Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
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Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
The delighted mother's heart was not proof against the widow's
gratitude, expressed, as it had been, in a manner so affecting. She
rocked herself to and fro in silence, whilst the tears fell in showers
down her cheeks. The grief, however, which this affectionate couple felt
for their child, was not always such as the reader has perceived it to
be. It was rather a revival of emotions that had long slumbered, but
never died; and the associations arising from the journey to Tubber
Derg, had thrown them back, by the force of memory, almost to the period
of her death. At times, indeed, their imagination had conjured her up
strongly, but the present was an epoch in the history of their sorrow.
There is little more to be said. Sorrow was soon succeeded by
cheerfulness and the glow of expected pleasure, which is ever the
more delightful, as the pleasure is pure. In about a week their old
neighbors, with their carts and cars, arrived; and before the day was
closed on which Owen removed to his new residence, he found himself once
more sitting at his own hearth, among the friends of his youth, and the
companions of his maturer years. Ere the twelvemonth elapsed, he had his
house perfectly white, and as nearly resembling that of Tubber Derg in
its better days as possible. About two years ago we saw him one evening
in the month of June, as he sat on a bench beside the door, singing with
a happy heart his favorite song of “_Colleen dhas crootha na mo_.” It
was about an hour before sunset. The house stood on a gentle eminence,
beneath which a sweep of green meadow stretched away to the skirts of
Tubber Derg. Around him was a country naturally fertile, and, in spite
of the national depression, still beautiful to contemplate. Kathleen
and two servant maids were milking, and the whole family were assembled
about the door.
“Well, childher,” said the father, “didn't I tell yez the bitther
mornin' we left Tubber Derg, not to cry or be disheartened--that there
was a 'good God above who might do somethin' for us yet?' I never did
give up may trust in Him, an' I never will. You see, afther all our
little troubles, He has wanst more brought us together, an' made us
happy. Praise an' glory to His name!”
I looked at him as he spoke. He had raised his eyes to heaven, and a
gleam of elevated devotion, perhaps worthy of being-called sublime,
irradiated his features. The sun, too, in setting, fell upon his broad
temples and iron-gray locks, with a light solemn and religious.
The effect to me, who knew his noble character, and all that he had
suffered, was as if the eye of God then rested upon the decline of a
virtuous man's life with approbation;--as if he had lifted up the
glory of his countenance upon him. Would that many of his thoughtless
countrymen had been present! They might have blushed for their crimes,
and been content to sit and learn wisdom at the feet of Owen M'Carthy.
NEAL MALONE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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