The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector. William Carleton

mother's heart, and the wife's sorrow, had almost every eye in tears; and, indeed, it was impossible that the sympathy for her should not be deep and general. They all knew the excellence and mildness of her husband's character, and that every word she uttered concerning him was truth.

      In Irish wakehouses, it is to be observed, the door is never closed. The heat of the house, and the crowding of the neighbors to it, render it necessary that it should be open; but independently of this, we believe it a general custom, as it is also to keep it so during meals. This last arises from the spirit of hospitality peculiar to the Irish people.

      When his wife had uttered the words “you are no murderer,” a young and beautiful girl entered the house in sufficient time to have heard them distinctly. She was tall, her shape was of the finest symmetry, her features, in spite of the distraction which, at first glance, was legible in them, were absolutely fascinating. They all knew her well; but the moment she made her appearance, the conversation, and those expressions of sympathy which were passing from one to another, were instantly checked; and nothing now was felt but compassion for the terrible ordeal that they knew was before her mother. She rushed up to where her mother had sat down, her eyes flashing, and her long brown hair floating about her white shoulders, which were but scantily covered.

      “You talk of a murderer, mother,” she exclaimed. “You talk of a murderer, do you? But if murder has been committed, as it has, I am the murderer. Keep back now, let me look upon my innocent father—upon that father that I have murdered.”

      She approached the bed on which he lay, her eyes still flashing, and her bosom panting, and there she stood gazing upon his features for about two minutes.

      The silence of the corpse before them was not deeper than that which her unexpected presence occasioned. There she stood gazing on the dead body of her father, evidently torn by the pangs of agony and remorse, her hands clenching and opening by turns, her wild and unwinking eyes riveted upon those moveless features, which his love for her had so often lit up with happiness and pride. Her mother, who was alarmed, shocked, stunned, gazed upon her, but could not speak. At length she herself broke the silence.

      “Mother,” said she, “I came to see my father, for I know he won't strike me now, and he never did. O, no, because I ran away from him and from all of you, but not till after I had deserved it; before that I was safe. Mother, didn't my father love me once better than his own life? I think he did. O, yes, and I returned it by murdering him—by sending him—that father there that loved me so well—by—by sending him to the hangman—to a death of disgrace and shame. That's what his own Nannie, as he used to call me, did for him. But no shame—no guilt to you, father; the shame and the guilt are your own Nannie's, and that's the only comfort I have; for you're happy, what I will never be, either in this world or the next. You are now in heaven; but you will never see your own Nannie there.”

      The recollections caused by her appearance, and the heart-rending language she used, touched her mother's heart, now softened by her sufferings into pity for her affliction, if not into a portion of the former affection which she bore her.

      “O Nannie, Nannie!” said she, now weeping bitterly upon a fresh sorrow, “don't talk that way—don't, don't; you have repentance to turn to; and for what you've done, God will yet forgive you, and so will your mother. It was a great crime in you; but God can forgive the greatest, if his own creatures will turn to him with sorrow for what they've done.”

      She never once turned her eyes upon her mother, nor raised them for a moment from her father's face. In fact, she did not seem to have heard a single syllable she said, and this was evident from the wild but affecting abstractedness of her manner.

      “Mother!” she exclaimed, “that man they say is a murderer, and yet I am not worthy to touch him. Ah! I'm alone now—altogether alone, and he—he that loved me, too, was taken away from me by a cruel death—ay, a cruel death; for it was barbarous to kill him as if he was a wild beast—ay, and without one moment's notice, with all his sins upon his head. He is gone—he is gone; and there lies the man that murdered him—there he lies, the sinner; curse upon his hand of blood that took him I loved from me! O, my heart's breakin' and my brain is boilin'! What will I do? Where will I go? Am I mad? Father, my curse upon you for your deed of blood! I never thought I'd live to curse you; but you don't hear me, nor know what I suffer. Shame! disgrace—ay, and I'd bear it all for his sake that you plunged, like a murderer, as you were, into eternity. How does any of you know what it is to love as I did? or what it is to lose the man you love by a death so cruel? And this hair that he praised so much, who will praise it or admire it now, when he is gone? Let it go, too, then. I'll not keep it on me—I'll tear it off—off!”

      Her paroxysm had now risen to a degree of fury that fell little, if anything, short of insanity—temporary insanity it certainly was. She tore her beautiful hair from her head in handfuls, and would have proceeded to still greater lengths, when she was seized by some of those present, in order to restrain her violence. On finding that she was held fast, she looked at them with blazing eyes, and struggled to set herself free; but on finding her efforts vain, she panted deeply three or four times, threw back her head, and fell into a fit that, from its violence, resembled epilepsy. After a lapse of ten minutes or so, the spasmodic action, having probably wasted her physical strength, ceased, and she lay in a quiet trance; so quiet, indeed, that it might have passed for death, were it not for the deep expression of pain and suffering which lay upon her face, and betrayed the fury of the moral tempest which swept through her heart and brain. All the mother's grief now was hushed—all the faculties of her soul were now concentrated on her daughter, and absorbed by the intense anxiety she felt for her recovery. She sat behind the poor girl, and drew her body back so that her head rested on her bosom, to which she pressed her, kissing her passive lips with streaming eyes.

      “O, darling Nannie!” she exclaimed, “strive and rouse yourself; it is your loving mother that asks you. Waken up, poor misled and heart-broken girl, waken up; I forgive you all your errors. O, avillish machree (sweetness of my heart), don't you hear that it is your mother's voice that's spakin' to you!”

      She was still, however, insensible; and her little brothers were all in tears about her.

      “O mother!” said the oldest, sobbing, “is Nannie dead too? When she went away from us you bid us not to cry, that she would soon come back; and now she has only come back to die. Nannie, I'm your own little Frank; won't you hear me I Nannie, will you never wash my face of a Sunday morning more? will you never comb down my hair, put the pin in my shirt collar, and kiss me, as you used to do before we went to Mass together?”

      The poor mother was so much overcome by this artless allusion to her innocent life, involving, as it did, such a manifestation of affection, that she wept until fairly exhausted, after which she turned her eyes up to heaven and exclaimed, whilst her daughter's inanimate body still lay in her arms,

      “O Lord of mercy, will you not look down with pity and compassion on me this night!”

      In the course of about ten minutes after this her daughter's eyes began to fill with those involuntary tears which betoken in females recovery from a fit; they streamed quietly, but in torrents, down her cheek. She gave a deep sigh, opened her eyes, looked around her, first with astonishment, and then toward the bed with a start of horror.

      “Where am I?” said she.

      “You are with me, darlin',” replied the mother, kissing her lips, and whispering, “Nannie, I forgive you—I forgive you; and whisper, your father did before he went to death.”

      She smiled faintly and sorrowfully in her mother's face, and said, “Mother, I didn't know that.” After which she got up, and proceeding to the bed, she fell upon his body, kissed his lips, and indulged in a wild and heart-breaking wail of grief. This evidently afforded her relief, for she now became more calm and collected.

      “Mother,” said she, “I must go.”

      “Why, sure you won't leave us, Nannie?” replied the other with affectionate alarm.

      “O, I must go,” she repeated; “bring me the children till I see them once—Frank