[The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine by William Carleton]@TWC D-Link bookThe Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine CHAPTER VIII 4/20
Hanlon proceeded to his master's, and peering through the shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest; then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was admitted by a thin, tall female. "God protect us, dear, you're lost!--blessed father, sich a night! Oh! my, my! Well, well; sit near the spark o' fire, sich as it is; but, indeed, it's little you'll benefit by it.
Any way, sit down." Hanlon sat on a stool, and laying his hat beside him on the floor, he pressed the rain as well as he could out of his drenched hair, and for some time did not speak, whilst the female, squatted upon the ground, somewhat like a hare in her form, sat with the candle in her hand, which she held up in the direction of his face, whilst her eyes were riveted on him with a look of earnest and solemn inquiry. "Well," she at length said, "did your journey end, as I tould you it would, in nothing? And yet, God presarve me, you look--eh!--what has happened ?--you look like one that was terrified, sure enough.
Tell me, at wanst, did the dhrame come out thrue ?" "I'll not have a light heart this many a day," he replied; "let no one say there's not a Providence above us to bring murdher to light." "God of glory be about us!" she exclaimed, interrupting him; "something has happened! Your looks would frighten one, an' your voice isn't like the voice of a livin' man.
Tell me--and yet, for all so curious as I feel, I'm thremblin' this minute--but tell me, did the dhrame come out thrue, I say ?" "The dhrame came out thrue," he replied, solemnly.
"I know where the tobaccy box is that he had about him; the same that transported my poor uncle, or that was partly the means of doin' it." The woman crossed herself, muttered a short ejaculatory prayer, and again gathered her whole features into an expression of mingled awe and curiosity. "Did you go to the place you dhramed of ?" she asked. "I went to the Grey Stone," he replied, "an' offered up a prayer for his sowl, afther puttin' my right hand upon it in his name, jist as I did on yesterday; afther I got an account of the tobaccy box, I heard a groan at the spot--as heaven's above me, I did." "Savior of earth, _gluntho shin!_" "But that wasn't all.
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