye only knew.” And he placidly drew a pinch of snuff from his silver box. He was no bitter bigot this old priest, but an easy-going, peaceable man, who hated contests and controversies as much as his Curate, Mr. Devenish, loved them. It was whispered among the strong farmers of the parish that for this very reason the latter fiery and energetic person had been sent by their spiritual superiors to be coadjutor to the quiet Father Euseby. Mr. Devenish would have gone at once, in an effluence of Maynooth zeal, and put Rienvella village in terror by threats of excommunication, and other pains and penalties.
“You’re young yet,” observed the old priest, with a backward nod of his experienced head, as he looked at the sharp, narrow face of the other. “’Twould only give the business importance, and make the people curious, may be, besides setting us at daggers with the Lodge. Believe me, it’s a great art to shut your eyes, Father Peter.”
But Mr. Devenish was not satisfied. He would watch, and watch, and act sharply, if need be. Why, these pestilential “Biblicals” had done all sorts of mischief in other parts of Ireland—look at Dingle, look at Connemara! And he was determined to keep his parish untainted. Inwardly he stigmatized his colleague as a time-server.
Rienvella Lodge being not far from Rienvella village, by a short road, cut (during the famine times, when the whole nation took to road making) through that rift of the hills which admitted the sunsets of spring and autumn to dazzle the windows of the house in the glen, Mrs. Bryan, one afternoon that she was much occupied, sent her little girl and her Swiss nursery-maid with the small covered basket which daily contained delicate food for poor Eily. Scarcely would she need any of it to-day, so worn and shadowy, so breathless and voiceless she lay on her bed.
“’Deed, then, she’s very bad entirely, if it’s that yer askin’ ma’am, an’ beggin’ pardon for being a bad hand at makin’ out forin languiges, ma’am,” said an old crone by the fire-place, as she hid her pipe in a crevice among the stones of the chimney. Now the poor Swiss had spoken the best English of which her lips were capable.
“Her brother’s gone for the priest this mornin’,” added the woman, beginning to rock herself to and fro on her stool, in conventional mourning. Neither the nurse nor the child understood that this was the sign that Eily was cosidered to be sinking beyond all hope of rally; but both looking at her as she lay, the sharpened features and wasted figure heaving with laboured breath, saw the light of a faint smile drawn upon the pallid face, and her eyes opened.
“What is it, darlin’? what is it, cushla machree?” said her mother, bending her ear to the lips that moved.
“The Happy Land,” she whispered; “sing—sing” —and tried to point at the child, who stood in the midst of the cabin floor, with golden hair cloaking her shoulders under her hat, and holding her maid’s hand rather tightly, her small face pale with feeling, while the Swiss girl’s big blue eyes were full of tears.
“It’s the hymn she wants,” said Mrs. Connor, raising her head from the listening posture. “She’s mindful of the day little missy was here before.”
As soon as Edith understood what was required of her, she began to sing, with a catch of her breath denoting excitement; but before the verses were ended the slight strain had passed away, and the childish voice was still and sweet, in which she added:
“I may say my verses for you too; mamma said I might; they are very nice, I think.”
Clasping her little gloved hands together in front, she utterd very distinctly, (for she had been taught that Scripture words never to be hurried over, but spoken with thought and reverence,)
“’God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’
“‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’
“‘I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’”
These were not to Eily the familiar words of a thousand fond memories of “precept upon precept, line upon line,” that they would have been to an English cottager—words echoing back from a childhood of Sunday-schools, inlaid with the very fibers of the mind. O the inestimable advantages of having memory well stored with such divine words before the evil days come!
After a pause like Edith’s simple commentary on the last text was spoken: “You know that does not mean only me,” and her small face flushed with the effort at expression of a thought; “but it means you besides, and every body who loves the Lord Jesus; and he will take them to live with him in heaven for ever and ever.”
Some person had entered at the door behind her. “Well said, my little lady. I wish all good Catholics were as well taught.”
There was a general flutter among the women to do reverence to the priest. He murmured some Latin blessing with hand uplifted, and sat down in the best chair set ready, but seemed to heed nothing but the fair child.
“Wont you shake hands with me? I’m acquainted with your papa, my dear. Tell him that Father Eusebius prays you may be a saint yet, little one.”
His clerk came bustling in with the little box containing the blue silk vestment and other matters needful for the performance of extreme unction, “the sacrament of the dying,” which, being never administered except to persons at the point of death, and for the benefit of the soul alone, is yet the wonderful superstructure built upon that passage by St. James, which recommends the annointing of the sick man for the good of the body, and with a view to recovery. Poor Eily could not make much confession; but the kind old priest urged her not at all. Indeed, he had come himself to this death-bed, instead of sending his curate, in order to spare her the cross-examination which Mr. Devenish would surely have instituted about that pernicious reading of the Gospels.
Little Edith never saw the sick girl again to whom she had ministered. But in the midst of that night, as it was going on towards dawn, Eily moved, lifted herself up with unexpected strength, and spoke quite plainly: “Mother, mother, the sun shines so bright—sure it can’t be mornin’ already?” The women looked at each other in mute amaze.
“And listen; do ye hear the little lady singin’ outside?” She raised her hand as if for silence; her mother hastened to support her sitting attitude. But the next minute the poor head lay helplessly and heavily on the shoulder of the mother as the last breath glided away.