The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain: The Works of William Carleton, Volume OneCarleton, William
General
The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain: The Works of William Carleton, Volume One
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
the grave, and upon the heart as something wonderful in the accents of
God, or, as we may suppose the voice of the accusing angel to be, whilst
recording before His throne the official inhumanity of councils and
senates, who harden their hearts and shut their ears to “the cry of the
poor.”
Seated upon a second little stool was a man of huge stature, clothed,
if we can say I so, with rags, contemplating the misery around him, and
having no sounds to listen to but the low, ceaseless wail of pain
and suffering which we have described. His features, once manly and
handsome, are now sharp and hollow; his beard is grown; his lips are
white; and his eyes without I speculation, unless when lit up into
an occasional blaze of fire, that seemed to proceed as much from the
paroxysms of approaching insanity as from the terrible scene which
surrounds him, as well as from his own I wolfish desire for food.
His cheek bones project fearfully, and his large temples seem, by the
ghastly skin which is drawn tight about them, to remind one of those of
a skeleton, were it not that the image is made still more appalling by
the existence of life. Whilst in this position, motionless as a statue,
a voice from one of the beds called out “Jemmy,” with a tone so low and
feeble that to other ears it would probably not have been distinctly
audible. He went to the bedside, and taking the candle in his hand,
said, in a voice that had lost its strength but not its tenderness:
“Well, Mary dear?”
“Jemmy,” said she, for it was his wife who had called him, “my time has
come. I must lave you and them at last.”
“Thanks be to the Almighty,” he exclaimed, fervently; “and don't be
surprised, darlin' of my life, that I spake as I do. Ah, Mary dear,” he
proceeded, with, a wild and bitter manner, “I never thought that my love
for you would make me say such words, or wish to feel you torn out of my
breakin' heart; but I know how happy the change will be for you, as
well as the sufferers you are lavin' behind you. Death now is our only
consolation.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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