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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The
+South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland
+
+Author: T. Crofton Crocker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2012 [eBook #39752]
+[Most recently updated: August 17, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file
+was produced from images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+Revised by Richard Tonsing.
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+    FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.
+
+
+    BY
+
+    T. CROFTON CROCKER.
+
+
+    A New Edition.
+
+    WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
+    AFTER DESIGNS OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.
+
+
+    “Come l’araba Fenice
+    Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;
+    Dove sia, nessun lo sa.”—METASTASIO.
+
+
+    Philadelphia:
+    LEA AND BLANCHARD.
+    1844.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The erudite Lessing styles a preface “the history of a book.” Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.
+
+However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the “Fairy Legends”
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.
+
+Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced, as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.
+
+
+
+
+            CONTENTS.
+
+
+            THE SHEFRO.
+
+          I. The Legend of Knocksheogowna,
+         II. The Legend of Knockfierna,
+        III. The Legend of Knockgrafton,
+         IV. The Priest’s Supper,
+          V. The Brewery of Egg-shells,
+         VI. Legend of Bottle Hill,
+        VII. The Confessions of Tom Bourke,
+       VIII. Fairies or no Fairies,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+         IX. The Haunted Cellar,
+          X. Master and Man,
+         XI. The Little Shoe,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE BANSHEE.
+
+        XII. The Bunworth Banshee,
+       XIII. The MᶜCarthy Banshee,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE PHOOKA.
+
+        XIV. The Spirit Horse,
+         XV. Daniel O’Rourke,
+        XVI. The Crookened Back,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+       XVII. Fior Usga,
+      XVIII. Cormac and Mary (_Ballad_,)
+        XIX. The Legend of Lough Gur,
+         XX. The Enchanted Lake,
+        XXI. The Legend of O’Donoghue,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE MERROW.
+
+       XXII. The Lady of Gollerus,
+      XXIII. Flory Cantillon’s Funeral,
+       XXIV. The Lord of Dunkerron (_Ballad_,)
+        XXV. The Wonderful Tune,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE DULLAHAN.
+
+       XXVI. The Good Woman,
+      XXVII. Hanlon’s Mill,
+     XXVIII. The Death Coach (_Ballad_,)
+       XXIX. The Headless Horseman,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+        XXX. Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,
+       XXXI. Teigue of the Lee,
+      XXXII. Ned Sheehy’s Excuse,
+     XXXIII. The Lucky Guest,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+      XXXIV. Dreaming Tim Jarvis,
+       XXXV. Rent-Day,
+      XXXVI. Linn-na-Payshtha,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+     XXXVII. The Legend of Cairn Thierna,
+    XXXVIII. The Rock of the Candle,
+      XXXIX. Clough na Cuddy,
+         XL. The Giant’s Stairs.
+
+            APPENDIX—Letter from Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.
+
+CASTLE MAHON.
+
+
+    THEE, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land
+      (Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)
+      A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;
+    The moonlight SHEFROS there, in merry band
+    With artful CLURICAUNE, should ready stand
+      To welcome thee—Imagination’s child!
+      Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild
+    The BANSHEE’S shriek, who points with wither’d hand.
+    In the dim twilight should the PHOOKA come,
+      Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,
+      That opens clear calm LAKES upon thy sight,
+    Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.
+    I know thee, Lady—thou wilt not deride
+    Such Fairy Scenes.—Then onward with thy Guide.
+
+                                  T. Crofton Croker. [signature]
+
+[Illustration: The Wood Engravings after Designs by
+               Mr. BROOKE, R. H. A.,
+               Mr. MᶜCLISE,
+               and the AUTHOR.]
+
+
+
+
+Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+[Illustration: “Look there! look there, mammy!”]
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHEFRO.
+
+    ————————“Fairy Elves
+    Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+    Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
+    Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon
+    Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
+    Wheels her pale course.”—
+                                       MILTON.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.
+
+I.
+
+
+In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.
+
+But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,—now
+in one shape—now in another,—but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a bull’s head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck’s feet, and a turkey cock’s tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.
+
+The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.
+
+What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry’s asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. “If that is all ails you,” said Larry, “make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one’s thumb.” “Larry,”
+said the farmer, “do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight.”
+
+The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer’s
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, “What! another man upon the fairies’ ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;” and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. “Go on, jewel,”
+said Larry; “if you dance, I’ll pipe;” and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that, and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.
+
+Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; “spreading like a
+sea,” and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain’s base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, “By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap _for
+a calf_!”
+
+She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+“Laurence,” said she, “you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?” “And that’s what I will,” said he, “if you let me.” So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: “You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence,” said she, “that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it.” She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry’s life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer’s expense, and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna[1] after his death, is more than I can say.
+
+    [1] Knocksheogowna signifies “_The Hill of the Fairy Calf._”
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.[2]
+
+II.
+
+
+    [2] “Called by the people of the country ‘_Knock Dhoinn
+    Firinne_,’ the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very
+    high, and may be seen for several miles round; and when people
+    are desirous to know whether or not any day will rain, they look
+    at the top of Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist
+    there, they immediately conclude that rain will soon follow,
+    believing that Donn (the lord or chief) of that mountain and his
+    aërial assistants are collecting the clouds, and that he holds
+    them there for some short time, to warn the people of the
+    approaching rain. As the appearance of mist on that mountain in
+    the morning is considered an infallible sign that that day will
+    be rainy, Donn is called ‘_Donn Firinne_,’ Donn of Truth.”—MR.
+    EDWARD O’REILLY.
+
+It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.
+
+It has been truly said, that “good manners are no burden,” and that
+“civility costs nothing;” but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O’Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, “Devil Daly.”
+
+Carroll O’Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, “Good luck attend you, gentlemen.”
+
+It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards “the Balbec of Ireland,” the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O’Daly asked his companion how far he was going?
+
+“Not far your way,” said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; “I’m only going to the top of this hill here.”
+
+“And what might take you there,” said O’Daly, “at this time of the
+night?”
+
+“Why then,” replied the farmer, “if you want to know; ’tis the _good
+people_.”
+
+“The fairies you mean,” said O’Daly.
+
+“Whist! whist!” said his fellow-traveller, “or you may be sorry for
+it;” and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O’Daly good night and a safe journey.
+
+“That fellow,” thought Carroll, “is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!” he repeated, “is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of.”
+
+Carroll O’Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon’s disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.
+
+A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O’Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, “Here’s
+after you, old boy!” he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.
+
+Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O’Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+“Poul-duve,” or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.
+
+“But,” thought O’Daly, “these are old woman’s stories: and since I’ve
+come up so far, I’ll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home.”
+
+No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,—and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O’Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.
+
+Carroll O’Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey’s end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.
+
+III.
+
+
+There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.
+
+Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,[3] in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,
+
+    “Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
+    Apparent Queen, unveil’d her peerless light,
+    And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.”
+
+    [3] Literally, the great herb—_Digitalis purpurea_.
+
+Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:—
+
+_Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, when
+there would be a moment’s pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.
+
+Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words _augus Da Cadine_, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with _augus Da
+Cadine_.[4]
+
+    [4] Correctly written, _Dia Luain_, _Dia Mairt_, _agus Dia
+    Ceadaoine_, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
+
+The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.
+
+Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart’s content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.
+
+Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,—
+
+    “Lusmore! Lusmore!
+    Doubt not, nor deplore,
+    For the hump which you bore
+    On your back is no more!—
+    Look down on the floor,
+    And view it, Lusmore!”
+
+When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.
+
+Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man—in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.
+
+Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore’s hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.
+
+One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.
+
+“I need give you no directions, my good woman,” said Lusmore, “for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?”
+
+“I have come,” said the woman, “out of Decie’s country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: ’tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can.”
+
+Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.
+
+The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip’s house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.
+
+Jack Madden for that was the humpy man’s name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: _Da
+Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _augus
+Da Cadine_, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+_augus da Cadine augus Da Hena_,[5] thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.
+
+    [5] And Wednesday and Thursday.
+
+No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, “Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?” and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said—
+
+    “Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
+    Your words came so bad in
+    The tune we feel glad in;—
+    This castle you’re had in,
+    That your life we may sadden;—
+    Here’s two humps for Jack Madden!”
+
+And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore’s hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack’s back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden’s mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIEST’S SUPPER.
+
+IV.
+
+
+It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork—a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.
+
+On a nice green sod by the river’s side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out—
+
+    “Cease, cease with your drumming,
+    Here’s an end to our mumming;
+        By my smell
+        I can tell
+    A priest this way is coming!”
+
+And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.
+
+The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with “My blessing on all here.”
+
+I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which “the old
+woman,” for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. “No
+matter,” thought Dermod, “there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest’s supper, that one
+will be there before me.”
+
+Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of “the spreading Lee;” but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.
+
+Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, “May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there’s any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I’m clear in my own mind you’ll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you—did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?”
+
+“That’s not true for you,” said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; “there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you.”
+
+Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: “Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest’s supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time.”
+
+“I’ll have nothing at all to do with you,” replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, “I’m much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him—so there’s
+an end of the matter.”
+
+The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod’s
+manner, continued, “Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?”
+
+Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+“I see no objection to do that same, gentlemen,” said Dermod; “But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,—mind that.”
+
+“Then,” said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, “go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay.”
+
+Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.
+
+“Please your reverence,” said Dermod, after some hesitation, “may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?”
+
+“What may that be?” said Father Horrigan.
+
+“Why, then, begging your reverence’s pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?”
+
+“Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?” said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.
+
+“I’ll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth,” said Dermod. “It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer.”
+
+“Go back by all means,” said the priest, “and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I’ll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life.”
+
+Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.
+
+When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.
+
+V.
+
+
+It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Midsummer Night’s Dream[6] and the
+Fairy Queen?[7]
+
+    [6] Act ii. sc. 1.
+
+    [7] Book i. canto 10.
+
+Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+“fairies’ theft,” to use Spenser’s words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.
+
+Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.
+
+One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.
+
+“You’re in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan,” were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.
+
+“You may say that, Ellen,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen.”
+
+“Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan,” said Ellen Leah; “but are you
+sure ’tis a fairy?”
+
+“Sure!” echoed Mrs. Sullivan, “sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother’s soul must feel for me!”
+
+“Will you take an old woman’s advice?” said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, “but may be you’ll call it foolish?”
+
+“Can you get me back my child,—my own child, Ellen?” said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.
+
+“If you do as I bid you,” returned Ellen Leah, “you’ll know.” Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. “Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you.”
+
+Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot—it surely was.
+
+The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, “What are you doing, mammy?”
+
+Mrs. Sullivan’s heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, “I’m brewing, _a vick_” (my son).
+
+“And what are you brewing, mammy?” said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.
+
+“I wish the poker was red,” thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.
+
+“Is it what I’m brewing, _a vick_,” said she, “you want to know?”
+
+“Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?” returned the fairy.
+
+“Egg-shells, _a vick_,” said Mrs. Sullivan.
+
+“Oh!” shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, “I’m fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!” The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow—his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.
+
+Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy—and she wept!—tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them—they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.
+
+VI.
+
+
+    “Come listen to a tale of times of old,
+    Come listen to me—”
+
+It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from “the beautiful city called Cork.” Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, ’twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,—_she_ was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn’t enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.
+
+“Why then, Molly,” says he, “what’ll we do?”
+
+“Wisha, then, mavourneen, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?” says she; “and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested _again_ the
+fair.”
+
+“And what’ll we do when she’s gone?” says Mick, sorrowfully.
+
+“Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won’t leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?”
+
+“Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won’t be sorry for selling the cow; but I’ll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+’tis ripped under the arm.”
+
+Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o’clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.
+
+“Oh, then, if I only had half the money that’s buried in you, ’tisn’t
+driving this poor cow I’d be now! Why, then, isn’t it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God’s will, I’ll have some money myself coming
+back.”
+
+So saying, he moved on after his beast; ’twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill—Bottle Hill ’tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.
+
+“Good morrow,” says he. “Good morrow,” kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you’d almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn’t quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man’s company; and he couldn’t see one bit of
+his legs, nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn’t know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick’s heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn’t come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn’t the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing—when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.
+
+“Where are you going with the cow, honest man?”
+
+“To the fair of Cork then,” says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.
+
+“Are you going to sell her?” said the stranger.
+
+“Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?”
+
+“Will you sell her to me?”
+
+Mick started—he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.
+
+“What’ll you give for her?” at last says he.
+
+“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you this bottle,” said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.
+
+Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+“Laugh if you will,” said the little man, “but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork—ay, than ten thousand times as much.”
+
+Mick laughed again. “Why then,” says he, “do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle—and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won’t.”
+
+“You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle—you’ll not be
+sorry for it.”
+
+“Why, then, and what would Molly say? I’d never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?
+
+“I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell.”
+
+Mick started.
+
+“How does he know my name?” thought he.
+
+The stranger proceeded: “Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?”
+
+Mick was going to say “God forbid!” but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that’s what many people, that hold their heads higher, don’t mind
+now).
+
+“And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?
+
+“Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir,” said Mick; “and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I’d give you the
+cow in the name——”
+
+“Never mind names,” said the stranger, “but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly.”
+
+Mick hesitated.
+
+“Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!” said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.
+
+“May be ’tis true,” said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do—he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle—“Take the cow,” said he, “and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you.”
+
+“I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you.”
+
+“And what’s that?” says Mick.
+
+“When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean, set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: ‘Bottle, do your duty,’ and you will see the end
+of it.”
+
+“And is this all?” says Mick.
+
+“No more,” said the stranger. “Good by, Mick Purcell—you are a rich
+man.”
+
+“God grant it!” said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.
+
+“Lord between us and harm!” said Mick: “_He_ can’t belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?” She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
+
+“And what would I do if it broke?” thought he. “Oh! but I’ll take care
+of that;” so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.
+
+“Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer’n’t at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it.”
+
+“Why then, Molly, if you’ll give me time, I’ll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, ’tisn’t Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now.”
+
+“Oh! then, you sold her; and where’s the money?”
+
+“Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
+
+“But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?” said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.
+
+“Why, then, be easy now, can’t you,” says Mick, “till I tell it to
+you?” and putting the bottle on the table, “That’s all I got for the
+cow.”
+
+His poor wife was thunderstruck. “All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what’ll we do for
+the rent, and what——”
+
+“Now, Molly,” says Mick, “can’t you hearken to reason? Didn’t I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,—no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me—on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!” said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband’s head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man’s advice) loosened his wife’s
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn’t know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, “Bottle, do your duty.”
+
+“Look there! look there, mammy!” said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old—“look there! look there!” and he sprang to his
+mother’s side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn’t think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, “Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day’s work.”
+
+“Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle.”
+
+Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn’t taste half the dishes.
+
+“Now,” says Molly, “I wonder will those two good little gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?” They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, “Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you’ll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell.”
+
+Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money—sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he’d never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken—he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,
+
+    “Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending
+    And thrilling with music, was melting in light.”
+
+Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:—“Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man.”
+
+“Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that’s no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now—but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it.”
+
+“And here is the bottle,” said the old man, smiling; “you know what to
+do with it.”
+
+“Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have.”
+
+“Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man.”
+
+“And good-bye to you, sir,” said Mick, as he turned back; “and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill—it wants a name—Bottle
+Hill.—Good-bye, sir, good-bye;” so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,—“Oh! sure,
+I’ve another bottle!”
+
+“Arrah! then have you? why, then, you’re a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that’s what you are.”
+
+In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, “Bottle, do your duty.” In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.
+
+“Well, what do you want now?”
+
+“Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle.”
+
+“Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?”
+
+“Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen.”
+
+“Come along, then.” So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: “Ah! ha!”
+says he to himself, “may be I won’t have you by and by.”
+
+“Now,” says his landlord, “show us your bottle.” Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, “Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I’ll have you
+hanged!”
+
+“They never shall stop,” said Mick, “till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf.”
+
+“Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!”
+says the landlord.
+
+Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord’s only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so ’twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
+
+VII.
+
+
+Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom’s father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called “the good people.”
+
+Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect—they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eyebrows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. “Very well, sir;” “That’s true,
+sir;” “I’m very thankful to your honour,” and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.
+
+Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man’s business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular, that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind—a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.
+
+It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is _struck_[8] in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, _after_ their
+recovery.
+
+    [8] The term “fairy struck” is applied to paralytic affections,
+    which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the invisible
+    hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates fairy
+    doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+    to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has
+    also a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently
+    made to bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a
+    sacrifice to Bacchus.
+
+    The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+    peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of
+    consideration and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be
+    buried with his or her “own people.”
+
+To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the _good people_
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.
+
+About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom’s, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin’s house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent _potteen_, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom’s, this seemed a good
+opportunity.
+
+“Well, Tom,” said Mr. Martin, “that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer’s, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day.”
+
+“You may say that, sir,” replied Tom Bourke; “but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma’am,” said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.
+
+“Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family,” said Mrs. Martin.
+
+“So I had, ma’am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time.”
+
+“Come, Tom,” said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, “take
+another tumbler;” and he then added, “I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over.”
+
+“’Tis true for you, sir,” returned Tom; “your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won’t belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of ’em now.”
+
+“And how did you find it out, Tom?” inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+“Why, then, I’ll tell you, sir,” said Bourke: “When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little _bohereen_, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy’s ground; for ’twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother’s berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,[9] that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. ‘Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),’ says I. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ says he; ‘but you’re a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.’ ‘What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?’ says I: ‘the doctors give him over.’ ‘The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,’ says Shamous: ‘but go to such a one,’ says he, telling me his
+name, ‘and try what he’ll say to you.’”
+
+    [9] A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie man
+    of Scotland.
+
+“And who was that, Tom?” asked Mr. Martin.
+
+“I could not tell you that, sir,” said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+“howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I’d
+have now some of them that’s gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great _impression_
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad—very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o’clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one halfpenny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you—I wont belie my father, sir—he was a good
+father to me—I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. ‘Is that you, father?’ says I. He said nothing. ‘If that’s
+you,’ says I again, ‘for the love of them that’s gone, let me catch
+your hand.’ And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child’s.
+He stayed about as long as you’d be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn’t
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains.”
+
+“But I think, Tom,” said Mr. Martin, “it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father——”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Bourke, interrupting him; “but don’t
+call them my enemies. ’Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.—Here’s
+wishing you a good health and long life.”
+
+“I assure you,” returned Mr. Martin, “I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?”
+
+“I can’t tell you that, sir,” said Bourke; “I’m bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them.”
+
+There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son’s illness—circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.
+
+“See that now,” said he, returning to Mr. Martin, “how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma’am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats’ whey.”
+
+Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued—“Why, then, I’ll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e’er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father’s. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?”
+
+“Certainly not, Tom,” returned Mr. Martin.
+
+“Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.—‘Whisht, you fool!’ says I: ‘’tis all for the better.’ ’Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma’am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack’s face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+’Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you.”
+
+“’Twas very strange, indeed, Tom,” said Mr. Martin; “I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it.”
+
+“I wish I could, sir,” was Tom Bourke’s answer; “but I’m bound down. I
+can’t tell but what I’m allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds.”
+
+“I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son,” said Mr. Martin.
+
+“So I had, sir,” returned Bourke. “I had a trial of that man. But
+that’s neither here nor there. I can’t tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?”
+
+“Oh! very much indeed,” said Mr. Martin.
+
+“But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story,” added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.
+
+“Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, ’cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother’s
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father’s people—I mean their friends, sir, among
+the _good people_, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she’d be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father’s people.”
+
+“He was a valuable friend, Tom,” said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. “But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful.”
+
+“So I will, and welcome,” replied Bourke. “Your health, ma’am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one’s throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?—Yes—well—Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a _berrin_ late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,[10] near Ballyhefaan
+ford.[11] He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they’d break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that’s saying enough for him; so he whipped[12] off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he’d show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!—his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+them. Patrick was ’shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. ‘Patrick,’ says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+‘Patrick,’ says he, ‘you’re discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I’m your friend, and your father’s friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don’t be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.’
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey.”
+
+    [10] Inch—low meadow ground near a river.
+
+    [11] A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,) on
+    the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.
+
+    [12] _i. e._ “In the time of a crack of a whip,” he took off his
+    shoes and stockings.
+
+“And what was the cause of his great success?” inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+“He could not help it, sir,” replied Tom Bourke. “They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side.”
+
+“Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?” said Mr. Martin.
+
+“I’ll tell you that too, sir,” answered Bourke, “when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn’t make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it’s little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can’t tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn’t be the man he is
+to-day.
+
+“I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill,” said
+Mr. Martin.
+
+“You have it all now, sir,” replied Bourke. “Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn’t hinder the fever, they’d bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick’s family, and it went again’ his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+’em boasting how they’d dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever.”
+
+“I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford,” said Mr. Martin. “’Tis a great place for the good people, isn’t
+it, Tom?”
+
+“You may say that, sir,” returned Bourke. “I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th’ other side of the river, looking at ’em playing goal
+as if they’d break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th’ other, just as you’d see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming’s
+big field. I saw ’em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th’ other. I’m sure they were
+going to fight, only, ’twas near morning. I’m told your grandfather,
+ma’am, used to see ’em, there, too,” said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.
+
+“So I have been told, Tom,” replied Mrs. Martin. “But don’t they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper[13] is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch.”
+
+    [13] About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+    nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.
+
+“Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma’am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard,” said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, “’twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother’s soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with ’em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among ’em (for he hadn’t a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+‘Davy,’ says he, ‘take out a partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don’t offer to kiss her.’ ‘That I won’t,’ says Davy,
+‘although her lips were made of honey.’ And with that he made his bow
+to the _purtiest_ girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+’Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th’ admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. ’Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; ’twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn’t get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o’clock.”
+
+When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.—He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning churchyards, river-sides, leprechauns, and _dina
+magh_, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, “I can talk no more;” stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom’s wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, “As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork.”
+
+
+
+
+FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.
+
+VIII.
+
+
+John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done—but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.
+
+John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories—many more did not believe them—but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.
+
+Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible—that it was merely old woman’s gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources—nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge—they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.
+
+“But,” said they, “Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?”
+
+“Never,” was the reply.—“Never, as I am a man of honour and credit.”
+
+“Well, then,” they answered, “until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother.”
+
+Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle’s, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined—he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host’s entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, (“not,” added he, “however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,”) they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.
+
+He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. “Yes, indeed!” muttered he, “the
+brats had me in one thing—I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one—and by the powers! what is that?”
+
+He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments—and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak’s branches—some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves—some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk—some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse’s neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+“Bravo! little fellow,” said he, “well kicked and strong.” But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.
+
+“I wish,” said Jack, “I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean.”
+
+No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.
+
+“Halloo!” said he, “young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you _oc-oc-_ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying.”
+
+Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, “Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?”
+
+“The fairies,” shouted Jack; “the fairies!”
+
+“I am afraid,” muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, “the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter—come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch.”
+
+He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;—how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. “Suppose,” said one of the
+lads, “we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?”
+
+“Done!” cried Jack; “but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air.” This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.
+
+Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. “Look there,” he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; “look, and deny if you can.”
+
+“Why,” said one of the lads, pausing, “true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;” and he dismounted to climb over the wall.
+
+“Ah, Tom! Tom,” cried Jack, “stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies—the good people, I mean—hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or—look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak—God
+help him! for he is past the help of man.”
+
+By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. “Jack,”
+said he, “keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup.”
+
+“Catsup,” said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly—“What do you mean by
+catsup?”
+
+“Nothing,” replied Tom, “but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball.”
+
+Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.
+
+I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but—
+
+              “These our actors,
+    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+    Are melted into air—into thin air.”
+
+     The name SHEFRO, by which the foregoing section is
+     distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+     and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+     to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+     to have castles or mansions of their own.—See _Stewart’s
+     Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &c.
+
+     _Sia_, _sigh_, _sighe_, _sigheann_, _siabhra_, _siachaire_,
+     _siogidh_, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+     Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+     or witch. Thus we have the compounds _Leannan-sighe_, a
+     familiar, from _Leannan_, a pet, and _Sioghdhraoidheachd_,
+     enchantment with or by spirits.
+
+     _Sigh gàoithe_ or _siaheann-gàoithe_, a whirlwind, is so termed
+     because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+     day called _Sia_, because twilight,
+
+        “That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,”
+
+     is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+     _Sigh_ is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+     to dwell within. _Sidhe_, _sidheadh_, and _sigh_, are names for
+     a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+     fairies.
+
+     The term _Shoges_, i.e. _Sigh oges_ (young or little spirits,)
+     Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+     “The Irish Hudibras,” 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+     entitled “The Fingallian Travesty,” is among the Sloane MSS.
+     No. 900. In the Third Part of O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, it is
+     related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+     chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for “_Sidhe_, or
+     fairies,” by some pagan ladies.
+
+     “The Irish,” according to the Rev. James Hely’s translation of
+     O’Flaherty, “call these _Sidhe_, aërial spirits or phantoms,
+     because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+     common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+     are called by us _Sidhe_ or _Siodha_.”
+
+     For a similar extended use of the German word _Alp_, _Elf_, &c.
+     see Introductory Essay to the Grimms’ _Irische Elfenmärchen_,
+     pp. 55–62.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+    “————————— That sottish elf
+    Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,
+    Draining the cellar with as free a hand
+    As if it were his purse which ne’er lacked coin;—
+    And then, with feign’d contrition ruminates
+    Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,
+    In some secluded dell or lonely grove
+    Tinsel’d by Twilight.”—
+                                               Δ.
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED CELLAR.
+
+IX.
+
+
+There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies—one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more—and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh—and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.
+
+But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.
+
+There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy’s butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.
+
+“We have no fault,” they would say, “to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days.”
+
+“’Tis a queer thing that, surely,” thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler’s pantry:—“’tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar.”
+
+Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.
+
+A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.
+
+“Where is William?” inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+“Sir?” said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.
+
+“Is it William, please your honour?” returned Jack; “why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just _one_ drop too much last night.”
+
+“Where did he get it?” said Mr. Mac Carthy; “for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself.”
+
+“Sorrow a know I know,” said Leary, “unless the cook might have given
+him the _least taste_ in life of whiskey. But,” continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, “may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?”
+
+“Speak out, Jack,” said Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+“Why, then, does your honour want a butler?”
+
+“Can you recommend me one,” returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, “and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?”
+
+“Is the wine-cellar all the matter?” said young Leary: “not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that.”
+
+“So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?”
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.
+
+“Exactly so,” answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.
+
+“Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial.”
+
+“Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!”
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.
+
+“Jack Leary,” said he at length, “Jack—is it Jack?” in a tone of
+wonder; “faith, ’tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;” and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.
+
+It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack’s former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an “Out of the way, sirrah.” Indeed, poor Jack’s memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.
+
+When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary—so
+he still continued to call his new butler. “Jack,” said he, “I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner.”
+
+Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.
+
+It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.
+
+For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy’s guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,—a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.
+
+It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.
+
+The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.
+
+The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages—I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.
+
+Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind—for it was before the days of
+Bramah’s patent,—and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.
+
+Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.
+
+To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.
+
+When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.
+
+“What kept-you?” said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; “and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since.”
+
+“The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir,” said Jack, trembling
+violently; “I hope ’tis not all lost.”
+
+“What do you mean, fool?” exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: “why did you not fetch some with you?”
+
+Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, “this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it.” So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.
+
+When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled
+
+                “like those mites
+    Of candied dew in moony nights—
+
+and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.
+
+“Ha, scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, “have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar—what are you doing there?”
+
+“Sure, and master,” returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, “a’n’t we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?”
+
+“Oh!” thought Mr. Mac Carthy, “if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don’t see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy.” So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.
+
+For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.
+
+Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger—ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;—only looking mighty old. But still ’tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call _spré-na-skillinagh_,
+and ’tis said is never without a shilling in it.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND MAN.
+
+X.
+
+
+Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.
+
+It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. “By my word,” chattered Billy, “a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man’s soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best.”
+
+“Never wish it twice, Billy,” said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.
+
+“Success, my little fellow,” said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the _good people_;
+“here’s your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;” and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.
+
+“Success,” said the little man; “and you’re heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don’t think to cheat me as you have done others,—out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman.”
+
+“Is it I pay you?” said Billy: “could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?”
+
+“Billy Mac Daniel,” said the little man, getting very angry, “you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me.”
+
+When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the live-long night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.
+
+When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, “You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don’t fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master.”
+
+Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, “Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night.”
+
+Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: “But,” said he, “if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us.”
+
+“Ask no questions, Billy,” said the little man, “but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find.”
+
+Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. “Get up, Billy,” said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.
+
+“Where will I get up, please your honour?” said Billy.
+
+“Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure,” said the little man.
+
+“Is it after making a fool of me you’d be,” said Billy, “bidding me
+get a horseback upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?”
+
+“Up! up! and no words,” said the little man, looking very vexed; “the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it.” So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: “Borram! Borram! Borram!” cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse’s tail; and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.
+
+At last they came to their journey’s end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: “Now, Billy,” said the little man, “do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse’s head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can’t
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb.”
+
+The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.
+
+The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. “The best of masters are you
+surely,” said Billy to him; “no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink.”
+
+“I have made no bargain with you,” said the little man, “and will make
+none; but up and follow me.” Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, “Borram, Borram, Borram,” had passed
+their lips.
+
+When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there—sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman’s wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well—ay, better than the butler himself.
+
+One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, “Billy, I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take.” So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. “If I have,” thought Billy, “he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don’t see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master.”
+
+Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer’s house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunnel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, “Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!”
+
+“God bless us, sir,” said Billy, “will you?”
+
+“Don’t say these words again, Billy,” said the little man, “or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married.”
+
+“I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all,” said Billy, “if
+ever you mean to marry.”
+
+“And to that purpose,” said the little man, “have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunnel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me.”
+
+“And what will Darby Riley say to that?” said Billy.
+
+“Silence!” said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: “I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;” and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.
+
+In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cock-sparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.
+
+There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward—and under them were the priest and piper—and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby’s two brothers and his uncle’s
+son—and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had—and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster—and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it—and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.
+
+Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig’s head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said “God bless us.” All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig’s head and greens. And after a
+moment’s pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.
+
+Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. “Ha!” exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches—“Ha!” said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, “I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley.”
+
+Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying “God bless us.”
+
+Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.
+
+At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, “God save us!” Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, “I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel—take _that_ for your wages,” gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.
+
+If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE SHOE.
+
+XI.
+
+
+“Now tell me, Molly,” said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,[14]
+“did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?”
+
+    [14] “Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+    Silence.”—_O’Keefe’s Recollections._
+
+“Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many’s
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about ’em.”
+
+“But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?”
+
+“Och! no, I never _see_ one in my life; but my grandfather, that’s my
+father’s father, you know, he _see_ one, one time, and caught him
+too.”
+
+“Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?”
+
+“Why, then, I’ll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day’s work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, ‘I’ll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I’ll have money enough always.’ So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn’t make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he _see_ the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. ‘Faith I have you now,’ says he, ‘and I’ll never let you go
+till I get your purse—that’s what I won’t; so give it here to me at
+once, now.’—‘Stop, stop,’ says the Cluricaune, ‘stop, stop,’ says he,
+’till I get it for you.’ So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often _see_ it, and had it in her hand, and ’twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw.”
+
+“And did you see it yourself, Molly?”
+
+“Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough.”
+
+     The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+     Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+     former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.
+
+     The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+     and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+     Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+     Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+     Irish for a pigmy.
+
+     It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+     one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word _luacharman_
+     is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+     the English word, _man_.—A rushy man,—that may be, a man of
+     the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+     is, unfrequented or boggy places.
+
+     The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+     court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+     Leprochaune:—
+
+     _Court._—Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+     character or designation.
+
+     _Witness._—My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+     fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+     carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+     keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+     cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+     let him go, and then you’re as rich as a Jew.
+
+     _Court._—Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+     Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.
+
+     _Witness._—Yes, my lord, there was one—
+
+     _Court._—That will do.
+
+     With respect to “money matters,” there appears to be a strong
+     resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+     Cluricaune.—“Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+     quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit,” are
+     the words of Petronius.—See, for farther arguments in support
+     of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm’s Essay on
+     the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+     work, under the head of “Ancient Testimonies.”
+
+     “Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+     skill of the dwarfs in curious smith’s-work.”—“The Irish
+     Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+     making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+     the old Northern language a shoemaker is called a
+     _shoe-smith_;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+     tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+     shoemaker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+     with incredible quickness during the night.”
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+    “Who sits upon the heath forlorn,
+    With robe so free and tresses torn?
+    Anon she pours a harrowing strain,
+    And then—she sits all mute again!
+    Now peals the wild funereal cry—
+    And now—it sinks into a sigh.”
+                              OURAWNS.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANSHEE.
+
+XII.
+
+
+The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to “_the
+minister_” (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country—to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.
+
+But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth’s death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.
+
+The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.
+
+About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o’clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.
+
+“What is the matter, Kavanagh?” asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, “The master, Miss—the
+master—he is going from us;” and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.
+
+Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. “No, Miss,” said Kavanagh; “it was not in Mallow——”
+
+“Kavanagh,” said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, “I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;—I thought
+you might have been trusted:—what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say.”
+
+Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;—but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.
+
+“Miss,” said he, “as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master——”
+
+“Speak softly,” said Miss Bunworth; “he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect.”
+
+“Praise be to God for that, any way,” replied Kavanagh; “but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely—we will lose him—the master—we will lose
+him, we will lose him!” and he wrung his hands together.
+
+“What is it you mean, Kavanagh?” asked Miss Bunworth.
+
+“Is it mean?” said Kavanagh: “the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+’tis not I alone who have heard her.”
+
+“’Tis an idle superstition,” said Miss Bunworth.
+
+“May be so,” replied Kavanagh, as if the words ‘idle superstition’
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind—“May be so,” he
+continued; “but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me, keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master’s name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+_berrin_ ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one’s heart to hear it.”
+
+“Kavanagh,” said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, “my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story.”
+
+Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bed-side of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.
+
+The night was serene and moonlit—the sick man slept—and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bed-side of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances, two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep—if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand—would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+XIII.
+
+
+The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned—as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars—as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene—and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man’s table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.
+
+Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated—I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle (‘black emblem of the informer’) dangling from his
+waist-coat-button—went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British “parliament,” that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger—recording angel of the
+law—wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state to like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, “It’s all
+over, James;” and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man’s voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles’s foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles’s playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.
+
+When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.
+
+The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:—suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur—then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic—and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:—the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy’s room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son’s chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, “Mother;”—but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, “Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?”
+
+He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, “Yes, my mother, alive, and—— But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen.” He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted all her senses, he proceeded:—“do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me—’tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,—I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I _can_ describe I _will_—I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never—not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being—never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended—when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, ‘Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.’—I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered.”
+
+Charles’s strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours’ sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.
+
+Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.
+
+Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles’s health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles’ distance from Spring House.
+
+                        _“To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry._
+
+                                    Spring House, Tuesday morning,
+                                               October 15th, 1752.
+
+     “MY DEAREST MARY,
+
+     “I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+     friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days’ journey at
+     this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+     will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+     sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+     have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+     my son’s story. I can’t tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+     approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+     be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+     I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+     soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+     Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+     son’s ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+     on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+     postponed a day or two longer. Would to God—but no more of
+     this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+     man for _one_ week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+     his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+     before Sunday as you can.
+
+     “Ever my dear Mary’s attached cousin and friend,
+                                                  “ANN MAC CARTHY.”
+
+Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke’s
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.
+
+                                       “Spring House, Sunday evening,
+                                                  20th October, 1752.
+
+     “DEAR ELLEN,
+
+     “As my mother’s letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+     you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+     fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+     the extraordinary events of the last two days.
+
+     “The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+     was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+     the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+     this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+     rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+     last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+     Mr. Bourke’s brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+     the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+     had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+     and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone clear and
+     bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+     black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+     and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+     as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+     blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+     narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+     number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+     shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+     mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+     far we were from Mr. Bourke’s. ‘’Tis about ten spades from this
+     to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+     the avenue, ma’am.’ ‘Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke’s
+     as soon as you reach the cross roads.’ My mother had scarcely
+     spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+     very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+     right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+     the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+     giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+     ‘Heaven defend us!’ exclaimed my mother. ‘Go you over the
+     hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+     while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+     village near it.’ ‘Woman!’ said Leary, beating the horse
+     violently, while his voice trembled—‘that’s no woman: the
+     sooner we get on, ma’am, the better;’ and he continued his
+     efforts to quicken the horse’s pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+     was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+     expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+     and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+     distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+     succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+     despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+     inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+     nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+     place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke’s to the left,
+     and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+     started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+     plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+     woman, with uncovered head, and long hair that floated round her
+     shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+     white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+     the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+     which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+     hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+     and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+     had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+     the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+     uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+     then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+     instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+     little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+     pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+     of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+     up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+     garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+     closely wrapped around it. ‘Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+     God’s name,’ said my mother; ‘whatever world it belongs to, we
+     will provoke it no longer.’ ‘’Tis the Banshee, ma’am,’ said
+     Leary; ‘and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+     where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I’m afraid
+     there’s something bad going forward, or _she_ would not send us
+     there.’ So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+     road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+     saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+     clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+     person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+     badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+     drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o’clock last
+     night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+     mother’s letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+     some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+     week.
+
+     “You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+     day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+     here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+     morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+     inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+     the grounds a little before dinner. It seems that an
+     unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+     seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+     for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+     months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+     but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+     and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+     disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+     During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+     in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+     tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+     had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.
+
+     “Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+     between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+     rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+     were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+     pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+     which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+     instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+     leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+     immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+     injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+     merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+     few days. ‘We shall know more by Sunday,’ said Charles, as he
+     was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+     and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+     of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.
+
+     “On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+     poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+     aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+     and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+     search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+     of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+     and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+     Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+     was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+     working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+     escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+     taken until last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+     frantic, a little before our arrival.
+
+     “Charles’s wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+     the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+     entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+     and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+     that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+     advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+     twelve o’clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+     announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+     before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+     The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+     otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+     their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+     before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+     The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+     heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+     was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+     information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+     But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+     screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+     the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+     followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+     a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+     furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+     hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+     body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+     the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+     I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+     Charles’s room, to ‘get his forgiveness,’ as she said, ‘before
+     he went away to accuse her for having killed him.’ This wild
+     idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+     former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+     Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+     Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+     torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, ‘James
+     Ryan, ’twas you killed him, and not I—’twas you killed him,
+     and not I.’
+
+     “Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+     mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+     the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+     accident. She conducted us to Charles’s room, who she said, had
+     desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+     end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+     existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+     perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+     awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+     treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+     his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+     was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+     one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+     left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+     anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.
+
+     “Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy——but I am just called away. There seems
+     a slight stir in the family; perhaps——”
+
+The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles’s seven-and-twentieth birth-day, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.
+
+     “BANSHEE, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+     credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+     to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+     lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+     family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+     no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+     believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege.”—O’BRIEN’S
+     _Irish Dictionary_.
+
+     For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+     “Personal Sketches, &c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;” Miss Lefanu’s
+     Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+     32; “The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw” (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+     in a note on “the Lady of the Lake,”) &c.
+
+     Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+     Banshee “one of the most beautiful” of the leading
+     superstitions of Europe. In his “Letters on Demonology,” he
+     says that “several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+     anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+     who performed the office of the Irish Banshee,” and
+     particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+     which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.
+
+     “The Welsh Gwrâch y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+     some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+     omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+     leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+     in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+     mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+     _A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni._”—_MS. Communication from_ DR. OWEN
+     PUGHE. For some farther particulars, see, in “A Relation of
+     Apparitions, &c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones,” his account of the
+     _Kyhirraeth_, “a doleful foreboding noise before death;” and
+     Howell’s “Cambrian Superstitions,” (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.
+
+     The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+     of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+     prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+     of Poitou. Prince, in his “Worthies of Devon,” records the
+     appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+     worshipful lineage of Oxenham.
+
+     “In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+     the window of the house in which a person is to die (_Deutsche
+     Sagen_, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+     (267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+     _Klage-weib_ (mourning woman,) in the _Lüneburger Heath_
+     (_Spiels Archiv._ ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+     stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+     fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+     death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+     grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+     immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+     the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+     _Klage-weib_ has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+     course of the month.”—THE BROTHERS GRIMM, _and MS.
+                               Communication from_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.
+
+    “Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings’ helpless harms,
+    Ne let the _Pouke_, nor other evil spright,
+    Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,
+    Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
+        Fray us with things that be not.”
+                                                SPENSER.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT HORSE.
+
+XIV.
+
+
+The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.
+
+Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them—it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;—but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.
+
+Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.
+
+This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.
+
+And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;—then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.
+
+“In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban,” said Morty, “how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?”
+
+These words had no sooner passed Morty’s lips than he found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman’s jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman’s appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear—judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.—“What’s your name?” at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.
+
+Plucking up all his courage, “Morty Sullivan,” replied he “at your
+service;” meaning the latter words only in civility.
+
+“_Ubbubbo!_” said the old woman, “we’ll soon see that;” and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.
+
+“Take hold of my hand, Morty,” said the old woman: “I’ll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey’s end.” So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;—it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.
+
+Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.
+
+“Mount, Morty, mount!” cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, “O that I had spurs!” and tried to
+grasp the horse’s mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.
+
+The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O’Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),[15] never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.
+
+    [15]  “Nulla manus,
+          Tam liberalis
+          Atque generalis
+          Atque universalis
+          Quam Sullivanis.”
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O’ROURKE.
+
+XV.
+
+
+People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O’Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka’s tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.
+
+“I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir,” said he, “so that this is not the
+first time. The master’s son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour’s presence. They’d swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;—and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;—and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord’s bounty often and often
+in the year;—but now it’s another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I’d better be telling you my story.
+
+“Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen—a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can’t
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that’s certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I’d just step to Molly Cronohan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself—for why? it was Lady-day—I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. ‘Death alive!’ thought I,
+‘I’ll be drowned now!’ However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
+
+“I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;—I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the _Ullagone_—when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.
+
+“So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel O’Rourke,’
+says he, ‘how do you do?’ ‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says I: ‘I
+hope you’re well;’ wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. ‘What brings you here, Dan?’
+says he. ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I: ‘only I wish I was safe home
+again.’ ‘Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?’ says he. ‘’Tis,
+sir,’ says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. ‘Dan,’ says he, after a
+minute’s thought, ‘though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who ’tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields—my life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you’d fall off, and I’ll fly you out of the bog.’ ‘I
+am afraid,’ says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?’ ‘’Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,’ says he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog—besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.’
+
+“It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:—‘I thank
+your honour,’ says I, ‘for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take
+your kind offer.’ I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up—up—up—I
+know not how far up he flew.
+
+“‘Why, then,’ said I to him,—thinking he did not know the right road
+home—very civilly, because why?—I was in his power entirely;—‘sir,’
+says I, ‘please your honour’s glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.’
+
+“‘_Arrah_, Dan,’ said he, ‘do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a _cowld_ stone in a bog.’ ‘Bother you,’ said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. ‘Where in the world are you going, sir?’ says I to
+him. ‘Hold your tongue, Dan,’ says he: ‘mind your own business, and
+don’t be interfering with the business of other people.’ ‘Faith, this
+is my business, I think,’ says I. ‘Be quiet, Dan,’ says he: so I said
+no more.
+
+“At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can’t see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus [in-line illustration] on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)
+
+“‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly; I had no
+notion ’twas so far.’ ‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the world
+_axed_ you to fly so far—was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?’ ‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’
+said he; ‘I’m tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.’ ‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I;
+‘is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall
+off in a minute, and be _kilt_ and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,—so you are.’ ‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he: ‘you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and ’twill keep you up.’ ‘I won’t, then,’ said I.
+‘May be not,’ said he, quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.’ ‘Why, then, I’m in a
+fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;’ and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he’d know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.
+
+“When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+‘Good morning to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘I think I’ve nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,’ (’twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) ‘and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cock-throw.’
+
+“‘Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?’ says
+I. ‘You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.’ ’Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this—sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing ’em, and out there
+walks—who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.
+
+“‘Good morrow to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘How do you do?’
+‘Very well, thank your honour,’ said I. ‘I hope your honour’s well.’
+‘What brought you here, Dan?’ said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master’s, and how I was cast on a
+_dissolute_ island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.
+
+“‘Dan,’ said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, ‘you must not stay here.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis much
+against my will I’m here at all; but how am I to go back?’ ‘That’s
+your business,’ said he, ‘Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.’ ‘I’m doing no harm,’ says
+I, ‘only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.’
+‘That’s what you must not do, Dan,’ says he. ‘Pray, sir,’ says I, ‘may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I’m sure ’tis not so often you’re troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for ’tis a long way.’ ‘I’m by myself,
+Dan,’ says he; ‘but you’d better let go the reaping-hook.’ ‘Indeed,
+and with your leave,’ says I, ‘I’ll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won’t let go;—so I will.’ ‘You had better,
+Dan,’ says he again. ‘Why, then, my little fellow,’ says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, ‘there are two
+words to that bargain, and I’ll not budge, but you may if you like.’
+‘We’ll see how that is to be,’ says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.
+
+“Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and _whap_! it came in two. ‘Good morning to
+you, Dan,’ says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand: ‘I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.’ I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. ‘Now help me,’ says I,
+‘but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.’ The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know _me_? The _ould_ gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, ‘Is that you, Dan?’ ‘The
+same,’ said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him
+of _ould_. ‘Good morrow to you,’ says he, ‘Daniel O’Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?’ ‘Very well, sir,’ says I, ‘I thank you
+kindly,’ drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. ‘I
+hope your honour’s the same.’ ‘I think ’tis falling you are, Daniel,’
+says he. ‘You may say that, sir,’ says I. ‘And where are you going all
+the way so fast?’ said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. ‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’ ‘Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.
+
+“We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. ‘Ah! my lord,’ said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, ‘fly to land if you
+please.’ ‘It is impossible, you see, Dan,’ said he, ‘for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.’ ‘To Arabia!’ said I; ‘that’s
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I’m a man to be pitied among you.’ ‘Whist, whist, you
+fool,’ said he, ‘hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.’
+
+“Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: ‘Ah! then, sir,’ said I, ‘will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?’ ‘We are not fair over it,’ said he. ‘We are,’
+said I. ‘We are not,’ said he: ‘If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.’ ‘I would not,’ says I: ‘I know better than that,
+for it’s just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.’
+
+“‘If you must, you must,’ said he. ‘There, take your own way;’ and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right—sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night’s sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn’t
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying—’twas
+a voice I knew too—‘Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;’ and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;—for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.
+
+“‘Get up,’ said she again: ‘and of all places in the parish, would no
+place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.’ And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I’d
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that.”
+
+
+
+
+THE CROOKENED BACK.
+
+XVI.
+
+
+Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says “she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient”), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son’s fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.
+
+Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of “dark December” whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:—at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the “crookening of her back.”
+
+“It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn’t bear it. ’Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that’s ten years last Easter—I won’t forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn’t come home to dinner. I
+don’t know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+’Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn’t a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn’t long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn’t a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn’t move for near a minute. I couldn’t
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn’t go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on—and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. ’Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn’t help
+moving, and couldn’t stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn’t; I tried to run, but wasn’t able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard ’em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards’ distance from them that would
+die to save me;—and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn’t be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! ’Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else, did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: ’twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour.”
+
+There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy’s,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman’s side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment’s pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, “Granny, what was it?”
+
+The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, “It was
+the Phooka.”
+
+     The _Pouke_ or _Phooka_, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+     plain terms, the Evil One. “Playing the puck,” a common
+     Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to “playing the devil.” Much
+     learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+     various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &c.] The
+     commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+     Puck of the Midsummer Night’s Dream from the mischievous
+     Pouke.—Vide Drayton’s Nymphidia.
+
+        “This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
+        Still walking like a ragged colt,” &c.
+
+     In Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1587) we
+     find,
+
+        “—— and the countrie where Chgmæra, that same _Pooke_,
+        Hath goatish bodie,” &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+     _Mahr_; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+     German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+     bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+     those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+     they faint and fall to the earth.
+
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+    “On Lough-Neagh’s bank, as the fisherman strays,
+    When the clear cold eve’s declining,
+    He sees the round towers of other days
+    In the wave beneath him shining.”
+                                              MOORE.
+
+
+
+
+FIOR USGA.
+
+XVII.
+
+
+A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.
+
+Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.
+
+One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates—but “you’re
+welcome—you’re welcome, heartily,” was the porter’s salute for all.
+
+Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king’s daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.
+
+In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, “May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water.”
+
+“Water!” said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want: “water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter,” said he, “go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose.”
+
+The king’s daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, “Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you.” The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king’s daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.
+
+When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.
+
+The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king’s palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.
+
+Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.
+
+Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.
+
+
+
+
+CORMAC AND MARY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+    “She is not dead—she has no grave—
+      She lives beneath Lough Corrib’s water;[16]
+    And in the murmur of each wave
+      Methinks I catch the songs I taught her.”
+
+    Thus many an evening on the shore
+      Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;
+    Still idly muttering o’er and o’er,
+      “She lives, detain’d by spells unholy.
+
+    “Death claims her not, too fair for earth,
+      Her spirit lives—alien of heaven;
+    Nor will it know a second birth
+      When sinful mortals are forgiven!
+
+    “Cold is this rock—the wind comes chill,
+      And mists the gloomy waters cover;
+    But oh! her soul is colder still—
+      To lose her God—to leave her lover!”
+
+    The lake was in profound repose,
+      Yet one white wave came gently curling,
+    And as it reach’d the shore, arose
+      Dim figures—banners gay unfurling.
+
+    Onward they move, an airy crowd:
+      Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;
+    While spear and helm, in pageant proud,
+      Appear in liquid undulation.
+
+    Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread
+      Their trackless way with antic capers;
+    And curtain clouds hang overhead,
+      Festoon’d by rainbow-colour’d vapours.
+
+    And when a breath of air would stir
+      That drapery of Heaven’s own wreathing,
+    Light wings of prismy gossamer
+      Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.
+
+    Nor wanting was the choral song,
+      Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;
+    To sound of which this subtile throng
+      Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.
+
+    With music’s strain, all came and went
+      Upon poor Cormac’s doubting vision;
+    Now rising in wild merriment,
+      Now softly fading in derision.
+
+    “Christ save her soul,” he boldly cried;
+      And when that blessed name was spoken,
+    Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,
+      And vanished all,—the spell was broken.
+
+    And now on Corrib’s lonely shore,
+      Freed by his word from power of faëry,
+    To life, to love, restored once more,
+      Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.
+
+    [16] In the county of Galway.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.
+
+XIX.
+
+
+Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,[17] and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.
+
+    [17] In the county of Limerick.
+
+One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours’ cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;[18] but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.
+
+    [18] Spancelled—fettered.
+
+“What in the wide world will I do?” said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: “that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse.”
+
+“’Tis true for you, Larry,” replied Welsh: “the times are bitter
+bad—no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there’s Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for ’tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way.”
+
+Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh’s two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corn-creaks
+answering one another across the water.
+
+“Boys! boys!” said Larry, “look there! look there! but for your lives
+don’t make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word.”
+
+They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.
+
+“’Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper’s cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones,” whispered Mick to his brother.
+
+“Now boys!” said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, “get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we’ll just put them into
+the pound.”
+
+But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.
+
+Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED LAKE.
+
+XX.
+
+
+In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire—others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.
+
+There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:—but Roderick’s confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.
+
+“Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?” exclaimed the
+young farmer. “Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?”
+
+There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.
+
+“I’ll take you at your word,” said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going, going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:—
+
+    “She is fair as Cappoquin;
+    Have you courage her to win?
+    And her wealth it far outshines
+    Cullen’s bog and Silvermines.
+    She exceeds all heart can wish;
+    Not brawling like the Foherish,
+    But as the brightly flowing Lee,
+    Graceful, mild, and pure is she!”
+
+Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:—no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.
+
+When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses’ teeth, and up she made towards
+him.
+
+“Good morrow, Paddeen,” said she.
+
+“Good morrow, Ma’am,” said he.
+
+“What brought you here?” said she.
+
+“’Tis after Rory Keating’s gold ring,” said he, “I’m come.”
+
+“Here it is for you,” said Paddeen’s fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]
+
+“Thank you, Ma’am,” replied Paddeen, taking it from her:—“I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you’re fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?”
+
+“Then you did not come to marry me?” cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.
+
+“Just wait till I come back again, my darling,” said Paddeen: “I’m to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they’ll wonder what has become of me.”
+
+“Never mind the money,” said the fat woman: “if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing.”
+
+Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF O’DONOGHUE.
+
+XXI.
+
+
+In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O’Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called “O’Donoghue’s Prison,” in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.
+
+His end—for it cannot correctly be called his death—was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.
+
+The memory of the good O’Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,—a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince’s reign was never felt by his people.
+
+Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O’Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.
+
+The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.
+
+The warrior was O’Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O’Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse’s neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.
+
+    _Thierna na Oge_, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to
+    the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions
+    of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the
+    movements of time.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.
+
+              ——“The mysterious depths
+    And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old.”
+                              MATTIMA’S _Conchologist_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+XXII.
+
+
+On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer’s morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald “shoghing the dudeen,” which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick’s mouth.
+
+“’Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning,” said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. “Well,
+to be sure,” continued he, after a pause, “’tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one’s self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to answer one—nothing but the child of one’s own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune,” said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, “to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!—and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He’s
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete—Is it
+not so?” said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.
+
+But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.
+
+Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the _cohuleen driuth_, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
+
+When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears—doubly salt, no doubt, from her—came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, ’twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.
+
+“Don’t cry, my darling,” said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.
+
+Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way
+of comforting her. ’Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck’s foot; but
+’twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
+
+“What’s your name, my darling?” says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It’s the universal language; and there’s not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.
+
+The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once—“Man,” says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald’s face, “Man, will you eat me?”
+
+“By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee,” cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, “I’d as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?—Now ’twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!”
+
+“Man,” said the Merrow, “what will you do with me, if you won’t eat
+me?”
+
+Dick’s thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. ’Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.
+
+“Fish,” says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+“fish,” says he, “here’s my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I’ll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that’s what I’ll do.”
+
+“Never say the word twice,” says she; “I’m ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, ’till I twist up my
+hair.”
+
+It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.
+
+Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; “Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?”
+
+“It’s nothing else,” says she quite carelessly, “I’m just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind.”
+
+“And who’s your father, my duck?” says Dick.
+
+“What!” said the Merrow, “did you never hear of my father? he’s the
+king of the waves, to be sure!”
+
+“And yourself, then, is a real king’s daughter?” said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.
+
+“Oh, I’m nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;—to be sure he has all the money that’s down in the bottom of
+the sea!”
+
+“Money,” repeated the Merrow, “what’s money?”
+
+“’Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it,” replied Dick; “and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?”
+
+“Oh! yes,” said the Merrow, “they bring me what I want.”
+
+“To speak the truth, then,” said Dick, “’tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I’m thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king’s daughter: so, if ’twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets—but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?”
+
+“By all means,” said she, “Mr. Fitzgerald—plenty of beds at your
+service. I’ve fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones.”
+
+“You have?” says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. “’Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of—but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they’d have the one, need never ask for the
+other.”
+
+However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.
+
+“There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald,” said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. “And is it a fishy woman you’d
+marry?—the Lord preserve us!—Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that’s my advice to you, wherever she came from.”
+
+Dick had the _cohuleen driuth_ in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he—
+
+“Please your Reverence she’s a king’s daughter.”
+
+“If she was the daughter of fifty kings,” said Father Fitzgibbon, “I
+tell you, you can’t marry her, she being a fish.”
+
+“Please your Reverence,” said Dick again, in an under tone, “she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon.”
+
+“If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,” said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, “you can’t marry her, she being a fish!”
+
+“But she has all the gold that’s down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I’m a made man if I marry her; and,” said Dick, looking up slily,
+“I can make it worth any one’s while to do the job.”
+
+“Oh! that alters the case entirely,” replied the Priest; “why there’s
+some reason now in what you say: why didn’t you tell me this
+before?—marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done.”
+
+So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick—he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.
+
+It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds—two boys and a girl.
+
+In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.
+
+One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.
+
+Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own _cohuleen driuth_.
+
+She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.
+
+She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. “But,” says she, “he won’t lose me entirely, for I’ll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them.”
+
+She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.—The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the _cohuleen driuth_ on
+her head, she plunged in.
+
+Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the _cohuleen driuth_. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.
+
+Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; “For,” says Dick, “she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children.”
+
+While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+
+
+
+FLORY CANTILLON’S FUNERAL.
+
+XXIII.
+
+
+The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.[19] However this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial-place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.
+
+    [19] “The neighbouring inhabitants,” says Dr. Smith, in his
+    History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, “show some rocks
+    visible in this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the
+    remains of an island, that was formerly the burial-place of the
+    family of Cantillon, the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh.” p.
+    210.
+
+Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. “Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,”
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don’t think
+I should say wrong.
+
+On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow’s death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.
+
+Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there—more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.
+
+The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.
+
+The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.
+
+“If ’twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was,” said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, “one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. ’Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,”
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, “didn’t I know all
+the time well enough, ’twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man’s Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how,” said Connor, after a pause, “is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!”
+
+It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.
+
+As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding, when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.
+
+It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!
+
+The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.
+
+“This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth,” said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.
+
+“True,” replied another, with a voice still more fearful, “our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!”
+
+“But the time will come,” said a third, bending over the coffin,
+
+    “When mortal eye—our work shall spy,
+    And mortal ear—our dirge shall hear.”
+
+“Then,” said a fourth, “our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!”
+
+As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.
+
+“The time is come,” cried the unearthly being, “the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!”
+
+One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+churchyard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.
+
+XXIV.
+
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron[20]—O’Sullivan More,
+    Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?
+    His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;
+    No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.
+
+    Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known
+    On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;
+    For a beautiful spirit of ocean, ’tis said,
+    The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.
+
+    When, by moonlight, the waters were hush’d to repose,
+    That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;
+    Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell
+    O’er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.
+
+    Long, long had he loved her—long vainly essay’d
+    To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;
+    And long had he wander’d and watch’d by the tide,
+    To claim the fair spirit O’Sullivan’s bride!
+
+    The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,
+    Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;
+    Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,
+    Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.
+
+    Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,
+    O’Sullivan felt ’twas the dawning of love,
+    And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,
+    Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,
+    And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;
+    The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,
+    Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.
+
+    Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,
+    Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?
+    The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown
+    To lie ‘mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.
+
+    Down, down went the maid,—still the chieftain pursued;
+    Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.
+    Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,
+    The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!
+
+    They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,
+    Whence beauty and verdure stretch’d over the land.
+    ’Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,
+    With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.
+
+    The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,
+    Softly faded away, from a magical pile,
+    A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen
+    Had the tints of the rainbow—red, yellow, and green.
+
+    And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,
+    Were there, as flung up—the wild sport of the storm;
+    Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,
+    It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.
+
+    “Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,
+    Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!
+    Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;
+    There are laws which e’en spirits are bound to obey!
+
+    “Once more must I visit the chief of my race,
+    His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.
+    In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:
+    One cause can detain me—one only—’tis death!”
+
+    They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;
+    The language of promise had nothing beyond.
+    His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:
+    The moment is gone—but no maiden returns.
+
+    What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear—
+    What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?
+    What sees he? what change has come over the flood—
+    What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?
+
+    Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?
+    That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!
+    For see all around him, in white foam and froth,
+    The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!
+
+    The palace of crystal has melted in air,
+    And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;
+    The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o’ercast,
+    The sunshine is darkness—the vision has past!
+
+    Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;
+    They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:
+    He heard, and he struggled—a wave to the shore,
+    Exhausted and faint, bears O’Sullivan More!
+
+    [20] The remains of Dunkerron Castle are distant about a mile
+    from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is
+    recorded to have been built in 1596, by Owen O’Sullivan
+    More.—[_More_, is merely an epithet signifying _the Great_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL TUNE.
+
+XXV.
+
+
+Maurice Connor was the king, and that’s no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum’s March, and the Eagle’s Whistle, and the Hen’s Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.
+
+In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it—old or young it mattered not—just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going—going—going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!—whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm—there was no halting while the music lasted!
+
+Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without “blind Maurice and his
+pipes.” His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.
+
+Down through Iveragh—a place that ought to be proud of itself, for
+’tis Daniel O’Connell’s country—Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand—the dead
+image of a calm summer’s sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.
+
+Here it was that Maurice’s music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women—_O the darlints!_—for
+’twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. “Brave music,” said every body, “and well done,”
+when Maurice stopped.
+
+“More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,”
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. “’Tis a pity,” said he, “if we’d let the piper run dry
+after such music; ’twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn’t come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays.” So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: “Did you drink, piper?”
+
+“I will, sir,” says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.
+
+“What will you drink, Maurice?” says Paddy.
+
+“I’m no ways particular,” says Maurice; “I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring _raw_ water; but if ’tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn’t lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey.”
+
+“I’ve no glass, Maurice,” said Paddy; “I’ve only the bottle.”
+
+“Let that be no hindrance,” answered Maurice; “my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I’ve tried it, sure.”
+
+So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle—more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice’s mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.
+
+“That was no bad whisky neither,” says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.
+
+“By the holy frost, then!” says Paddy, “’tis but _cowld_ comfort
+there’s in that bottle now; and ’tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you’ve left us no sample to judge by:” and
+to be sure Maurice had not.
+
+Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own—he was fairly tipsy. Don’t think I blame him for it; ’tis often a
+good man’s case; but true is the word that says, “when liquor’s in,
+sense is out;” and puff, at a breath, before you could say “Lord save
+us!” out he blasted his wonderful tune.
+
+’Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; _bolg an
+dana_, as they used to call him—a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to drink with of a hot
+summer’s day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here’s my hand at an upset of them into English:
+
+    The big seals in motion,
+    Like waves of the ocean,
+      Or gouty feet prancing,
+    Came heading the gay fish,
+    Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,
+      Determined on dancing.
+
+    The sweet sounds they follow’d,
+    The gasping cod swallow’d;
+      ’Twas wonderful, really!
+    And turbot and flounder,
+    ‘Mid fish that were rounder,
+      Just caper’d as gaily.
+
+    John-dories came tripping;
+    Dull hake, by their skipping
+      To frisk it seem’d given;
+    Bright mackerel went springing,
+    Like small rainbows winging
+      Their flight up to heaven.
+
+    The whiting and haddock
+    Left salt-water paddock,
+      This dance to be put in:
+    Where skate with flat faces
+    Edged out some odd plaices;
+      But soles kept their footing.
+
+    Sprats and herrings in powers
+    Of silvery showers
+      All number out-number’d;
+    And great ling so lengthy
+    Were there in such plenty,
+      The shore was encumber’d.
+
+    The scollop and oyster
+    Their two shells did roister,
+      Like castanets fitting;
+    While limpets moved clearly,
+    And rocks very nearly
+      With laughter were splitting.
+
+Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; ’twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor’s wonderful tune!
+
+In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman—as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair—just the colour of the sea—fell down behind,
+without hindrance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.
+
+Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops—for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on—and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey—
+
+    “I’m a lady of honour
+      Who live in the sea;
+    Come down, Maurice Connor,
+      And be married to me.
+
+    “Silver plates and gold dishes
+      You shall have, and shall be
+    The king of the fishes,
+      When you’re married to me.”
+
+Drink was strong in Maurice’s head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore ’twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself—so says Maurice,
+
+    “I’m obliged to you, madam:
+      Off a gold dish or plate,
+    If a king, and I had ’em,
+      I could dine in great state.
+
+    “With your own father’s daughter
+      I’d be sure to agree;
+    But to drink the salt water
+      Wouldn’t do so with me!”
+
+The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, “Well,” says she, “Maurice, if you’re
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?”
+
+In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.
+
+Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.
+
+When Maurice’s mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water’s edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. “Oh then,”
+says she, “as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but ’tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod—Lord help and pity me, but
+’tis a mighty unnatural thing!—and may be ’tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I’ll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!—Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there’s any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own _ould_ mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!”
+
+Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.
+
+Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother’s heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.
+
+He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother’s voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was—
+
+“Whisht with you, mother—sure I’m going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I’ll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska.” Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.
+
+That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance—some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.
+
+Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly distinguish Maurice Connor’s voice
+singing these words to his pipes:—
+
+    Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,
+    Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;
+    Never would I have parted from thee
+    But for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
+
+    [21] This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+    well-known song of Deardra.
+
+    The Irish _Merrow_ answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+    is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+    Cornish _Morhuch_, to which it evidently bears analogy.
+
+    The romantic historians of Ireland describe the _Suire_ as
+    playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+    to that Island.
+
+
+
+
+THE DULLAHAN.
+
+    “Then wonder not at _headless folk_,
+      Since every day you greet ’em;
+    Nor treat old stories as a joke,
+      When fools you daily meet ’em.”
+
+                      —_The Legendary._
+
+    “Says the friar, ’tis strange headless horses should trot.”
+
+                                                    _Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD WOMAN.
+
+XXVI.
+
+
+In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight’s
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.
+
+Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,—indeed, who is without them?—and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of “the stirrup cup,”
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.
+
+Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character—a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oil-skin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren’s blacking of matchless lustre!—and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.
+
+Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. “If they go at this rate,”
+said he to himself, “for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer’s
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?” This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size—rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.
+
+Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd’s
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. “Civility begets
+civility,” they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady’s silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, “_Ma colleen beg_,[22] just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I’ll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us.”
+
+    [22] My little girl.
+
+She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.
+
+“I hope you’re comfortable there, my dear,” said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; and on they went—trot,
+trot, trot—along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued _cronane_,[23] like a
+nurse _hushoing_. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. “’Tis
+only loose the shoe is,” said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get _spilt_ in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.
+
+    [23] A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.
+
+“By the piper’s luck, that always found what he wanted,” said Larry,
+recollecting himself, “I’ve a nail in my pocket: ’tis not the first
+time I’ve put on a shoe, and may be it won’t be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty.”
+
+No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, “by your leave,” or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church—and a pretty church it was.
+
+“Not so fast, if you please, young woman—not so fast,” cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. “Where’s my wages?” said Larry: “_Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge_,[24]—sure I’ve earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips—and
+I’ll have it too!” But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the churchyard wall, and then over with her in an instant.
+
+    [24] Give me a kiss, my young girl.
+
+“Well, she’s a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;—but I’ll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either,” exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the churchyard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried—rest his soul!—and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men—the Lord save
+us!—that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+churchyard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. “I’ll just wait,” said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; “when she comes round again, if I
+don’t take the kiss, I won’t, that’s all,—and here she is!” Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them—a woman, it
+is true—but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.
+
+“Murder!” cried he. “Well, that accounts for her not speaking.” Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!
+
+When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness, he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding—ding—ding—ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.
+
+    ’Twas a spectre rung
+    That bell when it swung—
+        Swing-swang!
+    And the chain it squeaked,
+    And the pulley creaked,
+        Swing-swang!
+
+    And with every roll
+    Of the deep death toll
+        Ding-dong!
+    The hollow vault rang
+    As the clapper went bang,
+        Ding-dong!
+
+It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.
+
+Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.
+
+“I’m done for and lost for ever,” roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.
+
+“Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome,” cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. “A drink for Larry Dodd,” shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.
+
+“’Tis capital stuff,” he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,—for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought—but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.
+
+When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, “upon the lap
+of earth.” Could it have been an ugly dream? “Oh no,” said Larry, “a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death’s head and cross marrow bones forenenting me on
+the fine old tombstone there that was _faced_ by Pat Kearney[25] of
+Kilcrea—but where is the horse?” He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. “’Tis home I must go,” said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; “but how will I face Nancy?—what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.’s that he cost me?—’Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me—the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!—but what’s gone is gone, that’s a clear case!”—so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.’s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.
+
+    [25] _Faced_, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+    “_fecit_.”
+
+“But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?” inquired his wife.
+
+Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.
+
+“Oh! Larry, Larry,” muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; “’tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man—you are all alike for
+that matter—I’ve no pity for you—but, confess the truth.”
+
+Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.
+
+“Nancy,” said he, “I do confess:—it was a young woman without any
+head that——”
+
+His wife heard no more. “A woman I knew it was,” cried she; “but a
+woman without a head, Larry!—well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!—that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her _baste_ of a husband, for a woman
+without a head!—O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!—that you don’t see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.
+
+“O Larry, you villain, you’ll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O—O—O—”
+
+“Well,” says Larry, putting his hands in his coat-pockets, “least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!”
+
+How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.
+
+
+
+
+HANLON’S MILL.
+
+XXVII.
+
+
+One fine summer’s evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien’s,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon’s mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.
+
+Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.
+
+Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish _karacter_. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell as how “the great Burke” went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.
+
+But it was Michael Noonan’s walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,
+
+    “Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;”
+
+and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien’s door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon’s mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon’s mill.
+
+Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien’s before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan’s.
+
+“Is it home you’re going with the brogues this blessed night?” said
+Darby to him.
+
+“Where else would it be?” replied Mick: “but, by my word, ’tis not
+across the Inch back again I’m going, after all I heard coming here;
+’tis to no good that old Hanlon’s mill is busy again.”
+
+“True, for you,” said Darby; “and may be you’d take the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as ’tis along the road you go.
+I’m waiting here to see a sister’s son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman.” “That same I’ll do,” answered Mick, “with a thousand
+welcomes.” So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick—God reward him for
+it—was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.
+
+The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse’s head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close alongside
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby’s horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.
+
+Poor Mick’s heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery—took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.
+
+Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon’s huntsman, coming on the master’s best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick’s mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan’s bridle when he came
+up.
+
+“Mick, dear—for the love of heaven! don’t stop me,” cried Dan.
+
+“Why, what’s the hurry?” said Mick.
+
+“Oh, the master!—he’s off,—he’s off—he’ll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!”
+
+“Why, what would ail his honour?” said Mick; “sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he—”
+
+“Stout and hearty was he?” answered Madden; “and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn’t
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he’d ride the old General to-day; and sure,”
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, “who’d have
+thought that the first thing I’d see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and”—poor Dan’s
+grief choked his voice—“oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she’s a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor.”
+
+Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan’s;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night’s moon saw Ballygibblin—and more’s the pity—a house of
+mourning.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH COACH.
+
+XXVIII.
+
+
+    ’Tis midnight!—how gloomy and dark!
+      By Jupiter there’s not a star!—
+    ’Tis fearful!—’tis awful!—and hark!
+      What sound is that comes from afar?
+
+    Still rolling and rumbling, that sound
+      Makes nearer and nearer approach;
+    Do I tremble, or is it the ground?—
+      Lord save us!—what is it?—a coach!—
+
+    A coach!—but that coach has no head;
+      And the horses are headless as it:
+    Of the driver the same may be said,
+      And the passengers inside who sit.
+
+    See the wheels! how they fly o’er the stones!
+      And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:
+    Their spokes are of dead men’s thigh bones,
+      And the pole is the spine of the back!
+
+    The hammer-cloth, shabby display,
+      Is a pall rather mildew’d by damps;
+
+    And to light this strange coach on its way,
+      Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!
+
+    From the gloom of Rathcooney churchyard,
+      They dash down the hill of Glanmire;
+    Pass Lota in gallop as hard
+      As if horses were never to tire!
+
+    With people thus headless ’tis fun
+      To drive in such furious career;
+    Since _headlong_ their horses can’t run,
+      Nor coachman be _heady_ from beer.
+
+    Very steep is the Tivoli lane,
+      But up-hill to them is as down;
+    Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain
+      These Dullahans rushing to town.
+
+    Could they feel as I’ve felt—in a song—
+      A spell that forbade them depart;
+    They’d a lingering visit prolong,
+      And after their head lose their heart!
+
+    No matter!—’tis past twelve o’clock;
+      Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,
+    And, taking the road to Blackrock,
+      Cork city is soon left behind.
+
+    Should they hurry thus reckless along,
+      To supper instead of to bed,
+    The landlord will surely be wrong,
+      If he charge it at so much a head!
+
+    Yet mine host may suppose them too poor
+      To bring to his wealth an increase;
+    As till now, all who drove to his door,
+      Possess’d at least _one crown_ a-piece.
+
+    Up the Deadwoman’s hill they are roll’d;
+      Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;
+    Ballintemple they reach, and behold!
+      At its churchyard they stop and alight.
+
+    “Who’s there?” said a voice from the ground,
+      “We’ve no room, for the place is quite full.”
+    “O! room must be speedily found,
+      For we come from the parish of Skull.
+
+    “Though Murphys and Crowleys appear
+      On headstones of deep-letter’d pride;
+    Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,
+      Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;
+
+    “Yet here for the night we lie down,
+      To-morrow we speed on the gale;
+    For having no heads of our own,
+      We seek the Old Head of Kinsale.”
+
+
+
+
+THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.
+
+XXIX.
+
+
+“God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,”
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.
+
+Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever _rattled_ a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen’s day hunt.
+
+Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your “nasty particular sort of fellows” in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, “Charley,” the saddlers said, “was the
+devil to _plase_.” An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer “Charley’s farm” (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself “Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;” and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert—and who will doubt
+it—that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.
+
+This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the “Harp of Erin.” Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. “I won’t bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you’ll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It’s as good _parliament_ as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear ‘x
+_waters_,’ and carry the bead after that, may be.”
+
+Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly “Harp of Erin,” with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip’s at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the “real stuff,”
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend’s hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.
+
+The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman’s currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the “Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers,” always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.—Away he went singing like a thrush—
+
+    “Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,
+    Breaking windows—(_hiccup_!)—sinking,
+    Ever raking—never thinking,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+    “Spending faster than it comes,
+    Beating—(_hiccup, hic_,) and duns,
+    Duhallow’s true-begotten sons,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow.”
+
+Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly “Harp of Erin” had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated _turn out_ on St.
+Stephen’s day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson’s bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued—
+
+    “Living short, but merry lives,
+    Going where the devil drives,
+    Keeping——”
+
+“Keeping” he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley’s eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the grave-stones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced—the head advanced—Charley’s old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.
+
+After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation “I’m sold now for ever!” was over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion’s silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion’s face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure’s coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. “I ought to see farther than
+this, too,” thought Charley, “although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless ’tis Con’s whiskey that has blinded me entirely.” However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, “By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!”
+
+“Look again, Charley Culnane,” said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.
+
+Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently hitherto
+concealed from Charley’s eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley’s side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.
+
+On they went—heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.—The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:—
+
+“Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!”
+
+“Humph,” growled the head from under the horseman’s right arm.
+
+“’Tis not an over civil answer,” thought Charley; “but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I’ll try him on the other track. Ahem!” said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. “Ahem! that’s a mighty neat coat
+of your honour’s, although ’tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut.”
+
+“Humph,” growled again the head.
+
+This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. “’Tis a sensible head,” thought Charley,
+“although an ugly one, for ’tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery.” A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.
+
+“To be sure, that’s a brave horse your honour rides,” recommenced the
+persevering Charley.
+
+“You may say that, with your own ugly mouth,” growled the head.
+
+Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:—
+
+“May be your honour wouldn’t be after riding him across the country?”
+
+“Will you try me, Charley?” said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.
+
+“Faith, and that’s what I’d do,” responded Charley, “only I’m afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I’ve every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels.”
+
+This was true enough; Charley’s courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman’s proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.
+
+“Will you take my word,” said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, “for the safety of your mare?”
+
+“Done,” said Charley; and away they started, helter skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, “Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!”
+
+Charley pulled up hard. “Ay,” said he, “you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that’s the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I’d win it hollow!”
+
+It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley’s mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.
+
+“Charley Culnane,” says he, “you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I’ve tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that’s the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare.”
+
+Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger’s right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman’s scarlet hunting-coat. The horse’s head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.
+
+Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife’s pudding, the new
+snaffle—even the match against squire Jephson—all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen’s day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley’s “X water parliament.” This, however, should be
+told, that Charley’s old mare beat Mr. Jephson’s bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn’t
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don’t know any
+other reason for his doing so.
+
+     DULLAHAN or DULACHAN signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+     _Durrachan_ or _Dullahan_, by which in some places the goblin
+     is known, has the same signification. It comes from _Dorr_ or
+     _Durr_, anger, or _Durrach_, malicious, fierce, &c.—_MS.
+     communication from the late_ MR. EDWARD O’REILLY.
+
+     The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+     black is evidently a component part of the word.
+
+     The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+     Ireland “_Coach a bower_;” and its appearance is generally
+     regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.
+
+     The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+     appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+     extended.
+
+     In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+     that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.
+
+     In Wales, the apparition of “_Fenyw heb un pen_,” the headless
+     woman, and “_Ceffyl heb un pen_,” the headless horse, are
+     generally accredited.—_MS. communication from_ MISS WILLIAMS.
+
+     “The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+     Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+     Queensberry,—‘Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,’—who,
+     instead of setting fire to the world in mamma’s chariot, amuses
+     herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+     the great gallery.”—_MS. communication from_ SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+     In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+     paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+     some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+     “Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+     up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,”
+     &c.
+
+     Cervantes mentions tales of the “_Caballo sin cabeça_ among the
+     _cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+     dilatadas noches del invierno_,” &c.
+
+     “The people of Basse Brétagne believe, that when the death of
+     any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+     call _carriquet au nankon_,) and covered with a white sheet,
+     passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+     creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard.”—_Journal des
+     Sciences_, 1826, _communicated by_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+     See also _Thiele’s Danske Folkesagn_, vol. iv. p. 66, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+    Whene’er such wanderers I meete,
+      As from their night-sports they trudge home,
+    With counterfeiting voice I greete,
+      And call them on with me to roame
+            Through woods, through lakes,
+            Through bogs, through brakes;
+      Or else, unseene, with them I go,
+            All in the nicke,
+            To play some tricke,
+      And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!
+
+                                     —_Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER
+
+XXX.
+
+
+One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day’s work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter[26] to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,[27] was mending a rent in Patrick’s old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. “I was just thinking,” said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes—“I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it.”
+
+    [26] A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+    tallow, is used as a candle.
+
+    [27] Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+    firmly sewed or bound together.
+
+“And that’s no lie for you, Pat,” said his wife; “but, whisht! what
+noise is that I _hard_?” and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. “The _Vargin_ herself defend us
+all!” cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, “if ’tis not the banshee!”
+
+“Hold your tongue, you fool,” said Patrick, “it’s only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;” and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.
+
+“Whisht, whisht!” said Patrick—“what a noise ye’re all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can’t you go and see who’s at the door?”
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.
+
+“Why, then, is it me you’re speaking to?” said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; “and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be _rund_ away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?—the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke.”
+
+“Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I’ll go myself.” So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of his way to the door.
+“Who’s there?” said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+“In the name of Saint Patrick, who’s there?” “’Tis I, Pat,” answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire’s. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. “Your honour’s honour is quite
+welcome, entirely,” said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. “Your honour’s honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye’ll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying.” “Thank
+you, Pat,” said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.[28]
+
+    [28] See Weld’s Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.
+
+“But what made you keep me so long at the door?”
+
+“Why then, your honour, ’twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather—the Lord rest his soul!”
+
+“And what was that, Pat?” said the squire.
+
+“Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was _ould_ Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them _spake_ to such perfection, that it did one’s heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley—his honour’s lordship is the real good
+gentleman—and ’tis Mr. Gandsey’s music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy’s grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+_tobaccy_; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?—but a large
+army of the good people, ’coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! ‘Are ye all ready?’ said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. ‘No,’ said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. ‘No, general,’ said he: ‘if you don’t get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye’ll lose the battle.’”
+
+“‘There’s Diarmid Bawn,’ said the general, pointing to Judy’s
+grandfather, your honour, ‘make a horse of him.’
+
+“So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.
+
+“‘Is that what you’d be after, you spalpeen?’ said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; ‘I’m not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.’ So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.
+
+“Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid’s left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid’s faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.
+
+“‘Let every man take a hand of _tobaccy_ for Diarmid Bawn,’ said the
+general; and so they did; and away they flew, for ’twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.
+
+“When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of _tobaccy_ in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been _kilt_ entirely, if it
+wasn’t for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the _tobaccy_ heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, ‘That ’twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he’d know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.’ That’s what he
+said, sir.”
+
+“Thank you, Pat,” said the squire; “it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy’s alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I’ll make the best of my way home.” So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, “May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for ’twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride.”
+
+
+
+
+TEIGUE OF THE LEE.
+
+XXXI.
+
+
+“I can’t stop in the house—I won’t stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!—to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I’m angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won’t stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under.” This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+“I’ll not stop here,” said John; “and that ends the matter.”
+
+“Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you.”
+
+John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud “Ho, ho, ho!” as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.
+
+“Ho, ho, ho, John!” shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; “do you think you’ll see Teigue?—oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there’s plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and ’tis time you had the cloth laid.”
+
+“Lord bless us! there’s more of it!—I’ll never stay another day
+here,” repeated John.
+
+“Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly, and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons.”
+
+John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say—“Who
+are you?—come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;” but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a “Good-bye—I’ll watch you at dinner, John!”
+
+“Lord between us and harm! this beats all!—I’ll watch you at
+dinner!—may be you will;—’tis the broad daylight, so ’tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I’ll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?—if he tells it, I’m a ruined
+man!—there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he’s far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it—I can’t tell for the world! But what’s that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?—’tis not a man!—oh, what a fool I am! ’tis
+only the old stump of a tree!—But this is a shocking place—I’ll
+never stop in it, for I’ll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one.”
+
+The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom—their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.
+
+John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:—
+
+“Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won’t you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that’s
+good; sure you won’t forget poor Teigue?”
+
+John dropped the glass he had in his hand.
+
+“Who is that?” said Mr. Pratt’s brother, an officer of the artillery.
+
+“That is Teigue,” said Mr. Pratt, laughing, “whom you must often have
+heard me mention.”
+
+“And pray, Mr. Pratt,” inquired another gentleman, “who _is_ Teigue?”
+
+“That,” he replied, “is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it.”
+
+“It is very extraordinary,” said several of the company.
+
+“But,” remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, “your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?”
+
+“When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone.”
+
+“How does he know that you are watching?”
+
+“That’s more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+‘Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.’ James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. ‘Here Teigue,’ said
+he, ‘come for it now.’ ‘Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.’ This was done, and we stood looking at it. ‘There, now,
+go away,’ he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. ‘Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won’t take it.’ We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day.”
+
+“Oh,” said the colonel, “I’ll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I’ll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.—Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?”
+
+“Ho, ho! Mr. Bell,” shouted Teigue. “Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you’re a pretty boy;—a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you’re no quaker, nor any thing else:—ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there’s Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.—And there’s Mr.
+Cole,—did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you’ve brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all.”
+
+“You scoundrel!” exclaimed the colonel: “I’ll make you show yourself;”
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel’s heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. “Come on, colonel,” said Mr. Bell; “let us catch this
+impudent rascal.”
+
+“Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am—here’s Teigue—why don’t you catch
+him?—Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm.”
+
+“Let us see your face, you scoundrel,” said the colonel.
+
+“Ho, ho, ho!—look at me—look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?—you’ll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner.”
+
+“If you’re upon the earth I’ll find you, you villain!” said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. “He’s round that corner,” said
+Mr. Bell—“run, run.”
+
+They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.
+
+“Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?—do you hear
+him?—Ho, ho, ho! you’re a fine colonel to follow the wind.”
+
+“Not that way, Mr. Bell—not that way; come here,” said the colonel.
+
+“Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:—you a soldier!—ho, ho, ho!” The colonel was enraged—he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit—(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed—“Now, colonel Pratt—now, if you’re a soldier, here’s a
+leap for you;—now look at Teigue—why don’t you look at him?—Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you’re warm, I’m sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!” The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. “Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?—Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye—I’ll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house—look at your watch, colonel:—there’s a dive for you!” and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.
+
+“Well, did you see Teigue?” said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.—“Give me some
+wine,” said the colonel. “I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he’d be
+here in ten minutes: ’tis more than that now, but he’s not come.”
+
+“Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn’t he here?—Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I’m tired; and that’s the colonel’s doing.” A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.
+
+“Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall.”
+
+The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys’ attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and “Ho, ho, ho!—good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!—’tis a good dinner, and there’s the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen—good-bye to you, colonel—good-bye, Mr. Bell!—good-bye to
+you all!”—brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue’s voice was heard no more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.
+
+
+
+
+NED SHEEHY’S EXCUSE.
+
+XXXII.
+
+
+Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody—no, not his
+worst enemy—could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o’clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.
+
+But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick’s, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,—for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady’s maid,—that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.
+
+In your grand houses—not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin—I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,—by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man—one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes—Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.
+
+But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak—he was a second whisperer!—there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds’ ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was “No go.” Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton’s famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy’s Leap to this hour.
+
+So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, “I’ll turn
+off Ned,” he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.
+
+One cold winter’s day, about three o’clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,
+
+“Ned,” said he, “go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson’s horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O’Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.—Don’t loiter, for your life.”
+
+“Is it I, sir?” says Ned. “Well, that beats any thing; as if I’d stop
+out a minute!” So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.
+
+Four, five, six o’clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O’Toole, and the four misses O’Toole, and Mr. O’Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O’Toole, and Mr. James O’Toole, which were all the young O’Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.
+
+He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,
+
+“There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I’ll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I’ll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will.”
+
+“Don’t say so, Dick, dear,” said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) “don’t swear, Dick, dear,” said
+she; “but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O’Toole,
+yesterday, I was, ’pon honour.”
+
+Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned’s face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.
+
+“Ned!” thundered his master in great indignation,—and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: “Get up, you scoundrel,” said he.
+
+Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master’s hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking—“O,
+sir!—don’t be angry, sir!—don’t be angry, and I’ll roast you
+easier—easy as a lamb!”
+
+“Roast me easier, you vagabond!” said Mr. Gumbleton; “what do you
+mean?—I’ll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?—Modderaroo
+will never get over it.—Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don’t
+get you transported.”
+
+“Thank God, master dear,” said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened—“it’s yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;—may whisky be my poison—”
+
+“It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel,” said Mr.
+Gumbleton.
+
+“Well, then, _may_ whiskey be my poison,” said Ned, “if ’twas not I
+was—in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned ’twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey’s—I don’t deny
+it—why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened.”
+
+“Ned, my man,” said Mr. Gumbleton, “I’ll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow—”
+
+“Begging your honour’s pardon,” said Ned, earnestly, “for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows—they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and ’tis myself rep_i_nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I’ll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don’t pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day’s luck or grace.”
+
+“I know you, Ned,” said Mr. Gumbleton. “Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don’t intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir.”
+
+Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy’s excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.
+
+“No wonder your honour,” said he, “should be a bit angry—grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don’t blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all’s heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+_joint_ (giant,) and I only a man.
+
+“I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o’clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour’s hat. Well, I didn’t care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy’s field—sure
+your honour ought to know the place well—just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders.”
+
+(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)
+
+“Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. ‘How early you are at your work, my little fellows!’ says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey’s; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:—
+
+    ‘Ned! Ned!
+    By my cap so red!
+    You’re as good, Ned,
+    As a man that is dead.’
+
+‘A clean pair of spurs is all that’s for it now,’ said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. ‘What river is this?’ said I to myself—for
+there was nobody else to ask—‘I thought,’ says I, ‘I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.’ So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn’t know what to do; but I thought in myself, it’s a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!—fire!—robbery!—any thing
+that would be natural in such a place—but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn’t do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. ‘May be,’
+said I, ‘my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.’ But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too _study_ (steady) for a jacky lantern. ‘I’ll try you,’ says
+I—‘so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the _slob_.[29] At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.
+
+    [29] Or _slaib_; mire on the sea strand or river’s
+    bank.—O’BRIEN.
+
+“‘Open the door for Ned Sheehy,’ said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, ’twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man’s!—so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, ‘Why don’t you open the door to Ned Sheehy?’ ‘How pat my name is
+to you,’ said I, without speaking out, ‘on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;’ and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.
+
+“‘Why, then, Ned Sheehy,’ says he, ‘how grand you’re grown, that you
+won’t come in and see a friend, as you’re passing by?’
+
+“‘Pray, sir,’ says I, looking at him—though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself—‘Pray, sir,’ says I,
+‘may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?’
+
+“‘Suppose I was,’ says he: ‘has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?’
+
+“‘I’m not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,’ says I, ‘if ’tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.’
+
+“‘Well,’ says he, ‘no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here’s a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.’
+
+“Now, your honour, though ’twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood—to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within—for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door—if I don’t love the creature
+as I love my own life—I went in with Jack Myers.
+
+“Civil enough he was—I’ll never say otherwise to my dying hour—for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice—’twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened—spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, ‘Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?’
+
+“‘The never a word, sir,’ says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.
+
+“‘Have you no news,’ says the voice, ‘Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?’
+
+“‘No, sir,’ says I, ‘never the word.’
+
+“‘What brought you in here, Ned, then?’ says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.
+
+“‘Turn the scoundrel out,’ says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.
+
+“‘The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!’ says I. ‘Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!’ says I, speaking to myself, ‘my man, you’re in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!’ But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one’s heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+‘I’d better get up in a tree,’ says I, ‘for they say ’tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I’m in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.’
+
+“I could not help wondering how a _berrin_ (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I’ll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you’d meet with in a day’s walk.
+
+“‘Where’s the spit?’ says one.
+
+“‘Here ’tis,’ says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.
+
+“If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the _Hannibals_
+father Quinlan told us about in his _sarmint_ last Sunday.
+
+“‘Who’ll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?’ says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.
+
+“‘Who’d turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?’ says another.
+
+“Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?
+
+“‘Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,’ says he.
+
+“‘I’m not here at all, sir,’ says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.
+
+“‘That won’t do for you, my man,’ says he; ‘you’d better come down, or
+may be I’d make you.’
+
+“‘I’m coming, sir,’ says I; for ’tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.
+
+“‘Don’t scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,’ says the man on the
+spit.
+
+“‘And my lord, sir, and ar’n’t you dead, sir,’ says I, ‘and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?’
+
+“‘I ar’n’t,’ says he.
+
+“‘But surely you are, sir,’ says I, ‘for ’tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.’
+
+“‘I ar’n’t,’ says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.
+
+“So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be ’twould be the worse turn for myself.
+
+“‘Will that do, sir?’ says I, turning him as easy as I could.
+
+“‘That’s too easy,’ says he: so I turned him faster.
+
+“‘That’s too fast,’ says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.
+
+“Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. ‘Murder!’ says I, shouting out; ‘I’m done for at
+long last—now or never!’—when all of a sudden, and ’twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.
+
+“‘Open the door for Ned Sheehy,’ says the voice,—for ’twas shut
+against me,—and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.
+
+“‘Have you any news for me?’ says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.
+
+“‘Yes, sir,’ says I, ‘and plenty.’ So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.
+
+“‘If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,’ said the voice.
+
+“‘And how could I tell it to you, sir,’ says I, ‘before it happened?’
+
+“‘No matter,’ says he, ‘you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you’d have
+been _kilt_ entirely.’ So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought ’twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour’s
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if ’twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me.”
+
+“It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel,” said Mr. Gumbleton; “have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?”
+
+“But never one, your honour, that really happened before,” said Ned,
+with unblushing front. “Howsomever, since your honour fancies ’tis
+drinking I was, I’d rather never drink again to the world’s end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I’m forgiven this once, and
+get another trial——”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Gumbleton, “you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don’t believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones.”
+
+So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned’s countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.
+
+“Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last,” exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: “I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the _differ_
+(difference) to his cost.”
+
+Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton’s cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCKY GUEST.
+
+XXXIII.
+
+
+The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on “the
+master’s” bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening’s amusement.
+
+An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba’s dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of _Coum an
+‘ir morriv_ (the dead man’s hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name “_currigguib_,” a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.
+
+Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man’s Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.
+
+“I have told you,” she said, “what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother’s roof.”
+
+Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although “unaccustomed to public speaking,” she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:—
+
+“It was one May-eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days,” said Ellen, with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, “when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the _Drutheen_, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.
+
+“My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big _chimbley_.
+
+“‘God bless us,’ says my mother, ‘but ’tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,’ says she, ‘and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.’
+
+“I don’t, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man’s voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we’d like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in—having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.
+
+“We were all watching to see who’d come in, for there was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who’d
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn’t mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
+
+“We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite’s claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman’s hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn’t them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+_labbig_,[30] scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.
+
+    [30] _Labbig_—bed, from _Leaba_.—Vide O’BRIEN and O’REILLY.
+
+“When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for ’twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o’clock; and then, if we’d look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the key-hole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so ’twas
+just fitting for the little arm.
+
+“The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and ’tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we’d instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane—but he was drunk—walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.
+
+“As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he’d be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; ’tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.
+
+“But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord—God forgive him—took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father—and small blame to him for
+that—refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.
+
+“It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o’clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the _moral_ (model) of the other. Eleven o’clock!—twelve
+o’clock!—no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.
+
+“My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin.”
+
+Here young Ellen’s voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.
+
+     FIR DARRIG means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+     community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+     Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+     his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+     is doubtless the same as the Scottish _Red Cap_; which a writer
+     in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+     analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+     spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+     hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+     Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+     common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+     the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton’s
+     “Lubber Fiend”) and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+     of the Folletos, “Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+     effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+     vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+     reperisse.”—_Otia Imperialia._
+
+     The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+     Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+     according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+     waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+     warbling of birds, &c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+     Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+     invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+     generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+     and red shoes.
+
+
+
+
+TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+    “Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back
+    When gold and silver becks me to come on.”
+
+                                        _King John._
+
+    “This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so.”
+
+                                    _Winter’s Tale._
+
+
+
+
+DREAMING TIM JARVIS.
+
+XXXIV.
+
+
+Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.
+
+Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.
+
+But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him—“Tim Jarvis, you’re
+all behind, Tim, like the cow’s tail.” Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver—and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney’s
+coaster—and so he did!
+
+Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he—“Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?”
+
+“Surely I do, sir,” said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.
+
+“Tim,” says he, “what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?”
+
+“Please your honour,” says Tim, “I’m come to seek my fortune.”
+
+“You’re a fool for your pains, Tim, if that’s all,” remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; “this is a big place to seek one’s
+fortune in, to be sure, but it’s not so easy to find it.”
+
+Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.
+
+“There’s many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes,” said
+Tim.
+
+“True,” said the stranger.
+
+“But,” continued Tim, looking up, “the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I’m told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts.”
+
+“And who told you that, Tim?”
+
+“Why then, sir, that’s what I can’t tell myself rightly—only I dreamt
+it.”
+
+“Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!” said the stranger, laughing; “I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll’s ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom.”
+
+Tim knew Jerry Driscoll’s ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it—so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he—
+
+“By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!”
+
+The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband—the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him—and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. “It wasn’t for nothing,” says Tim, “I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you’ll see what’ll come out of it—mind my words.”
+
+A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort-field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours—as well they might—thought he was cracked!
+
+The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll’s field, though it was
+said to be “the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil.”
+
+It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:—“Norah, did you see e’er a cow you’d like?”—or, “Norah,
+dear, hasn’t Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?”—or, “Norah honey,
+wouldn’t you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle’s?”
+
+As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.
+
+“How shall we bother Tim?” said one voice.
+
+“Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+_ould sarpint_; ’tis long since he has had a good meal,” said another
+voice.
+
+Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.
+
+“No,” said a third voice; “plunge him in the bog, neck and heels.”
+
+Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.[31]
+
+    [31]  “I’non mori, e non rimasi vivo:
+          Pensa oramai per te, s’hai fior d’ingegno
+          Qual io divenni d’uno e d’altro privo.”
+
+                        Dante, _Inferno_, canto 34.
+
+“Stop!” said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.
+
+When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up—he then took a big
+one—and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim—down, down and down he went—until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out—
+
+    “Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!
+    Welcome, down here!”
+
+Though Tim’s teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer—“I’m he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself.” But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, “Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?”
+
+“Mighty well! I thank your honour,” said Tim; “and ’twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!”
+
+There was a great laugh at Tim’s answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, “Shut your eyes, and you’ll see,
+Tim.”
+
+“By my word, then,” said Tim, “that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I’m not the man to gainsay you, so I’ll do as you bid me, any how.”
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens[32], as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, “Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man,” says
+he, “and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we’ve altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent.”
+
+    [32] An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.
+
+“Oh, then, long life to you, sir!” said Tim, “and there’s no doubt of
+that.”
+
+“But what will you say, Tim,” inquired the little fellow, “if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?”
+
+“Your honour’s honour, and your honour’s glory,” answered Tim, “I’ll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you—and
+indeed I’ve enough to do with them. I’d make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah—she has been a good wife to me. We’ll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I’d have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if ’twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I’d build a new cabin;
+and I’d have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I’d snap my fingers at the ‘squire, and beat his hounds, if they’d
+come coursing through my fields; and I’d have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy Leary’s brats—that’s my sister that
+was—and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I’d have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I’d have every thing,” said Tim, “in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money—hurra-whoop!—and that’s what I’d do.”
+
+“Take care, Tim,” said the little fellow, “your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop.”
+
+But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out—“Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man.”
+
+“I hope, gentlemen,” said he, “we won’t part for good and all; but may
+be ye’ll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I’ve done with your money.”
+
+To this there was no answer, only another shout—“Go home, Tim
+Jarvis—go home—fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye’ll
+never see the light of day again.”
+
+Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before—away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.
+
+He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs—and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll’s, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat “her dreaming blackguard.”
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.
+
+Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.
+
+Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding—“If they stayed with me I wouldn’t have
+luck with them, sir; and father O’Shea told me ’twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn’t, they’d have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way.”
+
+I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the _sarpint_ in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. “The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm,” was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis’s
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.
+
+
+
+
+RENT-DAY.
+
+XXXV.
+
+
+“Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?” muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. “What will we do? to-morrow’s rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don’t pay up our rent, he’ll cant every
+_ha’perth_ we have; and then, sure enough, there’s Judy and myself,
+and the poor little _grawls_,[33] will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!—Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!”
+
+    [33] Children.
+
+Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,
+
+    “How ill the scene that offers rest,
+    And heart that cannot rest, agree!”
+
+Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.
+
+“What’s the matter with you, my poor man?” said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman’s sudden appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn’t pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o’clock next
+day.
+
+“A sad story indeed,” said the stranger; “but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord’s agent, he won’t have the heart
+to turn you out.”
+
+“Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!” exclaimed
+Bill. “I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out.”
+
+“Take this, my poor fellow, take this,” said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill’s old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. “Pay the fellow your rent, but I’ll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!”
+
+These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.
+
+“O’Donoghue, O’Donoghue!” shouted Bill; “the good, the blessed
+O’Donoghue!” and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.
+
+The next day Bill proceeded to the agent’s; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.
+
+“Why don’t you take off your hat, fellow; don’t you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?” said the agent.
+
+“I know I’m not speaking to the king, sir,” said Bill; “and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I’ve no right either to respect or love an agent!”
+
+“You scoundrel!” retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, “I’ll teach you how to
+be insolent again—I have the power, remember.”
+
+“To the cost of the country, I know you have,” said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.
+
+“But come,” said the magistrate; “have you got the money for me?—this
+is rent-day. If there’s one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that’s due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession.”
+
+“There is your rent,” said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; “you’d better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all.”
+
+The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold—real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one’s pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.
+
+The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king’s head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.
+
+From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O’Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.
+
+Like the butterfly, the spirit of O’Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.
+
+
+
+
+LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.
+
+XXXVI.
+
+
+Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant’s Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?—who ever thinks of going—
+
+    —“westward, where Dick Martin _ruled_
+    The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?”
+
+The Ulster-man’s ancient denunciation “to hell or to Connaught,” has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground—a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium—in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, “I’ll warrant he’ll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o’ green Erin, only
+something poorer;” and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+“worse would be needless;” but so it is.
+
+“My gracious me,” said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, “I wonder a
+gentleman of your _teeste_ and _curosity_ would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a _tower_ (tour) of Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the _ould_ abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair.”
+
+Polly M’Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The “old abbey” is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni’s princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of “O’Rourke’s old hall,” gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.
+
+The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; “but,”
+continued he, “for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour’s after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that’s worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?” He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts—as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. “That’s Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir,” resumed my guide, “and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+_moral_ of it, only that it’s round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, ’tis as good as fourscore years—I often _hard_ my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story—since Manus O’Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O’Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o’clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he’d find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O’Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother’s father was a cow-boy to the earl O’Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M’Clure’s—the old Frank that was then at that time—and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and ’tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he’d eat him, says he, in good English,
+
+“‘Arrah, then, Manus,’ says he, ‘what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.’
+
+“‘Oh, plase your honour,’ says Manus, ‘I beg my life:’ and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.
+
+“‘Well, as you have some blood of the O’Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I’ll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.’
+
+“‘Go home,’ says the Payshtha—‘go home, Manus,’ says he; ‘and if you
+can’t make better use of your time, get drunk; but don’t come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I’ll show you something that you’ll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.’
+
+“With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn’t long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.
+
+“‘Plase your honour,’ says Manus, ‘if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?’
+
+“‘May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I’m bound to look after the Thiernas[34] of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch this cave, and what’s in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.’
+
+    [34] _Tighearna_—a lord. Vide O’BRIEN.
+
+“‘May be you are a sort of a banshee?’
+
+“‘I am not, you fool,’ said the little man. ‘The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.’
+
+“Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O’Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant’s tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.
+
+“‘And now, Manus,’ says the little man, ‘ye seen the whole o’ this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o’ Breffni in their glory again.’ The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus’s face, and says to
+him in a great passion, ‘Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don’t ye go
+about your business?’
+
+“‘How can I?—sure you must show me the way out,’ says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.
+
+“‘Can’t we go out the way we came?’ says Manus.
+
+“‘No, you must go out at the other end—that’s the rule o’ this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.’ With
+that the little man gave him one _hoise_, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story.”
+
+     As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+     all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+     concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+     expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+     admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+     exists a striking similarity.
+
+     Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+     by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l’Antiquite,
+     traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+     discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+     numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+     they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+     Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele’s Danske Folkesagn, i.
+     112, ii. 24. Kirke’s Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &c.
+
+     The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+     supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+     seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+     rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+     Holgar, and Grœn Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+     the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+     sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+     receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+     appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.
+
+     In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+     soliloquizing—“Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+     that He keeps it from us.”
+
+
+
+
+ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+    “Forms in silence frown’d,
+    Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye
+    Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,
+    Wedding themselves with gloom—or grew
+    Gigantic to my troubled view,
+    And seem’d to gather round me.”
+                 BANIM’S _Celt’s Paradise_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.
+
+XXXVII.
+
+
+From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without “a crooked thought and a cross job.” Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.
+
+This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains—_Labacally_, the hag’s bed—not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.
+
+O’Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son—never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.
+
+Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman’s, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.
+
+    “Infant heir of proud Fermoy,
+      Fear not fields of slaughter;
+    Storm and fire fear not, my boy,
+      But shun the fatal water.”
+
+These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.
+
+The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord’s vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:
+
+    ——“Put but a little water in a spoon,
+    And it shall be, as all the ocean,
+    Enough to stifle such a _being_ up.”
+
+A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.
+
+The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+
+A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.
+
+Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.
+
+On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brian
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.
+
+Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning’s sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.
+
+These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son—many a wife of a husband—many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!
+
+It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. “Thine, Regan,
+be the task,” he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.
+
+With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning’s dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!
+
+Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith’s
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.
+
+The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;
+
+    “The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;
+    White-tooth’d, graceful, magnanimous, and active.”
+
+The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag’s
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.
+
+The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+_Clough-a-Regaun_ is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!
+
+
+
+
+CLOUGH NA CUDDY.
+
+XXXIX.
+
+
+Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen—“sweet Innisfallen,” as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.
+
+However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner—the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.
+
+Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of “the fat father.” Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it—and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. ’Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.
+
+    “He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.—What then?
+    He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!”
+
+Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled “blackjack” stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.
+
+Spiritual affairs—for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery—demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning’s light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.
+
+The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off—“Hah!” exclaimed Cuddy, “what a noble haunch goes
+there!—how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!”
+
+As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.
+
+Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire satisfaction. “Welcome, Father
+Cuddy,” said the prior: “grace be on you.”
+
+“Grace before meat, then,” said Cuddy, “for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water.”
+
+A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy’s appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:—he tried another,—it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!
+
+I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as “_in vino veritas_” his song will well become
+this veritable history.
+
+    CANTAT MONACHUS.
+
+    I.
+           Hoc erat in votis,
+         Et bene sufficerit totis
+        Si dum porto sacculum
+    Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!
+          Et si parvis
+            In arvis
+            Nullam
+            Invenero pullam,
+        Ovum gentiliter preæbebit recens
+            Puella decens.
+        Manu nec dabis invitâ
+            Flos vallium harum,
+            Decus puellarum,
+            Candida Marguerita!
+
+THE FRIAR’S SONG.
+
+    I.
+
+            My vows I can never fulfil,
+                      Until
+        I have breakfasted, one way or other;
+              And I freely protest,
+              That I never can rest
+              ‘Till I borrow or beg
+                    An egg,
+    Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.
+              But Maggy, my dear,
+              While you’re here,
+                  I don’t fear
+    To want eggs that have just been laid newly;
+              For och! you’re a pearl
+                Of a girl,
+      And you’re called so in _Latin_ most truly.
+
+    II.
+
+        Me hora jucunda cœnæ
+        Dilectat bene,
+      Et rerum sine dubio grandium
+      Maxima est prandium:
+        Sed mihi crede,
+        In hâc æde,
+    Multo magis gaudeo,
+      Cum gallicantum audio,
+        In sinu tuo
+        Videns ova duo.
+      Oh semper me tractes ita!
+        Panibus de hordeo factis,
+        Et copiâ lactis,
+      Candida Margarita!
+
+    III.
+
+    There is most to my mind something that is still upper
+                        Than supper,
+    Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner
+                        After dinner:
+    But soon as I hear the cock crow
+                        In the morning,
+    That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,
+                      By that warning,
+    While your buttermilk helps me to float
+                        Down my throat
+          Those sweet cakes made of oat.
+                        I don’t envy an earl,
+                        Sweet girl,
+    Och, ’tis you are a beautiful pearl.
+
+Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery’s delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.
+
+This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man’s drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with _the venerable Bead_,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his “soul-case,” so he figuratively termed
+the body.
+
+His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!—he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. “Bless my eyes,” said Father
+Cuddy, “every thing is changing now-a-days!—the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think _Camceachta_ (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where.”
+
+Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.
+
+“Ah, Margery, merry Margery!” cried Cuddy, “you tempting little rogue!
+
+    ‘Flos vallium harum,
+    Decus puellarum,
+    Candida Margarita.’
+
+“I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!” and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.
+
+At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.
+
+Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. “Bless my soul and body!” said the good father, “I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!” Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer’s morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.
+
+Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.
+
+Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.
+
+Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.
+
+“Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what’s your business?”
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter’s place.
+
+“Business!—my business!” repeated the confounded Cuddy,—“why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?”
+
+“Hence, fellow!” said the porter’s representative, in a surly tone;
+“nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales.”
+
+“Fellow!” exclaimed the father: “mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!—Scoundrel!” cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, “do you not see my garb—my holy garb?”
+
+“Ay, fellow,” replied he of the keys—“the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty—whom God preserve!”
+
+“Queen of England!” said Cuddy; “there never was a sovereign queen of
+England—this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night—the world’s turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?”
+
+“Know you!—how should I know you?” said the keeper of the abbey.
+“Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since.”
+
+“’Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery’s fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad—no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen,” earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. “A hundred years!—what was your great-grandmother’s name?”
+
+“She was a Mahony of Dunlow—Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother—”
+
+“What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!” shouted Cuddy.
+“St. Brandon help me!—the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!—why, ’twas only last night—a hundred years!—your
+great-grandmother, said you?—There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!”
+
+That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery’s fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.
+
+The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy’s knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy—so is the stone
+called—remains in Lord Kenmare’s park, an indisputable evidence of
+the fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIANT’S STAIRS.
+
+XL.
+
+
+On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne’s Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.
+
+Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, “_genus_.”
+
+One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.
+
+There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O’Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.
+
+Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. “The seven years—my time of service,—are clean out, Robin,”
+said he, “and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after.”
+
+“And how will I know,” said Robin—cunning enough, even in his
+sleep—“but this is all a dream?”
+
+“Take that,” said the boy, “for a token”—and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.
+
+Robin was well acquainted with the Giant’s Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.
+
+Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk’s
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin’s dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant’s
+Stairs.
+
+After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant’s Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant’s Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, “’Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream.”
+
+“And whose doing is it,” said Tom, “but your own?”
+
+At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king’s palace unfolded itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.
+
+“Robin, Robin,” said he, “if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?” But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+“What seek you?” he demanded in a voice of thunder.
+
+“I come,” answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on—for his heart was almost fainting within him—“I come,” said he,
+“to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night.”
+
+“And who sent you here?” said the giant.
+
+“’Twas of my own accord I came,” said Robin.
+
+“Then you must single him out from among my pages,” said the giant;
+“and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me.”
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.
+
+“Here,” said Mahon, “you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice.”
+
+Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin’s own sledge battering on his anvil.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.
+
+“’Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry,” remarked
+Robin, “although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. ’Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!”
+
+“Ay,” said the giant, “that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith.”
+
+Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and, all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, “Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne.”
+
+“It is Philip Ronayne—happy Philip Ronayne,” said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant’s Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.
+
+Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure—Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline—the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.
+
+“Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?” was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.
+
+“Am I sure? Well, that’s a queer question,” was Robin’s reply; “seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the _purly_ wart on the right side of his
+little nose.”
+
+However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne’s court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.
+
+Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years’ apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.
+
+      And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o’er;
+        The tales my infancy had loved to hear,
+        Like blissful visions fade and disappear.
+      Such tales Momonia’s peasant tells no more!
+      Vanish’d are MERMAIDS from the sea beat shore;
+        Check’d is the HEADLESS HORSEMAN’S strange career;
+        FIR DARRIG’S voice no longer mocks the ear,
+      Nor ROCKS bear wondrous imprints as of yore!
+      Such is “the march of mind.” But did the fays
+        (Creatures of whim—the gossamers of will)
+        In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill
+      As stormier spirits of our modern days?
+    Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:
+    My constant prayer—“may peace be with thee still!”
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire—
+
+    “Who every year can mend your cheer
+      With tales both old and new.”
+
+The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.
+
+The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.
+
+I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely “pulled the old woman out of our hearts,” as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even _score above the breath_. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.
+
+But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon’s court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday’s sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went “to raise the water,” as if the
+South’ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy _cortege_ awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.
+
+I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G——, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself _artist from Vauxhall_, and that he
+exhibits _fantoccini_; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G——. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch’s sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord —— could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.
+
+It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.
+
+As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much
+
+                               Your obliged and thankful servant,
+                                                        WALTER SCOTT.
+
+27th April, 1825.
+
+    ABBOTSFORD, MELROSE.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
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+  <body>
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: T. Crofton Crocker</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 29, 2012 [eBook #39752]<br />
+[Most recently updated: February 1, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+<br />Revised by Richard Tonsing.</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1 class="booktitle">FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.</h1>
+
+<p class="h4">BY</p>
+
+<p class="h3">T. CROFTON CROCKER.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer"> </p>
+
+<p class="h4">A New Edition.</p>
+
+<p class="h5">WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, AFTER DESIGNS OF
+THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer"> </p>
+
+<div class="inset18">
+<p>“Come l’araba Fenice<br />
+Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;<br />
+Dove sia, nessun lo sa.”—<span class="smcap">Metastasio.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spacer"> </p>
+
+<p class="h5">Philadelphia:</p>
+
+<p class="h4">LEA AND BLANCHARD.</p>
+
+<p class="h5">1844.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>The erudite Lessing styles a preface “the history of a book.” Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.</p>
+
+<p>However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the “Fairy Legends”
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.</p>
+
+<p>Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/004.jpg" width="209" height="213" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table class='cellpadding4'>
+<tr>
+  <td> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Shefro.</td>
+  <td class="tdrfirst">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#I">I</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knocksheogowna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#II">II</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knockfierna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#III">III</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knockgrafton,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">21</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">IV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Priest’s Supper,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#V">V</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Brewery of Egg-shells,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">30</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">VI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Legend of Bottle Hill,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">34</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">VII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Confessions of Tom Bourke,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">43</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Fairies or no Fairies,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">56</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">61</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Cluricaune.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">IX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Haunted Cellar,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">63</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#X">X</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Master and Man,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">70</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XI">XI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Little Shoe,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">77</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">79</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Banshee.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XII">XII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Bunworth Banshee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">81</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The M<sup>c</sup>Carthy Banshee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">85</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Phooka.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Spirit Horse,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">101</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XV">XV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Daniel O’Rourke,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">105</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Crookened Back,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">117</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>Thierna na Oge.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVII">XVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Fior Usga,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">119</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Cormac and Mary (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">122</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIX">XIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Lough Gur,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">124</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XX">XX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Enchanted Lake,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">126</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXI">XXI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of O’Donoghue,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">130</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">132</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Merrow.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXII">XXII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lady of Gollerus,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">133</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Flory Cantillon’s Funeral,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">139</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lord of Dunkerron (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">143</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXV">XXV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Wonderful Tune,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">146</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">154</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Dullahan.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Good Woman,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">155</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Hanlon’s Mill,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">163</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Death Coach (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">167</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Headless Horseman,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">169</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">178</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>The Fir Darrig.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXX">XXX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">179</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Teigue of the Lee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">184</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Ned Sheehy’s Excuse,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">190</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lucky Guest,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">201</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">208</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>Treasure Legends.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Dreaming Tim Jarvis,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">209</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Rent-Day,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">217</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Linn-na-Payshtha,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">225</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" colspan='2'>Rocks and Stones.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Cairn Thierna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">226</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Rock of the Candle,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">229</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Clough na Cuddy,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">232</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XL">XL</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Giant’s Stairs.</td>
+  <td class="tdr">240</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> </td>
+  <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">Appendix</span>—Letter from Sir Walter Scott.</td>
+  <td class="tdr1">247</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/006.jpg" width="159" height="84" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/007a.jpg" width="221" height="162" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.</h2>
+
+<p class="h3">CASTLE MAHON.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Thee</span>, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moonlight <span class="smcap">Shefros</span> there, in merry band<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With artful <span class="smcap">Cluricaune</span>, should ready stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To welcome thee—Imagination’s child!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The <span class="smcap">Banshee’s</span> shriek, who points with wither’d hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the dim twilight should the <span class="smcap">Phooka</span> come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That opens clear calm <span class="smcap">Lakes</span> upon thy sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know thee, Lady—thou wilt not deride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such Fairy Scenes.—Then onward with thy Guide.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<img class="inset"  src="images/007b.jpg" width="296" height="66" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/008.jpg" width="221" height="242" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">The Wood Engravings after Designs by Mr.
+<span class="smcap">Brooke, R. H. A.</span>, Mr.
+<span class="smcap">M<sup>c</sup>Clise</span>, and the
+<span class="smcap">Author.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="506" height="295" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">“Look there! look there, mammy!”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2"><a id="FAIRY_LEGENDS"></a>FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<p class="h3">THE SHEFRO.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/011.jpg" width="373" height="278" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset20">
+<p>————————“Fairy Elves<br />
+Whose midnight revels, by a forest side<br />
+Or fountain some belated peasant sees,<br />
+Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon<br />
+Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth<br />
+Wheels her pale course.”—</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Milton.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.</p>
+
+<h2 id="I">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>I.</span></h2>
+
+<p>In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.</p>
+
+<p>But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,—now
+in one shape—now in another,—but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">[13]</a><br /><a id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> bull’s head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck’s feet, and a turkey cock’s tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.</p>
+
+<p>The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry’s asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. “If that is all ails you,” said Larry, “make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one’s thumb.” “Larry,”
+said the farmer, “do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight.”</p>
+
+<p>The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer’s
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, “What! another man upon the fairies’ ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;” and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. “Go on, jewel,”
+said Larry; “if you dance, I’ll pipe;” and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.</p>
+
+<p>Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; “spreading like a
+sea,” and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain’s base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, “By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap <i>for
+a calf</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+“Laurence,” said she, “you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?” “And that’s what I will,” said he, “if you let me.” So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: “You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence,” said she, “that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it.” She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry’s life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer’s expense,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna<a id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> after his death, is more than I can say.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/017.jpg" width="290" height="72" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="II">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.<a id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor"><small>[2]</small></a>
+<br /><span class='ph3'>II.</span></h2>
+
+<p>It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.</p>
+
+<p>It has been truly said, that “good manners are no burden,” and that
+“civility costs nothing;” but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O’Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, “Devil Daly.”</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O’Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, “Good luck attend you, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards “the Balbec of Ireland,” the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O’Daly asked his companion how far he was going?</p>
+
+<p>“Not far your way,” said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; “I’m only going to the top of this hill here.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what might take you there,” said O’Daly, “at this time of the
+night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why then,” replied the farmer, “if you want to know; ’tis the <i>good
+people</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“The fairies you mean,” said O’Daly.</p>
+
+<p>“Whist! whist!” said his fellow-traveller, “or you may be sorry for
+it;” and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O’Daly good night and a safe journey.</p>
+
+<p>“That fellow,” thought Carroll, “is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!” he repeated, “is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of.”</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O’Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon’s disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O’Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, “Here’s
+after you, old boy!” he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O’Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+“Poul-duve,” or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” thought O’Daly, “these are old woman’s stories: and since I’ve
+come up so far, I’ll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home.”</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,—and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O’Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O’Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey’s end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/020.jpg" width="329" height="176" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="III">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>III.</span></h2>
+
+<p>There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,<a id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways com<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>fortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Rising in clouded majesty, at length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Apparent Queen, unveil’d her peerless light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:—</p>
+
+<p><i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, when
+there would be a moment’s pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words <i>augus Da Cadine</i>, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with <i>augus Da
+Cadine</i>.<a id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart’s content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Lusmore! Lusmore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doubt not, nor deplore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the hump which you bore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On your back is no more!—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look down on the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And view it, Lusmore!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.</p>
+
+<p>Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man—in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore’s hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.</p>
+
+<p>One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.</p>
+
+<p>“I need give you no directions, my good woman,” said Lusmore, “for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have come,” said the woman, “out of Decie’s country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: ’tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can.”</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip’s house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Madden for that was the humpy man’s name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: <i>Da
+Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>augus
+Da Cadine</i>, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+<i>augus da Cadine augus Da Hena</i>,<a id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, “Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?” and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Jack Madden! Jack Madden!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your words came so bad in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tune we feel glad in;—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This castle you’re had in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That your life we may sadden;—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here’s two humps for Jack Madden!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore’s hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack’s back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden’s mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/026.jpg" width="176" height="162" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="IV">THE PRIEST’S SUPPER.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>IV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork—a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.</p>
+
+<p>On a nice green sod by the river’s side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Cease, cease with your drumming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Here’s an end to our mumming;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">By my smell<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">I can tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A priest this way is coming!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.</p>
+
+<p>The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with “My blessing on all here.”</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which “the old
+woman,” for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. “No
+matter,” thought Dermod, “there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest’s supper, that one
+will be there before me.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of “the spreading Lee;” but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, “May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there’s any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I’m clear in my own mind you’ll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you—did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s not true for you,” said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; “there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you.”</p>
+
+<p>Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: “Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest’s supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll have nothing at all to do with you,” replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, “I’m much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him—so there’s
+an end of the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod’s
+manner, continued, “Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?”</p>
+
+<p>Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+“I see no objection to do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> that same, gentlemen,” said Dermod; “But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,—mind that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, “go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay.”</p>
+
+<p>Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.</p>
+
+<p>“Please your reverence,” said Dermod, after some hesitation, “may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?”</p>
+
+<p>“What may that be?” said Father Horrigan.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, begging your reverence’s pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?”</p>
+
+<p>“Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?” said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth,” said Dermod. “It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go back by all means,” said the priest, “and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I’ll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life.”</p>
+
+<p>Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/030.jpg" width="167" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="V">THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>V.</span></h2>
+
+<p>It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Midsummer Night’s Dream<a id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and the
+Fairy Queen?<a id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+“fairies’ theft,” to use Spenser’s words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.</p>
+
+<p>One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan,” were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.</p>
+
+<p>“You may say that, Ellen,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan,” said Ellen Leah; “but are you
+sure ’tis a fairy?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure!” echoed Mrs. Sullivan, “sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother’s soul must feel for me!”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you take an old woman’s advice?” said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, “but may be you’ll call it foolish?”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you get me back my child,—my own child, Ellen?” said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.</p>
+
+<p>“If you do as I bid you,” returned Ellen Leah, “you’ll know.” Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. “Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you.”</p>
+
+<p>Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot—it surely was.</p>
+
+<p>The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, “What are you doing, mammy?”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sullivan’s heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, “I’m brewing, <i>a vick</i>” (my son).</p>
+
+<p>“And what are you brewing, mammy?” said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish the poker was red,” thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it what I’m brewing, <i>a vick</i>,” said she, “you want to know?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?” returned the fairy.</p>
+
+<p>“Egg-shells, <i>a vick</i>,” said Mrs. Sullivan.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, “I’m fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow—his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.</p>
+
+<p>Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy—and she wept!—tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them—they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/033.jpg" width="351" height="193" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="VI">LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>VI.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Come listen to a tale of times of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come listen to me—”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from “the beautiful city called Cork.” Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, ’twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,—<i>she</i> was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn’t enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.</p>
+
+<p>“Why then, Molly,” says he, “what’ll we do?”</p>
+
+<p>“Wisha, then, mavourneen, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?” says she; “and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested <i>again</i> the
+fair.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what’ll we do when she’s gone?” says Mick, sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won’t leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won’t be sorry for selling the cow; but I’ll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+’tis ripped under the arm.”</p>
+
+<p>Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o’clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, then, if I only had half the money that’s buried in you, ’tisn’t
+driving this poor cow I’d be now! Why, then, isn’t it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God’s will, I’ll have some money myself coming
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he moved on after his beast; ’twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill—Bottle Hill ’tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.</p>
+
+<p>“Good morrow,” says he. “Good morrow,” kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you’d almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn’t quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man’s company; and he couldn’t see one bit of
+his legs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn’t know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick’s heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn’t come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn’t the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing—when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.</p>
+
+<p>“Where are you going with the cow, honest man?”</p>
+
+<p>“To the fair of Cork then,” says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going to sell her?” said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you sell her to me?”</p>
+
+<p>Mick started—he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.</p>
+
+<p>“What’ll you give for her?” at last says he.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you this bottle,” said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.</p>
+
+<p>Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Laugh if you will,” said the little man, “but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork—ay, than ten thousand times as much.”</p>
+
+<p>Mick laughed again. “Why then,” says he, “do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle—and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won’t.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle—you’ll not be
+sorry for it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, and what would Molly say? I’d never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mick started.</p>
+
+<p>“How does he know my name?” thought he.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger proceeded: “Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?”</p>
+
+<p>Mick was going to say “God forbid!” but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that’s what many people, that hold their heads higher, don’t mind
+now).</p>
+
+<p>“And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir,” said Mick; “and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I’d give you the
+cow in the name——”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind names,” said the stranger, “but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly.”</p>
+
+<p>Mick hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!” said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.</p>
+
+<p>“May be ’tis true,” said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do—he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle—“Take the cow,” said he, “and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what’s that?” says Mick.</p>
+
+<p>“When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: ‘Bottle, do your duty,’ and you will see the end
+of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is this all?” says Mick.</p>
+
+<p>“No more,” said the stranger. “Good by, Mick Purcell—you are a rich
+man.”</p>
+
+<p>“God grant it!” said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord between us and harm!” said Mick: “<i>He</i> can’t belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?” She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.</p>
+
+<p>“And what would I do if it broke?” thought he. “Oh! but I’ll take care
+of that;” so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer’n’t at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why then, Molly, if you’ll give me time, I’ll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, ’tisn’t Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! then, you sold her; and where’s the money?”</p>
+
+<p>“Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I’ll tell you all about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?” said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, be easy now, can’t you,” says Mick, “till I tell it to
+you?” and putting the bottle on the table, “That’s all I got for the
+cow.”</p>
+
+<p>His poor wife was thunderstruck. “All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what’ll we do for
+the rent, and what——”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Now, Molly,” says Mick, “can’t you hearken to reason? Didn’t I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,—no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me—on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!” said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband’s head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man’s advice) loosened his wife’s
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn’t know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, “Bottle, do your duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“Look there! look there, mammy!” said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old—“look there! look there!” and he sprang to his
+mother’s side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn’t think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, “Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day’s work.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle.”</p>
+
+<p>Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn’t taste half the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>“Now,” says Molly, “I wonder will those two good little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?” They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, “Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you’ll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell.”</p>
+
+<p>Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money—sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he’d never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken—he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thrilling with music, was melting in light.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:—“Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that’s no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now—but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And here is the bottle,” said the old man, smiling; “you know what to
+do with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man.”</p>
+
+<p>“And good-bye to you, sir,” said Mick, as he turned back; “and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill—it wants a name—Bottle
+Hill.—Good-bye, sir, good-bye;” so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,—“Oh! sure,
+I’ve another bottle!”</p>
+
+<p>“Arrah! then have you? why, then, you’re a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that’s what you are.”</p>
+
+<p>In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, “Bottle, do your duty.” In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what do you want now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come along, then.” So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: “Ah! ha!”
+says he to himself, “may be I won’t have you by and by.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Now,” says his landlord, “show us your bottle.” Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, “Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I’ll have you
+hanged!”</p>
+
+<p>“They never shall stop,” said Mick, “till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!”
+says the landlord.</p>
+
+<p>Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord’s only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so ’twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/042.jpg" width="195" height="275" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="VII">THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>VII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom’s father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called “the good people.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect—they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eyebrows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. “Very well, sir;” “That’s true,
+sir;” “I’m very thankful to your honour,” and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man’s business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind—a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is <i>struck</i><a id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, <i>after</i> their
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the <i>good people</i>
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.</p>
+
+<p>About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom’s, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin’s house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent <i>potteen</i>, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom’s, this seemed a good
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Tom,” said Mr. Martin, “that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer’s, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day.”</p>
+
+<p>“You may say that, sir,” replied Tom Bourke; “but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma’am,” said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family,” said Mrs. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“So I had, ma’am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come, Tom,” said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, “take
+another tumbler;” and he then added, “I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis true for you, sir,” returned Tom; “your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won’t belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of ’em now.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how did you find it out, Tom?” inquired Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, I’ll tell you, sir,” said Bourke: “When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little <i>bohereen</i>, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy’s ground; for ’twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother’s berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,<a id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. ‘Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),’ says I. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ says he; ‘but you’re a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.’ ‘What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?’ says I: ‘the doctors give him over.’ ‘The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,’ says Shamous: ‘but go to such a one,’ says he, telling me his
+name, ‘and try what he’ll say to you.’”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“And who was that, Tom?” asked Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“I could not tell you that, sir,” said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+“howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I’d
+have now some of them that’s gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great <i>impression</i>
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad—very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o’clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one halfpenny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you—I wont belie my father, sir—he was a good
+father to me—I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. ‘Is that you, father?’ says I. He said nothing. ‘If that’s
+you,’ says I again, ‘for the love of them that’s gone, let me catch
+your hand.’ And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child’s.
+He stayed about as long as you’d be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn’t
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“But I think, Tom,” said Mr. Martin, “it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father——”</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Bourke, interrupting him; “but don’t
+call them my enemies. ’Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.—Here’s
+wishing you a good health and long life.”</p>
+
+<p>“I assure you,” returned Mr. Martin, “I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t tell you that, sir,” said Bourke; “I’m bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son’s illness—circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.</p>
+
+<p>“See that now,” said he, returning to Mr. Martin, “how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma’am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats’ whey.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued—“Why, then, I’ll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e’er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father’s. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly not, Tom,” returned Mr. Martin.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.—‘Whisht, you fool!’ says I: ‘’tis all for the better.’ ’Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma’am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack’s face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+’Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Twas very strange, indeed, Tom,” said Mr. Martin; “I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish I could, sir,” was Tom Bourke’s answer; “but I’m bound down. I
+can’t tell but what I’m allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son,” said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“So I had, sir,” returned Bourke. “I had a trial of that man. But
+that’s neither here nor there. I can’t tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! very much indeed,” said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story,” added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, ’cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother’s
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father’s people—I mean their friends, sir, among
+the <i>good people</i>, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she’d be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father’s people.”</p>
+
+<p>“He was a valuable friend, Tom,” said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. “But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I will, and welcome,” replied Bourke. “Your health, ma’am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one’s throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?—Yes—well—Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a <i>berrin</i> late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,<a id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> near Ballyhefaan
+ford.<a id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they’d break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that’s saying enough for him; so he whipped<a id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he’d show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!—his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>them. Patrick was ’shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. ‘Patrick,’ says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+‘Patrick,’ says he, ‘you’re discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I’m your friend, and your father’s friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don’t be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.’
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what was the cause of his great success?” inquired Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“He could not help it, sir,” replied Tom Bourke. “They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?” said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you that too, sir,” answered Bourke, “when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn’t make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it’s little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can’t tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn’t be the man he is
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill,” said
+Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“You have it all now, sir,” replied Bourke. “Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn’t hinder the fever, they’d bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick’s family, and it went again’ his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+’em boasting how they’d dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford,” said Mr. Martin. “’Tis a great place for the good people, isn’t
+it, Tom?”</p>
+
+<p>“You may say that, sir,” returned Bourke. “I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th’ other side of the river, looking at ’em playing goal
+as if they’d break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th’ other, just as you’d see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming’s
+big field. I saw ’em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th’ other. I’m sure they were
+going to fight, only, ’twas near morning. I’m told your grandfather,
+ma’am, used to see ’em, there, too,” said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.</p>
+
+<p>“So I have been told, Tom,” replied Mrs. Martin. “But don’t they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper<a id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma’am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard,” said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, “’twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother’s soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with ’em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among ’em (for he hadn’t a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+‘Davy,’ says he, ‘take out a <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don’t offer to kiss her.’ ‘That I won’t,’ says Davy,
+‘although her lips were made of honey.’ And with that he made his bow
+to the <i>purtiest</i> girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+’Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th’ admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. ’Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; ’twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn’t get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o’clock.”</p>
+
+<p>When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.—He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning churchyards, river-sides, leprechauns, and <i>dina
+magh</i>, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, “I can talk no more;” stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom’s wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, “As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/056.jpg" width="284" height="208" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="VIII">FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>VIII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done—but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.</p>
+
+<p>John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories—many more did not believe them—but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.</p>
+
+<p>Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible—that it was merely old woman’s gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources—nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge—they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” said they, “Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“Never,” was the reply.—“Never, as I am a man of honour and credit.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then,” they answered, “until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother.”</p>
+
+<p>Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle’s, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined—he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host’s entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, (“not,” added he, “however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,”) they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.</p>
+
+<p>He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. “Yes, indeed!” muttered he, “the
+brats had me in one thing—I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one—and by the powers! what is that?”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments—and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak’s branches—some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves—some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk—some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse’s neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+“Bravo! little fellow,” said he, “well kicked and strong.” But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish,” said Jack, “I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean.”</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.</p>
+
+<p>“Halloo!” said he, “young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you <i>oc-oc-</i>ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, “Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?”</p>
+
+<p>“The fairies,” shouted Jack; “the fairies!”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid,” muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, “the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter—come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch.”</p>
+
+<p>He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;—how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. “Suppose,” said one of the
+lads, “we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?”</p>
+
+<p>“Done!” cried Jack; “but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air.” This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.</p>
+
+<p>Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. “Look there,” he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; “look, and deny if you can.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said one of the lads, pausing, “true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;” and he dismounted to climb over the wall.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Ah, Tom! Tom,” cried Jack, “stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies—the good people, I mean—hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or—look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak—God
+help him! for he is past the help of man.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. “Jack,”
+said he, “keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup.”</p>
+
+<p>“Catsup,” said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly—“What do you mean by
+catsup?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” replied Tom, “but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball.”</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.</p>
+
+<p>I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">“These our actors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As I foretold you, were all spirits, and<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are melted into air—into thin air.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/060.jpg" width="244" height="211" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The name <span class="smcap">Shefro</span>, by which the foregoing section is
+distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+to have castles or mansions of their own.—See <i>Stewart’s
+Popular Superstitions of the Highlands</i>, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sia</i>, <i>sigh</i>, <i>sighe</i>, <i>sigheann</i>, <i>siabhra</i>, <i>siachaire</i>,
+<i>siogidh</i>, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+or witch. Thus we have the compounds <i>Leannan-sighe</i>, a
+familiar, from <i>Leannan</i>, a pet, and <i>Sioghdhraoidheachd</i>,
+enchantment with or by spirits.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sigh gàoithe</i> or <i>siaheann-gàoithe</i>, a whirlwind, is so termed
+because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+day called <i>Sia</i>, because twilight,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">“That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+<i>Sigh</i> is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+to dwell within. <i>Sidhe</i>, <i>sidheadh</i>, and <i>sigh</i>, are names for
+a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+fairies.</p>
+
+<p>The term <i>Shoges</i>, i.e. <i>Sigh oges</i> (young or little spirits,)
+Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+“The Irish Hudibras,” 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+entitled “The Fingallian Travesty,” is among the Sloane MSS.
+No. 900. In the Third Part of O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, it is
+related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for “<i>Sidhe</i>, or
+fairies,” by some pagan ladies.</p>
+
+<p>“The Irish,” according to the Rev. James Hely’s translation of
+O’Flaherty, “call these <i>Sidhe</i>, aërial spirits or phantoms,
+because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+are called by us <i>Sidhe</i> or <i>Siodha</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>For a similar extended use of the German word <i>Alp</i>, <i>Elf</i>, &amp;c.
+see Introductory Essay to the Grimms’ <i>Irische Elfenmärchen</i>,
+pp. 55-62.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/063.jpg" width="381" height="253" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+“————————— That sottish elf<br />
+Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,<br />
+Draining the cellar with as free a hand<br />
+As if it were his purse which ne’er lacked coin;—<br />
+And then, with feign’d contrition ruminates<br />
+Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,<br />
+In some secluded dell or lonely grove<br />
+Tinsel’d by Twilight.”—</p>
+<p class="right">Δ.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="IX">THE HAUNTED CELLAR.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>IX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies—one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more—and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh—and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.</p>
+
+<p>But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.</p>
+
+<p>There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy’s butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.</p>
+
+<p>“We have no fault,” they would say, “to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis a queer thing that, surely,” thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler’s pantry:—“’tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar.”</p>
+
+<p>Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.</p>
+
+<p>A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is William?” inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.</p>
+
+<p>“Sir?” said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Is it William, please your honour?” returned Jack; “why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just <i>one</i> drop too much last night.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did he get it?” said Mr. Mac Carthy; “for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sorrow a know I know,” said Leary, “unless the cook might have given
+him the <i>least taste</i> in life of whiskey. But,” continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, “may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?”</p>
+
+<p>“Speak out, Jack,” said Mr. Mac Carthy.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, does your honour want a butler?”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you recommend me one,” returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, “and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?”</p>
+
+<p>“Is the wine-cellar all the matter?” said young Leary: “not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?”
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Exactly so,” answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial.”</p>
+
+<p>“Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!”
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.</p>
+
+<p>“Jack Leary,” said he at length, “Jack—is it Jack?” in a tone of
+wonder; “faith, ’tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;” and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack’s former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an “Out of the way, sirrah.” Indeed, poor Jack’s memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary—so
+he still continued to call his new butler. “Jack,” said he, “I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy’s guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,—a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages—I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind—for it was before the days of
+Bramah’s patent,—and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.</p>
+
+<p>Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.</p>
+
+<p>To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.</p>
+
+<p>When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.</p>
+
+<p>“What kept-you?” said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; “and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since.”</p>
+
+<p>“The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir,” said Jack, trembling
+violently; “I hope ’tis not all lost.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you mean, fool?” exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: “why did you not fetch some with you?”</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, “this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it.” So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">“like those mites<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of candied dew in moony nights—<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.</p>
+
+<p>“Ha, scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, “have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar—what are you doing there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure, and master,” returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, “a’n’t we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” thought Mr. Mac Carthy, “if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don’t see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy.” So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.</p>
+
+<p>For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.</p>
+
+<p>Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger—ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;—only looking mighty old. But still ’tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call <i>spré-na-skillinagh</i>,
+and ’tis said is never without a shilling in it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/070.jpg" width="207" height="205" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="X">MASTER AND MAN.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>X.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. “By my word,” chattered Billy, “a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man’s soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never wish it twice, Billy,” said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.</p>
+
+<p>“Success, my little fellow,” said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the <i>good people</i>;
+“here’s your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;” and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.</p>
+
+<p>“Success,” said the little man; “and you’re heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don’t think to cheat me as you have done others,—out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it I pay you?” said Billy: “could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?”</p>
+
+<p>“Billy Mac Daniel,” said the little man, getting very angry, “you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me.”</p>
+
+<p>When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the live-long night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.</p>
+
+<p>When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, “You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don’t fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master.”</p>
+
+<p>Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, “Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night.”</p>
+
+<p>Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: “But,” said he, “if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ask no questions, Billy,” said the little man, “but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find.”</p>
+
+<p>Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. “Get up, Billy,” said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.</p>
+
+<p>“Where will I get up, please your honour?” said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure,” said the little man.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it after making a fool of me you’d be,” said Billy, “bidding me
+get a horseback upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?”</p>
+
+<p>“Up! up! and no words,” said the little man, looking very vexed; “the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it.” So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: “Borram! Borram! Borram!” cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse’s tail;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.</p>
+
+<p>At last they came to their journey’s end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: “Now, Billy,” said the little man, “do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse’s head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can’t
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb.”</p>
+
+<p>The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.</p>
+
+<p>The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. “The best of masters are you
+surely,” said Billy to him; “no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have made no bargain with you,” said the little man, “and will make
+none; but up and follow me.” Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, “Borram, Borram, Borram,” had passed
+their lips.</p>
+
+<p>When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there—sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman’s wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well—ay, better than the butler himself.</p>
+
+<p>One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, “Billy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take.” So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. “If I have,” thought Billy, “he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don’t see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer’s house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunnel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, “Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!”</p>
+
+<p>“God bless us, sir,” said Billy, “will you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t say these words again, Billy,” said the little man, “or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all,” said Billy, “if
+ever you mean to marry.”</p>
+
+<p>“And to that purpose,” said the little man, “have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunnel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what will Darby Riley say to that?” said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>“Silence!” said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: “I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;” and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.</p>
+
+<p>In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cock-sparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.</p>
+
+<p>There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward—and under them were the priest and piper—and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby’s two brothers and his uncle’s
+son—and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had—and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster—and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it—and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig’s head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said “God bless us.” All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig’s head and greens. And after a
+moment’s pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.</p>
+
+<p>Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. “Ha!” exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches—“Ha!” said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, “I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley.”</p>
+
+<p>Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying “God bless us.”</p>
+
+<p>Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, “God save us!” Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, “I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel—take <i>that</i> for your wages,” gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.</p>
+
+<p>If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/076.jpg" width="290" height="89" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XI">THE LITTLE SHOE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>“Now tell me, Molly,” said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,<a id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+“did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many’s
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>“But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“Och! no, I never <i>see</i> one in my life; but my grandfather, that’s my
+father’s father, you know, he <i>see</i> one, one time, and caught him
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, I’ll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day’s work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, ‘I’ll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I’ll have money enough always.’ So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn’t make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he <i>see</i> the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. ‘Faith I have you now,’ says he, ‘and I’ll never let you go
+till I get your purse—that’s what I won’t; so give it here to me at
+once, now.’—‘Stop, stop,’ says the Cluricaune, ‘stop, stop,’ says he,
+’till I get it for you.’ So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often <i>see</i> it, and had it in her hand, and ’twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you see it yourself, Molly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.</p>
+
+<p>The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+Irish for a pigmy.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word <i>luacharman</i>
+is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+the English word, <i>man</i>.—A rushy man,—that may be, a man of
+the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+is, unfrequented or boggy places.</p>
+
+<p>The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+Leprochaune:—</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>—Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+character or designation.</p>
+
+<p><i>Witness.</i>—My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+let him go, and then you’re as rich as a Jew.</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>—Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Witness.</i>—Yes, my lord, there was one—</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>—That will do.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to “money matters,” there appears to be a strong
+resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+Cluricaune.—“Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit,” are
+the words of Petronius.—See, for farther arguments in support
+of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm’s Essay on
+the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+work, under the head of “Ancient Testimonies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+skill of the dwarfs in curious smith’s-work.”—“The Irish
+Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+the old Northern language a shoemaker is called a
+<i>shoe-smith</i>;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+shoemaker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+with incredible quickness during the night.”</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Brothers Grimm.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/081.jpg" width="400" height="257" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset18"><p>
+“Who sits upon the heath forlorn,<br />
+With robe so free and tresses torn?<br />
+Anon she pours a harrowing strain,<br />
+And then—she sits all mute again!<br />
+Now peals the wild funereal cry—<br />
+And now—it sinks into a sigh.”</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Ourawns.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XII">THE BANSHEE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to “<i>the
+minister</i>” (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country—to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.</p>
+
+<p>But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth’s death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.</p>
+
+<p>About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o’clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“What is the matter, Kavanagh?” asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, “The master, Miss—the
+master—he is going from us;” and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. “No, Miss,” said Kavanagh; “it was not in Mallow——”</p>
+
+<p>“Kavanagh,” said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, “I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;—I thought
+you might have been trusted:—what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say.”</p>
+
+<p>Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;—but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss,” said he, “as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master——”</p>
+
+<p>“Speak softly,” said Miss Bunworth; “he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect.”</p>
+
+<p>“Praise be to God for that, any way,” replied Kavanagh; “but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely—we will lose him—the master—we will lose
+him, we will lose him!” and he wrung his hands together.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it you mean, Kavanagh?” asked Miss Bunworth.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it mean?” said Kavanagh: “the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+’tis not I alone who have heard her.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis an idle superstition,” said Miss Bunworth.</p>
+
+<p>“May be so,” replied Kavanagh, as if the words ‘idle superstition’
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind—“May be so,” he
+continued; “but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master’s name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+<i>berrin</i> ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one’s heart to hear it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Kavanagh,” said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, “my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bed-side of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.</p>
+
+<p>The night was serene and moonlit—the sick man slept—and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bed-side of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep—if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand—would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIII">LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XIII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned—as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars—as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene—and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man’s table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated—I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle (‘black emblem of the informer’) dangling from his
+waist-coat-button—went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British “parliament,” that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger—recording angel of the
+law—wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state to like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, “It’s all
+over, James;” and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man’s voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles’s foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles’s playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:—suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur—then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic—and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:—the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy’s room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son’s chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, “Mother;”—but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, “Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?”</p>
+
+<p>He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, “Yes, my mother, alive, and—— But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen.” He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> all her senses, he proceeded:—“do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me—’tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,—I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I <i>can</i> describe I <i>will</i>—I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never—not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being—never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended—when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, ‘Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.’—I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered.”</p>
+
+<p>Charles’s strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours’ sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.</p>
+
+<p>Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles’s health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles’ distance from Spring House.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="in3"><i>“To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry.</i></span></p>
+
+<p class="right">Spring House, Tuesday morning,<br />October 15th, 1752.</p>
+
+<p>“MY DEAREST MARY,</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days’ journey at
+this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+my son’s story. I can’t tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+son’s ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+postponed a day or two longer. Would to God—but no more of
+this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+man for <i>one</i> week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+before Sunday as you can.</p>
+
+<p>“Ever my dear Mary’s attached cousin and friend,</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">“Ann Mac Carthy.”</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke’s
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">“Spring House, Sunday evening,<br />20th October, 1752.</p>
+
+<p>“DEAR ELLEN,</p>
+
+<p>“As my mother’s letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+the extraordinary events of the last two days.</p>
+
+<p>“The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+Mr. Bourke’s brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> clear and
+bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+far we were from Mr. Bourke’s. ‘’Tis about ten spades from this
+to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+the avenue, ma’am.’ ‘Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke’s
+as soon as you reach the cross roads.’ My mother had scarcely
+spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+‘Heaven defend us!’ exclaimed my mother. ‘Go you over the
+hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+village near it.’ ‘Woman!’ said Leary, beating the horse
+violently, while his voice trembled—‘that’s no woman: the
+sooner we get on, ma’am, the better;’ and he continued his
+efforts to quicken the horse’s pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke’s to the left,
+and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+woman, with uncovered head, and long hair that float<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>ed round her
+shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+closely wrapped around it. ‘Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+God’s name,’ said my mother; ‘whatever world it belongs to, we
+will provoke it no longer.’ ‘’Tis the Banshee, ma’am,’ said
+Leary; ‘and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I’m afraid
+there’s something bad going forward, or <i>she</i> would not send us
+there.’ So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o’clock last
+night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+mother’s letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+week.</p>
+
+<p>“You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+the grounds a little before dinner. It seems<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> that an
+unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+few days. ‘We shall know more by Sunday,’ said Charles, as he
+was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.</p>
+
+<p>“On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+taken until<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+frantic, a little before our arrival.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles’s wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+twelve o’clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+Charles’s room, to ‘get his forgiveness,’ as she said, ‘before
+he went away to accuse her for having killed him.’ This wild
+idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, ‘James
+Ryan, ’twas you killed him, and not I—’twas you killed him,
+and not I.’</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+accident. She conducted us to Charles’s room, who she said, had
+desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy——but I am just called away. There seems
+a slight stir in the family; perhaps——”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles’s seven-and-twentieth birth-day, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/099.jpg" width="238" height="168" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Banshee</span>, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege.”—<span class="smcap">O’Brien’s</span>
+<i>Irish Dictionary</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+“Personal Sketches, &amp;c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;” Miss Lefanu’s
+Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+32; “The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw” (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+in a note on “the Lady of the Lake,”) &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+Banshee “one of the most beautiful” of the leading
+superstitions of Europe. In his “Letters on Demonology,” he
+says that “several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+who performed the office of the Irish Banshee,” and
+particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.</p>
+
+<p>“The Welsh Gwrâch y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+<i>A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni.</i>”—<i>MS. Communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Owen
+Pughe</span>. For some farther particulars, see, in “A Relation of
+Apparitions, &amp;c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones,” his account of the
+<i>Kyhirraeth</i>, “a doleful foreboding noise before death;” and
+Howell’s “Cambrian Superstitions,” (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+of Poitou. Prince, in his “Worthies of Devon,” records the
+appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+worshipful lineage of Oxenham.</p>
+
+<p>“In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+the window of the house in which a person is to die (<i>Deutsche
+Sagen</i>, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+(267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+<i>Klage-weib</i> (mourning woman,) in the <i>Lüneburger Heath</i>
+(<i>Spiels Archiv.</i> ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+<i>Klage-weib</i> has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+course of the month.”—</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Brothers Grimm</span>, <i>and MS.
+Communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. William Grimm</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/101.jpg" width="378" height="262" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset26"><p>
+“Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings’ helpless harms,<br />
+Ne let the <i>Pouke</i>, nor other evil spright,<br />
+Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,<br />
+Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,<br />
+<span class="in3">Fray us with things that be not.”</span></p>
+<p class="smcap right">Spenser.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIV">THE SPIRIT HORSE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XIV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them—it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;—but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.</p>
+
+<p>Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.</p>
+
+<p>This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.</p>
+
+<p>And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;—then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.</p>
+
+<p>“In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban,” said Morty, “how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?”</p>
+
+<p>These words had no sooner passed Morty’s lips than he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman’s jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman’s appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear—judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.—“What’s your name?” at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.</p>
+
+<p>Plucking up all his courage, “Morty Sullivan,” replied he “at your
+service;” meaning the latter words only in civility.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ubbubbo!</i>” said the old woman, “we’ll soon see that;” and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>“Take hold of my hand, Morty,” said the old woman: “I’ll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey’s end.” So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;—it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mount, Morty, mount!” cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, “O that I had spurs!” and tried to
+grasp the horse’s mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O’Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),<a id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/104.jpg" width="156" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XV">DANIEL O’ROURKE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O’Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka’s tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.</p>
+
+<p>“I am often <i>axed</i> to tell it, sir,” said he, “so that this is not the
+first time. The master’s son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The <i>ould</i> gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour’s presence. They’d swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;—and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;—and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord’s bounty often and often
+in the year;—but now it’s another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I’d better be telling you my story.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen—a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can’t
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that’s certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I’d just step to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> Molly Cronohan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself—for why? it was Lady-day—I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. ‘Death alive!’ thought I,
+‘I’ll be drowned now!’ However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a <i>dissolute</i> island.</p>
+
+<p>“I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;—I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my <i>berrin</i> place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the <i>Ullagone</i>—when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.</p>
+
+<p>“So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel O’Rourke,’
+says he, ‘how do you do?’ ‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says I: ‘I
+hope you’re well;’ wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. ‘What brings you here, Dan?’
+says he. ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I: ‘only I wish I was safe home
+again.’ ‘Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?’ says he. ‘’Tis,
+sir,’ says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. ‘Dan,’ says he, after a
+minute’s thought, ‘though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who ’tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields—my life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you’d fall off, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> I’ll fly you out of the bog.’ ‘I
+am afraid,’ says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?’ ‘’Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,’ says he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog—besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.’</p>
+
+<p>“It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:—‘I thank
+your honour,’ says I, ‘for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take
+your kind offer.’ I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up—up—up—I
+know not how far up he flew.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, then,’ said I to him,—thinking he did not know the right road
+home—very civilly, because why?—I was in his power entirely;—‘sir,’
+says I, ‘please your honour’s glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘<i>Arrah</i>, Dan,’ said he, ‘do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a <i>cowld</i> stone in a bog.’ ‘Bother you,’ said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. ‘Where in the world are you going, sir?’ says I to
+him. ‘Hold your tongue, Dan,’ says he: ‘mind your own business, and
+don’t be interfering with the business of other people.’ ‘Faith, this
+is my business, I think,’ says I. ‘Be quiet, Dan,’ says he: so I said
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>“At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can’t see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus
+<img src="images/107.jpg" height="20" width="30" alt="" />
+on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)</p>
+
+<p>“‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> I had no
+notion ’twas so far.’ ‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the world
+<i>axed</i> you to fly so far—was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?’ ‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’
+said he; ‘I’m tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.’ ‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I;
+‘is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall
+off in a minute, and be <i>kilt</i> and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,—so you are.’ ‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he: ‘you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and ’twill keep you up.’ ‘I won’t, then,’ said I.
+‘May be not,’ said he, quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.’ ‘Why, then, I’m in a
+fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;’ and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he’d know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.</p>
+
+<p>“When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+‘Good morning to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘I think I’ve nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,’ (’twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) ‘and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cock-throw.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?’ says
+I. ‘You ugly unnatural <i>baste</i>, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.’ ’Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this—sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing ’em, and out there
+walks—who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Good morrow to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘How do you do?’
+‘Very well, thank your honour,’ said I. ‘I hope your honour’s well.’
+‘What brought you here, Dan?’ said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master’s, and how I was cast on a
+<i>dissolute</i> island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Dan,’ said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, ‘you must not stay here.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis much
+against my will I’m here at all; but how am I to go back?’ ‘That’s
+your business,’ said he, ‘Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.’ ‘I’m doing no harm,’ says
+I, ‘only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.’
+‘That’s what you must not do, Dan,’ says he. ‘Pray, sir,’ says I, ‘may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I’m sure ’tis not so often you’re troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for ’tis a long way.’ ‘I’m by myself,
+Dan,’ says he; ‘but you’d better let go the reaping-hook.’ ‘Indeed,
+and with your leave,’ says I, ‘I’ll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won’t let go;—so I will.’ ‘You had better,
+Dan,’ says he again. ‘Why, then, my little fellow,’ says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, ‘there are two
+words to that bargain, and I’ll not budge, but you may if you like.’
+‘We’ll see how that is to be,’ says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and <i>whap</i>! it came in two. ‘Good morning to
+you, Dan,’ says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> ‘I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.’ I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. ‘Now help me,’ says I,
+‘but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.’ The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know <i>me</i>? The <i>ould</i> gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, ‘Is that you, Dan?’ ‘The
+same,’ said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of <i>bedevilment</i>, and, besides, I knew him
+of <i>ould</i>. ‘Good morrow to you,’ says he, ‘Daniel O’Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?’ ‘Very well, sir,’ says I, ‘I thank you
+kindly,’ drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. ‘I
+hope your honour’s the same.’ ‘I think ’tis falling you are, Daniel,’
+says he. ‘You may say that, sir,’ says I. ‘And where are you going all
+the way so fast?’ said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. ‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’ ‘Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.</p>
+
+<p>“We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. ‘Ah! my lord,’ said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, ‘fly to land if you
+please.’ ‘It is impossible, you see, Dan,’ said he, ‘for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.’ ‘To Arabia!’ said I; ‘that’s
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I’m a man to be pitied among you.’ ‘Whist, whist, you
+fool,’ said he, ‘hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.’</p>
+
+<p>“Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: ‘Ah! then, sir,’ said I, ‘will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?’ ‘We are not fair over it,’ said he. ‘We are,’
+said I. ‘We are not,’ said he: ‘If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.’ ‘I would not,’ says I: ‘I know better than that,
+for it’s just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘If you must, you must,’ said he. ‘There, take your own way;’ and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right—sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night’s sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn’t
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying—’twas
+a voice I knew too—‘Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;’ and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;—for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Get up,’ said she again: ‘and of all places in the parish, would no
+place <i>sarve</i> your turn to lie down upon but under the <i>ould</i> walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.’ And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I’d
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/111.jpg" width="235" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XVI">THE CROOKENED BACK.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XVI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says “she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient”), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son’s fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.</p>
+
+<p>Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of “dark December” whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:—at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the “crookening of her back.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn’t bear it. ’Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that’s ten years last Easter—I won’t forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn’t come home to dinner. I
+don’t know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+’Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn’t a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn’t long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn’t a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn’t move for near a minute. I couldn’t
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn’t go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on—and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. ’Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn’t help
+moving, and couldn’t stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn’t; I tried to run, but wasn’t able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard ’em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards’ distance from them that would
+die to save me;—and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn’t be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! ’Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: ’twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy’s,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman’s side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment’s pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, “Granny, what was it?”</p>
+
+<p>The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, “It was
+the Phooka.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The <i>Pouke</i> or <i>Phooka</i>, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+plain terms, the Evil One. “Playing the puck,” a common
+Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to “playing the devil.” Much
+learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &amp;c.] The
+commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+Puck of the Midsummer Night’s Dream from the mischievous
+Pouke.—Vide Drayton’s Nymphidia.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">“This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Still walking like a ragged colt,” &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1587) we
+find,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">“—— and the countrie where Chgmæra, that same <i>Pooke</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Hath goatish bodie,” &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+<i>Mahr</i>; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+they faint and fall to the earth.</p>
+
+<p class="smcap right">The Brothers Grimm.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/117.jpg" width="265" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">THIERNA NA OGE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/119.jpg" width="381" height="256" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+“On Lough-Neagh’s bank, as the fisherman strays,<br />
+When the clear cold eve’s declining,<br />
+He sees the round towers of other days<br />
+In the wave beneath him shining.”</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Moore.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XVII">FIOR USGA.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XVII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.</p>
+
+<p>One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates—but “you’re
+welcome—you’re welcome, heartily,” was the porter’s salute for all.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king’s daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, “May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water.”</p>
+
+<p>“Water!” said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> “water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter,” said he, “go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose.”</p>
+
+<p>The king’s daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, “Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you.” The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king’s daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king’s palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/122.jpg" width="207" height="187" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XVIII">CORMAC AND MARY.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“She is not dead—she has no grave—<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She lives beneath Lough Corrib’s water;<a id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the murmur of each wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Methinks I catch the songs I taught her.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus many an evening on the shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><span class="i0">Still idly muttering o’er and o’er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">“She lives, detain’d by spells unholy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Death claims her not, too fair for earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her spirit lives—alien of heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor will it know a second birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When sinful mortals are forgiven!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Cold is this rock—the wind comes chill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And mists the gloomy waters cover;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oh! her soul is colder still—<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To lose her God—to leave her lover!”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lake was in profound repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet one white wave came gently curling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as it reach’d the shore, arose<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dim figures—banners gay unfurling.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Onward they move, an airy crowd:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While spear and helm, in pageant proud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Appear in liquid undulation.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their trackless way with antic capers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And curtain clouds hang overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Festoon’d by rainbow-colour’d vapours.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And when a breath of air would stir<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That drapery of Heaven’s own wreathing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light wings of prismy gossamer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor wanting was the choral song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To sound of which this subtile throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With music’s strain, all came and went<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon poor Cormac’s doubting vision;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now rising in wild merriment,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now softly fading in derision.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">[124]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Christ save her soul,” he boldly cried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And when that blessed name was spoken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And vanished all,—the spell was broken.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now on Corrib’s lonely shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Freed by his word from power of faëry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To life, to love, restored once more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/124.jpg" width="203" height="267" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIX">THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XIX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,<a id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.</p>
+
+<p>One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours’ cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;<a id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.</p>
+
+<p>“What in the wide world will I do?” said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: “that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis true for you, Larry,” replied Welsh: “the times are bitter
+bad—no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there’s Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for ’tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way.”</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh’s two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corn-creaks
+answering one another across the water.</p>
+
+<p>“Boys! boys!” said Larry, “look there! look there! but for your lives
+don’t make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word.”</p>
+
+<p>They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper’s cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones,” whispered Mick to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>“Now boys!” said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, “get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we’ll just put them into
+the pound.”</p>
+
+<p>But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.</p>
+
+<p>Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/126.jpg" width="210" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XX">THE ENCHANTED LAKE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire—others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:—but Roderick’s confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.</p>
+
+<p>“Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?” exclaimed the
+young farmer. “Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?”</p>
+
+<p>There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll take you at your word,” said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“She is fair as Cappoquin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have you courage her to win?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And her wealth it far outshines<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cullen’s bog and Silvermines.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She exceeds all heart can wish;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not brawling like the Foherish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as the brightly flowing Lee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Graceful, mild, and pure is she!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:—no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.</p>
+
+<p>When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses’ teeth, and up she made towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Good morrow, Paddeen,” said she.</p>
+
+<p>“Good morrow, Ma’am,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“What brought you here?” said she.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis after Rory Keating’s gold ring,” said he, “I’m come.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here it is for you,” said Paddeen’s fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Ma’am,” replied Paddeen, taking it from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> her:—“I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you’re fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you did not come to marry me?” cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.</p>
+
+<p>“Just wait till I come back again, my darling,” said Paddeen: “I’m to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they’ll wonder what has become of me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind the money,” said the fat woman: “if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/129.jpg" width="333" height="233" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXI">THE LEGEND OF O’DONOGHUE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O’Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called “O’Donoghue’s Prison,” in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>His end—for it cannot correctly be called his death—was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of the good O’Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,—a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince’s reign was never felt by his people.</p>
+
+<p>Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O’Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.</p>
+
+<p>The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.</p>
+
+<p>The warrior was O’Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O’Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse’s neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Thierna na Oge</i>, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">movements of time.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/132.jpg" width="226" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/133.jpg" width="366" height="257" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset22"><p>
+<span class="in5">——“The mysterious depths</span><br />
+And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old.”</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mattima’s</span> <i>Conchologist</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXII">THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer’s morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald “shoghing the dudeen,” which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick’s mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning,” said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. “Well,
+to be sure,” continued he, after a pause, “’tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one’s self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> answer one—nothing but the child of one’s own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune,” said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, “to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!—and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He’s
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete—Is it
+not so?” said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.</p>
+
+<p>But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.</p>
+
+<p>Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.</p>
+
+<p>When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears—doubly salt, no doubt, from her—came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, ’twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t cry, my darling,” said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.</p>
+
+<p>Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> hand, by way
+of comforting her. ’Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck’s foot; but
+’twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s your name, my darling?” says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It’s the universal language; and there’s not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.</p>
+
+<p>The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once—“Man,” says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald’s face, “Man, will you eat me?”</p>
+
+<p>“By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee,” cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, “I’d as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?—Now ’twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!”</p>
+
+<p>“Man,” said the Merrow, “what will you do with me, if you won’t eat
+me?”</p>
+
+<p>Dick’s thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. ’Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.</p>
+
+<p>“Fish,” says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+“fish,” says he, “here’s my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I’ll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that’s what I’ll do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never say the word twice,” says she; “I’m ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, ’till I twist up my
+hair.”</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; “Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s nothing else,” says she quite carelessly, “I’m just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who’s your father, my duck?” says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>“What!” said the Merrow, “did you never hear of my father? he’s the
+king of the waves, to be sure!”</p>
+
+<p>“And yourself, then, is a real king’s daughter?” said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’m nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;—to be sure he has all the money that’s down in the bottom of
+the sea!”</p>
+
+<p>“Money,” repeated the Merrow, “what’s money?”</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it,” replied Dick; “and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! yes,” said the Merrow, “they bring me what I want.”</p>
+
+<p>“To speak the truth, then,” said Dick, “’tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I’m thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king’s daughter: so, if ’twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets—but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?”</p>
+
+<p>“By all means,” said she, “Mr. Fitzgerald—plenty of beds at your
+service. I’ve fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have?” says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. “’Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of—but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they’d have the one, need never ask for the
+other.”</p>
+
+<p>However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.</p>
+
+<p>“There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald,” said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. “And is it a fishy woman you’d
+marry?—the Lord preserve us!—Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that’s my advice to you, wherever she came from.”</p>
+
+<p>Dick had the <i>cohuleen driuth</i> in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he—</p>
+
+<p>“Please your Reverence she’s a king’s daughter.”</p>
+
+<p>“If she was the daughter of fifty kings,” said Father Fitzgibbon, “I
+tell you, you can’t marry her, she being a fish.”</p>
+
+<p>“Please your Reverence,” said Dick again, in an under tone, “she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon.”</p>
+
+<p>“If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,” said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, “you can’t marry her, she being a fish!”</p>
+
+<p>“But she has all the gold that’s down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I’m a made man if I marry her; and,” said Dick, looking up slily,
+“I can make it worth any one’s while to do the job.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! that alters the case entirely,” replied the Priest; “why there’s
+some reason now in what you say: why didn’t you tell me this
+before?—marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done.”</p>
+
+<p>So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick—he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds—two boys and a girl.</p>
+
+<p>In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.</p>
+
+<p>One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.</p>
+
+<p>Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own <i>cohuleen driuth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. “But,” says she, “he won’t lose me entirely, for I’ll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them.”</p>
+
+<p>She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.—The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the <i>cohuleen driuth</i> on
+her head, she plunged in.</p>
+
+<p>Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; “For,” says Dick, “she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children.”</p>
+
+<p>While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of <span class="smcap">the Lady of Gollerus</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/139.jpg" width="192" height="147" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIII">FLORY CANTILLON’S FUNERAL.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXIII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.<a id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> However <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial-place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.</p>
+
+<p>Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. “Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,”
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don’t think
+I should say wrong.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow’s death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.</p>
+
+<p>Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there—more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.</p>
+
+<p>“If ’twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was,” said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, “one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. ’Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,”
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, “didn’t I know all
+the time well enough, ’twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man’s Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how,” said Connor, after a pause, “is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!”</p>
+
+<p>It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.</p>
+
+<p>As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.</p>
+
+<p>It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!</p>
+
+<p>The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.</p>
+
+<p>“This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth,” said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.</p>
+
+<p>“True,” replied another, with a voice still more fearful, “our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!”</p>
+
+<p>“But the time will come,” said a third, bending over the coffin,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“When mortal eye—our work shall spy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mortal ear—our dirge shall hear.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>“Then,” said a fourth, “our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!”</p>
+
+<p>As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.</p>
+
+<p>“The time is come,” cried the unearthly being, “the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!”</p>
+
+<p>One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+churchyard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/143.jpg" width="214" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIV">THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXIV.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron<a id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>—O’Sullivan More,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a beautiful spirit of ocean, ’tis said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When, by moonlight, the waters were hush’d to repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Long, long had he loved her—long vainly essay’d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And long had he wander’d and watch’d by the tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To claim the fair spirit O’Sullivan’s bride!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’Sullivan felt ’twas the dawning of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lie ‘mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Down, down went the maid,—still the chieftain pursued;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence beauty and verdure stretch’d over the land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softly faded away, from a magical pile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had the tints of the rainbow—red, yellow, and green.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were there, as flung up—the wild sport of the storm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are laws which e’en spirits are bound to obey!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Once more must I visit the chief of my race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One cause can detain me—one only—’tis death!”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The language of promise had nothing beyond.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moment is gone—but no maiden returns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What sees he? what change has come over the flood—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For see all around him, in white foam and froth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The palace of crystal has melted in air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o’ercast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sunshine is darkness—the vision has past!<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard, and he struggled—a wave to the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exhausted and faint, bears O’Sullivan More!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/146.jpg" width="287" height="149" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXV">THE WONDERFUL TUNE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Maurice Connor was the king, and that’s no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum’s March, and the Eagle’s Whistle, and the Hen’s Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.</p>
+
+<p>In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it—old or young it mattered not—just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going—going—going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!—whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm—there was no halting while the music lasted!</p>
+
+<p>Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without “blind Maurice and his
+pipes.” His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Down through Iveragh—a place that ought to be proud<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> of itself, for
+’tis Daniel O’Connell’s country—Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand—the dead
+image of a calm summer’s sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Here it was that Maurice’s music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women—<i>O the darlints!</i>—for
+’twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. “Brave music,” said every body, “and well done,”
+when Maurice stopped.</p>
+
+<p>“More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,”
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. “’Tis a pity,” said he, “if we’d let the piper run dry
+after such music; ’twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn’t come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays.” So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: “Did you drink, piper?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will, sir,” says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.</p>
+
+<p>“What will you drink, Maurice?” says Paddy.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m no ways particular,” says Maurice; “I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring <i>raw</i> water; but if ’tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn’t lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve no glass, Maurice,” said Paddy; “I’ve only the bottle.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let that be no hindrance,” answered Maurice; “my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I’ve tried it, sure.”</p>
+
+<p>So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle—more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.</p>
+
+<p>“That was no bad whisky neither,” says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.</p>
+
+<p>“By the holy frost, then!” says Paddy, “’tis but <i>cowld</i> comfort
+there’s in that bottle now; and ’tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you’ve left us no sample to judge by:” and
+to be sure Maurice had not.</p>
+
+<p>Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own—he was fairly tipsy. Don’t think I blame him for it; ’tis often a
+good man’s case; but true is the word that says, “when liquor’s in,
+sense is out;” and puff, at a breath, before you could say “Lord save
+us!” out he blasted his wonderful tune.</p>
+
+<p>’Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; <i>bolg an
+dana</i>, as they used to call him—a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> drink with of a hot
+summer’s day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here’s my hand at an upset of them into English:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The big seals in motion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like waves of the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or gouty feet prancing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came heading the gay fish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Determined on dancing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sweet sounds they follow’d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gasping cod swallow’d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">’Twas wonderful, really!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turbot and flounder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">‘Mid fish that were rounder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just caper’d as gaily.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">John-dories came tripping;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dull hake, by their skipping<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To frisk it seem’d given;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright mackerel went springing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like small rainbows winging<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their flight up to heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The whiting and haddock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left salt-water paddock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This dance to be put in:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where skate with flat faces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Edged out some odd plaices;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But soles kept their footing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sprats and herrings in powers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of silvery showers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All number out-number’d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And great ling so lengthy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were there in such plenty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shore was encumber’d.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The scollop and oyster<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their two shells did roister,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like castanets fitting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While limpets moved clearly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rocks very nearly<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With laughter were splitting.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; ’twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor’s wonderful tune!</p>
+
+<p>In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman—as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair—just the colour of the sea—fell down behind,
+without hindrance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.</p>
+
+<p>Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops—for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on—and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I’m a lady of honour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who live in the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come down, Maurice Connor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And be married to me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Silver plates and gold dishes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You shall have, and shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The king of the fishes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When you’re married to me.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Drink was strong in Maurice’s head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore ’twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself—so says Maurice,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I’m obliged to you, madam:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Off a gold dish or plate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If a king, and I had ’em,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I could dine in great state.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“With your own father’s daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I’d be sure to agree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to drink the salt water<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wouldn’t do so with me!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, “Well,” says she, “Maurice, if you’re
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?”</p>
+
+<p>In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.</p>
+
+<p>When Maurice’s mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water’s edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. “Oh then,”
+says she, “as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but ’tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod—Lord help and pity me, but
+’tis a mighty unnatural thing!—and may be ’tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I’ll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!—Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there’s any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own <i>ould</i> mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.</p>
+
+<p>Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother’s heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.</p>
+
+<p>He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother’s voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was—</p>
+
+<p>“Whisht with you, mother—sure I’m going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I’ll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska.” Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.</p>
+
+<p>That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance—some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.</p>
+
+<p>Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> distinguish Maurice Connor’s voice
+singing these words to his pipes:—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never would I have parted from thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But for the sake of my fair ladie.<a id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/153.jpg" width="187" height="177" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Irish <i>Merrow</i> answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+Cornish <i>Morhuch</i>, to which it evidently bears analogy.</p>
+
+<p>The romantic historians of Ireland describe the <i>Suire</i> as
+playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+to that Island.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/154.jpg" width="223" height="205" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">THE DULLAHAN.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/155.jpg" width="399" height="326" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset18"><p>
+“Then wonder not at <i>headless folk</i>,<br />
+<span class="in1">Since every day you greet ’em;</span><br />
+Nor treat old stories as a joke,<br />
+<span class="in1">When fools you daily meet ’em.”</span></p>
+<p class="right">—<i>The Legendary.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset22"><p>
+“Says the friar, ’tis strange headless horses should trot.”</p>
+<p class="right"><i>Old Song.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVI">THE GOOD WOMAN.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXVI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight’s
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.</p>
+
+<p>Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,—indeed, who is without them?—and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of “the stirrup cup,”
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.</p>
+
+<p>Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character—a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oil-skin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren’s blacking of matchless lustre!—and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. “If they go at this rate,”
+said he to himself, “for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer’s
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?” This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size—rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.</p>
+
+<p>Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd’s
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. “Civility begets
+civility,” they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady’s silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, “<i>Ma colleen beg</i>,<a id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I’ll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us.”</p>
+
+<p>She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope you’re comfortable there, my dear,” said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>and on they went—trot,
+trot, trot—along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued <i>cronane</i>,<a id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> like a
+nurse <i>hushoing</i>. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. “’Tis
+only loose the shoe is,” said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get <i>spilt</i> in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.</p>
+
+<p>“By the piper’s luck, that always found what he wanted,” said Larry,
+recollecting himself, “I’ve a nail in my pocket: ’tis not the first
+time I’ve put on a shoe, and may be it won’t be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty.”</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, “by your leave,” or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church—and a pretty church it was.</p>
+
+<p>“Not so fast, if you please, young woman—not so fast,” cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. “Where’s my wages?” said Larry: “<i>Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge</i>,<a id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>—sure <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>I’ve earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips—and
+I’ll have it too!” But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the churchyard wall, and then over with her in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, she’s a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;—but I’ll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either,” exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the churchyard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried—rest his soul!—and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men—the Lord save
+us!—that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+churchyard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. “I’ll just wait,” said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; “when she comes round again, if I
+don’t take the kiss, I won’t, that’s all,—and here she is!” Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them—a woman, it
+is true—but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.</p>
+
+<p>“Murder!” cried he. “Well, that accounts for her not speaking.” Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!</p>
+
+<p>When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding—ding—ding—ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’Twas a spectre rung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bell when it swung—<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swing-swang!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the chain it squeaked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the pulley creaked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swing-swang!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And with every roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the deep death toll<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ding-dong!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hollow vault rang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the clapper went bang,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ding-dong!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.</p>
+
+<p>Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m done for and lost for ever,” roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.</p>
+
+<p>“Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome,” cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. “A drink for Larry Dodd,” shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis capital stuff,” he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,—for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought—but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.</p>
+
+<p>When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, “upon the lap
+of earth.” Could it have been an ugly dream? “Oh no,” said Larry, “a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death’s head and cross marrow bones forenenting me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> on
+the fine old tombstone there that was <i>faced</i> by Pat Kearney<a id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> of
+Kilcrea—but where is the horse?” He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. “’Tis home I must go,” said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; “but how will I face Nancy?—what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.’s that he cost me?—’Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me—the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!—but what’s gone is gone, that’s a clear case!”—so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.’s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>“But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?” inquired his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Larry, Larry,” muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; “’tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man—you are all alike for
+that matter—I’ve no pity for you—but, confess the truth.”</p>
+
+<p>Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.</p>
+
+<p>“Nancy,” said he, “I do confess:—it was a young woman without any
+head that——”</p>
+
+<p>His wife heard no more. “A woman I knew it was,” cried she; “but a
+woman without a head, Larry!—well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!—that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her <i>baste</i> of a husband, for a woman
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>without a head!—O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!—that you don’t see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.</p>
+
+<p>“O Larry, you villain, you’ll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O—O—O—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” says Larry, putting his hands in his coat-pockets, “least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!”</p>
+
+<p>How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVII">HANLON’S MILL.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXVII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>One fine summer’s evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien’s,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon’s mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.</p>
+
+<p>Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.</p>
+
+<p>Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish <i>karacter</i>. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> as how “the great Burke” went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Michael Noonan’s walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien’s door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon’s mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon’s mill.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien’s before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it home you’re going with the brogues this blessed night?” said
+Darby to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Where else would it be?” replied Mick: “but, by my word, ’tis not
+across the Inch back again I’m going, after all I heard coming here;
+’tis to no good that old Hanlon’s mill is busy again.”</p>
+
+<p>“True, for you,” said Darby; “and may be you’d take<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as ’tis along the road you go.
+I’m waiting here to see a sister’s son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman.” “That same I’ll do,” answered Mick, “with a thousand
+welcomes.” So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick—God reward him for
+it—was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.</p>
+
+<p>The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse’s head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close alongside
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby’s horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mick’s heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery—took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon’s huntsman, coming on the master’s best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick’s mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan’s bridle when he came
+up.</p>
+
+<p>“Mick, dear—for the love of heaven! don’t stop me,” cried Dan.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, what’s the hurry?” said Mick.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, the master!—he’s off,—he’s off—he’ll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, what would ail his honour?” said Mick; “sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he—”</p>
+
+<p>“Stout and hearty was he?” answered Madden; “and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn’t
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he’d ride the old General to-day; and sure,”
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, “who’d have
+thought that the first thing I’d see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and”—poor Dan’s
+grief choked his voice—“oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she’s a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor.”</p>
+
+<p>Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan’s;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night’s moon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> saw Ballygibblin—and more’s the pity—a house of
+mourning.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/167.jpg" width="198" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVIII">THE DEATH COACH.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’Tis midnight!—how gloomy and dark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By Jupiter there’s not a star!—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis fearful!—’tis awful!—and hark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What sound is that comes from afar?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still rolling and rumbling, that sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Makes nearer and nearer approach;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do I tremble, or is it the ground?—<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lord save us!—what is it?—a coach!—<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A coach!—but that coach has no head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the horses are headless as it:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the driver the same may be said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the passengers inside who sit.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">See the wheels! how they fly o’er the stones!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their spokes are of dead men’s thigh bones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the pole is the spine of the back!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The hammer-cloth, shabby display,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is a pall rather mildew’d by damps;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And to light this strange coach on its way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the gloom of Rathcooney churchyard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They dash down the hill of Glanmire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass Lota in gallop as hard<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if horses were never to tire!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With people thus headless ’tis fun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To drive in such furious career;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since <i>headlong</i> their horses can’t run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor coachman be <i>heady</i> from beer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Very steep is the Tivoli lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But up-hill to them is as down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">These Dullahans rushing to town.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Could they feel as I’ve felt—in a song—<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A spell that forbade them depart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They’d a lingering visit prolong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And after their head lose their heart!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No matter!—’tis past twelve o’clock;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, taking the road to Blackrock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cork city is soon left behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Should they hurry thus reckless along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To supper instead of to bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The landlord will surely be wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If he charge it at so much a head!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet mine host may suppose them too poor<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bring to his wealth an increase;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As till now, all who drove to his door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Possess’d at least <i>one crown</i> a-piece.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up the Deadwoman’s hill they are roll’d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ballintemple they reach, and behold!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At its churchyard they stop and alight.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Who’s there?” said a voice from the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">“We’ve no room, for the place is quite full.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“O! room must be speedily found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For we come from the parish of Skull.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Though Murphys and Crowleys appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On headstones of deep-letter’d pride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Yet here for the night we lie down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To-morrow we speed on the gale;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For having no heads of our own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We seek the Old Head of Kinsale.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/169.jpg" width="339" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIX">THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXIX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>“God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,”
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.</p>
+
+<p>Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever <i>rattled</i> a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen’s day hunt.</p>
+
+<p>Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your “nasty particular sort of fellows” in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, “Charley,” the saddlers said, “was the
+devil to <i>plase</i>.” An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer “Charley’s farm” (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself “Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;” and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert—and who will doubt
+it—that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the “Harp of Erin.” Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. “I won’t bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you’ll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It’s as good <i>parliament</i> as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear ‘x
+<i>waters</i>,’ and carry the bead after that, may be.”</p>
+
+<p>Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly “Harp of Erin,” with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip’s at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the “real stuff,”
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend’s hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.</p>
+
+<p>The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman’s currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the “Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers,” always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.—Away he went singing like a thrush—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breaking windows—(<i>hiccup</i>!)—sinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ever raking—never thinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Live the rakes of Mallow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Spending faster than it comes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beating—(<i>hiccup, hic</i>,) and duns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duhallow’s true-begotten sons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Live the rakes of Mallow.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly “Harp of Erin” had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated <i>turn out</i> on St.
+Stephen’s day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson’s bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Living short, but merry lives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going where the devil drives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keeping——”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>“Keeping” he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley’s eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the grave-stones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced—the head advanced—Charley’s old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.</p>
+
+<p>After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation “I’m sold now for ever!” was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion’s silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion’s face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure’s coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. “I ought to see farther than
+this, too,” thought Charley, “although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless ’tis Con’s whiskey that has blinded me entirely.” However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, “By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!”</p>
+
+<p>“Look again, Charley Culnane,” said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.</p>
+
+<p>Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> hitherto
+concealed from Charley’s eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley’s side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.</p>
+
+<p>On they went—heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.—The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:—</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!”</p>
+
+<p>“Humph,” growled the head from under the horseman’s right arm.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis not an over civil answer,” thought Charley; “but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I’ll try him on the other track. Ahem!” said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. “Ahem! that’s a mighty neat coat
+of your honour’s, although ’tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Humph,” growled again the head.</p>
+
+<p>This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. “’Tis a sensible head,” thought Charley,
+“although an ugly one, for ’tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery.” A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.</p>
+
+<p>“To be sure, that’s a brave horse your honour rides,” recommenced the
+persevering Charley.</p>
+
+<p>“You may say that, with your own ugly mouth,” growled the head.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:—</p>
+
+<p>“May be your honour wouldn’t be after riding him across the country?”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you try me, Charley?” said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Faith, and that’s what I’d do,” responded Charley, “only I’m afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I’ve every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels.”</p>
+
+<p>This was true enough; Charley’s courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman’s proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you take my word,” said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, “for the safety of your mare?”</p>
+
+<p>“Done,” said Charley; and away they started, helter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, “Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!”</p>
+
+<p>Charley pulled up hard. “Ay,” said he, “you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that’s the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I’d win it hollow!”</p>
+
+<p>It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley’s mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.</p>
+
+<p>“Charley Culnane,” says he, “you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I’ve tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that’s the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare.”</p>
+
+<p>Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger’s right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman’s scarlet hunting-coat. The horse’s head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife’s pudding, the new
+snaffle—even the match against squire Jephson—all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen’s day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley’s “X water parliament.” This, however, should be
+told, that Charley’s old mare beat Mr. Jephson’s bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn’t
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don’t know any
+other reason for his doing so.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/177.jpg" width="276" height="196" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dullahan</span> or <span class="smcap">Dulachan</span> signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+<i>Durrachan</i> or <i>Dullahan</i>, by which in some places the goblin
+is known, has the same signification. It comes from <i>Dorr</i> or
+<i>Durr</i>, anger, or <i>Durrach</i>, malicious, fierce, &amp;c.—<i>MS.
+communication from the late</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Edward O’Reilly</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+black is evidently a component part of the word.</p>
+
+<p>The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+Ireland “<i>Coach a bower</i>;” and its appearance is generally
+regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+extended.</p>
+
+<p>In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.</p>
+
+<p>In Wales, the apparition of “<i>Fenyw heb un pen</i>,” the headless
+woman, and “<i>Ceffyl heb un pen</i>,” the headless horse, are
+generally accredited.—<i>MS. communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Miss Williams</span>.</p>
+
+<p>“The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+Queensberry,—‘Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,’—who,
+instead of setting fire to the world in mamma’s chariot, amuses
+herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+the great gallery.”—<i>MS. communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott</span>.</p>
+
+<p>In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+“Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,”
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Cervantes mentions tales of the “<i>Caballo sin cabeça</i> among the
+<i>cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+dilatadas noches del invierno</i>,” &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>“The people of Basse Brétagne believe, that when the death of
+any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+call <i>carriquet au nankon</i>,) and covered with a white sheet,
+passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard.”—<i>Journal des
+Sciences</i>, 1826, <i>communicated by</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. William Grimm</span>.</p>
+
+<p>See also <i>Thiele’s Danske Folkesagn</i>, vol. iv. p. 66, &amp;c.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">THE FIR DARRIG.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/179.jpg" width="394" height="312" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whene’er such wanderers I meete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As from their night-sports they trudge home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With counterfeiting voice I greete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And call them on with me to roame<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through woods, through lakes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through bogs, through brakes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or else, unseene, with them I go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All in the nicke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To play some tricke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">—<i>Old Song.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXX">DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day’s work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter<a id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,<a id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> was mending a rent in Patrick’s old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. “I was just thinking,” said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes—“I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And that’s no lie for you, Pat,” said his wife; “but, whisht! what
+noise is that I <i>hard</i>?” and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. “The <i>Vargin</i> herself defend us
+all!” cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, “if ’tis not the banshee!”</p>
+
+<p>“Hold your tongue, you fool,” said Patrick, “it’s only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;” and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.</p>
+
+<p>“Whisht, whisht!” said Patrick—“what a noise ye’re all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can’t you go and see who’s at the door?”
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, is it me you’re speaking to?” said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; “and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be <i>rund</i> away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?—the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I’ll go myself.” So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>his way to the door.
+“Who’s there?” said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+“In the name of Saint Patrick, who’s there?” “’Tis I, Pat,” answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire’s. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. “Your honour’s honour is quite
+welcome, entirely,” said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. “Your honour’s honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye’ll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying.” “Thank
+you, Pat,” said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.<a id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>“But what made you keep me so long at the door?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why then, your honour, ’twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather—the Lord rest his soul!”</p>
+
+<p>“And what was that, Pat?” said the squire.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was <i>ould</i> Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them <i>spake</i> to such perfection, that it did one’s heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley—his honour’s lordship is the real good
+gentleman—and ’tis Mr. Gandsey’s music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy’s grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+<i>tobaccy</i>; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>—but a large
+army of the good people, ’coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! ‘Are ye all ready?’ said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. ‘No,’ said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. ‘No, general,’ said he: ‘if you don’t get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye’ll lose the battle.’”</p>
+
+<p>“‘There’s Diarmid Bawn,’ said the general, pointing to Judy’s
+grandfather, your honour, ‘make a horse of him.’</p>
+
+<p>“So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Is that what you’d be after, you spalpeen?’ said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; ‘I’m not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.’ So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.</p>
+
+<p>“Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid’s left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid’s faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Let every man take a hand of <i>tobaccy</i> for Diarmid Bawn,’ said the
+general; and so they did; and away they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> flew, for ’twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>“When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of <i>tobaccy</i> in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been <i>kilt</i> entirely, if it
+wasn’t for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the <i>tobaccy</i> heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, ‘That ’twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he’d know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.’ That’s what he
+said, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Pat,” said the squire; “it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy’s alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I’ll make the best of my way home.” So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, “May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for ’twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/183.jpg" width="446" height="201" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXI">TEIGUE OF THE LEE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>“I can’t stop in the house—I won’t stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!—to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I’m angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won’t stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under.” This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+“I’ll not stop here,” said John; “and that ends the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud “Ho, ho, ho!” as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho, John!” shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; “do you think you’ll see Teigue?—oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there’s plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and ’tis time you had the cloth laid.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord bless us! there’s more of it!—I’ll never stay another day
+here,” repeated John.</p>
+
+<p>“Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons.”</p>
+
+<p>John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say—“Who
+are you?—come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;” but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a “Good-bye—I’ll watch you at dinner, John!”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord between us and harm! this beats all!—I’ll watch you at
+dinner!—may be you will;—’tis the broad daylight, so ’tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I’ll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?—if he tells it, I’m a ruined
+man!—there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he’s far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it—I can’t tell for the world! But what’s that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?—’tis not a man!—oh, what a fool I am! ’tis
+only the old stump of a tree!—But this is a shocking place—I’ll
+never stop in it, for I’ll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one.”</p>
+
+<p>The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom—their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.</p>
+
+<p>John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:—</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won’t you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that’s
+good; sure you won’t forget poor Teigue?”</p>
+
+<p>John dropped the glass he had in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is that?” said Mr. Pratt’s brother, an officer of the artillery.</p>
+
+<p>“That is Teigue,” said Mr. Pratt, laughing, “whom you must often have
+heard me mention.”</p>
+
+<p>“And pray, Mr. Pratt,” inquired another gentleman, “who <i>is</i> Teigue?”</p>
+
+<p>“That,” he replied, “is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is very extraordinary,” said several of the company.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, “your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?”</p>
+
+<p>“When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone.”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“How does he know that you are watching?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+‘Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.’ James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. ‘Here Teigue,’ said
+he, ‘come for it now.’ ‘Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.’ This was done, and we stood looking at it. ‘There, now,
+go away,’ he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. ‘Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won’t take it.’ We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” said the colonel, “I’ll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I’ll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.—Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho! Mr. Bell,” shouted Teigue. “Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you’re a pretty boy;—a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you’re no quaker, nor any thing else:—ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there’s Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.—And there’s Mr.
+Cole,—did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you’ve brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all.”</p>
+
+<p>“You scoundrel!” exclaimed the colonel: “I’ll make you show yourself;”
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel’s heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. “Come on, colonel,” said Mr. Bell; “let us catch this
+impudent rascal.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am—here’s Teigue—why don’t you catch
+him?—Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let us see your face, you scoundrel,” said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho!—look at me—look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?—you’ll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you’re upon the earth I’ll find you, you villain!” said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. “He’s round that corner,” said
+Mr. Bell—“run, run.”</p>
+
+<p>They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?—do you hear
+him?—Ho, ho, ho! you’re a fine colonel to follow the wind.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not that way, Mr. Bell—not that way; come here,” said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:—you a soldier!—ho, ho, ho!” The colonel was enraged—he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit—(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed—“Now, colonel Pratt—now, if you’re a soldier, here’s a
+leap<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> for you;—now look at Teigue—why don’t you look at him?—Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you’re warm, I’m sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!” The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. “Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?—Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye—I’ll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house—look at your watch, colonel:—there’s a dive for you!” and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, did you see Teigue?” said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.—“Give me some
+wine,” said the colonel. “I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he’d be
+here in ten minutes: ’tis more than that now, but he’s not come.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn’t he here?—Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I’m tired; and that’s the colonel’s doing.” A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall.”</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys’ attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and “Ho, ho, ho!—good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!—’tis a good dinner, and there’s the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen—good-bye to you, colonel—good-bye, Mr. Bell!—good-bye to
+you all!”—brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue’s voice was heard no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/190.jpg" width="275" height="220" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXII">NED SHEEHY’S EXCUSE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody—no, not his
+worst enemy—could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o’clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.</p>
+
+<p>But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick’s, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,—for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady’s maid,—that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.</p>
+
+<p>In your grand houses—not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin—I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,—by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man—one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes—Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.</p>
+
+<p>But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak—he was a second whisperer!—there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds’ ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was “No go.” Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton’s famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy’s Leap to this hour.</p>
+
+<p>So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, “I’ll turn
+off Ned,” he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One cold winter’s day, about three o’clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,</p>
+
+<p>“Ned,” said he, “go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson’s horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O’Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.—Don’t loiter, for your life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it I, sir?” says Ned. “Well, that beats any thing; as if I’d stop
+out a minute!” So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.</p>
+
+<p>Four, five, six o’clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O’Toole, and the four misses O’Toole, and Mr. O’Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O’Toole, and Mr. James O’Toole, which were all the young O’Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.</p>
+
+<p>He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,</p>
+
+<p>“There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I’ll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I’ll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t say so, Dick, dear,” said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) “don’t swear, Dick, dear,” said
+she; “but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O’Toole,
+yesterday, I was, ’pon honour.”</p>
+
+<p>Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned’s face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.</p>
+
+<p>“Ned!” thundered his master in great indignation,—and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: “Get up, you scoundrel,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master’s hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking—“O,
+sir!—don’t be angry, sir!—don’t be angry, and I’ll roast you
+easier—easy as a lamb!”</p>
+
+<p>“Roast me easier, you vagabond!” said Mr. Gumbleton; “what do you
+mean?—I’ll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?—Modderaroo
+will never get over it.—Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don’t
+get you transported.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God, master dear,” said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened—“it’s yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;—may whisky be my poison—”</p>
+
+<p>“It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel,” said Mr.
+Gumbleton.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, <i>may</i> whiskey be my poison,” said Ned, “if ’twas not I
+was—in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned ’twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey’s—I don’t deny
+it—why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ned, my man,” said Mr. Gumbleton, “I’ll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow—”</p>
+
+<p>“Begging your honour’s pardon,” said Ned, earnestly, “for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows—they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and ’tis myself rep<i>i</i>nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I’ll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don’t pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day’s luck or grace.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know you, Ned,” said Mr. Gumbleton. “Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don’t intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy’s excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.</p>
+
+<p>“No wonder your honour,” said he, “should be a bit angry—grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don’t blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all’s heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+<i>joint</i> (giant,) and I only a man.</p>
+
+<p>“I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o’clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour’s hat. Well, I didn’t care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy’s field—sure
+your honour ought to know the place well—just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders.”</p>
+
+<p>(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)</p>
+
+<p>“Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. ‘How early you are at your work, my little fellows!’ says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey’s; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">‘Ned! Ned!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By my cap so red!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You’re as good, Ned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a man that is dead.’<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>‘A clean pair of spurs is all that’s for it now,’ said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. ‘What river is this?’ said I to myself—for
+there was nobody else to ask—‘I thought,’ says I, ‘I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.’ So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn’t know what to do; but I thought in myself, it’s a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!—fire!—robbery!—any thing
+that would be natural in such a place—but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn’t do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. ‘May be,’
+said I, ‘my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.’ But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too <i>study</i> (steady) for a jacky lantern. ‘I’ll try you,’ says
+I—‘so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the <i>slob</i>.<a id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Open the door for Ned Sheehy,’ said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, ’twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man’s!—so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, ‘Why don’t you open the door to Ned Sheehy?’ ‘How pat my name is
+to you,’ said I, without speaking out, ‘on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;’ and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p><p>“‘Why, then, Ned Sheehy,’ says he, ‘how grand you’re grown, that you
+won’t come in and see a friend, as you’re passing by?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Pray, sir,’ says I, looking at him—though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself—‘Pray, sir,’ says I,
+‘may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Suppose I was,’ says he: ‘has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I’m not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,’ says I, ‘if ’tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Well,’ says he, ‘no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here’s a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.’</p>
+
+<p>“Now, your honour, though ’twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood—to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within—for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door—if I don’t love the creature
+as I love my own life—I went in with Jack Myers.</p>
+
+<p>“Civil enough he was—I’ll never say otherwise to my dying hour—for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice—’twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened—spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, ‘Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘The never a word, sir,’ says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Have you no news,’ says the voice, ‘Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘No, sir,’ says I, ‘never the word.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘What brought you in here, Ned, then?’ says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Turn the scoundrel out,’ says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.</p>
+
+<p>“‘The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!’ says I. ‘Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!’ says I, speaking to myself, ‘my man, you’re in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!’ But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one’s heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+‘I’d better get up in a tree,’ says I, ‘for they say ’tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I’m in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.’</p>
+
+<p>“I could not help wondering how a <i>berrin</i> (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I’ll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you’d meet with in a day’s walk.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Where’s the spit?’ says one.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Here ’tis,’ says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the <i>Hannibals</i>
+father Quinlan told us about in his <i>sarmint</i> last Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Who’ll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?’ says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Who’d turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?’ says another.</p>
+
+<p>“Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?</p>
+
+<p>“‘Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,’ says he.</p>
+
+<p>“‘I’m not here at all, sir,’ says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.</p>
+
+<p>“‘That won’t do for you, my man,’ says he; ‘you’d better come down, or
+may be I’d make you.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I’m coming, sir,’ says I; for ’tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Don’t scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,’ says the man on the
+spit.</p>
+
+<p>“‘And my lord, sir, and ar’n’t you dead, sir,’ says I, ‘and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I ar’n’t,’ says he.</p>
+
+<p>“‘But surely you are, sir,’ says I, ‘for ’tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I ar’n’t,’ says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.</p>
+
+<p>“So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be ’twould be the worse turn for myself.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Will that do, sir?’ says I, turning him as easy as I could.</p>
+
+<p>“‘That’s too easy,’ says he: so I turned him faster.</p>
+
+<p>“‘That’s too fast,’ says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.</p>
+
+<p>“Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. ‘Murder!’ says I, shouting out; ‘I’m done for at
+long last—now or never!’—when all of a sudden, and ’twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Open the door for Ned Sheehy,’ says the voice,—for ’twas shut
+against me,—and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Have you any news for me?’ says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes, sir,’ says I, ‘and plenty.’ So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.</p>
+
+<p>“‘If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,’ said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>“‘And how could I tell it to you, sir,’ says I, ‘before it happened?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘No matter,’ says he, ‘you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you’d have
+been <i>kilt</i> entirely.’ So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought ’twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour’s
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if ’twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel,” said Mr. Gumbleton; “have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“But never one, your honour, that really happened before,” said Ned,
+with unblushing front. “Howsomever, since your honour fancies ’tis
+drinking I was, I’d rather never drink again to the world’s end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I’m forgiven this once, and
+get another trial——”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Mr. Gumbleton, “you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don’t believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones.”</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned’s countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.</p>
+
+<p>“Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last,” exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: “I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the <i>differ</i>
+(difference) to his cost.”</p>
+
+<p>Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton’s cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXIII">THE LUCKY GUEST.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXIII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on “the
+master’s” bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening’s amusement.</p>
+
+<p>An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba’s dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of <i>Coum an
+‘ir morriv</i> (the dead man’s hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name “<i>currigguib</i>,” a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.</p>
+
+<p>Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man’s Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.</p>
+
+<p>“I have told you,” she said, “what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother’s roof.”</p>
+
+<p>Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although “unaccustomed to public speaking,” she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:—</p>
+
+<p>“It was one May-eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days,” said Ellen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, “when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the <i>Drutheen</i>, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.</p>
+
+<p>“My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big <i>chimbley</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“‘God bless us,’ says my mother, ‘but ’tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,’ says she, ‘and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.’</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man’s voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we’d like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in—having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.</p>
+
+<p>“We were all watching to see who’d come in, for there<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who’d
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn’t mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.</p>
+
+<p>“We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite’s claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman’s hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn’t them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+<i>labbig</i>,<a id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.</p>
+
+<p>“When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for ’twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o’clock; and then, if we’d look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the key-hole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so ’twas
+just fitting for the little arm.</p>
+
+<p>“The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and ’tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we’d instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane—but he was drunk—walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.</p>
+
+<p>“As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he’d be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; ’tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.</p>
+
+<p>“But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord—God forgive him—took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father—and small blame to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> him for
+that—refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o’clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the <i>moral</i> (model) of the other. Eleven o’clock!—twelve
+o’clock!—no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.</p>
+
+<p>“My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin.”</p>
+
+<p>Here young Ellen’s voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/207.jpg" width="265" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Fir Darrig</span> means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+is doubtless the same as the Scottish <i>Red Cap</i>; which a writer
+in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton’s
+“Lubber Fiend”) and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+of the Folletos, “Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+reperisse.”—<i>Otia Imperialia.</i></p>
+
+<p>The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+warbling of birds, &amp;c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+and red shoes.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/208.jpg" width="219" height="189" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">TREASURE LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/209.jpg" width="366" height="275" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+“Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back<br />
+When gold and silver becks me to come on.”</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>King John.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+“This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so.”</p>
+<p class="right"><i>Winter’s Tale.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXIV">DREAMING TIM JARVIS.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXIV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.</p>
+
+<p>Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him—“Tim Jarvis, you’re
+all behind, Tim, like the cow’s tail.” Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver—and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney’s
+coaster—and so he did!</p>
+
+<p>Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he—“Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely I do, sir,” said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.</p>
+
+<p>“Tim,” says he, “what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?”</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Please your honour,” says Tim, “I’m come to seek my fortune.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a fool for your pains, Tim, if that’s all,” remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; “this is a big place to seek one’s
+fortune in, to be sure, but it’s not so easy to find it.”</p>
+
+<p>Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes,” said
+Tim.</p>
+
+<p>“True,” said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” continued Tim, looking up, “the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I’m told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who told you that, Tim?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why then, sir, that’s what I can’t tell myself rightly—only I dreamt
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!” said the stranger, laughing; “I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll’s ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom.”</p>
+
+<p>Tim knew Jerry Driscoll’s ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it—so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he—</p>
+
+<p>“By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!”</p>
+
+<p>The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband—the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him—and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. “It wasn’t for nothing,” says Tim, “I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you’ll see what’ll come out of it—mind my words.”</p>
+
+<p>A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort-field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours—as well they might—thought he was cracked!</p>
+
+<p>The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll’s field, though it was
+said to be “the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil.”</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:—“Norah, did you see e’er a cow you’d like?”—or, “Norah,
+dear, hasn’t Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?”—or, “Norah honey,
+wouldn’t you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle’s?”</p>
+
+<p>As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.</p>
+
+<p>“How shall we bother Tim?” said one voice.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+<i>ould sarpint</i>; ’tis long since he has had a good meal,” said another
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said a third voice; “plunge him in the bog, neck and heels.”</p>
+
+<p>Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.<a id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>“Stop!” said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.</p>
+
+<p>When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up—he then took a big
+one—and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim—down, down and down he went—until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Welcome, down here!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Though Tim’s teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer—“I’m he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself.” But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, “Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p><p>“Mighty well! I thank your honour,” said Tim; “and ’twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!”</p>
+
+<p>There was a great laugh at Tim’s answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, “Shut your eyes, and you’ll see,
+Tim.”</p>
+
+<p>“By my word, then,” said Tim, “that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I’m not the man to gainsay you, so I’ll do as you bid me, any how.”
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens<a id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>, as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, “Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man,” says
+he, “and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we’ve altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, then, long life to you, sir!” said Tim, “and there’s no doubt of
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what will you say, Tim,” inquired the little fellow, “if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Your honour’s honour, and your honour’s glory,” answered Tim, “I’ll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you—and
+indeed I’ve enough to do with them. I’d make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah—she has been a good wife to me. We’ll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I’d have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if ’twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I’d build a new cabin;
+and I’d have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I’d snap my fingers at the ‘squire, and beat his hounds, if they’d
+come coursing through my fields; and I’d have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>Leary’s brats—that’s my sister that
+was—and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I’d have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I’d have every thing,” said Tim, “in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money—hurra-whoop!—and that’s what I’d do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Take care, Tim,” said the little fellow, “your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop.”</p>
+
+<p>But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out—“Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope, gentlemen,” said he, “we won’t part for good and all; but may
+be ye’ll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I’ve done with your money.”</p>
+
+<p>To this there was no answer, only another shout—“Go home, Tim
+Jarvis—go home—fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye’ll
+never see the light of day again.”</p>
+
+<p>Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before—away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs—and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll’s, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat “her dreaming blackguard.”
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.</p>
+
+<p>Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.</p>
+
+<p>Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding—“If they stayed with me I wouldn’t have
+luck with them, sir; and father O’Shea told me ’twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn’t, they’d have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way.”</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the <i>sarpint</i> in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. “The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm,” was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis’s
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/216.jpg" width="290" height="215" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXV">RENT-DAY.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXV.</span></h2>
+
+<p>“Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?” muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. “What will we do? to-morrow’s rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don’t pay up our rent, he’ll cant every
+<i>ha’perth</i> we have; and then, sure enough, there’s Judy and myself,
+and the poor little <i>grawls</i>,<a id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!—Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!”</p>
+
+<p>Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“How ill the scene that offers rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heart that cannot rest, agree!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter with you, my poor man?” said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman’s sudden <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn’t pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o’clock next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>“A sad story indeed,” said the stranger; “but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord’s agent, he won’t have the heart
+to turn you out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!” exclaimed
+Bill. “I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Take this, my poor fellow, take this,” said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill’s old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. “Pay the fellow your rent, but I’ll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!”</p>
+
+<p>These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.</p>
+
+<p>“O’Donoghue, O’Donoghue!” shouted Bill; “the good, the blessed
+O’Donoghue!” and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Bill proceeded to the agent’s; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you take off your hat, fellow; don’t you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?” said the agent.</p>
+
+<p>“I know I’m not speaking to the king, sir,” said Bill;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> “and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I’ve no right either to respect or love an agent!”</p>
+
+<p>“You scoundrel!” retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, “I’ll teach you how to
+be insolent again—I have the power, remember.”</p>
+
+<p>“To the cost of the country, I know you have,” said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.</p>
+
+<p>“But come,” said the magistrate; “have you got the money for me?—this
+is rent-day. If there’s one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that’s due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession.”</p>
+
+<p>“There is your rent,” said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; “you’d better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all.”</p>
+
+<p>The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold—real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one’s pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king’s head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.</p>
+
+<p>From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O’Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.</p>
+
+<p>Like the butterfly, the spirit of O’Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/220.jpg" width="218" height="173" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXVI">LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXVI.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant’s Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?—who ever thinks of going—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">—“westward, where Dick Martin <i>ruled</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Ulster-man’s ancient denunciation “to hell or to Connaught,” has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground—a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium—in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, “I’ll warrant he’ll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o’ green Erin, only
+something poorer;” and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+“worse would be needless;” but so it is.</p>
+
+<p>“My gracious me,” said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, “I wonder a
+gentleman of your <i>teeste</i> and <i>curosity</i> would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a <i>tower</i> (tour) of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the <i>ould</i> abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair.”</p>
+
+<p>Polly M’Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The “old abbey” is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni’s princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of “O’Rourke’s old hall,” gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.</p>
+
+<p>The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; “but,”
+continued he, “for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour’s after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that’s worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?” He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts—as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. “That’s Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir,” resumed my guide, “and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+<i>moral</i> of it, only that it’s round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, ’tis as good as fourscore years—I often <i>hard</i> my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story—since Manus O’Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O’Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o’clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he’d find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O’Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother’s father was a cow-boy to the earl O’Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M’Clure’s—the old Frank that was then at that time—and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and ’tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he’d eat him, says he, in good English,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Arrah, then, Manus,’ says he, ‘what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, plase your honour,’ says Manus, ‘I beg my life:’ and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Well, as you have some blood of the O’Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I’ll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Go home,’ says the Payshtha—‘go home, Manus,’ says he; ‘and if you
+can’t make better use of your time, get drunk; but don’t come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I’ll show you something that you’ll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.’</p>
+
+<p>“With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn’t long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Plase your honour,’ says Manus, ‘if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I’m bound to look after the Thiernas<a id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>this cave, and what’s in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘May be you are a sort of a banshee?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I am not, you fool,’ said the little man. ‘The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.’</p>
+
+<p>“Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O’Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant’s tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.</p>
+
+<p>“‘And now, Manus,’ says the little man, ‘ye seen the whole o’ this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o’ Breffni in their glory again.’ The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus’s face, and says to
+him in a great passion, ‘Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don’t ye go
+about your business?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘How can I?—sure you must show me the way out,’ says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Can’t we go out the way we came?’ says Manus.</p>
+
+<p>“‘No, you must go out at the other end—that’s the rule o’ this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.’ With
+that the little man gave him one <i>hoise</i>, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story.”</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+exists a striking similarity.</p>
+
+<p>Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l’Antiquite,
+traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele’s Danske Folkesagn, i.
+112, ii. 24. Kirke’s Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+Holgar, and Grœn Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.</p>
+
+<p>In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+soliloquizing—“Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+that He keeps it from us.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/225.jpg" width="212" height="188" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">ROCKS AND STONES.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/226.jpg" width="365" height="290" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+“Forms in silence frown’d,<br />
+Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye<br />
+Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,<br />
+Wedding themselves with gloom—or grew<br />
+Gigantic to my troubled view,<br />
+And seem’d to gather round me.”</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Banim’s <i>Celt’s Paradise</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXVII">THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXVII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without “a crooked thought and a cross job.” Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains—<i>Labacally</i>, the hag’s bed—not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.</p>
+
+<p>O’Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son—never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman’s, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Infant heir of proud Fermoy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fear not fields of slaughter;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Storm and fire fear not, my boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But shun the fatal water.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.</p>
+
+<p>The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord’s vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">——“Put but a little water in a spoon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it shall be, as all the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enough to stifle such a <i>being</i> up.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/228.jpg" width="236" height="192" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXVIII">THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<p>A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.</p>
+
+<p>Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.</p>
+
+<p>On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brian
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.</p>
+
+<p>Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning’s sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.</p>
+
+<p>These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son—many a wife of a husband—many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!</p>
+
+<p>It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. “Thine, Regan,
+be the task,” he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.</p>
+
+<p>With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning’s dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith’s
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.</p>
+
+<p>The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White-tooth’d, graceful, magnanimous, and active.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag’s
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.</p>
+
+<p>The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+<i>Clough-a-Regaun</i> is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/231.jpg" width="293" height="54" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXIX">CLOUGH NA CUDDY.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XXXIX.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen—“sweet Innisfallen,” as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.</p>
+
+<p>However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner—the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.</p>
+
+<p>Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of “the fat father.” Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it—and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. ’Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.—What then?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!”<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled “blackjack” stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.</p>
+
+<p>Spiritual affairs—for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery—demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning’s light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.</p>
+
+<p>The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off—“Hah!” exclaimed Cuddy, “what a noble haunch goes
+there!—how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!”</p>
+
+<p>As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> satisfaction. “Welcome, Father
+Cuddy,” said the prior: “grace be on you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Grace before meat, then,” said Cuddy, “for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water.”</p>
+
+<p>A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy’s appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:—he tried another,—it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!</p>
+
+<p>I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as “<i>in vino veritas</i>” his song will well become
+this veritable history.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">CANTAT MONACHUS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">I.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Hoc erat in votis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Et bene sufficerit totis<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Si dum porto sacculum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Et si parvis<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">In arvis<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Nullam<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Invenero pullam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ovum gentiliter preæbebit recens<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Puella decens.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Manu nec dabis invitâ<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Flos vallium harum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Decus puellarum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Candida Marguerita!<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">THE FRIAR’S SONG.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">My vows I can never fulfil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Until<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I have breakfasted, one way or other;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">And I freely protest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">That I never can rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">‘Till I borrow or beg<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">An egg,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">But Maggy, my dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">While you’re here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">I don’t fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To want eggs that have just been laid newly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">For och! you’re a pearl<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Of a girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And you’re called so in <i>Latin</i> most truly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">II.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Me hora jucunda cœnæ<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Dilectat bene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Et rerum sine dubio grandium<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Maxima est prandium:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sed mihi crede,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In hâc æde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Multo magis gaudeo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cum gallicantum audio,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In sinu tuo<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Videns ova duo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh semper me tractes ita!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Panibus de hordeo factis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Et copiâ lactis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Candida Margarita!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">III.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is most to my mind something that is still upper<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Than supper,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">After dinner:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But soon as I hear the cock crow<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">In the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">By that warning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While your buttermilk helps me to float<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Down my throat<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Those sweet cakes made of oat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I don’t envy an earl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Sweet girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Och, ’tis you are a beautiful pearl.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery’s delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.</p>
+
+<p>This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man’s drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with <i>the venerable Bead</i>,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his “soul-case,” so he figuratively termed
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!—he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. “Bless my eyes,” said Father
+Cuddy, “every thing is changing now-a-days!—the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think <i>Camceachta</i> (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where.”</p>
+
+<p>Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, Margery, merry Margery!” cried Cuddy, “you tempting little rogue!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">‘Flos vallium harum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Decus puellarum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Candida Margarita.’<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>“I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!” and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.</p>
+
+<p>At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.</p>
+
+<p>Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. “Bless my soul and body!” said the good father, “I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!” Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer’s morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.</p>
+
+<p>Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.</p>
+
+<p>“Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what’s your business?”
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter’s place.</p>
+
+<p>“Business!—my business!” repeated the confounded Cuddy,—“why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hence, fellow!” said the porter’s representative, in a surly tone;
+“nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fellow!” exclaimed the father: “mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!—Scoundrel!” cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, “do you not see my garb—my holy garb?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ay, fellow,” replied he of the keys—“the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty—whom God preserve!”</p>
+
+<p>“Queen of England!” said Cuddy; “there never was a sovereign queen of
+England—this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night—the world’s turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Know you!—how should I know you?” said the keeper of the abbey.
+“Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since.”</p>
+
+<p>“’Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery’s fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad—no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen,” earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. “A hundred years!—what was your great-grandmother’s name?”</p>
+
+<p>“She was a Mahony of Dunlow—Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother—”</p>
+
+<p>“What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!” shouted Cuddy.
+“St. Brandon help me!—the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!—why, ’twas only last night—a hundred years!—your
+great-grandmother, said you?—There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!”</p>
+
+<p>That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery’s fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.</p>
+
+<p>The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy’s knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy—so is the stone
+called—remains in Lord Kenmare’s park, an indisputable evidence of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/240.jpg" width="263" height="165" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XL">THE GIANT’S STAIRS.
+<br /><span class='ph3'>XL.</span></h2>
+
+<p>On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne’s Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, “<i>genus</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.</p>
+
+<p>There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O’Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. “The seven years—my time of service,—are clean out, Robin,”
+said he, “and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how will I know,” said Robin—cunning enough, even in his
+sleep—“but this is all a dream?”</p>
+
+<p>“Take that,” said the boy, “for a token”—and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was well acquainted with the Giant’s Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk’s
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin’s dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant’s
+Stairs.</p>
+
+<p>After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant’s Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant’s Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, “’Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream.”</p>
+
+<p>“And whose doing is it,” said Tom, “but your own?”</p>
+
+<p>At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king’s palace unfolded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.</p>
+
+<p>“Robin, Robin,” said he, “if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?” But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“What seek you?” he demanded in a voice of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>“I come,” answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on—for his heart was almost fainting within him—“I come,” said he,
+“to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who sent you here?” said the giant.</p>
+
+<p>“’Twas of my own accord I came,” said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you must single him out from among my pages,” said the giant;
+“and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me.”
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.</p>
+
+<p>“Here,” said Mahon, “you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice.”</p>
+
+<p>Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin’s own sledge battering on his anvil.</p>
+
+<p>They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“’Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry,” remarked
+Robin, “although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. ’Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!”</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” said the giant, “that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith.”</p>
+
+<p>Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, “Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is Philip Ronayne—happy Philip Ronayne,” said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant’s Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure—Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline—the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?” was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>“Am I sure? Well, that’s a queer question,” was Robin’s reply; “seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the <i>purly</i> wart on the right side of his
+little nose.”</p>
+
+<p>However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne’s court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years’ apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/245.jpg" width="128" height="60" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/246a.jpg" width="203" height="197" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o’er;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The tales my infancy had loved to hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like blissful visions fade and disappear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such tales Momonia’s peasant tells no more!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vanish’d are <span class="smcap">MERMAIDS</span> from the sea beat shore;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Check’d is the <span class="smcap">Headless Horseman’s</span> strange career;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Fir Darrig’s</span> voice no longer mocks the ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor <span class="smcap">ROCKS</span> bear wondrous imprints as of yore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such is “the march of mind.” But did the fays<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">(Creatures of whim—the gossamers of will)<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As stormier spirits of our modern days?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My constant prayer—“may peace be with thee still!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/246b.jpg" width="215" height="192" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/249.jpg" width="299" height="72" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<p>Sir,</p>
+
+<p>I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &amp;c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Who every year can mend your cheer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With tales both old and new.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.</p>
+
+<p>I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely “pulled the old woman out of our hearts,” as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even <i>score above the breath</i>. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.</p>
+
+<p>But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon’s court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday’s sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went “to raise the water,” as if the
+South’ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy <i>cortege</i> awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G——, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself <i>artist from Vauxhall</i>, and that he
+exhibits <i>fantoccini</i>; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G——. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch’s sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord —— could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.</p>
+
+<p>It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.</p>
+
+<p>As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much</p>
+
+<p class="right2">Your obliged and thankful servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right1"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span></p>
+
+<p>27th April, 1825.<br />
+<span class="smcap in2">Abbotsford, Melrose.</span></p>
+
+<p class="h3">THE END.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="h3">Footnotes</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Knocksheogowna signifies “<i>The Hill of the Fairy Calf.</i>”</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> “Called by the people of the country ‘<i>Knock Dhoinn
+Firinne</i>,’ the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very high,
+and may be seen for several miles round; and when people are desirous
+to know whether or not any day will rain, they look at the top of
+Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist there, they
+immediately conclude that rain will soon follow, believing that Donn
+(the lord or chief) of that mountain and his aërial assistants are
+collecting the clouds, and that he holds them there for some short
+time, to warn the people of the approaching rain. As the appearance of
+mist on that mountain in the morning is considered an infallible sign
+that that day will be rainy, Donn is called ‘<i>Donn Firinne</i>,’ Donn of
+Truth.”—<span class="smcap">Mr. Edward O’Reilly.</span></p></div><div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Literally, the great herb—<i>Digitalis purpurea</i>.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Correctly written, <i>Dia Luain</i>, <i>Dia Mairt</i>, <i>agus Dia
+Ceadaoine</i>, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> And Wednesday and Thursday.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Act ii. sc. 1.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Book i. canto 10.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The term “fairy struck” is applied to paralytic
+affections, which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the
+invisible hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates
+fairy doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has also
+a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently made to
+bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a sacrifice to
+Bacchus.</p>
+<p>The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of consideration
+and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be buried with his or
+her “own people.”</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie
+man of Scotland.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Inch—low meadow ground near a river.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,)
+on the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>i. e.</i> “In the time of a crack of a whip,” he took off
+his shoes and stockings.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> “Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+Silence.”—<i>O’Keefe’s Recollections.</i></p></div>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Nulla manus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tam liberalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Atque generalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Atque universalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quam Sullivanis.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> In the county of Galway.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> In the county of Limerick.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Spancelled—fettered.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> “The neighbouring inhabitants,” says Dr. Smith, in his
+History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, “show some rocks visible in
+this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the remains of an
+island, that was formerly the burial-place of the family of Cantillon,
+the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh.” p. 210.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The remains of Dunkerron Caslle are distant about a mile
+from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is recorded to
+have been built in 1596, by Owen O’Sullivan More.—[<i>More</i>, is merely
+an epithet signifying <i>the Great</i>.]</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+well-known song of Deardra.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> My little girl.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Give me a kiss, my young girl.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Faced</i>, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+“<i>fecit</i>.”</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+tallow, is used as a candle.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+firmly sewed or bound together.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See Weld’s Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Or <i>slaib</i>; mire on the sea strand or river’s
+bank.—<span class="smcap">O’Brien.</span></p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Labbig</i>—bed, from <i>Leaba</i>.—Vide <span class="smcap">O’Brien</span> and
+<span class="smcap">O’Reilly</span>.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I’non mori, e non rimasi vivo:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pensa oramai per te, s’hai fior d’ingegno<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qual io divenni d’uno e d’altro privo.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, canto 34.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Children.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Tighearna</i>—a lord. Vide <span class="smcap">O’Brien</span>.</p></div>
+</div>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #39752 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39752)
diff --git a/old/39752-0-2012-10-29.txt b/old/39752-0-2012-10-29.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South
+of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland
+
+Author: T. Crofton Crocker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2012 [EBook #39752]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.
+
+    BY
+
+    T. CROFTON CROKER.
+
+
+    A New Edition.
+
+    WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
+    AFTER DESIGNS OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.
+
+
+    "Come l'araba Fenice
+    Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;
+    Dove sia, nessun lo sa."--METASTASIO.
+
+
+    Philadelphia:
+    LEA AND BLANCHARD.
+    1844.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The erudite Lessing styles a preface "the history of a book." Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.
+
+However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the "Fairy Legends"
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.
+
+Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced, as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.
+
+
+
+
+            CONTENTS.
+
+
+            THE SHEFRO.
+
+          I. The Legend of Knocksheogowna,
+         II. ---- Knockfierna,
+        III. ---- Knockgrafton,
+         IV. The Priest's Supper,
+          V. The Brewery of Egg-shells,
+         VI. Legend of Bottle Hill,
+        VII. The Confessions of Tom Bourke,
+       VIII. Fairies or no Fairies,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+         IX. The Haunted Cellar,
+          X. Master and Man,
+         XI. The Little Shoe,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE BANSHEE.
+
+        XII. The Bunworth Banshee,
+       XIII. The McCarthy Banshee,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE PHOOKA.
+
+        XIV. The Spirit Horse,
+         XV. Daniel O'Rourke,
+        XVI. The Crookened Back,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+       XVII. Fior Usga,
+      XVIII. Cormac and Mary (_Ballad_,)
+        XIX. The Legend of Lough Gur,
+         XX. The Enchanted Lake,
+        XXI. The Legend of O'Donoghue,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE MERROW.
+
+       XXII. The Lady of Gollerus,
+      XXIII. Flory Cantillon's Funeral,
+       XXIV. The Lord of Dunkerron (_Ballad_,)
+        XXV. The Wonderful Tune,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE DULLAHAN.
+
+       XXVI. The Good Woman,
+      XXVII. Hanlon's Mill,
+     XXVIII. The Death Coach (_Ballad_,)
+       XXIX. The Headless Horseman,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+        XXX. Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,
+       XXXI. Teigue of the Lee,
+      XXXII. Ned Sheehy's Excuse,
+     XXXIII. The Lucky Guest,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+      XXXIV. Dreaming Tim Jarvis,
+       XXXV. Rent Day,
+      XXXVI. Linn-na-Payshtha,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+     XXXVII. The Legend of Cairn Thierna,
+    XXXVIII. The Rock of the Candle,
+      XXXIX. Clough-na-Cuddy,
+         XL. The Giant's Stairs.
+
+            APPENDIX--Letter from Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.
+
+CASTLE MAHON.
+
+
+    THEE, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land
+      (Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)
+      A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;
+    The moonlight SHEFROS there, in merry band
+    With artful CLURICAUNE, should ready stand
+      To welcome thee--Imagination's child!
+      Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild
+    The BANSHEE'S shriek, who points with wither'd hand.
+    In the dim twilight should the PHOOKA come,
+      Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,
+      That opens clear calm LAKES upon thy sight,
+    Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.
+    I know thee, Lady--thou wilt not deride
+    Such Fairy Scenes.--Then onward with thy Guide.
+
+                                  T. Crofton Croker. [signature]
+
+[Illustration: The Wood Engravings after Designs by
+               Mr. BROOKE, R. H. A.,
+               Mr. McCLISE,
+               and the AUTHOR.]
+
+
+
+
+Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Look there! look there, mammy!"]
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHEFRO.
+
+    ----------------"Fairy Elves
+    Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+    Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
+    Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon
+    Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
+    Wheels her pale course."--
+                                       MILTON.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.
+
+I.
+
+
+In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.
+
+But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,--now
+in one shape--now in another,--but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a bull's head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck's feet, and a turkey cock's tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.
+
+The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.
+
+What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry's asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. "If that is all ails you," said Larry, "make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one's thumb." "Larry,"
+said the farmer, "do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight."
+
+The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer's
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, "What! another man upon the fairies' ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;" and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. "Go on, jewel,"
+said Larry; "if you dance, I'll pipe;" and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that, and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.
+
+Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; "spreading like a
+sea," and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain's base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, "By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap _for
+a calf_!"
+
+She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+"Laurence," said she, "you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?" "And that's what I will," said he, "if you let me." So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: "You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence," said she, "that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it." She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry's life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer's expense, and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna[1] after his death, is more than I can say.
+
+    [1] Knocksheogowna signifies "_The Hill of the Fairy Calf._"
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.[2]
+
+II.
+
+
+    [2] "Called by the people of the country '_Knock Dhoinn
+    Firinne_,' the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very
+    high, and may be seen for several miles round; and when people
+    are desirous to know whether or not any day will rain, they look
+    at the top of Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist
+    there, they immediately conclude that rain will soon follow,
+    believing that Donn (the lord or chief) of that mountain and his
+    aërial assistants are collecting the clouds, and that he holds
+    them there for some short time, to warn the people of the
+    approaching rain. As the appearance of mist on that mountain in
+    the morning is considered an infallible sign that that day will
+    be rainy, Donn is called '_Donn Firinne_,' Donn of Truth."--MR.
+    EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.
+
+It has been truly said, that "good manners are no burden," and that
+"civility costs nothing;" but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O'Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, "Devil Daly."
+
+Carroll O'Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, "Good luck attend you, gentlemen."
+
+It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards "the Balbec of Ireland," the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O'Daly asked his companion how far he was going?
+
+"Not far your way," said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; "I'm only going to the top of this hill here."
+
+"And what might take you there," said O'Daly, "at this time of the
+night?"
+
+"Why then," replied the farmer, "if you want to know; 'tis the _good
+people_."
+
+"The fairies you mean," said O'Daly.
+
+"Whist! whist!" said his fellow-traveller, "or you may be sorry for
+it;" and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O'Daly good night and a safe journey.
+
+"That fellow," thought Carroll, "is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!" he repeated, "is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of."
+
+Carroll O'Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon's disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.
+
+A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O'Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, "Here's
+after you, old boy!" he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.
+
+Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O'Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+"Poul-duve," or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.
+
+"But," thought O'Daly, "these are old woman's stories: and since I've
+come up so far, I'll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home."
+
+No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,--and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O'Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.
+
+Carroll O'Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey's end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.
+
+III.
+
+
+There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.
+
+Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,[3] in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,
+
+    "Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
+    Apparent Queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
+    And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
+
+    [3] Literally, the great herb--_Digitalis purpurea_.
+
+Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:--
+
+_Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, when
+there would be a moment's pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.
+
+Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words _augus Da Cadine_, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with _augus Da
+Cadine_.[4]
+
+    [4] Correctly written, _Dia Luain_, _Dia Mairt_, _agus Dia
+    Ceadaoine_, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
+
+The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.
+
+Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart's content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.
+
+Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,--
+
+    "Lusmore! Lusmore!
+    Doubt not, nor deplore,
+    For the hump which you bore
+    On your back is no more!--
+    Look down on the floor,
+    And view it, Lusmore!"
+
+When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.
+
+Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man--in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.
+
+Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.
+
+One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.
+
+"I need give you no directions, my good woman," said Lusmore, "for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?"
+
+"I have come," said the woman, "out of Decie's country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: 'tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can."
+
+Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.
+
+The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.
+
+Jack Madden for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: _Da
+Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _augus
+Da Cadine_, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+_augus da Cadine augus Da Hena_,[5] thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.
+
+    [5] And Wednesday and Thursday.
+
+No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said--
+
+    "Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
+    Your words came so bad in
+    The tune we feel glad in;--
+    This castle you're had in,
+    That your life we may sadden;--
+    Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"
+
+And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIEST'S SUPPER.
+
+IV.
+
+
+It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork--a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.
+
+On a nice green sod by the river's side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out--
+
+    "Cease, cease with your drumming,
+    Here's an end to our mumming;
+        By my smell
+        I can tell
+    A priest this way is coming!"
+
+And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.
+
+The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with "My blessing on all here."
+
+I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which "the old
+woman," for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. "No
+matter," thought Dermod, "there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest's supper, that one
+will be there before me."
+
+Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of "the spreading Lee;" but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.
+
+Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, "May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there's any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I'm clear in my own mind you'll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you--did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?"
+
+"That's not true for you," said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; "there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you."
+
+Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: "Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest's supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time."
+
+"I'll have nothing at all to do with you," replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, "I'm much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him--so there's
+an end of the matter."
+
+The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod's
+manner, continued, "Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?"
+
+Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+"I see no objection to do that same, gentlemen," said Dermod; "But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,--mind that."
+
+"Then," said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, "go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay."
+
+Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.
+
+"Please your reverence," said Dermod, after some hesitation, "may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"What may that be?" said Father Horrigan.
+
+"Why, then, begging your reverence's pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?"
+
+"Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?" said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.
+
+"I'll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth," said Dermod. "It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer."
+
+"Go back by all means," said the priest, "and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I'll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life."
+
+Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.
+
+When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.
+
+V.
+
+
+It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Mid-summer Night's Dream[6] and the
+Fairy Queen?[7]
+
+    [6] Act ii. sc. 1.
+
+    [7] Book i. canto 10.
+
+Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+"fairies' theft," to use Spenser's words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.
+
+Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.
+
+One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.
+
+"You're in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan," were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.
+
+"You may say that, Ellen," said Mrs. Sullivan, "and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen."
+
+"Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan," said Ellen Leah; "but are you
+sure 'tis a fairy?"
+
+"Sure!" echoed Mrs. Sullivan, "sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother's soul must feel for me!"
+
+"Will you take an old woman's advice?" said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, "but may be you'll call it foolish?"
+
+"Can you get me back my child,--my own child, Ellen?" said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.
+
+"If you do as I bid you," returned Ellen Leah, "you'll know." Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. "Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you."
+
+Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot--it surely was.
+
+The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, "What are you doing, mammy?"
+
+Mrs. Sullivan's heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, "I'm brewing, _a vick_" (my son).
+
+"And what are you brewing, mammy?" said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.
+
+"I wish the poker was red," thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.
+
+"Is it what I'm brewing, _a vick_," said she, "you want to know?"
+
+"Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?" returned the fairy.
+
+"Egg-shells, _a vick_," said Mrs. Sullivan.
+
+"Oh!" shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, "I'm fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!" The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow--his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.
+
+Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy--and she wept!--tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them--they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.
+
+VI.
+
+
+    "Come listen to a tale of times of old,
+    Come listen to me--"
+
+It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from "the beautiful city called Cork." Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, 'twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,--_she_ was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn't enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.
+
+"Why then, Molly," says he, "what'll we do?"
+
+"Wisha, then, mavournene, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?" says she; "and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested _again_ the
+fair."
+
+"And what'll we do when she's gone?" says Mick, sorrowfully.
+
+"Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won't leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?"
+
+"Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won't be sorry for selling the cow; but I'll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+'tis ripped under the arm."
+
+Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o'clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.
+
+"Oh, then, if I only had half the money that's buried in you, 'tisn't
+driving this poor cow I'd be now! Why, then, isn't it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God's will, I'll have some money myself coming
+back."
+
+So saying, he moved on after his beast; 'twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill--Bottle Hill 'tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.
+
+"Good morrow," says he. "Good morrow," kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you'd almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn't quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man's company; and he couldn't see one bit of
+his legs, nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great-coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn't know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick's heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn't come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn't the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing--when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.
+
+"Where are you going with the cow, honest man?"
+
+"To the fair of Cork then," says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.
+
+"Are you going to sell her?" said the stranger.
+
+"Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?"
+
+"Will you sell her to me?"
+
+Mick started--he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.
+
+"What'll you give for her?" at last says he.
+
+"I'll tell you what, I'll give you this bottle," said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.
+
+Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"Laugh if you will," said the little man, "but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork--ay, than ten thousand times as much."
+
+Mick laughed again. "Why then," says he, "do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle--and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won't."
+
+"You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle--you'll not be
+sorry for it."
+
+"Why, then, and what would Molly say? I'd never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?
+
+"I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell."
+
+Mick started.
+
+"How does he know my name?" thought he.
+
+The stranger proceeded: "Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?"
+
+Mick was going to say "God forbid!" but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that's what many people, that hold their heads higher, don't mind
+now).
+
+"And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?
+
+"Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir," said Mick; "and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I'd give you the
+cow in the name----"
+
+"Never mind names," said the stranger, "but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly."
+
+Mick hesitated.
+
+"Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!" said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.
+
+"May be 'tis true," said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do--he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle--"Take the cow," said he, "and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you."
+
+"I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you."
+
+"And what's that?" says Mick.
+
+"When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean, set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: 'Bottle, do your duty,' and you will see the end
+of it."
+
+"And is this all?" says Mick.
+
+"No more," said the stranger. "Good by, Mick Purcell--you are a rich
+man."
+
+"God grant it!" said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Lord between us and harm!" said Mick: "_He_ can't belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?" She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
+
+"And what would I do if it broke?" thought he. "Oh! but I'll take care
+of that;" so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.
+
+"Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer'n't at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it."
+
+"Why then, Molly, if you'll give me time, I'll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, 'tisn't Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now."
+
+"Oh! then, you sold her; and where's the money?"
+
+"Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?" said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.
+
+"Why, then, be easy now, can't you," says Mick, "till I tell it to
+you?" and putting the bottle on the table, "That's all I got for the
+cow."
+
+His poor wife was thunderstruck. "All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what'll we do for
+the rent, and what----"
+
+"Now, Molly," says Mick, "can't you hearken to reason? Didn't I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,--no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me--on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!" said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband's head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man's advice) loosened his wife's
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn't know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, "Bottle, do your duty."
+
+"Look there! look there, mammy!" said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old--"look there! look there!" and he sprang to his
+mother's side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn't think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, "Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day's work."
+
+"Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle."
+
+Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn't taste half the dishes.
+
+"Now," says Molly, "I wonder will those two good little gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?" They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, "Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you'll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell."
+
+Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money--sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he'd never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken--he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,
+
+    "Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending
+    And thrilling with music, was melting in light."
+
+Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:--"Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man."
+
+"Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that's no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now--but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it."
+
+"And here is the bottle," said the old man, smiling; "you know what to
+do with it."
+
+"Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have."
+
+"Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man."
+
+"And good bye to you, sir," said Mick, as he turned back; "and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill--it wants a name--Bottle
+Hill.--Good bye, sir, good bye;" so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,--"Oh! sure,
+I've another bottle!"
+
+"Arrah! then have you? why, then, you're a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that's what you are."
+
+In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, "Bottle, do your duty." In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.
+
+"Well, what do you want now?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle."
+
+"Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"Come along, then." So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: "Ah! ha!"
+says he to himself, "may be I won't have you by and by."
+
+"Now," says his landlord, "show us your bottle." Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, "Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I'll have you
+hanged!"
+
+"They never shall stop," said Mick, "till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf."
+
+"Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!"
+says the landlord.
+
+Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord's only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so 'twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
+
+VII.
+
+
+Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom's father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called "the good people."
+
+Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect--they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eye-brows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. "Very well, sir;" "That's true,
+sir;" "I'm very thankful to your honour," and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.
+
+Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man's business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular, that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind--a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.
+
+It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is _struck_[8] in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, _after_ their
+recovery.
+
+    [8] The term "fairy struck" is applied to paralytic affections,
+    which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the invisible
+    hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates fairy
+    doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+    to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has
+    also a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently
+    made to bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a
+    sacrifice to Bacchus.
+
+    The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+    peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of
+    consideration and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be
+    buried with his or her "own people."
+
+To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the _good people_
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.
+
+About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom's, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin's house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent _potteen_, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom's, this seemed a good
+opportunity.
+
+"Well, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer's, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day."
+
+"You may say that, sir," replied Tom Bourke; "but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma'am," said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+"So I had, ma'am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time."
+
+"Come, Tom," said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, "take
+another tumbler;" and he then added, "I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over."
+
+"'Tis true for you, sir," returned Tom; "your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won't belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of 'em now."
+
+"And how did you find it out, Tom?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you, sir," said Bourke: "When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little _bohereen_, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy's ground; for 'twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother's berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,[9] that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. 'Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),' says I. 'I'm sorry for your trouble,' says he; 'but you're a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.' 'What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?' says I: 'the doctors give him over.' 'The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,' says Shamous: 'but go to such a one,' says he, telling me his
+name, 'and try what he'll say to you.'"
+
+    [9] A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie man
+    of Scotland.
+
+"And who was that, Tom?" asked Mr. Martin.
+
+"I could not tell you that, sir," said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+"howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I'd
+have now some of them that's gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great _impression_
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad--very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o'clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one half-penny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you--I wont belie my father, sir--he was a good
+father to me--I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. 'Is that you, father?' says I. He said nothing. 'If that's
+you,' says I again, 'for the love of them that's gone, let me catch
+your hand.' And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child's.
+He stayed about as long as you'd be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn't
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains."
+
+"But I think, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father----"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Bourke, interrupting him; "but don't
+call them my enemies. 'Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.--Here's
+wishing you a good health and long life."
+
+"I assure you," returned Mr. Martin, "I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?"
+
+"I can't tell you that, sir," said Bourke; "I'm bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them."
+
+There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son's illness--circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.
+
+"See that now," said he, returning to Mr. Martin, "how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma'am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats' whey."
+
+Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued--"Why, then, I'll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e'er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father's. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?"
+
+"Certainly not, Tom," returned Mr. Martin.
+
+"Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.--'Whisht, you fool!' says I: ''tis all for the better.' 'Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma'am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack's face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+'Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you."
+
+"'Twas very strange, indeed, Tom," said Mr. Martin; "I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it."
+
+"I wish I could, sir," was Tom Bourke's answer; "but I'm bound down. I
+can't tell but what I'm allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds."
+
+"I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"So I had, sir," returned Bourke. "I had a trial of that man. But
+that's neither here nor there. I can't tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?"
+
+"Oh! very much indeed," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story," added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.
+
+"Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, 'cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother's
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father's people--I mean their friends, sir, among
+the _good people_, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she'd be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father's people."
+
+"He was a valuable friend, Tom," said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. "But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful."
+
+"So I will, and welcome," replied Bourke. "Your health, ma'am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one's throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?--Yes--well--Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a _berrin_ late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,[10] near Ballyhefaan
+ford.[11] He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they'd break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that's saying enough for him; so he whipped[12] off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he'd show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!--his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+them. Patrick was 'shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. 'Patrick,' says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+'Patrick,' says he, 'you're discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I'm your friend, and your father's friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don't be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.'
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey."
+
+    [10] Inch--low meadow ground near a river.
+
+    [11] A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,) on
+    the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.
+
+    [12] _i. e._ "In the time of a crack of a whip," he took off his
+    shoes and stockings.
+
+"And what was the cause of his great success?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"He could not help it, sir," replied Tom Bourke. "They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side."
+
+"Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?" said Mr. Martin.
+
+"I'll tell you that too, sir," answered Bourke, "when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn't make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it's little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can't tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn't be the man he is
+to-day.
+
+"I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill," said
+Mr. Martin.
+
+"You have it all now, sir," replied Bourke. "Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn't hinder the fever, they'd bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick's family, and it went again' his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+'em boasting how they'd dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever."
+
+"I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford," said Mr. Martin. "'Tis a great place for the good people, isn't
+it, Tom?"
+
+"You may say that, sir," returned Bourke. "I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th' other side of the river, looking at 'em playing goal
+as if they'd break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th' other, just as you'd see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming's
+big field. I saw 'em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th' other. I'm sure they were
+going to fight, only, 'twas near morning. I'm told your grandfather,
+ma'am, used to see 'em, there, too," said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.
+
+"So I have been told, Tom," replied Mrs. Martin. "But don't they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper[13] is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch."
+
+    [13] About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+    nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.
+
+"Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma'am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard," said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, "'twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother's soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with 'em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among 'em (for he hadn't a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+'Davy,' says he, 'take out a partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don't offer to kiss her.' 'That I won't,' says Davy,
+'although her lips were made of honey.' And with that he made his bow
+to the _purtiest_ girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+'Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th' admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. 'Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; 'twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn't get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o'clock."
+
+When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.--He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning church-yards, river-sides, peprechans, and _dina
+magh_, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, "I can talk no more;" stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom's wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, "As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork."
+
+
+
+
+FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.
+
+VIII.
+
+
+John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done--but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.
+
+John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories--many more did not believe them--but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.
+
+Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible--that it was merely old woman's gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources--nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge--they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.
+
+"But," said they, "Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?"
+
+"Never," was the reply.--"Never, as I am a man of honour and credit."
+
+"Well, then," they answered, "until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother."
+
+Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle's, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined--he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host's entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, ("not," added he, "however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,") they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.
+
+He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. "Yes, indeed!" muttered he, "the
+brats had me in one thing--I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one--and by the powers! what is that?"
+
+He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments--and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak's branches--some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves--some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk--some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse's neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+"Bravo! little fellow," said he, "well kicked and strong." But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.
+
+"I wish," said Jack, "I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean."
+
+No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.
+
+"Halloo!" said he, "young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you _oc-oc-_ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying."
+
+Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, "Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?"
+
+"The fairies," shouted Jack; "the fairies!"
+
+"I am afraid," muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, "the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter--come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch."
+
+He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;--how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. "Suppose," said one of the
+lads, "we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?"
+
+"Done!" cried Jack; "but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air." This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.
+
+Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. "Look there," he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; "look, and deny if you can."
+
+"Why," said one of the lads, pausing, "true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;" and he dismounted to climb over the wall.
+
+"Ah, Tom! Tom," cried Jack, "stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies--the good people, I mean--hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or--look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak--God
+help him! for he is past the help of man."
+
+By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. "Jack,"
+said he, "keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup."
+
+"Catsup," said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly--"What do you mean by
+catsup?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Tom, "but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball."
+
+Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.
+
+I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but--
+
+              "These our actors,
+    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+    Are melted into air--into thin air."
+
+     The name SHEFRO, by which the foregoing section is
+     distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+     and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+     to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+     to have castles or mansions of their own.--See _Stewart's
+     Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &c.
+
+     _Sia_, _sigh_, _sighe_, _sigheann_, _siabhra_, _siachaire_,
+     _siogidh_, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+     Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+     or witch. Thus we have the compounds _Leannan-sighe_, a
+     familiar, from _Leannan_, a pet, and _Sioghdhraoidheachd_,
+     enchantment with or by spirits.
+
+     _Sigh gàoithe_ or _siaheann-gàoithe_, a whirlwind, is so termed
+     because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+     day called _Sia_, because twilight,
+
+        "That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,"
+
+     is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+     _Sigh_ is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+     to dwell within. _Sidhe_, _sidheadh_, and _sigh_, are names for
+     a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+     fairies.
+
+     The term _Shoges_, i.e. _Sigh oges_ (young or little spirits,)
+     Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+     "The Irish Hudibras," 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+     entitled "The Fingallian Travesty," is among the Sloane MSS.
+     No. 900. In the Third Part of O'Flaherty's Ogygia, it is
+     related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+     chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for "_Sidhe_, or
+     fairies," by some pagan ladies.
+
+     "The Irish," according to the Rev. James Hely's translation of
+     O'Flaherty, "call these _Sidhe_, aërial spirits or phantoms,
+     because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+     common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+     are called by us _Sidhe_ or _Siodha_."
+
+     For a similar extended use of the German word _Alp_, _Elf_, &c.
+     see Introductory Essay to the Grimms' _Irische Elfenmärchen_,
+     pp. 55-62.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+    "----------------- That sottish elf
+    Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,
+    Draining the cellar with as free a hand
+    As if it were his purse which ne'er lacked coin;--
+    And then, with feign'd contrition ruminates
+    Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,
+    In some secluded dell or lonely grove
+    Tinsel'd by Twilight."--
+                                               Δ
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED CELLAR.
+
+IX.
+
+
+There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies--one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more--and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh--and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.
+
+But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.
+
+There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy's butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.
+
+"We have no fault," they would say, "to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days."
+
+"'Tis a queer thing that, surely," thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler's pantry:--"'tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar."
+
+Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.
+
+A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.
+
+"Where is William?" inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Sir?" said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.
+
+"Is it William, please your honour?" returned Jack; "why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just _one_ drop too much last night."
+
+"Where did he get it?" said Mr. Mac Carthy; "for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself."
+
+"Sorrow a know I know," said Leary, "unless the cook might have given
+him the _least taste_ in life of whiskey. But," continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, "may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"Speak out, Jack," said Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Why, then, does your honour want a butler?"
+
+"Can you recommend me one," returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, "and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?"
+
+"Is the wine-cellar all the matter?" said young Leary: "not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that."
+
+"So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?"
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.
+
+"Exactly so," answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.
+
+"Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial."
+
+"Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!"
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.
+
+"Jack Leary," said he at length, "Jack--is it Jack?" in a tone of
+wonder; "faith, 'tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;" and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.
+
+It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack's former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an "Out of the way, sirrah." Indeed, poor Jack's memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.
+
+When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary--so
+he still continued to call his new butler. "Jack," said he, "I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner."
+
+Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.
+
+It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.
+
+For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy's guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,--a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.
+
+It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.
+
+The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.
+
+The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages--I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.
+
+Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind--for it was before the days of
+Bramah's patent,--and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.
+
+Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.
+
+To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.
+
+When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.
+
+"What kept-you?" said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; "and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since."
+
+"The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir," said Jack, trembling
+violently; "I hope 'tis not all lost."
+
+"What do you mean, fool?" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: "why did you not fetch some with you?"
+
+Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, "this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it." So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.
+
+When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled
+
+                "like those mites
+    Of candied dew in moony nights--
+
+and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.
+
+"Ha, scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, "have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar--what are you doing there?"
+
+"Sure, and master," returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, "a'n't we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?"
+
+"Oh!" thought Mr. Mac Carthy, "if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don't see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy." So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.
+
+For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.
+
+Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger--ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;--only looking mighty old. But still 'tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call _spré-na-skillinagh_,
+and 'tis said is never without a shilling in it.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND MAN.
+
+X.
+
+
+Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.
+
+It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. "By my word," chattered Billy, "a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best."
+
+"Never wish it twice, Billy," said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.
+
+"Success, my little fellow," said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the _good people_;
+"here's your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;" and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.
+
+"Success," said the little man; "and you're heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don't think to cheat me as you have done others,--out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman."
+
+"Is it I pay you?" said Billy: "could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?"
+
+"Billy Mac Daniel," said the little man, getting very angry, "you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me."
+
+When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the livelong night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.
+
+When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, "You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don't fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master."
+
+Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, "Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night."
+
+Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: "But," said he, "if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us."
+
+"Ask no questions, Billy," said the little man, "but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find."
+
+Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. "Get up, Billy," said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.
+
+"Where will I get up, please your honour?" said Billy.
+
+"Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure," said the little man.
+
+"Is it after making a fool of me you'd be," said Billy, "bidding me
+get a horse-back upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?"
+
+"Up! up! and no words," said the little man, looking very vexed; "the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it." So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: "Borram! Borram! Borram!" cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse's tail; and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.
+
+At last they came to their journey's end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: "Now, Billy," said the little man, "do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse's head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can't
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb."
+
+The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.
+
+The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. "The best of masters are you
+surely," said Billy to him; "no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink."
+
+"I have made no bargain with you," said the little man, "and will make
+none; but up and follow me." Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, "Borram, Borram, Borram," had passed
+their lips.
+
+When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there--sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman's wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well--ay, better than the butler himself.
+
+One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, "Billy, I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take." So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. "If I have," thought Billy, "he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don't see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master."
+
+Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer's house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunniel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, "Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!"
+
+"God bless us, sir," said Billy, "will you?"
+
+"Don't say these words again, Billy," said the little man, "or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married."
+
+"I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all," said Billy, "if
+ever you mean to marry."
+
+"And to that purpose," said the little man, "have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunniel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me."
+
+"And what will Darby Riley say to that?" said Billy.
+
+"Silence!" said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: "I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;" and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.
+
+In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cocksparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.
+
+There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward--and under them were the priest and piper--and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby's two brothers and his uncle's
+son--and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had--and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster--and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it--and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.
+
+Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig's head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said "God bless us." All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig's head and greens. And after a
+moment's pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.
+
+Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. "Ha!" exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches--"Ha!" said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, "I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley."
+
+Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying "God bless us."
+
+Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.
+
+At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, "God save us!" Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, "I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel--take _that_ for your wages," gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.
+
+If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE SHOE.
+
+XI.
+
+
+"Now tell me, Molly," said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,[14]
+"did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?"
+
+    [14] "Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+    Silence."--_O'Keefe's Recollections._
+
+"Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many's
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about 'em."
+
+"But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?"
+
+"Och! no, I never _see_ one in my life; but my grandfather, that's my
+father's father, you know, he _see_ one, one time, and caught him
+too."
+
+"Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?"
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day's work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, 'I'll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I'll have money enough always.' So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn't make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he _see_ the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. 'Faith I have you now,' says he, 'and I'll never let you go
+till I get your purse--that's what I won't; so give it here to me at
+once, now.'--'Stop, stop,' says the Cluricaune, 'stop, stop,' says he,
+'till I get it for you.' So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often _see_ it, and had it in her hand, and 'twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw."
+
+"And did you see it yourself, Molly?"
+
+"Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough."
+
+     The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+     Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+     former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.
+
+     The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+     and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+     Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+     Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+     Irish for a pigmy.
+
+     It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+     one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word _luacharman_
+     is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+     the English word, _man_.--A rushy man,--that may be, a man of
+     the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+     is, unfrequented or boggy places.
+
+     The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+     court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+     Leprochaune:--
+
+     _Court._--Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+     character or designation.
+
+     _Witness._--My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+     fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+     carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+     keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+     cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+     let him go, and then you're as rich as a Jew.
+
+     _Court._--Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+     Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.
+
+     _Witness._--Yes, my lord, there was one--
+
+     _Court._--That will do.
+
+     With respect to "money matters," there appears to be a strong
+     resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+     Cluricaune.--"Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+     quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit," are
+     the words of Petronius.--See, for farther arguments in support
+     of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm's Essay on
+     the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+     work, under the head of "Ancient Testimonies."
+
+     "Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+     skill of the dwarfs in curious smith's-work."--"The Irish
+     Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+     making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+     the old Northern language a shoe-maker is called a
+     _shoe-smith_;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+     tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+     shoe-maker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+     with incredible quickness during the night."
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+    "Who sits upon the heath forlorn,
+    With robe so free and tresses torn?
+    Anon she pours a harrowing strain,
+    And then--she sits all mute again!
+    Now peals the wild funereal cry--
+    And now--it sinks into a sigh."
+                              OURAWNS.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANSHEE.
+
+XII.
+
+
+The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to "_the
+minister_" (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country--to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.
+
+But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth's death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.
+
+The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.
+
+About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall-door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o'clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.
+
+"What is the matter, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, "The master, Miss--the
+master--he is going from us;" and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.
+
+Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. "No, Miss," said Kavanagh; "it was not in Mallow----"
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, "I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;--I thought
+you might have been trusted:--what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say."
+
+Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;--but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.
+
+"Miss," said he, "as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master----"
+
+"Speak softly," said Miss Bunworth; "he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect."
+
+"Praise be to God for that, any way," replied Kavanagh; "but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely--we will lose him--the master--we will lose
+him, we will lose him!" and he wrung his hands together.
+
+"What is it you mean, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth.
+
+"Is it mean?" said Kavanagh: "the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+'tis not I alone who have heard her."
+
+"'Tis an idle superstition," said Miss Bunworth.
+
+"May be so," replied Kavanagh, as if the words 'idle superstition'
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind--"May be so," he
+continued; "but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me, keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master's name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+_berrin_ ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one's heart to hear it."
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, "my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story."
+
+Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bedside of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.
+
+The night was serene and moonlit--the sick man slept--and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bedside of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances, two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep--if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand--would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+XIII.
+
+
+The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned--as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars--as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene--and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man's table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.
+
+Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated--I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle ('black emblem of the informer') dangling from his
+waist-coat-button--went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British "parliament," that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger--recording angel of the
+law--wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state too like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, "It's all
+over, James;" and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man's voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles's foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles's playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.
+
+When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.
+
+The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:--suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur--then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic--and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:--the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy's room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son's chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, "Mother;"--but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, "Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?"
+
+He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, "Yes, my mother, alive, and---- But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen." He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted all her senses, he proceeded:--"do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me--'tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,--I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I _can_ describe I _will_--I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never--not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being--never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended--when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, 'Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.'--I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered."
+
+Charles's strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours' sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.
+
+Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.
+
+Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles's health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles' distance from Spring House.
+
+                        "_To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry._
+
+                                    Spring House, Tuesday morning,
+                                               October 15th, 1752.
+
+     "MY DEAREST MARY,
+
+     "I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+     friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days' journey at
+     this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+     will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+     sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+     have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+     my son's story. I can't tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+     approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+     be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+     I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+     soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+     Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+     son's ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+     on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+     postponed a day or two longer. Would to God--but no more of
+     this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+     man for _one_ week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+     his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+     before Sunday as you can.
+
+     "Ever my dear Mary's attached cousin and friend,
+                                                  "ANN MAC CARTHY."
+
+Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke's
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.
+
+                                       "Spring House, Sunday evening,
+                                                  20th October, 1752.
+
+     "DEAR ELLEN,
+
+     "As my mother's letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+     you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+     fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+     the extraordinary events of the last two days.
+
+     "The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+     was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+     the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+     this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+     rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+     last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+     Mr. Bourke's brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+     the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+     had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+     and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone clear and
+     bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+     black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+     and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+     as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+     blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+     narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+     number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+     shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+     mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+     far we were from Mr. Bourke's. ''Tis about ten spades from this
+     to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+     the avenue, ma'am.' 'Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke's
+     as soon as you reach the cross roads.' My mother had scarcely
+     spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+     very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+     right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+     the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+     giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+     'Heaven defend us!' exclaimed my mother. 'Go you over the
+     hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+     while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+     village near it.' 'Woman!' said Leary, beating the horse
+     violently, while his voice trembled--'that's no woman: the
+     sooner we get on, ma'am, the better;' and he continued his
+     efforts to quicken the horse's pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+     was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+     expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+     and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+     distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+     succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+     despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+     inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+     nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+     place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke's to the left,
+     and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+     started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+     plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+     woman, with uncovered head, and longhair that floated round her
+     shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+     white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+     the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+     which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+     hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+     and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+     had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+     the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+     uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+     then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+     instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+     little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+     pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+     of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+     up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+     garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+     closely wrapped around it. 'Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+     God's name,' said my mother; 'whatever world it belongs to, we
+     will provoke it no longer.' ''Tis the Banshee, ma'am,' said
+     Leary; 'and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+     where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I'm afraid
+     there's something bad going forward, or _she_ would not send us
+     there.' So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+     road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+     saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+     clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+     person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+     badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+     drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o'clock last
+     night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+     mother's letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+     some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+     week.
+
+     "You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+     day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+     here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+     morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+     inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+     the grounds a little before dinner. It seems that an
+     unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+     seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+     for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+     months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+     but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+     and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+     disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+     During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+     in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+     tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+     had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.
+
+     "Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+     between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+     rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+     were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+     pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+     which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+     instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+     leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+     immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+     injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+     merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+     few days. 'We shall know more by Sunday,' said Charles, as he
+     was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+     and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+     of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.
+
+     "On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+     poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+     aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+     and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+     search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+     of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+     and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+     Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+     was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+     working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+     escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+     taken until last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+     frantic, a little before our arrival.
+
+     "Charles's wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+     the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+     entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+     and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+     that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+     advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+     twelve o'clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+     announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+     before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+     The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+     otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+     their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+     before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+     The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+     heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+     was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+     information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+     But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+     screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+     the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+     followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+     a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+     furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+     hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+     body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+     the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+     I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+     Charles's room, to 'get his forgiveness,' as she said, 'before
+     he went away to accuse her for having killed him.' This wild
+     idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+     former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+     Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+     Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+     torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, 'James
+     Ryan, 'twas you killed him, and not I--'twas you killed him,
+     and not I.'
+
+     "Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+     mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+     the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+     accident. She conducted us to Charles's room, who she said, had
+     desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+     end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+     existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+     perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+     awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+     treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+     his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+     was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+     one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+     left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+     anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.
+
+     "Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy----but I am just called away. There seems
+     a slight stir in the family; perhaps----"
+
+The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles's seven-and-twentieth birthday, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.
+
+     "BANSHEE, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+     credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+     to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+     lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+     family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+     no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+     believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege."--O'BRIEN'S
+     _Irish Dictionary_.
+
+     For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+     "Personal Sketches, &c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;" Miss Lefanu's
+     Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+     32; "The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw" (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+     in a note on "the Lady of the Lake,") &c.
+
+     Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+     Banshee "one of the most beautiful" of the leading
+     superstitions of Europe. In his "Letters on Demonology," he
+     says that "several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+     anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+     who performed the office of the Irish Banshee," and
+     particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+     which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.
+
+     "The Welsh Gwrâch y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+     some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+     omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+     leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+     in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+     mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+     _A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni._"--_MS. Communication from_ DR. OWEN
+     PUGHE. For some farther particulars, see, in "A Relation of
+     Apparitions, &c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones," his account of the
+     _Kyhirraeth_, "a doleful foreboding noise before death;" and
+     Howell's "Cambrian Superstitions," (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.
+
+     The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+     of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+     prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+     of Poitou. Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," records the
+     appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+     worshipful lineage of Oxenham.
+
+     "In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+     the window of the house in which a person is to die (_Deutsche
+     Sagen_, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+     (267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+     _Klage-weib_ (mourning woman,) in the _Lüneburger Heath_
+     (_Spiels Archiv._ ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+     stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+     fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+     death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+     grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+     immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+     the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+     _Klage-weib_ has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+     course of the month."--THE BROTHERS GRIMM, _and MS.
+                               Communication from_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.
+
+    "Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings' helpless harms,
+    Ne let the _Pouke_, nor other evil spright,
+    Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,
+    Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
+        Fray us with things that be not."
+                                                SPENSER.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT HORSE.
+
+XIV.
+
+
+The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.
+
+Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them--it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;--but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.
+
+Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.
+
+This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.
+
+And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;--then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.
+
+"In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban," said Morty, "how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?"
+
+These words had no sooner passed Morty's lips than he found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman's jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman's appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear--judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.--"What's your name?" at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.
+
+Plucking up all his courage, "Morty Sullivan," replied he "at your
+service;" meaning the latter words only in civility.
+
+"_Ubbubbo!_" said the old woman, "we'll soon see that;" and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.
+
+"Take hold of my hand, Morty," said the old woman: "I'll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey's end." So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;--it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.
+
+Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.
+
+"Mount, Morty, mount!" cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, "O that I had spurs!" and tried to
+grasp the horse's mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.
+
+The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O'Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),[15] never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.
+
+    [15]  "Nulla manus,
+          Tam liberalis
+          Atque generalis
+          Atque universalis
+          Quam Sullivanis."
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O'ROURKE.
+
+XV.
+
+
+People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka's tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.
+
+"I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
+first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;--and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;--and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often
+in the year;--but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I'd better be telling you my story.
+
+"Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can't
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I'd just step to Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I,
+'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
+
+"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;--I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the _Ullagone_--when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.
+
+"So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,'
+says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I
+hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?'
+says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home
+again.' 'Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis,
+sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a
+minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields--my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I
+am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog--besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'
+
+"It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:--'I thank
+your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take
+your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up--I
+know not how far up he flew.
+
+"'Why, then,' said I to him,--thinking he did not know the right road
+home--very civilly, because why?--I was in his power entirely;--'sir,'
+says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.'
+
+"'_Arrah_, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a _cowld_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to
+him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and
+don't be interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this
+is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said
+no more.
+
+"At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus [in-line illustration] on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)
+
+"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no
+notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world
+_axed_ you to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,'
+said he; 'I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I;
+'is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall
+off in a minute, and be _kilt_ and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,--so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he: 'you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that's sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and 'twill keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I.
+'May be not,' said he, quite quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a
+fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.
+
+"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'I think I've nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,' ('twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) 'and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cockthrow.'
+
+"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says
+I. 'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there
+walks--who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.
+
+"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'How do you do?'
+'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.'
+'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a
+_dissolute_ island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.
+
+"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
+against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
+your business,' said he, 'Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says
+I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.'
+'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself,
+Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Indeed,
+and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won't let go;--so I will.' 'You had better,
+Dan,' says he again. 'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two
+words to that bargain, and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.'
+'We'll see how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.
+
+"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and _whap_! it came in two. 'Good morning to
+you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand: 'I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'Now help me,' says I,
+'but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know _me_? The _ould_ gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The
+same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him
+of _ould_. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you
+kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I
+hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,'
+says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all
+the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.
+
+"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to land if you
+please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I; 'that's
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you
+fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.'
+
+"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he. 'We are,'
+said I. 'We are not,' said he: 'If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I: 'I know better than that,
+for it's just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.'
+
+"'If you must, you must,' said he. 'There, take your own way;' and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right--sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn't
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying--'twas
+a voice I knew too--'Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;' and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;--for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.
+
+"'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish, would no
+place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that."
+
+
+
+
+THE CROOKENED BACK.
+
+XVI.
+
+
+Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says "she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient"), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son's fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.
+
+Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of "dark December" whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:--at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the "crookening of her back."
+
+"It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn't bear it. 'Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that's ten years last Easter--I won't forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn't come home to dinner. I
+don't know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+'Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn't a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn't long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn't a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn't move for near a minute. I couldn't
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn't go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on--and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. 'Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn't help
+moving, and couldn't stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn't; I tried to run, but wasn't able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard 'em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards' distance from them that would
+die to save me;--and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn't be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! 'Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else, did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: 'twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour."
+
+There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy's,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman's side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment's pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, "Granny, what was it?"
+
+The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, "It was
+the Phooka."
+
+     The _Pouke_ or _Phooka_, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+     plain terms, the Evil One. "Playing the puck," a common
+     Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to "playing the devil." Much
+     learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+     various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &c.] The
+     commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+     Puck of the Midsummer Night's Dream from the mischievous
+     Pouke.--Vide Drayton's Nymphidia.
+
+        "This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
+        Still walking like a ragged colt," &c.
+
+     In Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1587) we
+     find,
+
+        "---- and the countrie where Chgmæra, that same _Pooke_,
+        Hath goatish bodie," &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+     _Mahr_; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+     German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+     bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+     those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+     they faint and fall to the earth.
+
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+    "On Lough-Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays,
+    When the clear cold eve's declining,
+    He sees the round towers of other days
+    In the wave beneath him shining."
+                                              MOORE.
+
+
+
+
+FIOR USGA.
+
+XVII.
+
+
+A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.
+
+Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.
+
+One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates--but "you're
+welcome--you're welcome, heartily," was the porter's salute for all.
+
+Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king's daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.
+
+In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, "May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water."
+
+"Water!" said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want: "water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter," said he, "go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose."
+
+The king's daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, "Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you." The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king's daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.
+
+When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.
+
+The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king's palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.
+
+Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.
+
+Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.
+
+
+
+
+CORMAC AND MARY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+    "She is not dead--she has no grave--
+      She lives beneath Lough Corrib's water;[16]
+    And in the murmur of each wave
+      Methinks I catch the songs I taught her."
+
+    Thus many an evening on the shore
+      Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;
+    Still idly muttering o'er and o'er,
+      "She lives, detain'd by spells unholy.
+
+    "Death claims her not, too fair for earth,
+      Her spirit lives--alien of heaven;
+    Nor will it know a second birth
+      When sinful mortals are forgiven!
+
+    "Cold is this rock--the wind comes chill,
+      And mists the gloomy waters cover;
+    But oh! her soul is colder still--
+      To lose her God--to leave her lover!"
+
+    The lake was in profound repose,
+      Yet one white wave came gently curling,
+    And as it reach'd the shore, arose
+      Dim figures--banners gay unfurling.
+
+    Onward they move, an airy crowd:
+      Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;
+    While spear and helm, in pageant proud,
+      Appear in liquid undulation.
+
+    Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread
+      Their trackless way with antic capers;
+    And curtain clouds hang overhead,
+      Festoon'd by rainbow-colour'd vapours.
+
+    And when a breath of air would stir
+      That drapery of Heaven's own wreathing,
+    Light wings of prismy gossamer
+      Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.
+
+    Nor wanting was the choral song,
+      Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;
+    To sound of which this subtile throng
+      Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.
+
+    With music's strain, all came and went
+      Upon poor Cormac's doubting vision;
+    Now rising in wild merriment,
+      Now softly fading in derision.
+
+    "Christ save her soul," he boldly cried;
+      And when that blessed name was spoken,
+    Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,
+      And vanished all,--the spell was broken.
+
+    And now on Corrib's lonely shore,
+      Freed by his word from power of faëry,
+    To life, to love, restored once more,
+      Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.
+
+    [16] In the county of Galway.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.
+
+XIX.
+
+
+Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,[17] and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.
+
+    [17] In the county of Limerick.
+
+One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours' cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;[18] but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.
+
+    [18] Spancelled--fettered.
+
+"What in the wide world will I do?" said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: "that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse."
+
+"'Tis true for you, Larry," replied Welsh: "the times are bitter
+bad--no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there's Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for 'tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way."
+
+Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh's two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corncreaks
+answering one another across the water.
+
+"Boys! boys!" said Larry, "look there! look there! but for your lives
+don't make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word."
+
+They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.
+
+"'Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper's cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones," whispered Mick to his brother.
+
+"Now boys!" said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, "get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we'll just put them into
+the pound."
+
+But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.
+
+Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED LAKE.
+
+XX.
+
+
+In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire--others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.
+
+There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:--but Roderick's confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.
+
+"Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?" exclaimed the
+young farmer. "Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?"
+
+There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.
+
+"I'll take you at your word," said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going, going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:--
+
+    "She is fair as Cappoquin;
+    Have you courage her to win?
+    And her wealth it far outshines
+    Cullen's bog and Silvermines.
+    She exceeds all heart can wish;
+    Not brawling like the Foherish,
+    But as the brightly flowing Lee,
+    Graceful, mild, and pure is she!"
+
+Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:--no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.
+
+When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses' teeth, and up she made towards
+him.
+
+"Good morrow, Paddeen," said she.
+
+"Good morrow, Ma'am," said he.
+
+"What brought you here?" said she.
+
+"'Tis after Rory Keating's gold ring," said he, "I'm come."
+
+"Here it is for you," said Paddeen's fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]
+
+"Thank you, Ma'am," replied Paddeen, taking it from her:--"I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you're fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?"
+
+"Then you did not come to marry me?" cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.
+
+"Just wait till I come back again, my darling," said Paddeen: "I'm to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they'll wonder what has become of me."
+
+"Never mind the money," said the fat woman: "if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing."
+
+Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF O'DONOGHUE.
+
+XXI.
+
+
+In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O'Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called "O'Donoghue's Prison," in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.
+
+His end--for it cannot correctly be called his death--was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.
+
+The memory of the good O'Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,--a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince's reign was never felt by his people.
+
+Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O'Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May-morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.
+
+The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.
+
+The warrior was O'Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O'Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse's neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.
+
+    _Thierna na Oge_, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to
+    the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions
+    of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the
+    movements of time.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.
+
+              ----"The mysterious depths
+    And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old."
+                              MATTIMA'S _Conchologist_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+XXII.
+
+
+On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.
+
+"'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well,
+to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "'tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to answer one--nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune," said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!--and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete--Is it
+not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.
+
+But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.
+
+Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the _cohuleen driuth_, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
+
+When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears--doubly salt, no doubt, from her--came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.
+
+"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.
+
+Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way
+of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but
+'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
+
+"What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.
+
+The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once--"Man," says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "Man, will you eat me?"
+
+"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?--Now 'twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!"
+
+"Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat
+me?"
+
+Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.
+
+"Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+"fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I'll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that's what I'll do."
+
+"Never say the word twice," says she; "I'm ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my
+hair."
+
+It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.
+
+Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; "Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?"
+
+"It's nothing else," says she quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind."
+
+"And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick.
+
+"What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the
+king of the waves, to be sure!"
+
+"And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.
+
+"Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;--to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of
+the sea!"
+
+"Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?"
+
+"'Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?"
+
+"Oh! yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want."
+
+"To speak the truth, then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king's daughter: so, if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets--but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?"
+
+"By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald--plenty of beds at your
+service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones."
+
+"You have?" says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. "'Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of--but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they'd have the one, need never ask for the
+other."
+
+However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.
+
+"There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd
+marry?--the Lord preserve us!--Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from."
+
+Dick had the _cohuleen driuth_ in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he--
+
+"Please your Reverence she's a king's daughter."
+
+"If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I
+tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish."
+
+"Please your Reverence," said Dick again, in an under tone, "she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon."
+
+"If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!"
+
+"But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I'm a made man if I marry her; and," said Dick, looking up slily,
+"I can make it worth any one's while to do the job."
+
+"Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the Priest; "why there's
+some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this
+before?--marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done."
+
+So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick--he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.
+
+It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds--two boys and a girl.
+
+In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.
+
+One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.
+
+Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishingnet, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own _cohuleen driuth_.
+
+She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.
+
+She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. "But," says she, "he won't lose me entirely, for I'll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them."
+
+She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.--The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the _cohuleen driuth_ on
+her head, she plunged in.
+
+Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the _cohuleen driuth_. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.
+
+Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; "For," says Dick, "she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children."
+
+While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+
+
+
+FLORY CANTILLON'S FUNERAL.
+
+XXIII.
+
+
+The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.[19] However this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.
+
+    [19] "The neighbouring inhabitants," says Dr. Smith, in his
+    History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, "show some rocks
+    visible in this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the
+    remains of an island, that was formerly the burial-place of the
+    family of Cantillon, the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh." p.
+    210.
+
+Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. "Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,"
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don't think
+I should say wrong.
+
+On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow's death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.
+
+Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there--more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.
+
+The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.
+
+The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.
+
+"If 'twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was," said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, "one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. 'Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,"
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, "didn't I know all
+the time well enough, 'twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man's Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how," said Connor, after a pause, "is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!"
+
+It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.
+
+As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding, when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.
+
+It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!
+
+The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.
+
+"This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth," said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.
+
+"True," replied another, with a voice still more fearful, "our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!"
+
+"But the time will come," said a third, bending over the coffin,
+
+    "When mortal eye--our work shall spy,
+    And mortal ear--our dirge shall hear."
+
+"Then," said a fourth, "our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!"
+
+As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.
+
+"The time is come," cried the unearthly being, "the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!"
+
+One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+church-yard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.
+
+XXIV.
+
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron[20]--O'Sullivan More,
+    Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?
+    His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;
+    No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.
+
+    Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known
+    On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;
+    For a beautiful spirit of ocean, 'tis said,
+    The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.
+
+    When, by moonlight, the waters were hush'd to repose,
+    That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;
+    Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell
+    O'er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.
+
+    Long, long had he loved her--long vainly essay'd
+    To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;
+    And long had he wander'd and watch'd by the tide,
+    To claim the fair spirit O'Sullivan's bride!
+
+    The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,
+    Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;
+    Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,
+    Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.
+
+    Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,
+    O'Sullivan felt 'twas the dawning of love,
+    And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,
+    Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,
+    And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;
+    The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,
+    Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.
+
+    Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,
+    Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?
+    The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown
+    To lie 'mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.
+
+    Down, down went the maid,--still the chieftain pursued;
+    Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.
+    Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,
+    The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!
+
+    They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,
+    Whence beauty and verdure stretch'd over the land.
+    'Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,
+    With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.
+
+    The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,
+    Softly faded away, from a magical pile,
+    A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen
+    Had the tints of the rainbow--red, yellow, and green.
+
+    And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,
+    Were there, as flung up--the wild sport of the storm;
+    Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,
+    It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.
+
+    "Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,
+    Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!
+    Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;
+    There are laws which e'en spirits are bound to obey!
+
+    "Once more must I visit the chief of my race,
+    His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.
+    In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:
+    One cause can detain me--one only--'tis death!"
+
+    They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;
+    The language of promise had nothing beyond.
+    His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:
+    The moment is gone--but no maiden returns.
+
+    What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear--
+    What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?
+    What sees he? what change has come over the flood--
+    What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?
+
+    Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?
+    That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!
+    For see all around him, in white foam and froth,
+    The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!
+
+    The palace of crystal has melted in air,
+    And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;
+    The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o'ercast,
+    The sunshine is darkness--the vision has past!
+
+    Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;
+    They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:
+    He heard, and he struggled--a wave to the shore,
+    Exhausted and faint, bears O'Sullivan More!
+
+    [20] The remains of Dunkerron Caslle are distant about a mile
+    from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is
+    recorded to have been built in 1596, by Owen O'Sullivan
+    More.--[_More_, is merely an epithet signifying _the Great_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL TUNE.
+
+XXV.
+
+
+Maurice Connor was the king, and that's no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum's March, and the Eagle's Whistle, and the Hen's Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.
+
+In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it--old or young it mattered not--just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going--going--going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!--whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm--there was no halting while the music lasted!
+
+Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without "blind Maurice and his
+pipes." His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.
+
+Down through Iveragh--a place that ought to be proud of itself, for
+'tis Daniel O'Connell's country--Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand--the dead
+image of a calm summer's sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.
+
+Here it was that Maurice's music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women--_O the darlints!_--for
+'twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. "Brave music," said every body, "and well done,"
+when Maurice stopped.
+
+"More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,"
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. "'Tis a pity," said he, "if we'd let the piper run dry
+after such music; 'twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn't come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays." So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: "Did you drink, piper?"
+
+"I will, sir," says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.
+
+"What will you drink, Maurice?" says Paddy.
+
+"I'm no ways particular," says Maurice; "I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring _raw_ water; but if 'tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn't lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey."
+
+"I've no glass, Maurice," said Paddy; "I've only the bottle."
+
+"Let that be no hindrance," answered Maurice; "my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I've tried it, sure."
+
+So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle--more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice's mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.
+
+"That was no bad whisky neither," says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.
+
+"By the holy frost, then!" says Paddy, "'tis but _cowld_ comfort
+there's in that bottle now; and 'tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you've left us no sample to judge by:" and
+to be sure Maurice had not.
+
+Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own--he was fairly tipsy. Don't think I blame him for it; 'tis often a
+good man's case; but true is the word that says, "when liquor's in,
+sense is out;" and puff, at a breath, before you could say "Lord save
+us!" out he blasted his wonderful tune.
+
+'Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; _bolg an
+dana_, as they used to call him--a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to drink with of a hot
+summer's day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here's my hand at an upset of them into English:
+
+    The big seals in motion,
+    Like waves of the ocean,
+      Or gouty feet prancing,
+    Came heading the gay fish,
+    Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,
+      Determined on dancing.
+
+    The sweet sounds they follow'd,
+    The gasping cod swallow'd;
+      'Twas wonderful, really!
+    And turbot and flounder,
+    'Mid fish that were rounder,
+      Just caper'd as gaily.
+
+    John-dories came tripping;
+    Dull hake, by their skipping
+      To frisk it seem'd given;
+    Bright mackerel went springing,
+    Like small rainbows winging
+      Their flight up to heaven.
+
+    The whiting and haddock
+    Left salt-water paddock,
+      This dance to be put in:
+    Where skate with flat faces
+    Edged out some odd plaices;
+      But soles kept their footing.
+
+    Sprats and herrings in powers
+    Of silvery showers
+      All number out-number'd;
+    And great ling so lengthy
+    Were there in such plenty,
+      The shore was encumber'd.
+
+    The scollop and oyster
+    Their two shells did roister,
+      Like castanets fitting;
+    While limpets moved clearly,
+    And rocks very nearly
+      With laughter were splitting.
+
+Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; 'twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor's wonderful tune!
+
+In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman--as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair--just the colour of the sea--fell down behind,
+without hinderance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.
+
+Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops--for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on--and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey--
+
+    "I'm a lady of honour
+      Who live in the sea;
+    Come down, Maurice Connor,
+      And be married to me.
+
+    "Silver plates and gold dishes
+      You shall have, and shall be
+    The king of the fishes,
+      When you're married to me."
+
+Drink was strong in Maurice's head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore 'twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself--so says Maurice,
+
+    "I'm obliged to you, madam:
+      Off a gold dish or plate,
+    If a king, and I had 'em,
+      I could dine in great state.
+
+    "With your own father's daughter
+      I'd be sure to agree;
+    But to drink the salt water
+      Wouldn't do so with me!"
+
+The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, "Well," says she, "Maurice, if you're
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?"
+
+In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.
+
+Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.
+
+When Maurice's mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water's edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. "Oh then,"
+says she, "as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but 'tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod--Lord help and pity me, but
+'tis a mighty unnatural thing!--and may be 'tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I'll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!--Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there's any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own _ould_ mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!"
+
+Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.
+
+Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother's heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.
+
+He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother's voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was--
+
+"Whisht with you, mother--sure I'm going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I'll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska." Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.
+
+That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance--some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.
+
+Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly distinguish Maurice Connor's voice
+singing these words to his pipes:--
+
+    Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,
+    Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;
+    Never would I have parted from thee
+    But for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
+
+    [21] This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+    well-known song of Deardra.
+
+    The Irish _Merrow_ answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+    is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+    Cornish _Morhuch_, to which it evidently bears analogy.
+
+    The romantic historians of Ireland describe the _Suire_ as
+    playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+    to that Island.
+
+
+
+
+THE DULLAHAN.
+
+    "Then wonder not at _headless folk_,
+      Since every day you greet 'em;
+    Nor treat old stories as a joke,
+      When fools you daily meet 'em."
+
+                      --_The Legendary._
+
+    "Says the friar, 'tis strange headless horses should trot."
+
+                                                    _Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD WOMAN.
+
+XXVI.
+
+
+In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight's
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.
+
+Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,--indeed, who is without them?--and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of "the stirrup cup,"
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.
+
+Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character--a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oilskin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren's blacking of matchless lustre!--and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.
+
+Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. "If they go at this rate,"
+said he to himself, "for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer's
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?" This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size--rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.
+
+Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd's
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. "Civility begets
+civility," they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady's silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, "_Ma colleen beg_,[22] just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I'll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us."
+
+    [22] My little girl.
+
+She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.
+
+"I hope you're comfortable there, my dear," said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; and on they went--trot,
+trot, trot--along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued _cronane_,[23] like a
+nurse _hushoing_. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. "'Tis
+only loose the shoe is," said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get _spilt_ in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.
+
+    [23] A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.
+
+"By the piper's luck, that always found what he wanted," said Larry,
+recollecting himself, "I've a nail in my pocket: 'tis not the first
+time I've put on a shoe, and may be it won't be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty."
+
+No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, "by your leave," or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church--and a pretty church it was.
+
+"Not so fast, if you please, young woman--not so fast," cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. "Where's my wages?" said Larry: "_Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge_,[24]--sure I've earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips--and
+I'll have it too!" But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the church-yard wall, and then over with her in an instant.
+
+    [24] Give me a kiss, my young girl.
+
+"Well, she's a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;--but I'll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either," exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the church-yard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried--rest his soul!--and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men--the Lord save
+us!--that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+church-yard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. "I'll just wait," said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; "when she comes round again, if I
+don't take the kiss, I won't, that's all,--and here she is!" Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them--a woman, it
+is true--but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.
+
+"Murder!" cried he. "Well, that accounts for her not speaking." Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!
+
+When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness, he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding--ding--ding--ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.
+
+    'Twas a spectre rung
+    That bell when it swung--
+        Swing-swang!
+    And the chain it squeaked,
+    And the pulley creaked,
+        Swing-swang!
+
+    And with every roll
+    Of the deep death toll
+        Ding-dong!
+    The hollow vault rang
+    As the clapper went bang,
+        Ding-dong!
+
+It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.
+
+Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.
+
+"I'm done for and lost for ever," roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.
+
+"Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome," cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. "A drink for Larry Dodd," shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.
+
+"'Tis capital stuff," he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,--for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought--but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.
+
+When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, "upon the lap
+of earth." Could it have been an ugly dream? "Oh no," said Larry, "a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death's head and cross marrow bones forenenting me on
+the fine old tombstone there that was _faced_ by Pat Kearney[25] of
+Kilcrea--but where is the horse?" He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. "'Tis home I must go," said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; "but how will I face Nancy?--what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.'s that he cost me?--'Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me--the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!--but what's gone is gone, that's a clear case!"--so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.'s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.
+
+    [25] _Faced_, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+    "_fecit_."
+
+"But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?" inquired his wife.
+
+Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.
+
+"Oh! Larry, Larry," muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; "'tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man--you are all alike for
+that matter--I've no pity for you--but, confess the truth."
+
+Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.
+
+"Nancy," said he, "I do confess:--it was a young woman without any
+head that----"
+
+His wife heard no more. "A woman I knew it was," cried she; "but a
+woman without a head, Larry!--well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!--that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her _baste_ of a husband, for a woman
+without a head!--O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!--that you don't see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.
+
+"O Larry, you villain, you'll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O--O--O--"
+
+"Well," says Larry, putting his hands in his coatpockets, "least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!"
+
+How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.
+
+
+
+
+HANLON'S MILL.
+
+XXVII.
+
+
+One fine summer's evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien's,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon's mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.
+
+Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.
+
+Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish _karacter_. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell as how "the great Burke" went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.
+
+But it was Michael Noonan's walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,
+
+    "Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;"
+
+and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien's door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon's mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon's mill.
+
+Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien's before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan's.
+
+"Is it home you're going with the brogues this blessed night?" said
+Darby to him.
+
+"Where else would it be?" replied Mick: "but, by my word, 'tis not
+across the Inch back again I'm going, after all I heard coming here;
+'tis to no good that old Hanlon's mill is busy again."
+
+"True, for you," said Darby; "and may be you'd take the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as 'tis along the road you go.
+I'm waiting here to see a sister's son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman." "That same I'll do," answered Mick, "with a thousand
+welcomes." So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick--God reward him for
+it--was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.
+
+The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse's head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close along-side
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby's horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.
+
+Poor Mick's heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery--took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.
+
+Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon's huntsman, coming on the master's best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick's mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan's bridle when he came
+up.
+
+"Mick, dear--for the love of heaven! don't stop me," cried Dan.
+
+"Why, what's the hurry?" said Mick.
+
+"Oh, the master!--he's off,--he's off--he'll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!"
+
+"Why, what would ail his honour?" said Mick; "sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he--"
+
+"Stout and hearty was he?" answered Madden; "and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn't
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he'd ride the old General to-day; and sure,"
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, "who'd have
+thought that the first thing I'd see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and"--poor Dan's
+grief choked his voice--"oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she's a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor."
+
+Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan's;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night's moon saw Ballygibblin--and more's the pity--a house of
+mourning.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH COACH.
+
+XXVIII.
+
+
+    'Tis midnight!--how gloomy and dark!
+      By Jupiter there's not a star!--
+    'Tis fearful!--'tis awful!--and hark!
+      What sound is that comes from afar?
+
+    Still rolling and rumbling, that sound
+      Makes nearer and nearer approach;
+    Do I tremble, or is it the ground?--
+      Lord save us!--what is it?--a coach!--
+
+    A coach!--but that coach has no head;
+      And the horses are headless as it:
+    Of the driver the same may be said,
+      And the passengers inside who sit.
+
+    See the wheels! how they fly o'er the stones!
+      And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:
+    Their spokes are of dead men's thigh bones,
+      And the pole is the spine of the back!
+
+    The hammer-cloth, shabby display,
+      Is a pall rather mildew'd by damps;
+
+    And to light this strange coach on its way,
+      Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!
+
+    From the gloom of Rathcooney church-yard,
+      They dash down the hill of Glanmire;
+    Pass Lota in gallop as hard
+      As if horses were never to tire!
+
+    With people thus headless 'tis fun
+      To drive in such furious career;
+    Since _headlong_ their horses can't run,
+      Nor coachman be _heady_ from beer.
+
+    Very steep is the Tivoli lane,
+      But up-hill to them is as down;
+    Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain
+      These Dullahans rushing to town.
+
+    Could they feel as I've felt--in a song--
+      A spell that forbade them depart;
+    They'd a lingering visit prolong,
+      And after their head lose their heart!
+
+    No matter!--'tis past twelve o'clock;
+      Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,
+    And, taking the road to Blackrock,
+      Cork city is soon left behind.
+
+    Should they hurry thus reckless along,
+      To supper instead of to bed,
+    The landlord will surely be wrong,
+      If he charge it at so much a head!
+
+    Yet mine host may suppose them too poor
+      To bring to his wealth an increase;
+    As till now, all who drove to his door,
+      Possess'd at least _one crown_ a-piece.
+
+    Up the Deadwoman's hill they are roll'd;
+      Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;
+    Ballintemple they reach, and behold!
+      At its church-yard they stop and alight.
+
+    "Who's there?" said a voice from the ground,
+      "We've no room, for the place is quite full."
+    "O! room must be speedily found,
+      For we come from the parish of Skull.
+
+    "Though Murphys and Crowleys appear
+      On headstones of deep-letter'd pride;
+    Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,
+      Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;
+
+    "Yet here for the night we lie down,
+      To-morrow we speed on the gale;
+    For having no heads of our own,
+      We seek the Old Head of Kinsale."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.
+
+XXIX.
+
+
+"God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,"
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.
+
+Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever _rattled_ a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen's day hunt.
+
+Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your "nasty particular sort of fellows" in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, "Charley," the saddlers said, "was the
+devil to _plase_." An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer "Charley's farm" (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself "Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;" and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert--and who will doubt
+it--that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.
+
+This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the "Harp of Erin." Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. "I won't bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you'll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It's as good _parliament_ as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear 'x
+_waters_,' and carry the bead after that, may be."
+
+Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly "Harp of Erin," with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip's at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the "real stuff,"
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend's hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.
+
+The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman's currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the "Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers," always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.--Away he went singing like a thrush--
+
+    "Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,
+    Breaking windows--(_hiccup_!)--sinking,
+    Ever raking--never thinking,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+    "Spending faster than it comes,
+    Beating--(_hiccup, hic_,) and duns,
+    Duhallow's true-begotten sons,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow."
+
+Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly "Harp of Erin" had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated _turn out_ on St.
+Stephen's day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson's bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued--
+
+    "Living short, but merry lives,
+    Going where the devil drives,
+    Keeping----"
+
+"Keeping" he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley's eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the gravestones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced--the head advanced--Charley's old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.
+
+After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation "I'm sold now for ever!" was over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion's silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion's face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure's coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. "I ought to see farther than
+this, too," thought Charley, "although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless 'tis Con's whiskey that has blinded me entirely." However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, "'By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!"
+
+"Look again, Charley Culnane," said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.
+
+Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently hitherto
+concealed from Charley's eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley's side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.
+
+On they went--heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.--The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:--
+
+"Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!"
+
+"Humph," growled the head from under the horseman's right arm.
+
+"'Tis not an over civil answer," thought Charley; "but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I'll try him on the other track. Ahem!" said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. "Ahem! that's a mighty neat coat
+of your honour's, although 'tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut."
+
+"Humph," growled again the head.
+
+This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. "'Tis a sensible head," thought Charley,
+"although an ugly one, for 'tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery." A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.
+
+"To be sure, that's a brave horse your honour rides," recommenced the
+persevering Charley.
+
+"You may say that, with your own ugly mouth," growled the head.
+
+Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:--
+
+"May be your honour wouldn't be after riding him across the country?"
+
+"Will you try me, Charley?" said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.
+
+"Faith, and that's what I'd do," responded Charley, "only I'm afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I've every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels."
+
+This was true enough; Charley's courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman's proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.
+
+"Will you take my word," said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, "for the safety of your mare?"
+
+"Done," said Charley; and away they started, helter skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, "Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!"
+
+Charley pulled up hard. "Ay," said he, "you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that's the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I'd win it hollow!"
+
+It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley's mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.
+
+"Charley Culnane," says he, "you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I've tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that's the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare."
+
+Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger's right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman's scarlet hunting-coat. The horse's head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.
+
+Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife's pudding, the new
+snaffle--even the match against squire Jephson--all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen's day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley's "X water parliament." This, however, should be
+told, that Charley's old mare beat Mr. Jephson's bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn't
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don't know any
+other reason for his doing so.
+
+     DULLAHAN or DULACHAN signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+     _Durrachan_ or _Dullahan_, by which in some places the goblin
+     is known, has the same signification. It comes from _Dorr_ or
+     _Durr_, anger, or _Durrach_, malicious, fierce, &c.--_MS.
+     communication from the late_ MR. EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+     The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+     black is evidently a component part of the word.
+
+     The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+     Ireland "_Coach a bower_;" and its appearance is generally
+     regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.
+
+     The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+     appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+     extended.
+
+     In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+     that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.
+
+     In Wales, the apparition of "_Fenyw heb un pen_," the headless
+     woman, and "_Ceffyl heb un pen_," the headless horse, are
+     generally accredited.--_MS. communication from_ MISS WILLIAMS.
+
+     "The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+     Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+     Queensberry,--'Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,'--who,
+     instead of setting fire to the world in mamma's chariot, amuses
+     herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+     the great gallery."--_MS. communication from_ SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+     In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+     paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+     some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+     "Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+     up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,"
+     &c.
+
+     Cervantes mentions tales of the "_Caballo sin cabeça_ among the
+     _cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+     dilatadas noches del invierno_," &c.
+
+     "The people of Basse Brétagne believe, that when the death of
+     any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+     call _carriquet au nankon_,) and covered with a white sheet,
+     passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+     creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard."--_Journal des
+     Sciences_, 1826, _communicated by_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+     See also _Thiele's Danske Folkesagn_, vol. iv. p. 66, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+    Whene'er such wanderers I meete,
+      As from their night-sports they trudge home,
+    With counterfeiting voice I greete,
+      And call them on with me to roame
+            Through woods, through lakes,
+            Through bogs, through brakes;
+      Or else, unseene, with them I go,
+            All in the nicke,
+            To play some tricke,
+      And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!
+
+                                     --_Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER
+
+XXX.
+
+
+One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day's work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter[26] to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,[27] was mending a rent in Patrick's old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. "I was just thinking," said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes--"I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it."
+
+    [26] A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+    tallow, is used as a candle.
+
+    [27] Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+    firmly sewed or bound together.
+
+"And that's no lie for you, Pat," said his wife; "but, whisht! what
+noise is that I _hard_?" and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. "The _Vargin_ herself defend us
+all!" cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, "if 'tis not the banshee!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Patrick, "it's only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;" and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.
+
+"Whisht, whisht!" said Patrick--"what a noise ye're all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can't you go and see who's at the door?"
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.
+
+"Why, then, is it me you're speaking to?" said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; "and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be _rund_ away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?--the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke."
+
+"Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I'll go myself." So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of his way to the door.
+"Who's there?" said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+"In the name of Saint Patrick, who's there?" "'Tis I, Pat," answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire's. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome, entirely," said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye'll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying." "Thank
+you, Pat," said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.[28]
+
+    [28] See Weld's Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.
+
+"But what made you keep me so long at the door?"
+
+"Why then, your honour, 'twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather--the Lord rest his soul!"
+
+"And what was that, Pat?" said the squire.
+
+"Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was _ould_ Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them _spake_ to such perfection, that it did one's heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley--his honour's lordship is the real good
+gentleman--and 'tis Mr. Gandsey's music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy's grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+_tobaccy_; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?--but a large
+army of the good people, 'coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! 'Are ye all ready?' said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. 'No,' said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. 'No, general,' said he: 'if you don't get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye'll lose the battle."
+
+"'There's Diarmid Bawn,' said the general, pointing to Judy's
+grandfather, your honour, 'make a horse of him.'
+
+"So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.
+
+"'Is that what you'd be after, you spalpeen?' said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; 'I'm not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.' So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.
+
+"Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid's left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid's faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.
+
+"'Let every man take a hand of _tobaccy_ for Diarmid Bawn,' said the
+general; and so they did; and away they flew, for 'twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.
+
+"When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of _tobaccy_ in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been _kilt_ entirely, if it
+wasn't for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the _tobaccy_ heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, 'That 'twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he'd know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.' That's what he
+said, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Pat," said the squire; "it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy's alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I'll make the best of my way home." So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, "May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for 'twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride."
+
+
+
+
+TEIGUE OF THE LEE.
+
+XXXI.
+
+
+"I can't stop in the house--I won't stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!--to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I'm angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won't stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under." This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+"I'll not stop here," said John; "and that ends the matter."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you."
+
+John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud "Ho, ho, ho!" as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, John!" shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; "do you think you'll see Teigue?--oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there's plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and 'tis time you had the cloth laid."
+
+"Lord bless us! there's more of it!--I'll never stay another day
+here," repeated John.
+
+"Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly, and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons."
+
+John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say--"Who
+are you?--come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;" but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a "Good-bye--I'll watch you at dinner, John!"
+
+"Lord between us and harm! this beats all!--I'll watch you at
+dinner!--may be you will;--'tis the broad daylight, so 'tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I'll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?--if he tells it, I'm a ruined
+man!--there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he's far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it--I can't tell for the world! But what's that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?--'tis not a man!--oh, what a fool I am! 'tis
+only the old stump of a tree!--But this is a shocking place--I'll
+never stop in it, for I'll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one."
+
+The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom--their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.
+
+John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:--
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won't you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that's
+good; sure you won't forget poor Teigue?"
+
+John dropped the glass he had in his hand.
+
+"Who is that?" said Mr. Pratt's brother, an officer of the artillery.
+
+"That is Teigue," said Mr. Pratt, laughing, "whom you must often have
+heard me mention."
+
+"And pray, Mr. Pratt," inquired another gentleman, "who _is_ Teigue?"
+
+"That," he replied, "is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it."
+
+"It is very extraordinary," said several of the company.
+
+"But," remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, "your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?"
+
+"When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone."
+
+"How does he know that you are watching?"
+
+"That's more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+'Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.' James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. 'Here Teigue,' said
+he, 'come for it now.' 'Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.' This was done, and we stood looking at it. 'There, now,
+go away,' he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. 'Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won't take it.' We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day."
+
+"Oh," said the colonel, "I'll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I'll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.--Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?"
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell," shouted Teigue. "Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you're a pretty boy;--a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you're no quaker, nor any thing else:--ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there's Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.--And there's Mr.
+Cole,--did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you've brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all."
+
+"You scoundrel!" exclaimed the colonel: "I'll make you show yourself;"
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel's heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. "Come on, colonel," said Mr. Bell; "let us catch this
+impudent rascal."
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am--here's Teigue--why don't you catch
+him?--Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm."
+
+"Let us see your face, you scoundrel," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!--look at me--look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?--you'll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner."
+
+"If you're upon the earth I'll find you, you villain!" said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. "He's round that corner," said
+Mr. Bell--"run, run."
+
+They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?--do you hear
+him?--Ho, ho, ho! you're a fine colonel to follow the wind."
+
+"Not that way, Mr. Bell--not that way; come here," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:--you a soldier!--ho, ho, ho!" The colonel was enraged--he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit--(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed--"Now, colonel Pratt--now, if you're a soldier, here's a
+leap for you;--now look at Teigue--why don't you look at him?--Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you're warm, I'm sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!" The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. "Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?--Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye--I'll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house--look at your watch, colonel:--there's a dive for you!" and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.
+
+"Well, did you see Teigue?" said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.--"Give me some
+wine," said the colonel. "I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he'd be
+here in ten minutes: 'tis more than that now, but he's not come."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn't he here?--Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I'm tired; and that's the colonel's doing." A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.
+
+"Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall."
+
+The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys' attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and "Ho, ho, ho!--good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!--'tis a good dinner, and there's the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen--good-bye to you, colonel--good-bye, Mr. Bell!--good-bye to
+you all!"--brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue's voice was heard no more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.
+
+
+
+
+NED SHEEHY'S EXCUSE.
+
+XXXII.
+
+
+Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody--no, not his
+worst enemy--could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o'clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.
+
+But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,--for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady's maid,--that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.
+
+In your grand houses--not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin--I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,--by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man--one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes--Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.
+
+But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak--he was a second whisperer!--there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds' ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was "No go." Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton's famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy's Leap to this hour.
+
+So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, "I'll turn
+off Ned," he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.
+
+One cold winter's day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,
+
+"Ned," said he, "go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson's horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O'Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.--Don't loiter, for your life."
+
+"Is it I, sir?" says Ned. "Well, that beats any thing; as if I'd stop
+out a minute!" So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.
+
+Four, five, six o'clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O'Toole, and the four misses O'Toole, and Mr. O'Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O'Toole, and Mr. James O'Toole, which were all the young O'Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.
+
+He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,
+
+"There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I'll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I'll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will."
+
+"Don't say so, Dick, dear," said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) "don't swear, Dick, dear," said
+she; "but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O'Toole,
+yesterday, I was, 'pon honour."
+
+Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned's face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.
+
+"Ned!" thundered his master in great indignation,--and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: "Get up, you scoundrel," said he.
+
+Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master's hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking--"O,
+sir!--don't be angry, sir!--don't be angry, and I'll roast you
+easier--easy as a lamb!"
+
+"Roast me easier, you vagabond!" said Mr. Gumbleton; "what do you
+mean?--I'll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?--Modderaroo
+will never get over it.--Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don't
+get you transported."
+
+"Thank God, master dear," said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened--"it's yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;--may whisky be my poison--"
+
+"It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel," said Mr.
+Gumbleton.
+
+"Well, then, _may_ whiskey be my poison," said Ned, "if 'twas not I
+was--in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned 'twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey's--I don't deny
+it--why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened."
+
+"Ned, my man," said Mr. Gumbleton, "I'll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow--"
+
+"Begging your honour's pardon," said Ned, earnestly, "for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows--they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and 'tis myself rep_i_nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I'll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don't pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day's luck or grace."
+
+"I know you, Ned," said Mr. Gumbleton. "Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don't intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir."
+
+Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy's excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.
+
+"No wonder your honour," said he, "should be a bit angry--grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don't blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all's heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+_joint_ (giant,) and I only a man.
+
+"I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o'clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour's hat. Well, I didn't care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy's field--sure
+your honour ought to know the place well--just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders."
+
+(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)
+
+"Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. 'How early you are at your work, my little fellows!' says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey's; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:--
+
+    'Ned! Ned!
+    By my cap so red!
+    You're as good, Ned,
+    As a man that is dead.'
+
+'A clean pair of spurs is all that's for it now,' said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. 'What river is this?' said I to myself--for
+there was nobody else to ask--'I thought,' says I, 'I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.' So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn't know what to do; but I thought in myself, it's a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!--fire!--robbery!--any thing
+that would be natural in such a place--but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn't do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. 'May be,'
+said I, 'my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.' But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too _study_ (steady) for a jacky lantern. 'I'll try you,' says
+I--'so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the _slob_.[29] At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.
+
+    [29] Or _slaib_; mire on the sea strand or river's
+    bank.--O'BRIEN.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, 'twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man's!--so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, 'Why don't you open the door to Ned Sheehy?' 'How pat my name is
+to you,' said I, without speaking out, 'on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;' and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.
+
+"'Why, then, Ned Sheehy,' says he, 'how grand you're grown, that you
+won't come in and see a friend, as you're passing by?'
+
+"'Pray, sir,' says I, looking at him--though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself--'Pray, sir,' says I,
+'may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?'
+
+"'Suppose I was,' says he: 'has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?'
+
+"'I'm not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,' says I, 'if 'tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.'
+
+"'Well,' says he, 'no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here's a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.'
+
+"Now, your honour, though 'twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood--to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within--for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door--if I don't love the creature
+as I love my own life--I went in with Jack Myers.
+
+"Civil enough he was--I'll never say otherwise to my dying hour--for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice--'twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened--spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, 'Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?'
+
+"'The never a word, sir,' says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.
+
+"'Have you no news,' says the voice, 'Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?'
+
+"'No, sir,' says I, 'never the word.'
+
+"'What brought you in here, Ned, then?' says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.
+
+"'Turn the scoundrel out,' says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.
+
+"'The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!' says I. 'Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!' says I, speaking to myself, 'my man, you're in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!' But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one's heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+'I'd better get up in a tree,' says I, 'for they say 'tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I'm in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.'
+
+"I could not help wondering how a _berrin_ (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I'll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you'd meet with in a day's walk.
+
+"'Where's the spit?' says one.
+
+"'Here 'tis,' says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.
+
+"If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the _Hannibals_
+father Quinlan told us about in his _sarmint_ last Sunday.
+
+"'Who'll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?' says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.
+
+"'Who'd turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?' says another.
+
+"Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?
+
+"'Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,' says he.
+
+"'I'm not here at all, sir,' says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.
+
+"'That won't do for you, my man,' says he; 'you'd better come down, or
+may be I'd make you.'
+
+"'I'm coming, sir,' says I; for 'tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.
+
+"'Don't scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,' says the man on the
+spit.
+
+"'And my lord, sir, and ar'n't you dead, sir,' says I, 'and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he.
+
+"'But surely you are, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.
+
+"So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be 'twould be the worse turn for myself.
+
+"'Will that do, sir?' says I, turning him as easy as I could.
+
+"'That's too easy,' says he: so I turned him faster.
+
+"'That's too fast,' says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.
+
+"Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. 'Murder!' says I, shouting out; 'I'm done for at
+long last--now or never!'--when all of a sudden, and 'twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' says the voice,--for 'twas shut
+against me,--and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.
+
+"'Have you any news for me?' says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'and plenty.' So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.
+
+"'If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,' said the voice.
+
+"'And how could I tell it to you, sir,' says I, 'before it happened?'
+
+"'No matter,' says he, 'you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you'd have
+been _kilt_ entirely.' So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought 'twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour's
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if 'twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me."
+
+"It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel," said Mr. Gumbleton; "have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?"
+
+"But never one, your honour, that really happened before," said Ned,
+with unblushing front. "Howsomever, since your honour fancies 'tis
+drinking I was, I'd rather never drink again to the world's end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I'm forgiven this once, and
+get another trial----"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gumbleton, "you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don't believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones."
+
+So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned's countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.
+
+"Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last," exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: "I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the _differ_
+(difference) to his cost."
+
+Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton's cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCKY GUEST.
+
+XXXIII.
+
+
+The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on "the
+master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.
+
+An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of _Coum an
+'ir morriv_ (the dead man's hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name "_currigguib_," a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.
+
+Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.
+
+"I have told you," she said, "what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother's roof."
+
+Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public speaking," she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:--
+
+"It was one May eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days," said Ellen, with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the _Drutheen_, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.
+
+"My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big _chimbley_.
+
+"'God bless us,' says my mother, 'but 'tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.'
+
+"I don't, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we'd like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in--having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.
+
+"We were all watching to see who'd come in, for there was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who'd
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn't mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
+
+"We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman's hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+_labbig_,[30] scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.
+
+    [30] _Labbig_--bed, from _Leaba_.--Vide O'BRIEN and O'REILLY.
+
+"When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 'twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o'clock; and then, if we'd look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the keyhole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so 'twas
+just fitting for the little arm.
+
+"The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and 'tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we'd instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane--but he was drunk--walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.
+
+"As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.
+
+"But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord--God forgive him--took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father--and small blame to him for
+that--refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.
+
+"It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the _moral_ (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock!--twelve
+o'clock!--no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.
+
+"My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."
+
+Here young Ellen's voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.
+
+     FIR DARRIG means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+     community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+     Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+     his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+     is doubtless the same as the Scottih _Red Cap_; which a writer
+     in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+     analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+     spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+     hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+     Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+     common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+     the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton's
+     "Lubber Fiend") and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+     of the Folletos, "Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+     effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+     vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+     reperisse."--_Otia Imperialia._
+
+     The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+     Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+     according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+     waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+     warbling of birds, &c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+     Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+     invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+     generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+     and red shoes.
+
+
+
+
+TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+    "Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back
+    When gold and silver becks me to come on."
+
+                                        _King John._
+
+    "This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so."
+
+                                    _Winter's Tale._
+
+
+
+
+DREAMING TIM JARVIS.
+
+XXXIV.
+
+
+Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.
+
+Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.
+
+But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him--"Tim Jarvis, you're
+all behind, Tim, like the cow's tail." Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver--and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney's
+coaster--and so he did!
+
+Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he--"Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?"
+
+"Surely I do, sir," said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.
+
+"Tim," says he, "what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?"
+
+"Please your honour," says Tim, "I'm come to seek my fortune."
+
+"You're a fool for your pains, Tim, if that's all," remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; "this is a big place to seek one's
+fortune in, to be sure, but it's not so easy to find it."
+
+Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.
+
+"There's many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes," said
+Tim.
+
+"True," said the stranger.
+
+"But," continued Tim, looking up, "the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I'm told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts."
+
+"And who told you that, Tim?"
+
+"Why then, sir, that's what I can't tell myself rightly--only I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!" said the stranger, laughing; "I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll's ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom."
+
+Tim knew Jerry Driscoll's ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it--so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he--
+
+"By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!"
+
+The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband--the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him--and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. "It wasn't for nothing," says Tim, "I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you'll see what'll come out of it--mind my words."
+
+A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours--as well they might--thought he was cracked!
+
+The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll's field, though it was
+said to be "the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil."
+
+It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:--"Norah, did you see e'er a cow you'd like?"--or, "Norah,
+dear, hasn't Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?"--or, "Norah honey,
+wouldn't you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle's?"
+
+As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze-bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.
+
+"How shall we bother Tim?" said one voice.
+
+"Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+_ould sarpint_; 'tis long since he has had a good meal," said another
+voice.
+
+Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.
+
+"No," said a third voice; "plunge him in the bog, neck and heels."
+
+Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.[31]
+
+    [31]  "I'non mori, e non rimasi vivo:
+          Pensa oramai per te, s'hai fior d'ingegno
+          Qual io divenni d'uno e d'altro privo."
+
+                        Dante, _Inferno_, canto 34.
+
+"Stop!" said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.
+
+When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up--he then took a big
+one--and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim--down, down and down he went--until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out--
+
+    "Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!
+    Welcome, down here!"
+
+Though Tim's teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer--"I'm he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself." But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, "Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?"
+
+"Mighty well! I thank your honour," said Tim; "and 'twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!"
+
+There was a great laugh at Tim's answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, "Shut your eyes, and you'll see,
+Tim."
+
+"By my word, then," said Tim, "that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I'm not the man to gainsay you, so I'll do as you bid me, any how."
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens[32], as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, "Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man," says
+he, "and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we've altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent."
+
+    [32] An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.
+
+"Oh, then, long life to you, sir!" said Tim, "and there's no doubt of
+that."
+
+"But what will you say, Tim," inquired the little fellow, "if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?"
+
+"Your honour's honour, and your honour's glory," answered Tim, "I'll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you--and
+indeed I've enough to do with them. I'd make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah--she has been a good wife to me. We'll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I'd have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if 'twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I'd build a new cabin;
+and I'd have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I'd snap my fingers at the 'squire, and beat his hounds, if they'd
+come coursing through my fields; and I'd have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy Leary's brats--that's my sister that
+was--and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I'd have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I'd have every thing," said Tim, "in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money--hurra-whoop!--and that's what I'd do."
+
+"Take care, Tim," said the little fellow, "your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop."
+
+But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man."
+
+"I hope, gentlemen," said he, "we won't part for good and all; but may
+be ye'll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I've done with your money."
+
+To this there was no answer, only another shout--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis--go home--fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye'll
+never see the light of day again."
+
+Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before--away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.
+
+He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs--and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll's, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat "her dreaming blackguard."
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.
+
+Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato-garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.
+
+Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding--"If they stayed with me I wouldn't have
+luck with them, sir; and father O'Shea told me 'twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn't, they'd have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way."
+
+I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the _sarpint_ in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. "The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm," was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis's
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.
+
+
+
+
+RENT-DAY.
+
+XXXV.
+
+
+"Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?" muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. "What will we do? to-morrow's rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don't pay up our rent, he'll cant every
+_ha'perth_ we have; and then, sure enough, there's Judy and myself,
+and the poor little _grawls_,[33] will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!--Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!"
+
+    [33] Children.
+
+Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,
+
+    "How ill the scene that offers rest,
+    And heart that cannot rest, agree!"
+
+Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.
+
+"What's the matter with you, my poor man?" said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman's sudden appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn't pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o'clock next
+day.
+
+"A sad story indeed," said the stranger; "but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord's agent, he won't have the heart
+to turn you out."
+
+"Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!" exclaimed
+Bill. "I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out."
+
+"Take this, my poor fellow, take this," said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill's old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. "Pay the fellow your rent, but I'll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!"
+
+These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.
+
+"O'Donoghue, O'Donoghue!" shouted Bill; "the good, the blessed
+O'Donoghue!" and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.
+
+The next day Bill proceeded to the agent's; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.
+
+"Why don't you take off your hat, fellow; don't you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?" said the agent.
+
+"I know I'm not speaking to the king, sir," said Bill; "and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I've no right either to respect or love an agent!"
+
+"You scoundrel!" retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, "I'll teach you how to
+be insolent again--I have the power, remember."
+
+"To the cost of the country, I know you have," said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.
+
+"But come," said the magistrate; "have you got the money for me?--this
+is rent-day. If there's one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that's due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession."
+
+"There is your rent," said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; "you'd better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all."
+
+The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold--real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one's pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.
+
+The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king's head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.
+
+From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O'Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.
+
+Like the butterfly, the spirit of O'Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.
+
+
+
+
+LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.
+
+XXXVI.
+
+
+Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant's Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?--who ever thinks of going--
+
+    --"westward, where Dick Martin _ruled_
+    The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?"
+
+The Ulster-man's ancient denunciation "to hell or to Connaught," has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground--a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium--in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, "I'll warrant he'll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o' green Erin, only
+something poorer;" and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+"worse would be needless;" but so it is.
+
+"My gracious me," said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, "I wonder a
+gentleman of your _teeste_ and _curosity_ would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a _tower_ (tour) of Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the _ould_ abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair."
+
+Polly M'Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The "old abbey" is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni's princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of "O'Rourke's old hall," gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.
+
+The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; "but,"
+continued he, "for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour's after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that's worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?" He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts--as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. "That's Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir," resumed my guide, "and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+_moral_ of it, only that it's round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, 'tis as good as fourscore years--I often _hard_ my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story--since Manus O'Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O'Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o'clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he'd find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O'Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother's father was a cow-boy to the earl O'Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M'Clure's--the old Frank that was then at that time--and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and 'tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he'd eat him, says he, in good English,
+
+"'Arrah, then, Manus,' says he, 'what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.'
+
+"'Oh, plase your honour,' says Manus, 'I beg my life:' and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.
+
+"'Well, as you have some blood of the O'Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I'll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.'
+
+"'Go home,' says the Payshtha--'go home, Manus,' says he; 'and if you
+can't make better use of your time, get drunk; but don't come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I'll show you something that you'll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.'
+
+"With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn't long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.
+
+"'Plase your honour,' says Manus, 'if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?'
+
+"'May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I'm bound to look after the Thiernas[34] of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch this cave, and what's in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.'
+
+    [34] _Tighearna_--a lord. Vide O'BRIEN.
+
+"'May be you are a sort of a banshee?'
+
+"'I am not, you fool,' said the little man. 'The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.'
+
+"Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O'Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant's tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.
+
+"'And now, Manus,' says the little man, 'ye seen the whole o' this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.' The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus's face, and says to
+him in a great passion, 'Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don't ye go
+about your business?'
+
+"'How can I?--sure you must show me the way out,' says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.
+
+"'Can't we go out the way we came?' says Manus.
+
+"'No, you must go out at the other end--that's the rule o' this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.' With
+that the little man gave him one _hoise_, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story."
+
+     As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+     all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+     concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+     expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+     admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+     exists a striking similarity.
+
+     Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+     by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l'Antiquite,
+     traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+     discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+     numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+     they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+     Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele's Danske Folkesagn, i.
+     112, ii. 24. Kirke's Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &c.
+
+     The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+     supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+     seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+     rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+     Holgar, and Grœn Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+     the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+     sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+     receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+     appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.
+
+     In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+     soliloquizing--"Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+     that He keeps it from us."
+
+
+
+
+ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+    "Forms in silence frown'd,
+    Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye
+    Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,
+    Wedding themselves with gloom--or grew
+    Gigantic to my troubled view,
+    And seem'd to gather round me."
+                 BANIM'S _Celt's Paradise_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.
+
+XXXVII.
+
+
+From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without "a crooked thought and a cross job." Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.
+
+This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains--_Labacally_, the hag's bed--not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.
+
+O'Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son--never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.
+
+Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman's, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.
+
+    "Infant heir of proud Fermoy,
+      Fear not fields of slaughter;
+    Storm and fire fear not, my boy,
+      But shun the fatal water."
+
+These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.
+
+The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord's vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:
+
+    ----"Put but a little water in a spoon,
+    And it shall be, as all the ocean,
+    Enough to stifle such a _being_ up."
+
+A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.
+
+The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+
+A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.
+
+Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.
+
+On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brien
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.
+
+Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning's sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.
+
+These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son--many a wife of a husband--many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!
+
+It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. "Thine, Regan,
+be the task," he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.
+
+With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning's dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!
+
+Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith's
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.
+
+The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;
+
+    "The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;
+    White-tooth'd, graceful, magnanimous, and active."
+
+The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag's
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.
+
+The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+_Clough-a-Regaun_ is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!
+
+
+
+
+CLOUGH NA CUDDY.
+
+XXXIX.
+
+
+Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen--"sweet Innisfallen," as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.
+
+However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner--the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.
+
+Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of "the fat father." Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it--and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. 'Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.
+
+    "He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.--What then?
+    He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!"
+
+Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled "blackjack" stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.
+
+Spiritual affairs--for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery--demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning's light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.
+
+The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off--"Hah!" exclaimed Cuddy, "what a noble haunch goes
+there!--how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!"
+
+As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.
+
+Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire satisfaction. "Welcome, Father
+Cuddy," said the prior: "grace be on you."
+
+"Grace before meat, then," said Cuddy, "for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water."
+
+A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy's appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:--he tried another,--it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!
+
+I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as "_in vino veritas_" his song will well become
+this veritable history.
+
+    CANTAT MONACHUS.
+
+    I.
+           Hoc erat in votis,
+         Et bene sufficerit totis
+        Si dum porto sacculum
+    Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!
+          Et si parvis
+            In arvis
+            Nullam
+            Invenero pullam,
+        Ovum gentiliter preæbebit recens
+            Puella decens.
+        Manu nec dabis invitâ
+            Flos vallium harum,
+            Decus puellarum,
+            Candida Marguerita!
+
+THE FRIAR'S SONG.
+
+    I.
+
+            My vows I can never fulfil,
+                      Until
+        I have breakfasted, one way or other;
+              And I freely protest,
+              That I never can rest
+              'Till I borrow or beg
+                    An egg,
+    Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.
+              But Maggy, my dear,
+              While you're here,
+                  I don't fear
+    To want eggs that have just been laid newly;
+              For och! you're a pearl
+                Of a girl,
+      And you're called so in _Latin_ most truly.
+
+    II.
+
+        Me hora jucunda cœnæ
+        Dilectat bene,
+      Et rerum sine dubio grandium
+      Maxima est prandium:
+        Sed mihi crede,
+        In hâc æde,
+    Multo magis gaudeo,
+      Cum gallicantum audio,
+        In sinu tuo
+        Videns ova duo.
+      Oh semper me tractes ita!
+        Panibus de hordeo factis,
+        Et copiâ lactis,
+      Candida Margarita!
+
+    III.
+
+    There is most to my mind something that is still upper
+                        Than supper,
+    Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner
+                        After dinner:
+    But soon as I hear the cock crow
+                        In the morning,
+    That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,
+                      By that warning,
+    While your buttermilk helps me to float
+                        Down my throat
+          Those sweet cakes made of oat.
+                        I don't envy an earl,
+                        Sweet girl,
+    Och, 'tis you are a beautiful pearl.
+
+Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery's delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.
+
+This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man's drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with _the venerable Bead_,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his "soul-case," so he figuratively termed
+the body.
+
+His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!--he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. "Bless my eyes," said Father
+Cuddy, "every thing is changing now-a-days!--the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think _Camceachta_ (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where."
+
+Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.
+
+"Ah, Margery, merry Margery!" cried Cuddy, "you tempting little rogue!
+
+    'Flos vallium harum,
+    Decus puellarum,
+    Candida Margarita.'
+
+"I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!" and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.
+
+At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.
+
+Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. "Bless my soul and body!" said the good father, "I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!" Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer's morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.
+
+Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.
+
+Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.
+
+Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.
+
+"Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what's your business?"
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter's place.
+
+"Business!--my business!" repeated the confounded Cuddy,--"why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?"
+
+"Hence, fellow!" said the porter's representative, in a surly tone;
+"nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales."
+
+"Fellow!" exclaimed the father: "mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!--Scoundrel!" cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, "do you not see my garb--my holy garb?"
+
+"Ay, fellow," replied he of the keys--"the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty--whom God preserve!"
+
+"Queen of England!" said Cuddy; "there never was a sovereign queen of
+England--this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night--the world's turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?"
+
+"Know you!--how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey.
+"Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since."
+
+"'Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery's fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad--no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. "A hundred years!--what was your great-grandmother's name?"
+
+"She was a Mahony of Dunlow--Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother--"
+
+"What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!" shouted Cuddy.
+"St. Brandon help me!--the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!--why, 'twas only last night--a hundred years!--your
+great-grandmother, said you?--There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!"
+
+That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery's fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.
+
+The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy--so is the stone
+called--remains in Lord Kenmare's park, an indisputable evidence of
+the fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIANT'S STAIRS.
+
+XL.
+
+
+On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne's Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.
+
+Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, "_genus_."
+
+One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.
+
+There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O'Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.
+
+Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. "The seven years--my time of service,--are clean out, Robin,"
+said he, "and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after."
+
+"And how will I know," said Robin--cunning enough, even in his
+sleep--"but this is all a dream?"
+
+"Take that," said the boy, "for a token"--and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.
+
+Robin was well acquainted with the Giant's Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.
+
+Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk's
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin's dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant's
+Stairs.
+
+After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant's Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant's Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, "'Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream."
+
+"And whose doing is it," said Tom, "but your own?"
+
+At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king's palace unfolded itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.
+
+"Robin, Robin," said he, "if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?" But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+"What seek you?" he demanded in a voice of thunder.
+
+"I come," answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on--for his heart was almost fainting within him--"I come," said he,
+"to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night."
+
+"And who sent you here?" said the giant.
+
+"'Twas of my own accord I came," said Robin.
+
+"Then you must single him out from among my pages," said the giant;
+"and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me."
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.
+
+"Here," said Mahon, "you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice."
+
+Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin's own sledge battering on his anvil.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.
+
+"'Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry," remarked
+Robin, "although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. 'Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!"
+
+"Ay," said the giant, "that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith."
+
+Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and, all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, "Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne."
+
+"It is Philip Ronayne--happy Philip Ronayne," said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant's Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.
+
+Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure--Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline--the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.
+
+"Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?" was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.
+
+"Am I sure? Well, that's a queer question," was Robin's reply; "seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the _purly_ wart on the right side of his
+little nose."
+
+However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne's court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.
+
+Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years' apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.
+
+      And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o'er;
+        The tales my infancy had loved to hear,
+        Like blissful visions fade and disappear.
+      Such tales Momonia's peasant tells no more!
+      Vanish'd are MERMAIDS from the sea beat shore;
+        Check'd is the HEADLESS HORSEMAN'S strange career;
+        FIR DARRIG'S voice no longer mocks the ear,
+      Nor ROCKS bear wondrous imprints as of yore!
+      Such is "the march of mind." But did the fays
+        (Creatures of whim--the gossamers of will)
+        In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill
+      As stormier spirits of our modern days?
+    Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:
+    My constant prayer--"may peace be with thee still!"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire--
+
+    "Who every year can mend your cheer
+      With tales both old and new."
+
+The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.
+
+The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.
+
+I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely "pulled the old woman out of our hearts," as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even _score above the breath_. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.
+
+But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon's court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday's sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went "to raise the water," as if the
+South'ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy _cortege_ awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.
+
+I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G----, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair-day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself _artist from Vauxhall_, and that he
+exhibits _fantoccini_; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G----. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch's sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord ---- could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.
+
+It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.
+
+As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much
+
+                               Your obliged and thankful servant,
+                                                        WALTER SCOTT.
+
+27th April, 1825.
+
+    ABBOTSFORD, MELROSE.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The
+South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South
+of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland
+
+Author: T. Crofton Crocker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2012 [EBook #39752]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.
+
+    BY
+
+    T. CROFTON CROKER.
+
+
+    A New Edition.
+
+    WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
+    AFTER DESIGNS OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.
+
+
+    "Come l'araba Fenice
+    Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;
+    Dove sia, nessun lo sa."--METASTASIO.
+
+
+    Philadelphia:
+    LEA AND BLANCHARD.
+    1844.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The erudite Lessing styles a preface "the history of a book." Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.
+
+However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the "Fairy Legends"
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.
+
+Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced, as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.
+
+
+
+
+            CONTENTS.
+
+
+            THE SHEFRO.
+
+          I. The Legend of Knocksheogowna,
+         II. ---- Knockfierna,
+        III. ---- Knockgrafton,
+         IV. The Priest's Supper,
+          V. The Brewery of Egg-shells,
+         VI. Legend of Bottle Hill,
+        VII. The Confessions of Tom Bourke,
+       VIII. Fairies or no Fairies,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+         IX. The Haunted Cellar,
+          X. Master and Man,
+         XI. The Little Shoe,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE BANSHEE.
+
+        XII. The Bunworth Banshee,
+       XIII. The McCarthy Banshee,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE PHOOKA.
+
+        XIV. The Spirit Horse,
+         XV. Daniel O'Rourke,
+        XVI. The Crookened Back,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+       XVII. Fior Usga,
+      XVIII. Cormac and Mary (_Ballad_,)
+        XIX. The Legend of Lough Gur,
+         XX. The Enchanted Lake,
+        XXI. The Legend of O'Donoghue,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE MERROW.
+
+       XXII. The Lady of Gollerus,
+      XXIII. Flory Cantillon's Funeral,
+       XXIV. The Lord of Dunkerron (_Ballad_,)
+        XXV. The Wonderful Tune,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE DULLAHAN.
+
+       XXVI. The Good Woman,
+      XXVII. Hanlon's Mill,
+     XXVIII. The Death Coach (_Ballad_,)
+       XXIX. The Headless Horseman,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+        XXX. Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,
+       XXXI. Teigue of the Lee,
+      XXXII. Ned Sheehy's Excuse,
+     XXXIII. The Lucky Guest,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+      XXXIV. Dreaming Tim Jarvis,
+       XXXV. Rent Day,
+      XXXVI. Linn-na-Payshtha,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+     XXXVII. The Legend of Cairn Thierna,
+    XXXVIII. The Rock of the Candle,
+      XXXIX. Clough-na-Cuddy,
+         XL. The Giant's Stairs.
+
+            APPENDIX--Letter from Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.
+
+CASTLE MAHON.
+
+
+    THEE, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land
+      (Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)
+      A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;
+    The moonlight SHEFROS there, in merry band
+    With artful CLURICAUNE, should ready stand
+      To welcome thee--Imagination's child!
+      Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild
+    The BANSHEE'S shriek, who points with wither'd hand.
+    In the dim twilight should the PHOOKA come,
+      Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,
+      That opens clear calm LAKES upon thy sight,
+    Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.
+    I know thee, Lady--thou wilt not deride
+    Such Fairy Scenes.--Then onward with thy Guide.
+
+                                  T. Crofton Croker. [signature]
+
+[Illustration: The Wood Engravings after Designs by
+               Mr. BROOKE, R. H. A.,
+               Mr. McCLISE,
+               and the AUTHOR.]
+
+
+
+
+Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Look there! look there, mammy!"]
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHEFRO.
+
+    ----------------"Fairy Elves
+    Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+    Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
+    Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon
+    Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
+    Wheels her pale course."--
+                                       MILTON.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.
+
+I.
+
+
+In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.
+
+But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,--now
+in one shape--now in another,--but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a bull's head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck's feet, and a turkey cock's tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.
+
+The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.
+
+What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry's asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. "If that is all ails you," said Larry, "make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one's thumb." "Larry,"
+said the farmer, "do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight."
+
+The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer's
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, "What! another man upon the fairies' ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;" and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. "Go on, jewel,"
+said Larry; "if you dance, I'll pipe;" and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that, and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.
+
+Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; "spreading like a
+sea," and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain's base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, "By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap _for
+a calf_!"
+
+She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+"Laurence," said she, "you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?" "And that's what I will," said he, "if you let me." So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: "You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence," said she, "that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it." She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry's life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer's expense, and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna[1] after his death, is more than I can say.
+
+    [1] Knocksheogowna signifies "_The Hill of the Fairy Calf._"
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.[2]
+
+II.
+
+
+    [2] "Called by the people of the country '_Knock Dhoinn
+    Firinne_,' the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very
+    high, and may be seen for several miles round; and when people
+    are desirous to know whether or not any day will rain, they look
+    at the top of Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist
+    there, they immediately conclude that rain will soon follow,
+    believing that Donn (the lord or chief) of that mountain and his
+    aerial assistants are collecting the clouds, and that he holds
+    them there for some short time, to warn the people of the
+    approaching rain. As the appearance of mist on that mountain in
+    the morning is considered an infallible sign that that day will
+    be rainy, Donn is called '_Donn Firinne_,' Donn of Truth."--MR.
+    EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.
+
+It has been truly said, that "good manners are no burden," and that
+"civility costs nothing;" but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O'Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, "Devil Daly."
+
+Carroll O'Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, "Good luck attend you, gentlemen."
+
+It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards "the Balbec of Ireland," the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O'Daly asked his companion how far he was going?
+
+"Not far your way," said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; "I'm only going to the top of this hill here."
+
+"And what might take you there," said O'Daly, "at this time of the
+night?"
+
+"Why then," replied the farmer, "if you want to know; 'tis the _good
+people_."
+
+"The fairies you mean," said O'Daly.
+
+"Whist! whist!" said his fellow-traveller, "or you may be sorry for
+it;" and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O'Daly good night and a safe journey.
+
+"That fellow," thought Carroll, "is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!" he repeated, "is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of."
+
+Carroll O'Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon's disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.
+
+A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O'Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, "Here's
+after you, old boy!" he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.
+
+Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O'Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+"Poul-duve," or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.
+
+"But," thought O'Daly, "these are old woman's stories: and since I've
+come up so far, I'll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home."
+
+No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,--and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O'Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.
+
+Carroll O'Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey's end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.
+
+III.
+
+
+There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.
+
+Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,[3] in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,
+
+    "Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
+    Apparent Queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
+    And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
+
+    [3] Literally, the great herb--_Digitalis purpurea_.
+
+Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:--
+
+_Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, when
+there would be a moment's pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.
+
+Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words _augus Da Cadine_, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with _augus Da
+Cadine_.[4]
+
+    [4] Correctly written, _Dia Luain_, _Dia Mairt_, _agus Dia
+    Ceadaoine_, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
+
+The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.
+
+Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart's content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.
+
+Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,--
+
+    "Lusmore! Lusmore!
+    Doubt not, nor deplore,
+    For the hump which you bore
+    On your back is no more!--
+    Look down on the floor,
+    And view it, Lusmore!"
+
+When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.
+
+Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man--in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.
+
+Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.
+
+One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.
+
+"I need give you no directions, my good woman," said Lusmore, "for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?"
+
+"I have come," said the woman, "out of Decie's country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: 'tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can."
+
+Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.
+
+The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.
+
+Jack Madden for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: _Da
+Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _augus
+Da Cadine_, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+_augus da Cadine augus Da Hena_,[5] thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.
+
+    [5] And Wednesday and Thursday.
+
+No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said--
+
+    "Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
+    Your words came so bad in
+    The tune we feel glad in;--
+    This castle you're had in,
+    That your life we may sadden;--
+    Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"
+
+And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIEST'S SUPPER.
+
+IV.
+
+
+It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork--a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.
+
+On a nice green sod by the river's side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out--
+
+    "Cease, cease with your drumming,
+    Here's an end to our mumming;
+        By my smell
+        I can tell
+    A priest this way is coming!"
+
+And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.
+
+The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with "My blessing on all here."
+
+I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which "the old
+woman," for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. "No
+matter," thought Dermod, "there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest's supper, that one
+will be there before me."
+
+Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of "the spreading Lee;" but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.
+
+Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, "May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there's any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I'm clear in my own mind you'll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you--did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?"
+
+"That's not true for you," said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; "there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you."
+
+Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: "Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest's supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time."
+
+"I'll have nothing at all to do with you," replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, "I'm much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him--so there's
+an end of the matter."
+
+The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod's
+manner, continued, "Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?"
+
+Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+"I see no objection to do that same, gentlemen," said Dermod; "But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,--mind that."
+
+"Then," said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, "go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay."
+
+Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.
+
+"Please your reverence," said Dermod, after some hesitation, "may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"What may that be?" said Father Horrigan.
+
+"Why, then, begging your reverence's pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?"
+
+"Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?" said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.
+
+"I'll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth," said Dermod. "It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer."
+
+"Go back by all means," said the priest, "and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I'll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life."
+
+Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.
+
+When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.
+
+V.
+
+
+It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Mid-summer Night's Dream[6] and the
+Fairy Queen?[7]
+
+    [6] Act ii. sc. 1.
+
+    [7] Book i. canto 10.
+
+Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+"fairies' theft," to use Spenser's words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.
+
+Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.
+
+One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.
+
+"You're in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan," were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.
+
+"You may say that, Ellen," said Mrs. Sullivan, "and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen."
+
+"Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan," said Ellen Leah; "but are you
+sure 'tis a fairy?"
+
+"Sure!" echoed Mrs. Sullivan, "sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother's soul must feel for me!"
+
+"Will you take an old woman's advice?" said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, "but may be you'll call it foolish?"
+
+"Can you get me back my child,--my own child, Ellen?" said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.
+
+"If you do as I bid you," returned Ellen Leah, "you'll know." Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. "Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you."
+
+Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot--it surely was.
+
+The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, "What are you doing, mammy?"
+
+Mrs. Sullivan's heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, "I'm brewing, _a vick_" (my son).
+
+"And what are you brewing, mammy?" said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.
+
+"I wish the poker was red," thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.
+
+"Is it what I'm brewing, _a vick_," said she, "you want to know?"
+
+"Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?" returned the fairy.
+
+"Egg-shells, _a vick_," said Mrs. Sullivan.
+
+"Oh!" shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, "I'm fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!" The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow--his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.
+
+Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy--and she wept!--tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them--they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.
+
+VI.
+
+
+    "Come listen to a tale of times of old,
+    Come listen to me--"
+
+It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from "the beautiful city called Cork." Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, 'twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,--_she_ was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn't enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.
+
+"Why then, Molly," says he, "what'll we do?"
+
+"Wisha, then, mavournene, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?" says she; "and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested _again_ the
+fair."
+
+"And what'll we do when she's gone?" says Mick, sorrowfully.
+
+"Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won't leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?"
+
+"Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won't be sorry for selling the cow; but I'll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+'tis ripped under the arm."
+
+Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o'clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.
+
+"Oh, then, if I only had half the money that's buried in you, 'tisn't
+driving this poor cow I'd be now! Why, then, isn't it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God's will, I'll have some money myself coming
+back."
+
+So saying, he moved on after his beast; 'twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill--Bottle Hill 'tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.
+
+"Good morrow," says he. "Good morrow," kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you'd almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn't quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man's company; and he couldn't see one bit of
+his legs, nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great-coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn't know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick's heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn't come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn't the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing--when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.
+
+"Where are you going with the cow, honest man?"
+
+"To the fair of Cork then," says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.
+
+"Are you going to sell her?" said the stranger.
+
+"Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?"
+
+"Will you sell her to me?"
+
+Mick started--he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.
+
+"What'll you give for her?" at last says he.
+
+"I'll tell you what, I'll give you this bottle," said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.
+
+Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"Laugh if you will," said the little man, "but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork--ay, than ten thousand times as much."
+
+Mick laughed again. "Why then," says he, "do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle--and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won't."
+
+"You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle--you'll not be
+sorry for it."
+
+"Why, then, and what would Molly say? I'd never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?
+
+"I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell."
+
+Mick started.
+
+"How does he know my name?" thought he.
+
+The stranger proceeded: "Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?"
+
+Mick was going to say "God forbid!" but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that's what many people, that hold their heads higher, don't mind
+now).
+
+"And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?
+
+"Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir," said Mick; "and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I'd give you the
+cow in the name----"
+
+"Never mind names," said the stranger, "but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly."
+
+Mick hesitated.
+
+"Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!" said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.
+
+"May be 'tis true," said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do--he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle--"Take the cow," said he, "and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you."
+
+"I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you."
+
+"And what's that?" says Mick.
+
+"When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean, set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: 'Bottle, do your duty,' and you will see the end
+of it."
+
+"And is this all?" says Mick.
+
+"No more," said the stranger. "Good by, Mick Purcell--you are a rich
+man."
+
+"God grant it!" said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Lord between us and harm!" said Mick: "_He_ can't belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?" She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
+
+"And what would I do if it broke?" thought he. "Oh! but I'll take care
+of that;" so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.
+
+"Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer'n't at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it."
+
+"Why then, Molly, if you'll give me time, I'll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, 'tisn't Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now."
+
+"Oh! then, you sold her; and where's the money?"
+
+"Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?" said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.
+
+"Why, then, be easy now, can't you," says Mick, "till I tell it to
+you?" and putting the bottle on the table, "That's all I got for the
+cow."
+
+His poor wife was thunderstruck. "All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what'll we do for
+the rent, and what----"
+
+"Now, Molly," says Mick, "can't you hearken to reason? Didn't I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,--no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me--on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!" said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband's head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man's advice) loosened his wife's
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn't know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, "Bottle, do your duty."
+
+"Look there! look there, mammy!" said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old--"look there! look there!" and he sprang to his
+mother's side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn't think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, "Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day's work."
+
+"Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle."
+
+Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn't taste half the dishes.
+
+"Now," says Molly, "I wonder will those two good little gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?" They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, "Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you'll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell."
+
+Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money--sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he'd never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken--he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,
+
+    "Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending
+    And thrilling with music, was melting in light."
+
+Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:--"Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man."
+
+"Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that's no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now--but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it."
+
+"And here is the bottle," said the old man, smiling; "you know what to
+do with it."
+
+"Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have."
+
+"Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man."
+
+"And good bye to you, sir," said Mick, as he turned back; "and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill--it wants a name--Bottle
+Hill.--Good bye, sir, good bye;" so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,--"Oh! sure,
+I've another bottle!"
+
+"Arrah! then have you? why, then, you're a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that's what you are."
+
+In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, "Bottle, do your duty." In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.
+
+"Well, what do you want now?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle."
+
+"Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"Come along, then." So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: "Ah! ha!"
+says he to himself, "may be I won't have you by and by."
+
+"Now," says his landlord, "show us your bottle." Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, "Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I'll have you
+hanged!"
+
+"They never shall stop," said Mick, "till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf."
+
+"Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!"
+says the landlord.
+
+Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord's only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so 'twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
+
+VII.
+
+
+Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom's father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called "the good people."
+
+Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect--they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eye-brows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. "Very well, sir;" "That's true,
+sir;" "I'm very thankful to your honour," and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.
+
+Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man's business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular, that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind--a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.
+
+It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is _struck_[8] in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, _after_ their
+recovery.
+
+    [8] The term "fairy struck" is applied to paralytic affections,
+    which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the invisible
+    hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates fairy
+    doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+    to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has
+    also a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently
+    made to bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a
+    sacrifice to Bacchus.
+
+    The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+    peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of
+    consideration and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be
+    buried with his or her "own people."
+
+To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the _good people_
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.
+
+About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom's, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin's house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent _potteen_, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom's, this seemed a good
+opportunity.
+
+"Well, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer's, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day."
+
+"You may say that, sir," replied Tom Bourke; "but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma'am," said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+"So I had, ma'am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time."
+
+"Come, Tom," said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, "take
+another tumbler;" and he then added, "I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over."
+
+"'Tis true for you, sir," returned Tom; "your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won't belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of 'em now."
+
+"And how did you find it out, Tom?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you, sir," said Bourke: "When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little _bohereen_, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy's ground; for 'twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother's berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,[9] that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. 'Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),' says I. 'I'm sorry for your trouble,' says he; 'but you're a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.' 'What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?' says I: 'the doctors give him over.' 'The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,' says Shamous: 'but go to such a one,' says he, telling me his
+name, 'and try what he'll say to you.'"
+
+    [9] A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie man
+    of Scotland.
+
+"And who was that, Tom?" asked Mr. Martin.
+
+"I could not tell you that, sir," said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+"howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I'd
+have now some of them that's gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great _impression_
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad--very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o'clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one half-penny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you--I wont belie my father, sir--he was a good
+father to me--I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. 'Is that you, father?' says I. He said nothing. 'If that's
+you,' says I again, 'for the love of them that's gone, let me catch
+your hand.' And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child's.
+He stayed about as long as you'd be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn't
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains."
+
+"But I think, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father----"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Bourke, interrupting him; "but don't
+call them my enemies. 'Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.--Here's
+wishing you a good health and long life."
+
+"I assure you," returned Mr. Martin, "I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?"
+
+"I can't tell you that, sir," said Bourke; "I'm bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them."
+
+There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son's illness--circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.
+
+"See that now," said he, returning to Mr. Martin, "how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma'am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats' whey."
+
+Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued--"Why, then, I'll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e'er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father's. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?"
+
+"Certainly not, Tom," returned Mr. Martin.
+
+"Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.--'Whisht, you fool!' says I: ''tis all for the better.' 'Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma'am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack's face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+'Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you."
+
+"'Twas very strange, indeed, Tom," said Mr. Martin; "I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it."
+
+"I wish I could, sir," was Tom Bourke's answer; "but I'm bound down. I
+can't tell but what I'm allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds."
+
+"I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"So I had, sir," returned Bourke. "I had a trial of that man. But
+that's neither here nor there. I can't tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?"
+
+"Oh! very much indeed," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story," added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.
+
+"Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, 'cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother's
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father's people--I mean their friends, sir, among
+the _good people_, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she'd be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father's people."
+
+"He was a valuable friend, Tom," said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. "But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful."
+
+"So I will, and welcome," replied Bourke. "Your health, ma'am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one's throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?--Yes--well--Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a _berrin_ late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,[10] near Ballyhefaan
+ford.[11] He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they'd break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that's saying enough for him; so he whipped[12] off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he'd show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!--his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+them. Patrick was 'shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. 'Patrick,' says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+'Patrick,' says he, 'you're discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I'm your friend, and your father's friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don't be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.'
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey."
+
+    [10] Inch--low meadow ground near a river.
+
+    [11] A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,) on
+    the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.
+
+    [12] _i. e._ "In the time of a crack of a whip," he took off his
+    shoes and stockings.
+
+"And what was the cause of his great success?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"He could not help it, sir," replied Tom Bourke. "They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side."
+
+"Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?" said Mr. Martin.
+
+"I'll tell you that too, sir," answered Bourke, "when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn't make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it's little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can't tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn't be the man he is
+to-day.
+
+"I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill," said
+Mr. Martin.
+
+"You have it all now, sir," replied Bourke. "Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn't hinder the fever, they'd bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick's family, and it went again' his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+'em boasting how they'd dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever."
+
+"I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford," said Mr. Martin. "'Tis a great place for the good people, isn't
+it, Tom?"
+
+"You may say that, sir," returned Bourke. "I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th' other side of the river, looking at 'em playing goal
+as if they'd break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th' other, just as you'd see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming's
+big field. I saw 'em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th' other. I'm sure they were
+going to fight, only, 'twas near morning. I'm told your grandfather,
+ma'am, used to see 'em, there, too," said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.
+
+"So I have been told, Tom," replied Mrs. Martin. "But don't they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper[13] is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch."
+
+    [13] About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+    nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.
+
+"Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma'am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard," said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, "'twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother's soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with 'em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among 'em (for he hadn't a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+'Davy,' says he, 'take out a partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don't offer to kiss her.' 'That I won't,' says Davy,
+'although her lips were made of honey.' And with that he made his bow
+to the _purtiest_ girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+'Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th' admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. 'Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; 'twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn't get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o'clock."
+
+When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.--He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning church-yards, river-sides, peprechans, and _dina
+magh_, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, "I can talk no more;" stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom's wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, "As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork."
+
+
+
+
+FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.
+
+VIII.
+
+
+John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done--but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.
+
+John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories--many more did not believe them--but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.
+
+Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible--that it was merely old woman's gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources--nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge--they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.
+
+"But," said they, "Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?"
+
+"Never," was the reply.--"Never, as I am a man of honour and credit."
+
+"Well, then," they answered, "until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother."
+
+Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle's, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined--he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host's entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, ("not," added he, "however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,") they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.
+
+He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. "Yes, indeed!" muttered he, "the
+brats had me in one thing--I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one--and by the powers! what is that?"
+
+He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments--and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak's branches--some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves--some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk--some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse's neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+"Bravo! little fellow," said he, "well kicked and strong." But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.
+
+"I wish," said Jack, "I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean."
+
+No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.
+
+"Halloo!" said he, "young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you _oc-oc-_ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying."
+
+Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, "Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?"
+
+"The fairies," shouted Jack; "the fairies!"
+
+"I am afraid," muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, "the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter--come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch."
+
+He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;--how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. "Suppose," said one of the
+lads, "we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?"
+
+"Done!" cried Jack; "but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air." This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.
+
+Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. "Look there," he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; "look, and deny if you can."
+
+"Why," said one of the lads, pausing, "true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;" and he dismounted to climb over the wall.
+
+"Ah, Tom! Tom," cried Jack, "stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies--the good people, I mean--hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or--look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak--God
+help him! for he is past the help of man."
+
+By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. "Jack,"
+said he, "keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup."
+
+"Catsup," said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly--"What do you mean by
+catsup?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Tom, "but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball."
+
+Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.
+
+I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but--
+
+              "These our actors,
+    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+    Are melted into air--into thin air."
+
+     The name SHEFRO, by which the foregoing section is
+     distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+     and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+     to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+     to have castles or mansions of their own.--See _Stewart's
+     Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &c.
+
+     _Sia_, _sigh_, _sighe_, _sigheann_, _siabhra_, _siachaire_,
+     _siogidh_, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+     Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+     or witch. Thus we have the compounds _Leannan-sighe_, a
+     familiar, from _Leannan_, a pet, and _Sioghdhraoidheachd_,
+     enchantment with or by spirits.
+
+     _Sigh gaoithe_ or _siaheann-gaoithe_, a whirlwind, is so termed
+     because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+     day called _Sia_, because twilight,
+
+        "That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,"
+
+     is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+     _Sigh_ is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+     to dwell within. _Sidhe_, _sidheadh_, and _sigh_, are names for
+     a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+     fairies.
+
+     The term _Shoges_, i.e. _Sigh oges_ (young or little spirits,)
+     Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+     "The Irish Hudibras," 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+     entitled "The Fingallian Travesty," is among the Sloane MSS.
+     No. 900. In the Third Part of O'Flaherty's Ogygia, it is
+     related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+     chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for "_Sidhe_, or
+     fairies," by some pagan ladies.
+
+     "The Irish," according to the Rev. James Hely's translation of
+     O'Flaherty, "call these _Sidhe_, aerial spirits or phantoms,
+     because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+     common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+     are called by us _Sidhe_ or _Siodha_."
+
+     For a similar extended use of the German word _Alp_, _Elf_, &c.
+     see Introductory Essay to the Grimms' _Irische Elfenmaerchen_,
+     pp. 55-62.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+    "----------------- That sottish elf
+    Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,
+    Draining the cellar with as free a hand
+    As if it were his purse which ne'er lacked coin;--
+    And then, with feign'd contrition ruminates
+    Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,
+    In some secluded dell or lonely grove
+    Tinsel'd by Twilight."--
+                                               {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED CELLAR.
+
+IX.
+
+
+There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies--one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more--and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh--and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.
+
+But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.
+
+There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy's butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.
+
+"We have no fault," they would say, "to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days."
+
+"'Tis a queer thing that, surely," thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler's pantry:--"'tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar."
+
+Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.
+
+A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.
+
+"Where is William?" inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Sir?" said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.
+
+"Is it William, please your honour?" returned Jack; "why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just _one_ drop too much last night."
+
+"Where did he get it?" said Mr. Mac Carthy; "for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself."
+
+"Sorrow a know I know," said Leary, "unless the cook might have given
+him the _least taste_ in life of whiskey. But," continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, "may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"Speak out, Jack," said Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Why, then, does your honour want a butler?"
+
+"Can you recommend me one," returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, "and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?"
+
+"Is the wine-cellar all the matter?" said young Leary: "not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that."
+
+"So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?"
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.
+
+"Exactly so," answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.
+
+"Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial."
+
+"Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!"
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.
+
+"Jack Leary," said he at length, "Jack--is it Jack?" in a tone of
+wonder; "faith, 'tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;" and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.
+
+It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack's former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an "Out of the way, sirrah." Indeed, poor Jack's memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.
+
+When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary--so
+he still continued to call his new butler. "Jack," said he, "I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner."
+
+Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.
+
+It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.
+
+For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy's guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,--a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.
+
+It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.
+
+The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.
+
+The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages--I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.
+
+Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind--for it was before the days of
+Bramah's patent,--and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.
+
+Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.
+
+To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.
+
+When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.
+
+"What kept-you?" said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; "and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since."
+
+"The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir," said Jack, trembling
+violently; "I hope 'tis not all lost."
+
+"What do you mean, fool?" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: "why did you not fetch some with you?"
+
+Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, "this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it." So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.
+
+When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled
+
+                "like those mites
+    Of candied dew in moony nights--
+
+and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.
+
+"Ha, scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, "have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar--what are you doing there?"
+
+"Sure, and master," returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, "a'n't we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?"
+
+"Oh!" thought Mr. Mac Carthy, "if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don't see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy." So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.
+
+For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.
+
+Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger--ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;--only looking mighty old. But still 'tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call _spre-na-skillinagh_,
+and 'tis said is never without a shilling in it.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND MAN.
+
+X.
+
+
+Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.
+
+It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. "By my word," chattered Billy, "a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best."
+
+"Never wish it twice, Billy," said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.
+
+"Success, my little fellow," said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the _good people_;
+"here's your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;" and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.
+
+"Success," said the little man; "and you're heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don't think to cheat me as you have done others,--out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman."
+
+"Is it I pay you?" said Billy: "could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?"
+
+"Billy Mac Daniel," said the little man, getting very angry, "you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me."
+
+When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the livelong night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.
+
+When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, "You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don't fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master."
+
+Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, "Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night."
+
+Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: "But," said he, "if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us."
+
+"Ask no questions, Billy," said the little man, "but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find."
+
+Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. "Get up, Billy," said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.
+
+"Where will I get up, please your honour?" said Billy.
+
+"Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure," said the little man.
+
+"Is it after making a fool of me you'd be," said Billy, "bidding me
+get a horse-back upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?"
+
+"Up! up! and no words," said the little man, looking very vexed; "the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it." So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: "Borram! Borram! Borram!" cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse's tail; and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.
+
+At last they came to their journey's end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: "Now, Billy," said the little man, "do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse's head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can't
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb."
+
+The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.
+
+The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. "The best of masters are you
+surely," said Billy to him; "no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink."
+
+"I have made no bargain with you," said the little man, "and will make
+none; but up and follow me." Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, "Borram, Borram, Borram," had passed
+their lips.
+
+When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there--sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman's wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well--ay, better than the butler himself.
+
+One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, "Billy, I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take." So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. "If I have," thought Billy, "he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don't see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master."
+
+Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer's house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunniel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, "Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!"
+
+"God bless us, sir," said Billy, "will you?"
+
+"Don't say these words again, Billy," said the little man, "or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married."
+
+"I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all," said Billy, "if
+ever you mean to marry."
+
+"And to that purpose," said the little man, "have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunniel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me."
+
+"And what will Darby Riley say to that?" said Billy.
+
+"Silence!" said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: "I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;" and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.
+
+In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cocksparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.
+
+There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward--and under them were the priest and piper--and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby's two brothers and his uncle's
+son--and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had--and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster--and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it--and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.
+
+Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig's head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said "God bless us." All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig's head and greens. And after a
+moment's pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.
+
+Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. "Ha!" exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches--"Ha!" said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, "I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley."
+
+Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying "God bless us."
+
+Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.
+
+At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, "God save us!" Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, "I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel--take _that_ for your wages," gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.
+
+If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE SHOE.
+
+XI.
+
+
+"Now tell me, Molly," said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,[14]
+"did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?"
+
+    [14] "Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+    Silence."--_O'Keefe's Recollections._
+
+"Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many's
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about 'em."
+
+"But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?"
+
+"Och! no, I never _see_ one in my life; but my grandfather, that's my
+father's father, you know, he _see_ one, one time, and caught him
+too."
+
+"Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?"
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day's work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, 'I'll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I'll have money enough always.' So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn't make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he _see_ the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. 'Faith I have you now,' says he, 'and I'll never let you go
+till I get your purse--that's what I won't; so give it here to me at
+once, now.'--'Stop, stop,' says the Cluricaune, 'stop, stop,' says he,
+'till I get it for you.' So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often _see_ it, and had it in her hand, and 'twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw."
+
+"And did you see it yourself, Molly?"
+
+"Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough."
+
+     The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+     Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+     former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.
+
+     The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+     and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+     Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+     Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+     Irish for a pigmy.
+
+     It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+     one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word _luacharman_
+     is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+     the English word, _man_.--A rushy man,--that may be, a man of
+     the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+     is, unfrequented or boggy places.
+
+     The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+     court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+     Leprochaune:--
+
+     _Court._--Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+     character or designation.
+
+     _Witness._--My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+     fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+     carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+     keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+     cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+     let him go, and then you're as rich as a Jew.
+
+     _Court._--Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+     Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.
+
+     _Witness._--Yes, my lord, there was one--
+
+     _Court._--That will do.
+
+     With respect to "money matters," there appears to be a strong
+     resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+     Cluricaune.--"Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+     quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit," are
+     the words of Petronius.--See, for farther arguments in support
+     of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm's Essay on
+     the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+     work, under the head of "Ancient Testimonies."
+
+     "Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+     skill of the dwarfs in curious smith's-work."--"The Irish
+     Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+     making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+     the old Northern language a shoe-maker is called a
+     _shoe-smith_;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+     tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+     shoe-maker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+     with incredible quickness during the night."
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+    "Who sits upon the heath forlorn,
+    With robe so free and tresses torn?
+    Anon she pours a harrowing strain,
+    And then--she sits all mute again!
+    Now peals the wild funereal cry--
+    And now--it sinks into a sigh."
+                              OURAWNS.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANSHEE.
+
+XII.
+
+
+The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to "_the
+minister_" (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country--to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.
+
+But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth's death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.
+
+The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.
+
+About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall-door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o'clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.
+
+"What is the matter, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, "The master, Miss--the
+master--he is going from us;" and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.
+
+Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. "No, Miss," said Kavanagh; "it was not in Mallow----"
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, "I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;--I thought
+you might have been trusted:--what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say."
+
+Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;--but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.
+
+"Miss," said he, "as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master----"
+
+"Speak softly," said Miss Bunworth; "he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect."
+
+"Praise be to God for that, any way," replied Kavanagh; "but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely--we will lose him--the master--we will lose
+him, we will lose him!" and he wrung his hands together.
+
+"What is it you mean, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth.
+
+"Is it mean?" said Kavanagh: "the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+'tis not I alone who have heard her."
+
+"'Tis an idle superstition," said Miss Bunworth.
+
+"May be so," replied Kavanagh, as if the words 'idle superstition'
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind--"May be so," he
+continued; "but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me, keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master's name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+_berrin_ ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one's heart to hear it."
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, "my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story."
+
+Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bedside of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.
+
+The night was serene and moonlit--the sick man slept--and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bedside of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances, two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep--if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand--would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+XIII.
+
+
+The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned--as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars--as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene--and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man's table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.
+
+Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated--I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle ('black emblem of the informer') dangling from his
+waist-coat-button--went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British "parliament," that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger--recording angel of the
+law--wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state too like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, "It's all
+over, James;" and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man's voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles's foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles's playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.
+
+When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.
+
+The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:--suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur--then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic--and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:--the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy's room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son's chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, "Mother;"--but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, "Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?"
+
+He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, "Yes, my mother, alive, and---- But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen." He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted all her senses, he proceeded:--"do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me--'tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,--I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I _can_ describe I _will_--I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never--not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being--never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended--when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, 'Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.'--I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered."
+
+Charles's strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours' sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.
+
+Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.
+
+Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles's health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles' distance from Spring House.
+
+                        "_To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry._
+
+                                    Spring House, Tuesday morning,
+                                               October 15th, 1752.
+
+     "MY DEAREST MARY,
+
+     "I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+     friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days' journey at
+     this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+     will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+     sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+     have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+     my son's story. I can't tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+     approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+     be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+     I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+     soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+     Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+     son's ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+     on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+     postponed a day or two longer. Would to God--but no more of
+     this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+     man for _one_ week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+     his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+     before Sunday as you can.
+
+     "Ever my dear Mary's attached cousin and friend,
+                                                  "ANN MAC CARTHY."
+
+Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke's
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.
+
+                                       "Spring House, Sunday evening,
+                                                  20th October, 1752.
+
+     "DEAR ELLEN,
+
+     "As my mother's letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+     you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+     fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+     the extraordinary events of the last two days.
+
+     "The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+     was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+     the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+     this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+     rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+     last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+     Mr. Bourke's brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+     the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+     had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+     and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone clear and
+     bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+     black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+     and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+     as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+     blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+     narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+     number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+     shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+     mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+     far we were from Mr. Bourke's. ''Tis about ten spades from this
+     to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+     the avenue, ma'am.' 'Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke's
+     as soon as you reach the cross roads.' My mother had scarcely
+     spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+     very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+     right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+     the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+     giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+     'Heaven defend us!' exclaimed my mother. 'Go you over the
+     hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+     while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+     village near it.' 'Woman!' said Leary, beating the horse
+     violently, while his voice trembled--'that's no woman: the
+     sooner we get on, ma'am, the better;' and he continued his
+     efforts to quicken the horse's pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+     was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+     expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+     and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+     distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+     succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+     despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+     inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+     nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+     place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke's to the left,
+     and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+     started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+     plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+     woman, with uncovered head, and longhair that floated round her
+     shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+     white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+     the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+     which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+     hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+     and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+     had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+     the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+     uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+     then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+     instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+     little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+     pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+     of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+     up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+     garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+     closely wrapped around it. 'Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+     God's name,' said my mother; 'whatever world it belongs to, we
+     will provoke it no longer.' ''Tis the Banshee, ma'am,' said
+     Leary; 'and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+     where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I'm afraid
+     there's something bad going forward, or _she_ would not send us
+     there.' So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+     road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+     saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+     clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+     person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+     badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+     drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o'clock last
+     night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+     mother's letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+     some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+     week.
+
+     "You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+     day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+     here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+     morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+     inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+     the grounds a little before dinner. It seems that an
+     unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+     seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+     for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+     months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+     but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+     and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+     disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+     During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+     in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+     tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+     had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.
+
+     "Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+     between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+     rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+     were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+     pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+     which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+     instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+     leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+     immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+     injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+     merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+     few days. 'We shall know more by Sunday,' said Charles, as he
+     was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+     and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+     of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.
+
+     "On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+     poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+     aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+     and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+     search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+     of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+     and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+     Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+     was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+     working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+     escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+     taken until last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+     frantic, a little before our arrival.
+
+     "Charles's wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+     the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+     entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+     and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+     that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+     advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+     twelve o'clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+     announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+     before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+     The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+     otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+     their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+     before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+     The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+     heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+     was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+     information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+     But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+     screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+     the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+     followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+     a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+     furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+     hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+     body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+     the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+     I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+     Charles's room, to 'get his forgiveness,' as she said, 'before
+     he went away to accuse her for having killed him.' This wild
+     idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+     former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+     Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+     Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+     torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, 'James
+     Ryan, 'twas you killed him, and not I--'twas you killed him,
+     and not I.'
+
+     "Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+     mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+     the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+     accident. She conducted us to Charles's room, who she said, had
+     desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+     end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+     existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+     perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+     awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+     treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+     his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+     was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+     one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+     left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+     anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.
+
+     "Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy----but I am just called away. There seems
+     a slight stir in the family; perhaps----"
+
+The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles's seven-and-twentieth birthday, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.
+
+     "BANSHEE, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+     credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+     to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+     lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+     family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+     no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+     believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege."--O'BRIEN'S
+     _Irish Dictionary_.
+
+     For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+     "Personal Sketches, &c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;" Miss Lefanu's
+     Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+     32; "The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw" (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+     in a note on "the Lady of the Lake,") &c.
+
+     Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+     Banshee "one of the most beautiful" of the leading
+     superstitions of Europe. In his "Letters on Demonology," he
+     says that "several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+     anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+     who performed the office of the Irish Banshee," and
+     particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+     which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.
+
+     "The Welsh Gwrach y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+     some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+     omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+     leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+     in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+     mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+     _A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni._"--_MS. Communication from_ DR. OWEN
+     PUGHE. For some farther particulars, see, in "A Relation of
+     Apparitions, &c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones," his account of the
+     _Kyhirraeth_, "a doleful foreboding noise before death;" and
+     Howell's "Cambrian Superstitions," (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.
+
+     The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+     of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+     prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+     of Poitou. Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," records the
+     appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+     worshipful lineage of Oxenham.
+
+     "In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+     the window of the house in which a person is to die (_Deutsche
+     Sagen_, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+     (267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+     _Klage-weib_ (mourning woman,) in the _Lueneburger Heath_
+     (_Spiels Archiv._ ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+     stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+     fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+     death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+     grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+     immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+     the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+     _Klage-weib_ has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+     course of the month."--THE BROTHERS GRIMM, _and MS.
+                               Communication from_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.
+
+    "Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings' helpless harms,
+    Ne let the _Pouke_, nor other evil spright,
+    Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,
+    Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
+        Fray us with things that be not."
+                                                SPENSER.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT HORSE.
+
+XIV.
+
+
+The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.
+
+Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them--it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;--but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.
+
+Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.
+
+This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.
+
+And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;--then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.
+
+"In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban," said Morty, "how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?"
+
+These words had no sooner passed Morty's lips than he found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman's jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman's appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear--judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.--"What's your name?" at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.
+
+Plucking up all his courage, "Morty Sullivan," replied he "at your
+service;" meaning the latter words only in civility.
+
+"_Ubbubbo!_" said the old woman, "we'll soon see that;" and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.
+
+"Take hold of my hand, Morty," said the old woman: "I'll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey's end." So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;--it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.
+
+Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.
+
+"Mount, Morty, mount!" cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, "O that I had spurs!" and tried to
+grasp the horse's mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.
+
+The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O'Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),[15] never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.
+
+    [15]  "Nulla manus,
+          Tam liberalis
+          Atque generalis
+          Atque universalis
+          Quam Sullivanis."
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O'ROURKE.
+
+XV.
+
+
+People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka's tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.
+
+"I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
+first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;--and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;--and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often
+in the year;--but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I'd better be telling you my story.
+
+"Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can't
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I'd just step to Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I,
+'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
+
+"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;--I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the _Ullagone_--when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.
+
+"So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,'
+says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I
+hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?'
+says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home
+again.' 'Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis,
+sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a
+minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields--my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I
+am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog--besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'
+
+"It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:--'I thank
+your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take
+your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up--I
+know not how far up he flew.
+
+"'Why, then,' said I to him,--thinking he did not know the right road
+home--very civilly, because why?--I was in his power entirely;--'sir,'
+says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.'
+
+"'_Arrah_, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a _cowld_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to
+him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and
+don't be interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this
+is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said
+no more.
+
+"At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus [in-line illustration] on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)
+
+"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no
+notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world
+_axed_ you to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,'
+said he; 'I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I;
+'is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall
+off in a minute, and be _kilt_ and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,--so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he: 'you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that's sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and 'twill keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I.
+'May be not,' said he, quite quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a
+fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.
+
+"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'I think I've nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,' ('twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) 'and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cockthrow.'
+
+"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says
+I. 'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there
+walks--who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.
+
+"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'How do you do?'
+'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.'
+'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a
+_dissolute_ island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.
+
+"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
+against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
+your business,' said he, 'Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says
+I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.'
+'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself,
+Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Indeed,
+and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won't let go;--so I will.' 'You had better,
+Dan,' says he again. 'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two
+words to that bargain, and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.'
+'We'll see how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.
+
+"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and _whap_! it came in two. 'Good morning to
+you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand: 'I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'Now help me,' says I,
+'but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know _me_? The _ould_ gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The
+same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him
+of _ould_. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you
+kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I
+hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,'
+says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all
+the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.
+
+"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to land if you
+please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I; 'that's
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you
+fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.'
+
+"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he. 'We are,'
+said I. 'We are not,' said he: 'If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I: 'I know better than that,
+for it's just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.'
+
+"'If you must, you must,' said he. 'There, take your own way;' and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right--sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn't
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying--'twas
+a voice I knew too--'Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;' and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;--for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.
+
+"'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish, would no
+place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that."
+
+
+
+
+THE CROOKENED BACK.
+
+XVI.
+
+
+Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says "she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient"), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son's fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.
+
+Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of "dark December" whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:--at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the "crookening of her back."
+
+"It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn't bear it. 'Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that's ten years last Easter--I won't forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn't come home to dinner. I
+don't know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+'Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn't a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn't long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn't a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn't move for near a minute. I couldn't
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn't go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on--and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. 'Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn't help
+moving, and couldn't stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn't; I tried to run, but wasn't able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard 'em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards' distance from them that would
+die to save me;--and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn't be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! 'Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else, did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: 'twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour."
+
+There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy's,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman's side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment's pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, "Granny, what was it?"
+
+The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, "It was
+the Phooka."
+
+     The _Pouke_ or _Phooka_, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+     plain terms, the Evil One. "Playing the puck," a common
+     Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to "playing the devil." Much
+     learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+     various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &c.] The
+     commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+     Puck of the Midsummer Night's Dream from the mischievous
+     Pouke.--Vide Drayton's Nymphidia.
+
+        "This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
+        Still walking like a ragged colt," &c.
+
+     In Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1587) we
+     find,
+
+        "---- and the countrie where Chgmaera, that same _Pooke_,
+        Hath goatish bodie," &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+     _Mahr_; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+     German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+     bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+     those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+     they faint and fall to the earth.
+
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+    "On Lough-Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays,
+    When the clear cold eve's declining,
+    He sees the round towers of other days
+    In the wave beneath him shining."
+                                              MOORE.
+
+
+
+
+FIOR USGA.
+
+XVII.
+
+
+A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.
+
+Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.
+
+One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates--but "you're
+welcome--you're welcome, heartily," was the porter's salute for all.
+
+Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king's daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.
+
+In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, "May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water."
+
+"Water!" said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want: "water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter," said he, "go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose."
+
+The king's daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, "Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you." The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king's daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.
+
+When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.
+
+The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king's palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.
+
+Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.
+
+Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.
+
+
+
+
+CORMAC AND MARY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+    "She is not dead--she has no grave--
+      She lives beneath Lough Corrib's water;[16]
+    And in the murmur of each wave
+      Methinks I catch the songs I taught her."
+
+    Thus many an evening on the shore
+      Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;
+    Still idly muttering o'er and o'er,
+      "She lives, detain'd by spells unholy.
+
+    "Death claims her not, too fair for earth,
+      Her spirit lives--alien of heaven;
+    Nor will it know a second birth
+      When sinful mortals are forgiven!
+
+    "Cold is this rock--the wind comes chill,
+      And mists the gloomy waters cover;
+    But oh! her soul is colder still--
+      To lose her God--to leave her lover!"
+
+    The lake was in profound repose,
+      Yet one white wave came gently curling,
+    And as it reach'd the shore, arose
+      Dim figures--banners gay unfurling.
+
+    Onward they move, an airy crowd:
+      Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;
+    While spear and helm, in pageant proud,
+      Appear in liquid undulation.
+
+    Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread
+      Their trackless way with antic capers;
+    And curtain clouds hang overhead,
+      Festoon'd by rainbow-colour'd vapours.
+
+    And when a breath of air would stir
+      That drapery of Heaven's own wreathing,
+    Light wings of prismy gossamer
+      Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.
+
+    Nor wanting was the choral song,
+      Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;
+    To sound of which this subtile throng
+      Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.
+
+    With music's strain, all came and went
+      Upon poor Cormac's doubting vision;
+    Now rising in wild merriment,
+      Now softly fading in derision.
+
+    "Christ save her soul," he boldly cried;
+      And when that blessed name was spoken,
+    Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,
+      And vanished all,--the spell was broken.
+
+    And now on Corrib's lonely shore,
+      Freed by his word from power of faery,
+    To life, to love, restored once more,
+      Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.
+
+    [16] In the county of Galway.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.
+
+XIX.
+
+
+Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,[17] and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.
+
+    [17] In the county of Limerick.
+
+One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours' cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;[18] but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.
+
+    [18] Spancelled--fettered.
+
+"What in the wide world will I do?" said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: "that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse."
+
+"'Tis true for you, Larry," replied Welsh: "the times are bitter
+bad--no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there's Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for 'tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way."
+
+Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh's two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corncreaks
+answering one another across the water.
+
+"Boys! boys!" said Larry, "look there! look there! but for your lives
+don't make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word."
+
+They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.
+
+"'Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper's cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones," whispered Mick to his brother.
+
+"Now boys!" said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, "get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we'll just put them into
+the pound."
+
+But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.
+
+Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED LAKE.
+
+XX.
+
+
+In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire--others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.
+
+There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:--but Roderick's confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.
+
+"Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?" exclaimed the
+young farmer. "Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?"
+
+There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.
+
+"I'll take you at your word," said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going, going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:--
+
+    "She is fair as Cappoquin;
+    Have you courage her to win?
+    And her wealth it far outshines
+    Cullen's bog and Silvermines.
+    She exceeds all heart can wish;
+    Not brawling like the Foherish,
+    But as the brightly flowing Lee,
+    Graceful, mild, and pure is she!"
+
+Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:--no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.
+
+When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses' teeth, and up she made towards
+him.
+
+"Good morrow, Paddeen," said she.
+
+"Good morrow, Ma'am," said he.
+
+"What brought you here?" said she.
+
+"'Tis after Rory Keating's gold ring," said he, "I'm come."
+
+"Here it is for you," said Paddeen's fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]
+
+"Thank you, Ma'am," replied Paddeen, taking it from her:--"I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you're fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?"
+
+"Then you did not come to marry me?" cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.
+
+"Just wait till I come back again, my darling," said Paddeen: "I'm to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they'll wonder what has become of me."
+
+"Never mind the money," said the fat woman: "if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing."
+
+Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF O'DONOGHUE.
+
+XXI.
+
+
+In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O'Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called "O'Donoghue's Prison," in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.
+
+His end--for it cannot correctly be called his death--was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.
+
+The memory of the good O'Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,--a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince's reign was never felt by his people.
+
+Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O'Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May-morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.
+
+The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.
+
+The warrior was O'Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O'Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse's neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.
+
+    _Thierna na Oge_, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to
+    the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions
+    of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the
+    movements of time.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.
+
+              ----"The mysterious depths
+    And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old."
+                              MATTIMA'S _Conchologist_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+XXII.
+
+
+On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.
+
+"'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well,
+to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "'tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to answer one--nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune," said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!--and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete--Is it
+not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.
+
+But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.
+
+Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the _cohuleen driuth_, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
+
+When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears--doubly salt, no doubt, from her--came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.
+
+"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.
+
+Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way
+of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but
+'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
+
+"What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.
+
+The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once--"Man," says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "Man, will you eat me?"
+
+"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?--Now 'twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!"
+
+"Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat
+me?"
+
+Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.
+
+"Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+"fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I'll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that's what I'll do."
+
+"Never say the word twice," says she; "I'm ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my
+hair."
+
+It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.
+
+Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; "Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?"
+
+"It's nothing else," says she quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind."
+
+"And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick.
+
+"What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the
+king of the waves, to be sure!"
+
+"And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.
+
+"Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;--to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of
+the sea!"
+
+"Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?"
+
+"'Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?"
+
+"Oh! yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want."
+
+"To speak the truth, then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king's daughter: so, if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets--but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?"
+
+"By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald--plenty of beds at your
+service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones."
+
+"You have?" says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. "'Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of--but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they'd have the one, need never ask for the
+other."
+
+However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.
+
+"There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd
+marry?--the Lord preserve us!--Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from."
+
+Dick had the _cohuleen driuth_ in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he--
+
+"Please your Reverence she's a king's daughter."
+
+"If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I
+tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish."
+
+"Please your Reverence," said Dick again, in an under tone, "she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon."
+
+"If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!"
+
+"But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I'm a made man if I marry her; and," said Dick, looking up slily,
+"I can make it worth any one's while to do the job."
+
+"Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the Priest; "why there's
+some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this
+before?--marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done."
+
+So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick--he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.
+
+It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds--two boys and a girl.
+
+In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.
+
+One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.
+
+Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishingnet, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own _cohuleen driuth_.
+
+She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.
+
+She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. "But," says she, "he won't lose me entirely, for I'll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them."
+
+She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.--The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the _cohuleen driuth_ on
+her head, she plunged in.
+
+Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the _cohuleen driuth_. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.
+
+Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; "For," says Dick, "she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children."
+
+While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+
+
+
+FLORY CANTILLON'S FUNERAL.
+
+XXIII.
+
+
+The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.[19] However this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.
+
+    [19] "The neighbouring inhabitants," says Dr. Smith, in his
+    History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, "show some rocks
+    visible in this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the
+    remains of an island, that was formerly the burial-place of the
+    family of Cantillon, the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh." p.
+    210.
+
+Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. "Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,"
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don't think
+I should say wrong.
+
+On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow's death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.
+
+Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there--more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.
+
+The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.
+
+The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.
+
+"If 'twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was," said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, "one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. 'Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,"
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, "didn't I know all
+the time well enough, 'twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man's Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how," said Connor, after a pause, "is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!"
+
+It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.
+
+As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding, when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.
+
+It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!
+
+The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.
+
+"This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth," said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.
+
+"True," replied another, with a voice still more fearful, "our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!"
+
+"But the time will come," said a third, bending over the coffin,
+
+    "When mortal eye--our work shall spy,
+    And mortal ear--our dirge shall hear."
+
+"Then," said a fourth, "our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!"
+
+As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.
+
+"The time is come," cried the unearthly being, "the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!"
+
+One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+church-yard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.
+
+XXIV.
+
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron[20]--O'Sullivan More,
+    Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?
+    His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;
+    No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.
+
+    Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known
+    On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;
+    For a beautiful spirit of ocean, 'tis said,
+    The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.
+
+    When, by moonlight, the waters were hush'd to repose,
+    That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;
+    Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell
+    O'er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.
+
+    Long, long had he loved her--long vainly essay'd
+    To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;
+    And long had he wander'd and watch'd by the tide,
+    To claim the fair spirit O'Sullivan's bride!
+
+    The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,
+    Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;
+    Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,
+    Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.
+
+    Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,
+    O'Sullivan felt 'twas the dawning of love,
+    And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,
+    Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,
+    And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;
+    The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,
+    Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.
+
+    Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,
+    Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?
+    The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown
+    To lie 'mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.
+
+    Down, down went the maid,--still the chieftain pursued;
+    Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.
+    Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,
+    The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!
+
+    They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,
+    Whence beauty and verdure stretch'd over the land.
+    'Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,
+    With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.
+
+    The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,
+    Softly faded away, from a magical pile,
+    A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen
+    Had the tints of the rainbow--red, yellow, and green.
+
+    And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,
+    Were there, as flung up--the wild sport of the storm;
+    Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,
+    It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.
+
+    "Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,
+    Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!
+    Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;
+    There are laws which e'en spirits are bound to obey!
+
+    "Once more must I visit the chief of my race,
+    His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.
+    In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:
+    One cause can detain me--one only--'tis death!"
+
+    They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;
+    The language of promise had nothing beyond.
+    His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:
+    The moment is gone--but no maiden returns.
+
+    What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear--
+    What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?
+    What sees he? what change has come over the flood--
+    What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?
+
+    Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?
+    That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!
+    For see all around him, in white foam and froth,
+    The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!
+
+    The palace of crystal has melted in air,
+    And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;
+    The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o'ercast,
+    The sunshine is darkness--the vision has past!
+
+    Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;
+    They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:
+    He heard, and he struggled--a wave to the shore,
+    Exhausted and faint, bears O'Sullivan More!
+
+    [20] The remains of Dunkerron Caslle are distant about a mile
+    from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is
+    recorded to have been built in 1596, by Owen O'Sullivan
+    More.--[_More_, is merely an epithet signifying _the Great_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL TUNE.
+
+XXV.
+
+
+Maurice Connor was the king, and that's no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum's March, and the Eagle's Whistle, and the Hen's Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.
+
+In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it--old or young it mattered not--just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going--going--going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!--whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm--there was no halting while the music lasted!
+
+Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without "blind Maurice and his
+pipes." His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.
+
+Down through Iveragh--a place that ought to be proud of itself, for
+'tis Daniel O'Connell's country--Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand--the dead
+image of a calm summer's sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.
+
+Here it was that Maurice's music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women--_O the darlints!_--for
+'twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. "Brave music," said every body, "and well done,"
+when Maurice stopped.
+
+"More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,"
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. "'Tis a pity," said he, "if we'd let the piper run dry
+after such music; 'twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn't come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays." So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: "Did you drink, piper?"
+
+"I will, sir," says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.
+
+"What will you drink, Maurice?" says Paddy.
+
+"I'm no ways particular," says Maurice; "I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring _raw_ water; but if 'tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn't lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey."
+
+"I've no glass, Maurice," said Paddy; "I've only the bottle."
+
+"Let that be no hindrance," answered Maurice; "my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I've tried it, sure."
+
+So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle--more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice's mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.
+
+"That was no bad whisky neither," says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.
+
+"By the holy frost, then!" says Paddy, "'tis but _cowld_ comfort
+there's in that bottle now; and 'tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you've left us no sample to judge by:" and
+to be sure Maurice had not.
+
+Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own--he was fairly tipsy. Don't think I blame him for it; 'tis often a
+good man's case; but true is the word that says, "when liquor's in,
+sense is out;" and puff, at a breath, before you could say "Lord save
+us!" out he blasted his wonderful tune.
+
+'Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; _bolg an
+dana_, as they used to call him--a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to drink with of a hot
+summer's day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here's my hand at an upset of them into English:
+
+    The big seals in motion,
+    Like waves of the ocean,
+      Or gouty feet prancing,
+    Came heading the gay fish,
+    Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,
+      Determined on dancing.
+
+    The sweet sounds they follow'd,
+    The gasping cod swallow'd;
+      'Twas wonderful, really!
+    And turbot and flounder,
+    'Mid fish that were rounder,
+      Just caper'd as gaily.
+
+    John-dories came tripping;
+    Dull hake, by their skipping
+      To frisk it seem'd given;
+    Bright mackerel went springing,
+    Like small rainbows winging
+      Their flight up to heaven.
+
+    The whiting and haddock
+    Left salt-water paddock,
+      This dance to be put in:
+    Where skate with flat faces
+    Edged out some odd plaices;
+      But soles kept their footing.
+
+    Sprats and herrings in powers
+    Of silvery showers
+      All number out-number'd;
+    And great ling so lengthy
+    Were there in such plenty,
+      The shore was encumber'd.
+
+    The scollop and oyster
+    Their two shells did roister,
+      Like castanets fitting;
+    While limpets moved clearly,
+    And rocks very nearly
+      With laughter were splitting.
+
+Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; 'twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor's wonderful tune!
+
+In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman--as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair--just the colour of the sea--fell down behind,
+without hinderance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.
+
+Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops--for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on--and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey--
+
+    "I'm a lady of honour
+      Who live in the sea;
+    Come down, Maurice Connor,
+      And be married to me.
+
+    "Silver plates and gold dishes
+      You shall have, and shall be
+    The king of the fishes,
+      When you're married to me."
+
+Drink was strong in Maurice's head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore 'twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself--so says Maurice,
+
+    "I'm obliged to you, madam:
+      Off a gold dish or plate,
+    If a king, and I had 'em,
+      I could dine in great state.
+
+    "With your own father's daughter
+      I'd be sure to agree;
+    But to drink the salt water
+      Wouldn't do so with me!"
+
+The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, "Well," says she, "Maurice, if you're
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?"
+
+In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.
+
+Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.
+
+When Maurice's mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water's edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. "Oh then,"
+says she, "as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but 'tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod--Lord help and pity me, but
+'tis a mighty unnatural thing!--and may be 'tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I'll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!--Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there's any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own _ould_ mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!"
+
+Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.
+
+Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother's heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.
+
+He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother's voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was--
+
+"Whisht with you, mother--sure I'm going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I'll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska." Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.
+
+That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance--some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.
+
+Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly distinguish Maurice Connor's voice
+singing these words to his pipes:--
+
+    Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,
+    Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;
+    Never would I have parted from thee
+    But for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
+
+    [21] This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+    well-known song of Deardra.
+
+    The Irish _Merrow_ answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+    is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+    Cornish _Morhuch_, to which it evidently bears analogy.
+
+    The romantic historians of Ireland describe the _Suire_ as
+    playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+    to that Island.
+
+
+
+
+THE DULLAHAN.
+
+    "Then wonder not at _headless folk_,
+      Since every day you greet 'em;
+    Nor treat old stories as a joke,
+      When fools you daily meet 'em."
+
+                      --_The Legendary._
+
+    "Says the friar, 'tis strange headless horses should trot."
+
+                                                    _Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD WOMAN.
+
+XXVI.
+
+
+In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight's
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.
+
+Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,--indeed, who is without them?--and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of "the stirrup cup,"
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.
+
+Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character--a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oilskin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren's blacking of matchless lustre!--and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.
+
+Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. "If they go at this rate,"
+said he to himself, "for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer's
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?" This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size--rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.
+
+Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd's
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. "Civility begets
+civility," they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady's silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, "_Ma colleen beg_,[22] just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I'll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us."
+
+    [22] My little girl.
+
+She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.
+
+"I hope you're comfortable there, my dear," said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; and on they went--trot,
+trot, trot--along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued _cronane_,[23] like a
+nurse _hushoing_. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. "'Tis
+only loose the shoe is," said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get _spilt_ in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.
+
+    [23] A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.
+
+"By the piper's luck, that always found what he wanted," said Larry,
+recollecting himself, "I've a nail in my pocket: 'tis not the first
+time I've put on a shoe, and may be it won't be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty."
+
+No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, "by your leave," or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church--and a pretty church it was.
+
+"Not so fast, if you please, young woman--not so fast," cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. "Where's my wages?" said Larry: "_Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge_,[24]--sure I've earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips--and
+I'll have it too!" But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the church-yard wall, and then over with her in an instant.
+
+    [24] Give me a kiss, my young girl.
+
+"Well, she's a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;--but I'll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either," exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the church-yard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried--rest his soul!--and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men--the Lord save
+us!--that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+church-yard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. "I'll just wait," said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; "when she comes round again, if I
+don't take the kiss, I won't, that's all,--and here she is!" Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them--a woman, it
+is true--but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.
+
+"Murder!" cried he. "Well, that accounts for her not speaking." Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!
+
+When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness, he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding--ding--ding--ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.
+
+    'Twas a spectre rung
+    That bell when it swung--
+        Swing-swang!
+    And the chain it squeaked,
+    And the pulley creaked,
+        Swing-swang!
+
+    And with every roll
+    Of the deep death toll
+        Ding-dong!
+    The hollow vault rang
+    As the clapper went bang,
+        Ding-dong!
+
+It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.
+
+Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.
+
+"I'm done for and lost for ever," roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.
+
+"Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome," cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. "A drink for Larry Dodd," shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.
+
+"'Tis capital stuff," he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,--for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought--but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.
+
+When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, "upon the lap
+of earth." Could it have been an ugly dream? "Oh no," said Larry, "a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death's head and cross marrow bones forenenting me on
+the fine old tombstone there that was _faced_ by Pat Kearney[25] of
+Kilcrea--but where is the horse?" He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. "'Tis home I must go," said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; "but how will I face Nancy?--what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.'s that he cost me?--'Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me--the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!--but what's gone is gone, that's a clear case!"--so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.'s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.
+
+    [25] _Faced_, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+    "_fecit_."
+
+"But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?" inquired his wife.
+
+Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.
+
+"Oh! Larry, Larry," muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; "'tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man--you are all alike for
+that matter--I've no pity for you--but, confess the truth."
+
+Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.
+
+"Nancy," said he, "I do confess:--it was a young woman without any
+head that----"
+
+His wife heard no more. "A woman I knew it was," cried she; "but a
+woman without a head, Larry!--well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!--that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her _baste_ of a husband, for a woman
+without a head!--O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!--that you don't see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.
+
+"O Larry, you villain, you'll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O--O--O--"
+
+"Well," says Larry, putting his hands in his coatpockets, "least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!"
+
+How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.
+
+
+
+
+HANLON'S MILL.
+
+XXVII.
+
+
+One fine summer's evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien's,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon's mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.
+
+Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.
+
+Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish _karacter_. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell as how "the great Burke" went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.
+
+But it was Michael Noonan's walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,
+
+    "Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;"
+
+and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien's door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon's mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon's mill.
+
+Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien's before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan's.
+
+"Is it home you're going with the brogues this blessed night?" said
+Darby to him.
+
+"Where else would it be?" replied Mick: "but, by my word, 'tis not
+across the Inch back again I'm going, after all I heard coming here;
+'tis to no good that old Hanlon's mill is busy again."
+
+"True, for you," said Darby; "and may be you'd take the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as 'tis along the road you go.
+I'm waiting here to see a sister's son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman." "That same I'll do," answered Mick, "with a thousand
+welcomes." So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick--God reward him for
+it--was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.
+
+The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse's head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close along-side
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby's horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.
+
+Poor Mick's heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery--took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.
+
+Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon's huntsman, coming on the master's best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick's mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan's bridle when he came
+up.
+
+"Mick, dear--for the love of heaven! don't stop me," cried Dan.
+
+"Why, what's the hurry?" said Mick.
+
+"Oh, the master!--he's off,--he's off--he'll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!"
+
+"Why, what would ail his honour?" said Mick; "sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he--"
+
+"Stout and hearty was he?" answered Madden; "and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn't
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he'd ride the old General to-day; and sure,"
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, "who'd have
+thought that the first thing I'd see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and"--poor Dan's
+grief choked his voice--"oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she's a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor."
+
+Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan's;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night's moon saw Ballygibblin--and more's the pity--a house of
+mourning.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH COACH.
+
+XXVIII.
+
+
+    'Tis midnight!--how gloomy and dark!
+      By Jupiter there's not a star!--
+    'Tis fearful!--'tis awful!--and hark!
+      What sound is that comes from afar?
+
+    Still rolling and rumbling, that sound
+      Makes nearer and nearer approach;
+    Do I tremble, or is it the ground?--
+      Lord save us!--what is it?--a coach!--
+
+    A coach!--but that coach has no head;
+      And the horses are headless as it:
+    Of the driver the same may be said,
+      And the passengers inside who sit.
+
+    See the wheels! how they fly o'er the stones!
+      And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:
+    Their spokes are of dead men's thigh bones,
+      And the pole is the spine of the back!
+
+    The hammer-cloth, shabby display,
+      Is a pall rather mildew'd by damps;
+
+    And to light this strange coach on its way,
+      Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!
+
+    From the gloom of Rathcooney church-yard,
+      They dash down the hill of Glanmire;
+    Pass Lota in gallop as hard
+      As if horses were never to tire!
+
+    With people thus headless 'tis fun
+      To drive in such furious career;
+    Since _headlong_ their horses can't run,
+      Nor coachman be _heady_ from beer.
+
+    Very steep is the Tivoli lane,
+      But up-hill to them is as down;
+    Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain
+      These Dullahans rushing to town.
+
+    Could they feel as I've felt--in a song--
+      A spell that forbade them depart;
+    They'd a lingering visit prolong,
+      And after their head lose their heart!
+
+    No matter!--'tis past twelve o'clock;
+      Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,
+    And, taking the road to Blackrock,
+      Cork city is soon left behind.
+
+    Should they hurry thus reckless along,
+      To supper instead of to bed,
+    The landlord will surely be wrong,
+      If he charge it at so much a head!
+
+    Yet mine host may suppose them too poor
+      To bring to his wealth an increase;
+    As till now, all who drove to his door,
+      Possess'd at least _one crown_ a-piece.
+
+    Up the Deadwoman's hill they are roll'd;
+      Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;
+    Ballintemple they reach, and behold!
+      At its church-yard they stop and alight.
+
+    "Who's there?" said a voice from the ground,
+      "We've no room, for the place is quite full."
+    "O! room must be speedily found,
+      For we come from the parish of Skull.
+
+    "Though Murphys and Crowleys appear
+      On headstones of deep-letter'd pride;
+    Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,
+      Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;
+
+    "Yet here for the night we lie down,
+      To-morrow we speed on the gale;
+    For having no heads of our own,
+      We seek the Old Head of Kinsale."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.
+
+XXIX.
+
+
+"God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,"
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.
+
+Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever _rattled_ a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen's day hunt.
+
+Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your "nasty particular sort of fellows" in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, "Charley," the saddlers said, "was the
+devil to _plase_." An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer "Charley's farm" (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself "Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;" and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert--and who will doubt
+it--that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.
+
+This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the "Harp of Erin." Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. "I won't bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you'll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It's as good _parliament_ as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear 'x
+_waters_,' and carry the bead after that, may be."
+
+Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly "Harp of Erin," with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip's at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the "real stuff,"
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend's hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.
+
+The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman's currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the "Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers," always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.--Away he went singing like a thrush--
+
+    "Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,
+    Breaking windows--(_hiccup_!)--sinking,
+    Ever raking--never thinking,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+    "Spending faster than it comes,
+    Beating--(_hiccup, hic_,) and duns,
+    Duhallow's true-begotten sons,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow."
+
+Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly "Harp of Erin" had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated _turn out_ on St.
+Stephen's day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson's bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued--
+
+    "Living short, but merry lives,
+    Going where the devil drives,
+    Keeping----"
+
+"Keeping" he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley's eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the gravestones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced--the head advanced--Charley's old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.
+
+After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation "I'm sold now for ever!" was over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion's silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion's face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure's coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. "I ought to see farther than
+this, too," thought Charley, "although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless 'tis Con's whiskey that has blinded me entirely." However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, "'By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!"
+
+"Look again, Charley Culnane," said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.
+
+Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently hitherto
+concealed from Charley's eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley's side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.
+
+On they went--heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.--The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:--
+
+"Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!"
+
+"Humph," growled the head from under the horseman's right arm.
+
+"'Tis not an over civil answer," thought Charley; "but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I'll try him on the other track. Ahem!" said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. "Ahem! that's a mighty neat coat
+of your honour's, although 'tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut."
+
+"Humph," growled again the head.
+
+This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. "'Tis a sensible head," thought Charley,
+"although an ugly one, for 'tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery." A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.
+
+"To be sure, that's a brave horse your honour rides," recommenced the
+persevering Charley.
+
+"You may say that, with your own ugly mouth," growled the head.
+
+Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:--
+
+"May be your honour wouldn't be after riding him across the country?"
+
+"Will you try me, Charley?" said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.
+
+"Faith, and that's what I'd do," responded Charley, "only I'm afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I've every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels."
+
+This was true enough; Charley's courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman's proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.
+
+"Will you take my word," said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, "for the safety of your mare?"
+
+"Done," said Charley; and away they started, helter skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, "Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!"
+
+Charley pulled up hard. "Ay," said he, "you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that's the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I'd win it hollow!"
+
+It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley's mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.
+
+"Charley Culnane," says he, "you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I've tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that's the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare."
+
+Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger's right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman's scarlet hunting-coat. The horse's head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.
+
+Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife's pudding, the new
+snaffle--even the match against squire Jephson--all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen's day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley's "X water parliament." This, however, should be
+told, that Charley's old mare beat Mr. Jephson's bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn't
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don't know any
+other reason for his doing so.
+
+     DULLAHAN or DULACHAN signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+     _Durrachan_ or _Dullahan_, by which in some places the goblin
+     is known, has the same signification. It comes from _Dorr_ or
+     _Durr_, anger, or _Durrach_, malicious, fierce, &c.--_MS.
+     communication from the late_ MR. EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+     The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+     black is evidently a component part of the word.
+
+     The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+     Ireland "_Coach a bower_;" and its appearance is generally
+     regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.
+
+     The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+     appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+     extended.
+
+     In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+     that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.
+
+     In Wales, the apparition of "_Fenyw heb un pen_," the headless
+     woman, and "_Ceffyl heb un pen_," the headless horse, are
+     generally accredited.--_MS. communication from_ MISS WILLIAMS.
+
+     "The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+     Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+     Queensberry,--'Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,'--who,
+     instead of setting fire to the world in mamma's chariot, amuses
+     herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+     the great gallery."--_MS. communication from_ SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+     In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+     paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+     some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+     "Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+     up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,"
+     &c.
+
+     Cervantes mentions tales of the "_Caballo sin cabeca_ among the
+     _cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+     dilatadas noches del invierno_," &c.
+
+     "The people of Basse Bretagne believe, that when the death of
+     any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+     call _carriquet au nankon_,) and covered with a white sheet,
+     passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+     creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard."--_Journal des
+     Sciences_, 1826, _communicated by_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+     See also _Thiele's Danske Folkesagn_, vol. iv. p. 66, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+    Whene'er such wanderers I meete,
+      As from their night-sports they trudge home,
+    With counterfeiting voice I greete,
+      And call them on with me to roame
+            Through woods, through lakes,
+            Through bogs, through brakes;
+      Or else, unseene, with them I go,
+            All in the nicke,
+            To play some tricke,
+      And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!
+
+                                     --_Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER
+
+XXX.
+
+
+One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day's work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter[26] to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,[27] was mending a rent in Patrick's old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. "I was just thinking," said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes--"I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it."
+
+    [26] A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+    tallow, is used as a candle.
+
+    [27] Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+    firmly sewed or bound together.
+
+"And that's no lie for you, Pat," said his wife; "but, whisht! what
+noise is that I _hard_?" and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. "The _Vargin_ herself defend us
+all!" cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, "if 'tis not the banshee!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Patrick, "it's only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;" and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.
+
+"Whisht, whisht!" said Patrick--"what a noise ye're all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can't you go and see who's at the door?"
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.
+
+"Why, then, is it me you're speaking to?" said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; "and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be _rund_ away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?--the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke."
+
+"Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I'll go myself." So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of his way to the door.
+"Who's there?" said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+"In the name of Saint Patrick, who's there?" "'Tis I, Pat," answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire's. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome, entirely," said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye'll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying." "Thank
+you, Pat," said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.[28]
+
+    [28] See Weld's Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.
+
+"But what made you keep me so long at the door?"
+
+"Why then, your honour, 'twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather--the Lord rest his soul!"
+
+"And what was that, Pat?" said the squire.
+
+"Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was _ould_ Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them _spake_ to such perfection, that it did one's heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley--his honour's lordship is the real good
+gentleman--and 'tis Mr. Gandsey's music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy's grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+_tobaccy_; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?--but a large
+army of the good people, 'coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! 'Are ye all ready?' said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. 'No,' said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. 'No, general,' said he: 'if you don't get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye'll lose the battle."
+
+"'There's Diarmid Bawn,' said the general, pointing to Judy's
+grandfather, your honour, 'make a horse of him.'
+
+"So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.
+
+"'Is that what you'd be after, you spalpeen?' said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; 'I'm not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.' So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.
+
+"Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid's left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid's faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.
+
+"'Let every man take a hand of _tobaccy_ for Diarmid Bawn,' said the
+general; and so they did; and away they flew, for 'twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.
+
+"When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of _tobaccy_ in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been _kilt_ entirely, if it
+wasn't for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the _tobaccy_ heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, 'That 'twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he'd know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.' That's what he
+said, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Pat," said the squire; "it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy's alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I'll make the best of my way home." So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, "May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for 'twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride."
+
+
+
+
+TEIGUE OF THE LEE.
+
+XXXI.
+
+
+"I can't stop in the house--I won't stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!--to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I'm angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won't stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under." This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+"I'll not stop here," said John; "and that ends the matter."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you."
+
+John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud "Ho, ho, ho!" as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, John!" shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; "do you think you'll see Teigue?--oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there's plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and 'tis time you had the cloth laid."
+
+"Lord bless us! there's more of it!--I'll never stay another day
+here," repeated John.
+
+"Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly, and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons."
+
+John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say--"Who
+are you?--come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;" but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a "Good-bye--I'll watch you at dinner, John!"
+
+"Lord between us and harm! this beats all!--I'll watch you at
+dinner!--may be you will;--'tis the broad daylight, so 'tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I'll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?--if he tells it, I'm a ruined
+man!--there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he's far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it--I can't tell for the world! But what's that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?--'tis not a man!--oh, what a fool I am! 'tis
+only the old stump of a tree!--But this is a shocking place--I'll
+never stop in it, for I'll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one."
+
+The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom--their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.
+
+John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:--
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won't you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that's
+good; sure you won't forget poor Teigue?"
+
+John dropped the glass he had in his hand.
+
+"Who is that?" said Mr. Pratt's brother, an officer of the artillery.
+
+"That is Teigue," said Mr. Pratt, laughing, "whom you must often have
+heard me mention."
+
+"And pray, Mr. Pratt," inquired another gentleman, "who _is_ Teigue?"
+
+"That," he replied, "is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it."
+
+"It is very extraordinary," said several of the company.
+
+"But," remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, "your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?"
+
+"When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone."
+
+"How does he know that you are watching?"
+
+"That's more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+'Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.' James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. 'Here Teigue,' said
+he, 'come for it now.' 'Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.' This was done, and we stood looking at it. 'There, now,
+go away,' he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. 'Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won't take it.' We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day."
+
+"Oh," said the colonel, "I'll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I'll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.--Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?"
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell," shouted Teigue. "Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you're a pretty boy;--a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you're no quaker, nor any thing else:--ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there's Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.--And there's Mr.
+Cole,--did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you've brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all."
+
+"You scoundrel!" exclaimed the colonel: "I'll make you show yourself;"
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel's heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. "Come on, colonel," said Mr. Bell; "let us catch this
+impudent rascal."
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am--here's Teigue--why don't you catch
+him?--Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm."
+
+"Let us see your face, you scoundrel," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!--look at me--look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?--you'll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner."
+
+"If you're upon the earth I'll find you, you villain!" said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. "He's round that corner," said
+Mr. Bell--"run, run."
+
+They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?--do you hear
+him?--Ho, ho, ho! you're a fine colonel to follow the wind."
+
+"Not that way, Mr. Bell--not that way; come here," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:--you a soldier!--ho, ho, ho!" The colonel was enraged--he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit--(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed--"Now, colonel Pratt--now, if you're a soldier, here's a
+leap for you;--now look at Teigue--why don't you look at him?--Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you're warm, I'm sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!" The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. "Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?--Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye--I'll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house--look at your watch, colonel:--there's a dive for you!" and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.
+
+"Well, did you see Teigue?" said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.--"Give me some
+wine," said the colonel. "I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he'd be
+here in ten minutes: 'tis more than that now, but he's not come."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn't he here?--Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I'm tired; and that's the colonel's doing." A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.
+
+"Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall."
+
+The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys' attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and "Ho, ho, ho!--good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!--'tis a good dinner, and there's the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen--good-bye to you, colonel--good-bye, Mr. Bell!--good-bye to
+you all!"--brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue's voice was heard no more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.
+
+
+
+
+NED SHEEHY'S EXCUSE.
+
+XXXII.
+
+
+Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody--no, not his
+worst enemy--could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o'clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.
+
+But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,--for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady's maid,--that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.
+
+In your grand houses--not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin--I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,--by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man--one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes--Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.
+
+But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak--he was a second whisperer!--there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds' ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was "No go." Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton's famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy's Leap to this hour.
+
+So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, "I'll turn
+off Ned," he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.
+
+One cold winter's day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,
+
+"Ned," said he, "go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson's horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O'Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.--Don't loiter, for your life."
+
+"Is it I, sir?" says Ned. "Well, that beats any thing; as if I'd stop
+out a minute!" So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.
+
+Four, five, six o'clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O'Toole, and the four misses O'Toole, and Mr. O'Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O'Toole, and Mr. James O'Toole, which were all the young O'Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.
+
+He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,
+
+"There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I'll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I'll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will."
+
+"Don't say so, Dick, dear," said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) "don't swear, Dick, dear," said
+she; "but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O'Toole,
+yesterday, I was, 'pon honour."
+
+Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned's face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.
+
+"Ned!" thundered his master in great indignation,--and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: "Get up, you scoundrel," said he.
+
+Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master's hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking--"O,
+sir!--don't be angry, sir!--don't be angry, and I'll roast you
+easier--easy as a lamb!"
+
+"Roast me easier, you vagabond!" said Mr. Gumbleton; "what do you
+mean?--I'll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?--Modderaroo
+will never get over it.--Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don't
+get you transported."
+
+"Thank God, master dear," said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened--"it's yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;--may whisky be my poison--"
+
+"It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel," said Mr.
+Gumbleton.
+
+"Well, then, _may_ whiskey be my poison," said Ned, "if 'twas not I
+was--in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned 'twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey's--I don't deny
+it--why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened."
+
+"Ned, my man," said Mr. Gumbleton, "I'll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow--"
+
+"Begging your honour's pardon," said Ned, earnestly, "for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows--they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and 'tis myself rep_i_nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I'll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don't pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day's luck or grace."
+
+"I know you, Ned," said Mr. Gumbleton. "Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don't intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir."
+
+Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy's excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.
+
+"No wonder your honour," said he, "should be a bit angry--grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don't blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all's heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+_joint_ (giant,) and I only a man.
+
+"I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o'clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour's hat. Well, I didn't care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy's field--sure
+your honour ought to know the place well--just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders."
+
+(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)
+
+"Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. 'How early you are at your work, my little fellows!' says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey's; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:--
+
+    'Ned! Ned!
+    By my cap so red!
+    You're as good, Ned,
+    As a man that is dead.'
+
+'A clean pair of spurs is all that's for it now,' said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. 'What river is this?' said I to myself--for
+there was nobody else to ask--'I thought,' says I, 'I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.' So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn't know what to do; but I thought in myself, it's a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!--fire!--robbery!--any thing
+that would be natural in such a place--but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn't do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. 'May be,'
+said I, 'my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.' But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too _study_ (steady) for a jacky lantern. 'I'll try you,' says
+I--'so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the _slob_.[29] At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.
+
+    [29] Or _slaib_; mire on the sea strand or river's
+    bank.--O'BRIEN.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, 'twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man's!--so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, 'Why don't you open the door to Ned Sheehy?' 'How pat my name is
+to you,' said I, without speaking out, 'on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;' and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.
+
+"'Why, then, Ned Sheehy,' says he, 'how grand you're grown, that you
+won't come in and see a friend, as you're passing by?'
+
+"'Pray, sir,' says I, looking at him--though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself--'Pray, sir,' says I,
+'may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?'
+
+"'Suppose I was,' says he: 'has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?'
+
+"'I'm not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,' says I, 'if 'tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.'
+
+"'Well,' says he, 'no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here's a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.'
+
+"Now, your honour, though 'twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood--to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within--for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door--if I don't love the creature
+as I love my own life--I went in with Jack Myers.
+
+"Civil enough he was--I'll never say otherwise to my dying hour--for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice--'twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened--spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, 'Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?'
+
+"'The never a word, sir,' says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.
+
+"'Have you no news,' says the voice, 'Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?'
+
+"'No, sir,' says I, 'never the word.'
+
+"'What brought you in here, Ned, then?' says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.
+
+"'Turn the scoundrel out,' says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.
+
+"'The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!' says I. 'Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!' says I, speaking to myself, 'my man, you're in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!' But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one's heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+'I'd better get up in a tree,' says I, 'for they say 'tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I'm in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.'
+
+"I could not help wondering how a _berrin_ (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I'll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you'd meet with in a day's walk.
+
+"'Where's the spit?' says one.
+
+"'Here 'tis,' says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.
+
+"If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the _Hannibals_
+father Quinlan told us about in his _sarmint_ last Sunday.
+
+"'Who'll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?' says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.
+
+"'Who'd turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?' says another.
+
+"Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?
+
+"'Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,' says he.
+
+"'I'm not here at all, sir,' says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.
+
+"'That won't do for you, my man,' says he; 'you'd better come down, or
+may be I'd make you.'
+
+"'I'm coming, sir,' says I; for 'tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.
+
+"'Don't scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,' says the man on the
+spit.
+
+"'And my lord, sir, and ar'n't you dead, sir,' says I, 'and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he.
+
+"'But surely you are, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.
+
+"So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be 'twould be the worse turn for myself.
+
+"'Will that do, sir?' says I, turning him as easy as I could.
+
+"'That's too easy,' says he: so I turned him faster.
+
+"'That's too fast,' says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.
+
+"Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. 'Murder!' says I, shouting out; 'I'm done for at
+long last--now or never!'--when all of a sudden, and 'twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' says the voice,--for 'twas shut
+against me,--and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.
+
+"'Have you any news for me?' says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'and plenty.' So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.
+
+"'If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,' said the voice.
+
+"'And how could I tell it to you, sir,' says I, 'before it happened?'
+
+"'No matter,' says he, 'you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you'd have
+been _kilt_ entirely.' So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought 'twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour's
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if 'twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me."
+
+"It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel," said Mr. Gumbleton; "have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?"
+
+"But never one, your honour, that really happened before," said Ned,
+with unblushing front. "Howsomever, since your honour fancies 'tis
+drinking I was, I'd rather never drink again to the world's end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I'm forgiven this once, and
+get another trial----"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gumbleton, "you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don't believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones."
+
+So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned's countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.
+
+"Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last," exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: "I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the _differ_
+(difference) to his cost."
+
+Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton's cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCKY GUEST.
+
+XXXIII.
+
+
+The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on "the
+master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.
+
+An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of _Coum an
+'ir morriv_ (the dead man's hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name "_currigguib_," a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.
+
+Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.
+
+"I have told you," she said, "what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother's roof."
+
+Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public speaking," she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:--
+
+"It was one May eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days," said Ellen, with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the _Drutheen_, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.
+
+"My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big _chimbley_.
+
+"'God bless us,' says my mother, 'but 'tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.'
+
+"I don't, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we'd like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in--having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.
+
+"We were all watching to see who'd come in, for there was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who'd
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn't mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
+
+"We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman's hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+_labbig_,[30] scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.
+
+    [30] _Labbig_--bed, from _Leaba_.--Vide O'BRIEN and O'REILLY.
+
+"When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 'twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o'clock; and then, if we'd look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the keyhole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so 'twas
+just fitting for the little arm.
+
+"The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and 'tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we'd instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane--but he was drunk--walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.
+
+"As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.
+
+"But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord--God forgive him--took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father--and small blame to him for
+that--refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.
+
+"It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the _moral_ (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock!--twelve
+o'clock!--no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.
+
+"My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."
+
+Here young Ellen's voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.
+
+     FIR DARRIG means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+     community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+     Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+     his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+     is doubtless the same as the Scottih _Red Cap_; which a writer
+     in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+     analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+     spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+     hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+     Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+     common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+     the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton's
+     "Lubber Fiend") and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+     of the Folletos, "Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+     effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+     vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+     reperisse."--_Otia Imperialia._
+
+     The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+     Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+     according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+     waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+     warbling of birds, &c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+     Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+     invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+     generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+     and red shoes.
+
+
+
+
+TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+    "Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back
+    When gold and silver becks me to come on."
+
+                                        _King John._
+
+    "This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so."
+
+                                    _Winter's Tale._
+
+
+
+
+DREAMING TIM JARVIS.
+
+XXXIV.
+
+
+Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.
+
+Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.
+
+But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him--"Tim Jarvis, you're
+all behind, Tim, like the cow's tail." Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver--and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney's
+coaster--and so he did!
+
+Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he--"Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?"
+
+"Surely I do, sir," said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.
+
+"Tim," says he, "what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?"
+
+"Please your honour," says Tim, "I'm come to seek my fortune."
+
+"You're a fool for your pains, Tim, if that's all," remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; "this is a big place to seek one's
+fortune in, to be sure, but it's not so easy to find it."
+
+Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.
+
+"There's many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes," said
+Tim.
+
+"True," said the stranger.
+
+"But," continued Tim, looking up, "the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I'm told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts."
+
+"And who told you that, Tim?"
+
+"Why then, sir, that's what I can't tell myself rightly--only I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!" said the stranger, laughing; "I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll's ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom."
+
+Tim knew Jerry Driscoll's ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it--so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he--
+
+"By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!"
+
+The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband--the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him--and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. "It wasn't for nothing," says Tim, "I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you'll see what'll come out of it--mind my words."
+
+A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours--as well they might--thought he was cracked!
+
+The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll's field, though it was
+said to be "the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil."
+
+It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:--"Norah, did you see e'er a cow you'd like?"--or, "Norah,
+dear, hasn't Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?"--or, "Norah honey,
+wouldn't you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle's?"
+
+As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze-bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.
+
+"How shall we bother Tim?" said one voice.
+
+"Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+_ould sarpint_; 'tis long since he has had a good meal," said another
+voice.
+
+Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.
+
+"No," said a third voice; "plunge him in the bog, neck and heels."
+
+Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.[31]
+
+    [31]  "I'non mori, e non rimasi vivo:
+          Pensa oramai per te, s'hai fior d'ingegno
+          Qual io divenni d'uno e d'altro privo."
+
+                        Dante, _Inferno_, canto 34.
+
+"Stop!" said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.
+
+When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up--he then took a big
+one--and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim--down, down and down he went--until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out--
+
+    "Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!
+    Welcome, down here!"
+
+Though Tim's teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer--"I'm he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself." But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, "Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?"
+
+"Mighty well! I thank your honour," said Tim; "and 'twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!"
+
+There was a great laugh at Tim's answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, "Shut your eyes, and you'll see,
+Tim."
+
+"By my word, then," said Tim, "that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I'm not the man to gainsay you, so I'll do as you bid me, any how."
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens[32], as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, "Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man," says
+he, "and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we've altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent."
+
+    [32] An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.
+
+"Oh, then, long life to you, sir!" said Tim, "and there's no doubt of
+that."
+
+"But what will you say, Tim," inquired the little fellow, "if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?"
+
+"Your honour's honour, and your honour's glory," answered Tim, "I'll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you--and
+indeed I've enough to do with them. I'd make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah--she has been a good wife to me. We'll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I'd have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if 'twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I'd build a new cabin;
+and I'd have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I'd snap my fingers at the 'squire, and beat his hounds, if they'd
+come coursing through my fields; and I'd have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy Leary's brats--that's my sister that
+was--and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I'd have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I'd have every thing," said Tim, "in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money--hurra-whoop!--and that's what I'd do."
+
+"Take care, Tim," said the little fellow, "your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop."
+
+But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man."
+
+"I hope, gentlemen," said he, "we won't part for good and all; but may
+be ye'll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I've done with your money."
+
+To this there was no answer, only another shout--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis--go home--fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye'll
+never see the light of day again."
+
+Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before--away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.
+
+He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs--and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll's, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat "her dreaming blackguard."
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.
+
+Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato-garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.
+
+Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding--"If they stayed with me I wouldn't have
+luck with them, sir; and father O'Shea told me 'twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn't, they'd have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way."
+
+I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the _sarpint_ in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. "The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm," was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis's
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.
+
+
+
+
+RENT-DAY.
+
+XXXV.
+
+
+"Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?" muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. "What will we do? to-morrow's rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don't pay up our rent, he'll cant every
+_ha'perth_ we have; and then, sure enough, there's Judy and myself,
+and the poor little _grawls_,[33] will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!--Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!"
+
+    [33] Children.
+
+Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,
+
+    "How ill the scene that offers rest,
+    And heart that cannot rest, agree!"
+
+Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.
+
+"What's the matter with you, my poor man?" said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman's sudden appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn't pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o'clock next
+day.
+
+"A sad story indeed," said the stranger; "but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord's agent, he won't have the heart
+to turn you out."
+
+"Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!" exclaimed
+Bill. "I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out."
+
+"Take this, my poor fellow, take this," said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill's old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. "Pay the fellow your rent, but I'll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!"
+
+These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.
+
+"O'Donoghue, O'Donoghue!" shouted Bill; "the good, the blessed
+O'Donoghue!" and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.
+
+The next day Bill proceeded to the agent's; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.
+
+"Why don't you take off your hat, fellow; don't you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?" said the agent.
+
+"I know I'm not speaking to the king, sir," said Bill; "and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I've no right either to respect or love an agent!"
+
+"You scoundrel!" retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, "I'll teach you how to
+be insolent again--I have the power, remember."
+
+"To the cost of the country, I know you have," said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.
+
+"But come," said the magistrate; "have you got the money for me?--this
+is rent-day. If there's one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that's due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession."
+
+"There is your rent," said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; "you'd better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all."
+
+The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold--real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one's pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.
+
+The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king's head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.
+
+From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O'Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.
+
+Like the butterfly, the spirit of O'Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.
+
+
+
+
+LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.
+
+XXXVI.
+
+
+Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant's Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?--who ever thinks of going--
+
+    --"westward, where Dick Martin _ruled_
+    The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?"
+
+The Ulster-man's ancient denunciation "to hell or to Connaught," has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground--a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium--in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, "I'll warrant he'll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o' green Erin, only
+something poorer;" and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+"worse would be needless;" but so it is.
+
+"My gracious me," said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, "I wonder a
+gentleman of your _teeste_ and _curosity_ would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a _tower_ (tour) of Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the _ould_ abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair."
+
+Polly M'Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The "old abbey" is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni's princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of "O'Rourke's old hall," gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.
+
+The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; "but,"
+continued he, "for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour's after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that's worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?" He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts--as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. "That's Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir," resumed my guide, "and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+_moral_ of it, only that it's round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, 'tis as good as fourscore years--I often _hard_ my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story--since Manus O'Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O'Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o'clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he'd find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O'Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother's father was a cow-boy to the earl O'Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M'Clure's--the old Frank that was then at that time--and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and 'tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he'd eat him, says he, in good English,
+
+"'Arrah, then, Manus,' says he, 'what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.'
+
+"'Oh, plase your honour,' says Manus, 'I beg my life:' and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.
+
+"'Well, as you have some blood of the O'Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I'll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.'
+
+"'Go home,' says the Payshtha--'go home, Manus,' says he; 'and if you
+can't make better use of your time, get drunk; but don't come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I'll show you something that you'll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.'
+
+"With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn't long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.
+
+"'Plase your honour,' says Manus, 'if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?'
+
+"'May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I'm bound to look after the Thiernas[34] of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch this cave, and what's in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.'
+
+    [34] _Tighearna_--a lord. Vide O'BRIEN.
+
+"'May be you are a sort of a banshee?'
+
+"'I am not, you fool,' said the little man. 'The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.'
+
+"Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O'Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant's tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.
+
+"'And now, Manus,' says the little man, 'ye seen the whole o' this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.' The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus's face, and says to
+him in a great passion, 'Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don't ye go
+about your business?'
+
+"'How can I?--sure you must show me the way out,' says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.
+
+"'Can't we go out the way we came?' says Manus.
+
+"'No, you must go out at the other end--that's the rule o' this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.' With
+that the little man gave him one _hoise_, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story."
+
+     As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+     all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+     concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+     expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+     admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+     exists a striking similarity.
+
+     Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+     by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l'Antiquite,
+     traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+     discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+     numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+     they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+     Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele's Danske Folkesagn, i.
+     112, ii. 24. Kirke's Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &c.
+
+     The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+     supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+     seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+     rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+     Holgar, and Groen Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+     the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+     sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+     receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+     appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.
+
+     In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+     soliloquizing--"Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+     that He keeps it from us."
+
+
+
+
+ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+    "Forms in silence frown'd,
+    Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye
+    Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,
+    Wedding themselves with gloom--or grew
+    Gigantic to my troubled view,
+    And seem'd to gather round me."
+                 BANIM'S _Celt's Paradise_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.
+
+XXXVII.
+
+
+From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without "a crooked thought and a cross job." Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.
+
+This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains--_Labacally_, the hag's bed--not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.
+
+O'Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son--never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.
+
+Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman's, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.
+
+    "Infant heir of proud Fermoy,
+      Fear not fields of slaughter;
+    Storm and fire fear not, my boy,
+      But shun the fatal water."
+
+These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.
+
+The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord's vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:
+
+    ----"Put but a little water in a spoon,
+    And it shall be, as all the ocean,
+    Enough to stifle such a _being_ up."
+
+A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.
+
+The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+
+A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.
+
+Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.
+
+On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brien
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.
+
+Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning's sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.
+
+These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son--many a wife of a husband--many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!
+
+It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. "Thine, Regan,
+be the task," he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.
+
+With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning's dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!
+
+Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith's
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.
+
+The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;
+
+    "The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;
+    White-tooth'd, graceful, magnanimous, and active."
+
+The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag's
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.
+
+The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+_Clough-a-Regaun_ is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!
+
+
+
+
+CLOUGH NA CUDDY.
+
+XXXIX.
+
+
+Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen--"sweet Innisfallen," as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.
+
+However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner--the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.
+
+Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of "the fat father." Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it--and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. 'Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.
+
+    "He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.--What then?
+    He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!"
+
+Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled "blackjack" stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.
+
+Spiritual affairs--for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery--demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning's light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.
+
+The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off--"Hah!" exclaimed Cuddy, "what a noble haunch goes
+there!--how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!"
+
+As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.
+
+Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire satisfaction. "Welcome, Father
+Cuddy," said the prior: "grace be on you."
+
+"Grace before meat, then," said Cuddy, "for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water."
+
+A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy's appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:--he tried another,--it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!
+
+I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as "_in vino veritas_" his song will well become
+this veritable history.
+
+    CANTAT MONACHUS.
+
+    I.
+           Hoc erat in votis,
+         Et bene sufficerit totis
+        Si dum porto sacculum
+    Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!
+          Et si parvis
+            In arvis
+            Nullam
+            Invenero pullam,
+        Ovum gentiliter preaebebit recens
+            Puella decens.
+        Manu nec dabis invita
+            Flos vallium harum,
+            Decus puellarum,
+            Candida Marguerita!
+
+THE FRIAR'S SONG.
+
+    I.
+
+            My vows I can never fulfil,
+                      Until
+        I have breakfasted, one way or other;
+              And I freely protest,
+              That I never can rest
+              'Till I borrow or beg
+                    An egg,
+    Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.
+              But Maggy, my dear,
+              While you're here,
+                  I don't fear
+    To want eggs that have just been laid newly;
+              For och! you're a pearl
+                Of a girl,
+      And you're called so in _Latin_ most truly.
+
+    II.
+
+        Me hora jucunda coenae
+        Dilectat bene,
+      Et rerum sine dubio grandium
+      Maxima est prandium:
+        Sed mihi crede,
+        In hac aede,
+    Multo magis gaudeo,
+      Cum gallicantum audio,
+        In sinu tuo
+        Videns ova duo.
+      Oh semper me tractes ita!
+        Panibus de hordeo factis,
+        Et copia lactis,
+      Candida Margarita!
+
+    III.
+
+    There is most to my mind something that is still upper
+                        Than supper,
+    Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner
+                        After dinner:
+    But soon as I hear the cock crow
+                        In the morning,
+    That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,
+                      By that warning,
+    While your buttermilk helps me to float
+                        Down my throat
+          Those sweet cakes made of oat.
+                        I don't envy an earl,
+                        Sweet girl,
+    Och, 'tis you are a beautiful pearl.
+
+Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery's delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.
+
+This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man's drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with _the venerable Bead_,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his "soul-case," so he figuratively termed
+the body.
+
+His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!--he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. "Bless my eyes," said Father
+Cuddy, "every thing is changing now-a-days!--the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think _Camceachta_ (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where."
+
+Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.
+
+"Ah, Margery, merry Margery!" cried Cuddy, "you tempting little rogue!
+
+    'Flos vallium harum,
+    Decus puellarum,
+    Candida Margarita.'
+
+"I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!" and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.
+
+At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.
+
+Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. "Bless my soul and body!" said the good father, "I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!" Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer's morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.
+
+Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.
+
+Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.
+
+Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.
+
+"Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what's your business?"
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter's place.
+
+"Business!--my business!" repeated the confounded Cuddy,--"why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?"
+
+"Hence, fellow!" said the porter's representative, in a surly tone;
+"nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales."
+
+"Fellow!" exclaimed the father: "mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!--Scoundrel!" cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, "do you not see my garb--my holy garb?"
+
+"Ay, fellow," replied he of the keys--"the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty--whom God preserve!"
+
+"Queen of England!" said Cuddy; "there never was a sovereign queen of
+England--this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night--the world's turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?"
+
+"Know you!--how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey.
+"Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since."
+
+"'Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery's fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad--no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. "A hundred years!--what was your great-grandmother's name?"
+
+"She was a Mahony of Dunlow--Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother--"
+
+"What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!" shouted Cuddy.
+"St. Brandon help me!--the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!--why, 'twas only last night--a hundred years!--your
+great-grandmother, said you?--There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!"
+
+That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery's fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.
+
+The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy--so is the stone
+called--remains in Lord Kenmare's park, an indisputable evidence of
+the fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIANT'S STAIRS.
+
+XL.
+
+
+On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne's Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.
+
+Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, "_genus_."
+
+One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.
+
+There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O'Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.
+
+Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. "The seven years--my time of service,--are clean out, Robin,"
+said he, "and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after."
+
+"And how will I know," said Robin--cunning enough, even in his
+sleep--"but this is all a dream?"
+
+"Take that," said the boy, "for a token"--and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.
+
+Robin was well acquainted with the Giant's Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.
+
+Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk's
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin's dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant's
+Stairs.
+
+After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant's Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant's Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, "'Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream."
+
+"And whose doing is it," said Tom, "but your own?"
+
+At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king's palace unfolded itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.
+
+"Robin, Robin," said he, "if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?" But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+"What seek you?" he demanded in a voice of thunder.
+
+"I come," answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on--for his heart was almost fainting within him--"I come," said he,
+"to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night."
+
+"And who sent you here?" said the giant.
+
+"'Twas of my own accord I came," said Robin.
+
+"Then you must single him out from among my pages," said the giant;
+"and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me."
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.
+
+"Here," said Mahon, "you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice."
+
+Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin's own sledge battering on his anvil.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.
+
+"'Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry," remarked
+Robin, "although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. 'Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!"
+
+"Ay," said the giant, "that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith."
+
+Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and, all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, "Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne."
+
+"It is Philip Ronayne--happy Philip Ronayne," said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant's Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.
+
+Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure--Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline--the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.
+
+"Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?" was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.
+
+"Am I sure? Well, that's a queer question," was Robin's reply; "seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the _purly_ wart on the right side of his
+little nose."
+
+However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne's court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.
+
+Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years' apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.
+
+      And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o'er;
+        The tales my infancy had loved to hear,
+        Like blissful visions fade and disappear.
+      Such tales Momonia's peasant tells no more!
+      Vanish'd are MERMAIDS from the sea beat shore;
+        Check'd is the HEADLESS HORSEMAN'S strange career;
+        FIR DARRIG'S voice no longer mocks the ear,
+      Nor ROCKS bear wondrous imprints as of yore!
+      Such is "the march of mind." But did the fays
+        (Creatures of whim--the gossamers of will)
+        In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill
+      As stormier spirits of our modern days?
+    Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:
+    My constant prayer--"may peace be with thee still!"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire--
+
+    "Who every year can mend your cheer
+      With tales both old and new."
+
+The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.
+
+The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.
+
+I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely "pulled the old woman out of our hearts," as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even _score above the breath_. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.
+
+But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon's court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday's sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went "to raise the water," as if the
+South'ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy _cortege_ awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.
+
+I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G----, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair-day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself _artist from Vauxhall_, and that he
+exhibits _fantoccini_; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G----. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch's sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord ---- could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.
+
+It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.
+
+As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much
+
+                               Your obliged and thankful servant,
+                                                        WALTER SCOTT.
+
+27th April, 1825.
+
+    ABBOTSFORD, MELROSE.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The
+South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South
+of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland
+
+Author: T. Crofton Crocker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2012 [EBook #39752]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.
+
+    BY
+
+    T. CROFTON CROKER.
+
+
+    A New Edition.
+
+    WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
+    AFTER DESIGNS OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.
+
+
+    "Come l'araba Fenice
+    Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;
+    Dove sia, nessun lo sa."--METASTASIO.
+
+
+    Philadelphia:
+    LEA AND BLANCHARD.
+    1844.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The erudite Lessing styles a preface "the history of a book." Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.
+
+However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the "Fairy Legends"
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.
+
+Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced, as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.
+
+
+
+
+            CONTENTS.
+
+
+            THE SHEFRO.
+
+          I. The Legend of Knocksheogowna,
+         II. ---- Knockfierna,
+        III. ---- Knockgrafton,
+         IV. The Priest's Supper,
+          V. The Brewery of Egg-shells,
+         VI. Legend of Bottle Hill,
+        VII. The Confessions of Tom Bourke,
+       VIII. Fairies or no Fairies,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+         IX. The Haunted Cellar,
+          X. Master and Man,
+         XI. The Little Shoe,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE BANSHEE.
+
+        XII. The Bunworth Banshee,
+       XIII. The McCarthy Banshee,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE PHOOKA.
+
+        XIV. The Spirit Horse,
+         XV. Daniel O'Rourke,
+        XVI. The Crookened Back,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+       XVII. Fior Usga,
+      XVIII. Cormac and Mary (_Ballad_,)
+        XIX. The Legend of Lough Gur,
+         XX. The Enchanted Lake,
+        XXI. The Legend of O'Donoghue,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE MERROW.
+
+       XXII. The Lady of Gollerus,
+      XXIII. Flory Cantillon's Funeral,
+       XXIV. The Lord of Dunkerron (_Ballad_,)
+        XXV. The Wonderful Tune,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE DULLAHAN.
+
+       XXVI. The Good Woman,
+      XXVII. Hanlon's Mill,
+     XXVIII. The Death Coach (_Ballad_,)
+       XXIX. The Headless Horseman,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+        XXX. Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,
+       XXXI. Teigue of the Lee,
+      XXXII. Ned Sheehy's Excuse,
+     XXXIII. The Lucky Guest,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+      XXXIV. Dreaming Tim Jarvis,
+       XXXV. Rent Day,
+      XXXVI. Linn-na-Payshtha,
+            _Note on the Section._
+
+            ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+     XXXVII. The Legend of Cairn Thierna,
+    XXXVIII. The Rock of the Candle,
+      XXXIX. Clough-na-Cuddy,
+         XL. The Giant's Stairs.
+
+            APPENDIX--Letter from Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.
+
+CASTLE MAHON.
+
+
+    THEE, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land
+      (Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)
+      A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;
+    The moonlight SHEFROS there, in merry band
+    With artful CLURICAUNE, should ready stand
+      To welcome thee--Imagination's child!
+      Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild
+    The BANSHEE'S shriek, who points with wither'd hand.
+    In the dim twilight should the PHOOKA come,
+      Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,
+      That opens clear calm LAKES upon thy sight,
+    Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.
+    I know thee, Lady--thou wilt not deride
+    Such Fairy Scenes.--Then onward with thy Guide.
+
+                                  T. Crofton Croker. [signature]
+
+[Illustration: The Wood Engravings after Designs by
+               Mr. BROOKE, R. H. A.,
+               Mr. McCLISE,
+               and the AUTHOR.]
+
+
+
+
+Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Look there! look there, mammy!"]
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHEFRO.
+
+    ----------------"Fairy Elves
+    Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+    Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
+    Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon
+    Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
+    Wheels her pale course."--
+                                       MILTON.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.
+
+I.
+
+
+In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.
+
+But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,--now
+in one shape--now in another,--but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a bull's head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck's feet, and a turkey cock's tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.
+
+The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.
+
+What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry's asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. "If that is all ails you," said Larry, "make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one's thumb." "Larry,"
+said the farmer, "do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight."
+
+The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer's
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, "What! another man upon the fairies' ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;" and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. "Go on, jewel,"
+said Larry; "if you dance, I'll pipe;" and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that, and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.
+
+Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; "spreading like a
+sea," and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain's base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, "By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap _for
+a calf_!"
+
+She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+"Laurence," said she, "you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?" "And that's what I will," said he, "if you let me." So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: "You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence," said she, "that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it." She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry's life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer's expense, and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna[1] after his death, is more than I can say.
+
+    [1] Knocksheogowna signifies "_The Hill of the Fairy Calf._"
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.[2]
+
+II.
+
+
+    [2] "Called by the people of the country '_Knock Dhoinn
+    Firinne_,' the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very
+    high, and may be seen for several miles round; and when people
+    are desirous to know whether or not any day will rain, they look
+    at the top of Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist
+    there, they immediately conclude that rain will soon follow,
+    believing that Donn (the lord or chief) of that mountain and his
+    a�rial assistants are collecting the clouds, and that he holds
+    them there for some short time, to warn the people of the
+    approaching rain. As the appearance of mist on that mountain in
+    the morning is considered an infallible sign that that day will
+    be rainy, Donn is called '_Donn Firinne_,' Donn of Truth."--MR.
+    EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.
+
+It has been truly said, that "good manners are no burden," and that
+"civility costs nothing;" but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O'Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, "Devil Daly."
+
+Carroll O'Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, "Good luck attend you, gentlemen."
+
+It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards "the Balbec of Ireland," the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O'Daly asked his companion how far he was going?
+
+"Not far your way," said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; "I'm only going to the top of this hill here."
+
+"And what might take you there," said O'Daly, "at this time of the
+night?"
+
+"Why then," replied the farmer, "if you want to know; 'tis the _good
+people_."
+
+"The fairies you mean," said O'Daly.
+
+"Whist! whist!" said his fellow-traveller, "or you may be sorry for
+it;" and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O'Daly good night and a safe journey.
+
+"That fellow," thought Carroll, "is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!" he repeated, "is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of."
+
+Carroll O'Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon's disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.
+
+A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O'Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, "Here's
+after you, old boy!" he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.
+
+Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O'Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+"Poul-duve," or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.
+
+"But," thought O'Daly, "these are old woman's stories: and since I've
+come up so far, I'll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home."
+
+No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,--and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O'Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.
+
+Carroll O'Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey's end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.
+
+III.
+
+
+There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.
+
+Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,[3] in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,
+
+    "Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
+    Apparent Queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
+    And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
+
+    [3] Literally, the great herb--_Digitalis purpurea_.
+
+Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:--
+
+_Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, when
+there would be a moment's pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.
+
+Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words _augus Da Cadine_, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with _augus Da
+Cadine_.[4]
+
+    [4] Correctly written, _Dia Luain_, _Dia Mairt_, _agus Dia
+    Ceadaoine_, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
+
+The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.
+
+Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart's content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.
+
+Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,--
+
+    "Lusmore! Lusmore!
+    Doubt not, nor deplore,
+    For the hump which you bore
+    On your back is no more!--
+    Look down on the floor,
+    And view it, Lusmore!"
+
+When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.
+
+Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man--in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.
+
+Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.
+
+One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.
+
+"I need give you no directions, my good woman," said Lusmore, "for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?"
+
+"I have come," said the woman, "out of Decie's country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: 'tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can."
+
+Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.
+
+The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.
+
+Jack Madden for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: _Da
+Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _Da Luan_, _Da Mort_, _augus
+Da Cadine_, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+_augus da Cadine augus Da Hena_,[5] thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.
+
+    [5] And Wednesday and Thursday.
+
+No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said--
+
+    "Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
+    Your words came so bad in
+    The tune we feel glad in;--
+    This castle you're had in,
+    That your life we may sadden;--
+    Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"
+
+And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIEST'S SUPPER.
+
+IV.
+
+
+It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork--a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.
+
+On a nice green sod by the river's side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out--
+
+    "Cease, cease with your drumming,
+    Here's an end to our mumming;
+        By my smell
+        I can tell
+    A priest this way is coming!"
+
+And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.
+
+The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with "My blessing on all here."
+
+I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which "the old
+woman," for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. "No
+matter," thought Dermod, "there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest's supper, that one
+will be there before me."
+
+Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of "the spreading Lee;" but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.
+
+Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, "May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there's any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I'm clear in my own mind you'll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you--did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?"
+
+"That's not true for you," said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; "there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you."
+
+Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: "Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest's supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time."
+
+"I'll have nothing at all to do with you," replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, "I'm much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him--so there's
+an end of the matter."
+
+The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod's
+manner, continued, "Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?"
+
+Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+"I see no objection to do that same, gentlemen," said Dermod; "But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,--mind that."
+
+"Then," said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, "go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay."
+
+Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.
+
+"Please your reverence," said Dermod, after some hesitation, "may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"What may that be?" said Father Horrigan.
+
+"Why, then, begging your reverence's pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?"
+
+"Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?" said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.
+
+"I'll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth," said Dermod. "It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer."
+
+"Go back by all means," said the priest, "and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I'll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life."
+
+Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.
+
+When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.
+
+V.
+
+
+It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Mid-summer Night's Dream[6] and the
+Fairy Queen?[7]
+
+    [6] Act ii. sc. 1.
+
+    [7] Book i. canto 10.
+
+Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+"fairies' theft," to use Spenser's words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.
+
+Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.
+
+One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.
+
+"You're in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan," were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.
+
+"You may say that, Ellen," said Mrs. Sullivan, "and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen."
+
+"Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan," said Ellen Leah; "but are you
+sure 'tis a fairy?"
+
+"Sure!" echoed Mrs. Sullivan, "sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother's soul must feel for me!"
+
+"Will you take an old woman's advice?" said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, "but may be you'll call it foolish?"
+
+"Can you get me back my child,--my own child, Ellen?" said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.
+
+"If you do as I bid you," returned Ellen Leah, "you'll know." Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. "Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you."
+
+Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot--it surely was.
+
+The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, "What are you doing, mammy?"
+
+Mrs. Sullivan's heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, "I'm brewing, _a vick_" (my son).
+
+"And what are you brewing, mammy?" said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.
+
+"I wish the poker was red," thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.
+
+"Is it what I'm brewing, _a vick_," said she, "you want to know?"
+
+"Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?" returned the fairy.
+
+"Egg-shells, _a vick_," said Mrs. Sullivan.
+
+"Oh!" shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, "I'm fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!" The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow--his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.
+
+Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy--and she wept!--tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them--they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.
+
+VI.
+
+
+    "Come listen to a tale of times of old,
+    Come listen to me--"
+
+It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from "the beautiful city called Cork." Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, 'twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,--_she_ was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn't enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.
+
+"Why then, Molly," says he, "what'll we do?"
+
+"Wisha, then, mavournene, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?" says she; "and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested _again_ the
+fair."
+
+"And what'll we do when she's gone?" says Mick, sorrowfully.
+
+"Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won't leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?"
+
+"Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won't be sorry for selling the cow; but I'll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+'tis ripped under the arm."
+
+Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o'clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.
+
+"Oh, then, if I only had half the money that's buried in you, 'tisn't
+driving this poor cow I'd be now! Why, then, isn't it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God's will, I'll have some money myself coming
+back."
+
+So saying, he moved on after his beast; 'twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill--Bottle Hill 'tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.
+
+"Good morrow," says he. "Good morrow," kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you'd almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn't quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man's company; and he couldn't see one bit of
+his legs, nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great-coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn't know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick's heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn't come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn't the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing--when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.
+
+"Where are you going with the cow, honest man?"
+
+"To the fair of Cork then," says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.
+
+"Are you going to sell her?" said the stranger.
+
+"Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?"
+
+"Will you sell her to me?"
+
+Mick started--he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.
+
+"What'll you give for her?" at last says he.
+
+"I'll tell you what, I'll give you this bottle," said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.
+
+Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"Laugh if you will," said the little man, "but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork--ay, than ten thousand times as much."
+
+Mick laughed again. "Why then," says he, "do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle--and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won't."
+
+"You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle--you'll not be
+sorry for it."
+
+"Why, then, and what would Molly say? I'd never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?
+
+"I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell."
+
+Mick started.
+
+"How does he know my name?" thought he.
+
+The stranger proceeded: "Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?"
+
+Mick was going to say "God forbid!" but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that's what many people, that hold their heads higher, don't mind
+now).
+
+"And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?
+
+"Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir," said Mick; "and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I'd give you the
+cow in the name----"
+
+"Never mind names," said the stranger, "but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly."
+
+Mick hesitated.
+
+"Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!" said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.
+
+"May be 'tis true," said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do--he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle--"Take the cow," said he, "and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you."
+
+"I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you."
+
+"And what's that?" says Mick.
+
+"When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean, set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: 'Bottle, do your duty,' and you will see the end
+of it."
+
+"And is this all?" says Mick.
+
+"No more," said the stranger. "Good by, Mick Purcell--you are a rich
+man."
+
+"God grant it!" said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Lord between us and harm!" said Mick: "_He_ can't belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?" She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
+
+"And what would I do if it broke?" thought he. "Oh! but I'll take care
+of that;" so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.
+
+"Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer'n't at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it."
+
+"Why then, Molly, if you'll give me time, I'll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, 'tisn't Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now."
+
+"Oh! then, you sold her; and where's the money?"
+
+"Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?" said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.
+
+"Why, then, be easy now, can't you," says Mick, "till I tell it to
+you?" and putting the bottle on the table, "That's all I got for the
+cow."
+
+His poor wife was thunderstruck. "All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what'll we do for
+the rent, and what----"
+
+"Now, Molly," says Mick, "can't you hearken to reason? Didn't I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,--no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me--on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!" said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband's head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man's advice) loosened his wife's
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn't know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, "Bottle, do your duty."
+
+"Look there! look there, mammy!" said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old--"look there! look there!" and he sprang to his
+mother's side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn't think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, "Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day's work."
+
+"Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle."
+
+Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn't taste half the dishes.
+
+"Now," says Molly, "I wonder will those two good little gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?" They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, "Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you'll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell."
+
+Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money--sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he'd never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken--he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,
+
+    "Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending
+    And thrilling with music, was melting in light."
+
+Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:--"Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man."
+
+"Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that's no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now--but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it."
+
+"And here is the bottle," said the old man, smiling; "you know what to
+do with it."
+
+"Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have."
+
+"Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man."
+
+"And good bye to you, sir," said Mick, as he turned back; "and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill--it wants a name--Bottle
+Hill.--Good bye, sir, good bye;" so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,--"Oh! sure,
+I've another bottle!"
+
+"Arrah! then have you? why, then, you're a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that's what you are."
+
+In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, "Bottle, do your duty." In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.
+
+"Well, what do you want now?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle."
+
+"Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"Come along, then." So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: "Ah! ha!"
+says he to himself, "may be I won't have you by and by."
+
+"Now," says his landlord, "show us your bottle." Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, "Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I'll have you
+hanged!"
+
+"They never shall stop," said Mick, "till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf."
+
+"Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!"
+says the landlord.
+
+Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord's only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so 'twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
+
+VII.
+
+
+Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom's father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called "the good people."
+
+Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect--they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eye-brows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. "Very well, sir;" "That's true,
+sir;" "I'm very thankful to your honour," and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.
+
+Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man's business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular, that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind--a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.
+
+It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is _struck_[8] in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, _after_ their
+recovery.
+
+    [8] The term "fairy struck" is applied to paralytic affections,
+    which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the invisible
+    hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates fairy
+    doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+    to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has
+    also a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently
+    made to bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a
+    sacrifice to Bacchus.
+
+    The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+    peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of
+    consideration and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be
+    buried with his or her "own people."
+
+To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the _good people_
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.
+
+About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom's, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin's house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent _potteen_, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom's, this seemed a good
+opportunity.
+
+"Well, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer's, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day."
+
+"You may say that, sir," replied Tom Bourke; "but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma'am," said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+"So I had, ma'am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time."
+
+"Come, Tom," said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, "take
+another tumbler;" and he then added, "I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over."
+
+"'Tis true for you, sir," returned Tom; "your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won't belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of 'em now."
+
+"And how did you find it out, Tom?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you, sir," said Bourke: "When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little _bohereen_, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy's ground; for 'twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother's berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,[9] that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. 'Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),' says I. 'I'm sorry for your trouble,' says he; 'but you're a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.' 'What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?' says I: 'the doctors give him over.' 'The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,' says Shamous: 'but go to such a one,' says he, telling me his
+name, 'and try what he'll say to you.'"
+
+    [9] A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie man
+    of Scotland.
+
+"And who was that, Tom?" asked Mr. Martin.
+
+"I could not tell you that, sir," said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+"howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I'd
+have now some of them that's gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great _impression_
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad--very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o'clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one half-penny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you--I wont belie my father, sir--he was a good
+father to me--I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. 'Is that you, father?' says I. He said nothing. 'If that's
+you,' says I again, 'for the love of them that's gone, let me catch
+your hand.' And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child's.
+He stayed about as long as you'd be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn't
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains."
+
+"But I think, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father----"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Bourke, interrupting him; "but don't
+call them my enemies. 'Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.--Here's
+wishing you a good health and long life."
+
+"I assure you," returned Mr. Martin, "I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?"
+
+"I can't tell you that, sir," said Bourke; "I'm bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them."
+
+There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son's illness--circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.
+
+"See that now," said he, returning to Mr. Martin, "how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma'am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats' whey."
+
+Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued--"Why, then, I'll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e'er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father's. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?"
+
+"Certainly not, Tom," returned Mr. Martin.
+
+"Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.--'Whisht, you fool!' says I: ''tis all for the better.' 'Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma'am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack's face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+'Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you."
+
+"'Twas very strange, indeed, Tom," said Mr. Martin; "I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it."
+
+"I wish I could, sir," was Tom Bourke's answer; "but I'm bound down. I
+can't tell but what I'm allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds."
+
+"I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"So I had, sir," returned Bourke. "I had a trial of that man. But
+that's neither here nor there. I can't tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?"
+
+"Oh! very much indeed," said Mr. Martin.
+
+"But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story," added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.
+
+"Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, 'cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother's
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father's people--I mean their friends, sir, among
+the _good people_, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she'd be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father's people."
+
+"He was a valuable friend, Tom," said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. "But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful."
+
+"So I will, and welcome," replied Bourke. "Your health, ma'am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one's throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?--Yes--well--Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a _berrin_ late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,[10] near Ballyhefaan
+ford.[11] He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they'd break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that's saying enough for him; so he whipped[12] off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he'd show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!--his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+them. Patrick was 'shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. 'Patrick,' says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+'Patrick,' says he, 'you're discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I'm your friend, and your father's friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don't be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.'
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey."
+
+    [10] Inch--low meadow ground near a river.
+
+    [11] A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,) on
+    the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.
+
+    [12] _i. e._ "In the time of a crack of a whip," he took off his
+    shoes and stockings.
+
+"And what was the cause of his great success?" inquired Mr. Martin.
+
+"He could not help it, sir," replied Tom Bourke. "They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side."
+
+"Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?" said Mr. Martin.
+
+"I'll tell you that too, sir," answered Bourke, "when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn't make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it's little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can't tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn't be the man he is
+to-day.
+
+"I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill," said
+Mr. Martin.
+
+"You have it all now, sir," replied Bourke. "Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn't hinder the fever, they'd bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick's family, and it went again' his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+'em boasting how they'd dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever."
+
+"I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford," said Mr. Martin. "'Tis a great place for the good people, isn't
+it, Tom?"
+
+"You may say that, sir," returned Bourke. "I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th' other side of the river, looking at 'em playing goal
+as if they'd break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th' other, just as you'd see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming's
+big field. I saw 'em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th' other. I'm sure they were
+going to fight, only, 'twas near morning. I'm told your grandfather,
+ma'am, used to see 'em, there, too," said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.
+
+"So I have been told, Tom," replied Mrs. Martin. "But don't they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper[13] is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch."
+
+    [13] About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+    nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.
+
+"Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma'am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard," said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, "'twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother's soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with 'em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among 'em (for he hadn't a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+'Davy,' says he, 'take out a partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don't offer to kiss her.' 'That I won't,' says Davy,
+'although her lips were made of honey.' And with that he made his bow
+to the _purtiest_ girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+'Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th' admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. 'Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; 'twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn't get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o'clock."
+
+When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.--He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning church-yards, river-sides, peprechans, and _dina
+magh_, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, "I can talk no more;" stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom's wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, "As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork."
+
+
+
+
+FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.
+
+VIII.
+
+
+John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done--but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.
+
+John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories--many more did not believe them--but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.
+
+Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible--that it was merely old woman's gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources--nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge--they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.
+
+"But," said they, "Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?"
+
+"Never," was the reply.--"Never, as I am a man of honour and credit."
+
+"Well, then," they answered, "until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother."
+
+Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle's, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined--he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host's entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, ("not," added he, "however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,") they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.
+
+He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. "Yes, indeed!" muttered he, "the
+brats had me in one thing--I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one--and by the powers! what is that?"
+
+He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments--and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak's branches--some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves--some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk--some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse's neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+"Bravo! little fellow," said he, "well kicked and strong." But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.
+
+"I wish," said Jack, "I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean."
+
+No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.
+
+"Halloo!" said he, "young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you _oc-oc-_ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying."
+
+Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, "Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?"
+
+"The fairies," shouted Jack; "the fairies!"
+
+"I am afraid," muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, "the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter--come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch."
+
+He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;--how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. "Suppose," said one of the
+lads, "we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?"
+
+"Done!" cried Jack; "but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air." This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.
+
+Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. "Look there," he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; "look, and deny if you can."
+
+"Why," said one of the lads, pausing, "true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;" and he dismounted to climb over the wall.
+
+"Ah, Tom! Tom," cried Jack, "stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies--the good people, I mean--hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or--look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak--God
+help him! for he is past the help of man."
+
+By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. "Jack,"
+said he, "keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup."
+
+"Catsup," said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly--"What do you mean by
+catsup?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Tom, "but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball."
+
+Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.
+
+I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but--
+
+              "These our actors,
+    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+    Are melted into air--into thin air."
+
+     The name SHEFRO, by which the foregoing section is
+     distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+     and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+     to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+     to have castles or mansions of their own.--See _Stewart's
+     Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &c.
+
+     _Sia_, _sigh_, _sighe_, _sigheann_, _siabhra_, _siachaire_,
+     _siogidh_, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+     Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+     or witch. Thus we have the compounds _Leannan-sighe_, a
+     familiar, from _Leannan_, a pet, and _Sioghdhraoidheachd_,
+     enchantment with or by spirits.
+
+     _Sigh g�oithe_ or _siaheann-g�oithe_, a whirlwind, is so termed
+     because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+     day called _Sia_, because twilight,
+
+        "That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,"
+
+     is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+     _Sigh_ is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+     to dwell within. _Sidhe_, _sidheadh_, and _sigh_, are names for
+     a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+     fairies.
+
+     The term _Shoges_, i.e. _Sigh oges_ (young or little spirits,)
+     Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+     "The Irish Hudibras," 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+     entitled "The Fingallian Travesty," is among the Sloane MSS.
+     No. 900. In the Third Part of O'Flaherty's Ogygia, it is
+     related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+     chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for "_Sidhe_, or
+     fairies," by some pagan ladies.
+
+     "The Irish," according to the Rev. James Hely's translation of
+     O'Flaherty, "call these _Sidhe_, a�rial spirits or phantoms,
+     because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+     common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+     are called by us _Sidhe_ or _Siodha_."
+
+     For a similar extended use of the German word _Alp_, _Elf_, &c.
+     see Introductory Essay to the Grimms' _Irische Elfenm�rchen_,
+     pp. 55-62.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.
+
+    "----------------- That sottish elf
+    Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,
+    Draining the cellar with as free a hand
+    As if it were his purse which ne'er lacked coin;--
+    And then, with feign'd contrition ruminates
+    Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,
+    In some secluded dell or lonely grove
+    Tinsel'd by Twilight."--
+                                               {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED CELLAR.
+
+IX.
+
+
+There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies--one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more--and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh--and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.
+
+But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.
+
+There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy's butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.
+
+"We have no fault," they would say, "to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days."
+
+"'Tis a queer thing that, surely," thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler's pantry:--"'tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar."
+
+Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.
+
+A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.
+
+"Where is William?" inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Sir?" said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.
+
+"Is it William, please your honour?" returned Jack; "why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just _one_ drop too much last night."
+
+"Where did he get it?" said Mr. Mac Carthy; "for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself."
+
+"Sorrow a know I know," said Leary, "unless the cook might have given
+him the _least taste_ in life of whiskey. But," continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, "may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?"
+
+"Speak out, Jack," said Mr. Mac Carthy.
+
+"Why, then, does your honour want a butler?"
+
+"Can you recommend me one," returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, "and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?"
+
+"Is the wine-cellar all the matter?" said young Leary: "not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that."
+
+"So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?"
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.
+
+"Exactly so," answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.
+
+"Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial."
+
+"Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!"
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.
+
+"Jack Leary," said he at length, "Jack--is it Jack?" in a tone of
+wonder; "faith, 'tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;" and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.
+
+It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack's former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an "Out of the way, sirrah." Indeed, poor Jack's memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.
+
+When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary--so
+he still continued to call his new butler. "Jack," said he, "I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner."
+
+Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.
+
+It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.
+
+For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy's guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,--a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.
+
+It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.
+
+The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.
+
+The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages--I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.
+
+Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind--for it was before the days of
+Bramah's patent,--and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.
+
+Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.
+
+To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.
+
+When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.
+
+"What kept-you?" said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; "and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since."
+
+"The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir," said Jack, trembling
+violently; "I hope 'tis not all lost."
+
+"What do you mean, fool?" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: "why did you not fetch some with you?"
+
+Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, "this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it." So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.
+
+When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled
+
+                "like those mites
+    Of candied dew in moony nights--
+
+and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.
+
+"Ha, scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, "have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar--what are you doing there?"
+
+"Sure, and master," returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, "a'n't we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?"
+
+"Oh!" thought Mr. Mac Carthy, "if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don't see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy." So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.
+
+For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.
+
+Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger--ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;--only looking mighty old. But still 'tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call _spr�-na-skillinagh_,
+and 'tis said is never without a shilling in it.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND MAN.
+
+X.
+
+
+Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.
+
+It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. "By my word," chattered Billy, "a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best."
+
+"Never wish it twice, Billy," said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.
+
+"Success, my little fellow," said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the _good people_;
+"here's your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;" and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.
+
+"Success," said the little man; "and you're heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don't think to cheat me as you have done others,--out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman."
+
+"Is it I pay you?" said Billy: "could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?"
+
+"Billy Mac Daniel," said the little man, getting very angry, "you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me."
+
+When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the livelong night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.
+
+When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, "You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don't fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master."
+
+Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, "Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night."
+
+Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: "But," said he, "if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us."
+
+"Ask no questions, Billy," said the little man, "but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find."
+
+Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. "Get up, Billy," said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.
+
+"Where will I get up, please your honour?" said Billy.
+
+"Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure," said the little man.
+
+"Is it after making a fool of me you'd be," said Billy, "bidding me
+get a horse-back upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?"
+
+"Up! up! and no words," said the little man, looking very vexed; "the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it." So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: "Borram! Borram! Borram!" cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse's tail; and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.
+
+At last they came to their journey's end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: "Now, Billy," said the little man, "do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse's head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can't
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb."
+
+The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.
+
+The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. "The best of masters are you
+surely," said Billy to him; "no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink."
+
+"I have made no bargain with you," said the little man, "and will make
+none; but up and follow me." Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, "Borram, Borram, Borram," had passed
+their lips.
+
+When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there--sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman's wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well--ay, better than the butler himself.
+
+One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, "Billy, I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take." So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. "If I have," thought Billy, "he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don't see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master."
+
+Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer's house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunniel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, "Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!"
+
+"God bless us, sir," said Billy, "will you?"
+
+"Don't say these words again, Billy," said the little man, "or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married."
+
+"I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all," said Billy, "if
+ever you mean to marry."
+
+"And to that purpose," said the little man, "have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunniel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me."
+
+"And what will Darby Riley say to that?" said Billy.
+
+"Silence!" said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: "I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;" and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.
+
+In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cocksparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.
+
+There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward--and under them were the priest and piper--and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby's two brothers and his uncle's
+son--and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had--and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster--and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it--and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.
+
+Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig's head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said "God bless us." All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig's head and greens. And after a
+moment's pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.
+
+Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. "Ha!" exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches--"Ha!" said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, "I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley."
+
+Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying "God bless us."
+
+Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.
+
+At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, "God save us!" Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, "I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel--take _that_ for your wages," gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.
+
+If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE SHOE.
+
+XI.
+
+
+"Now tell me, Molly," said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,[14]
+"did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?"
+
+    [14] "Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+    Silence."--_O'Keefe's Recollections._
+
+"Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many's
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about 'em."
+
+"But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?"
+
+"Och! no, I never _see_ one in my life; but my grandfather, that's my
+father's father, you know, he _see_ one, one time, and caught him
+too."
+
+"Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?"
+
+"Why, then, I'll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day's work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, 'I'll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I'll have money enough always.' So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn't make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he _see_ the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. 'Faith I have you now,' says he, 'and I'll never let you go
+till I get your purse--that's what I won't; so give it here to me at
+once, now.'--'Stop, stop,' says the Cluricaune, 'stop, stop,' says he,
+'till I get it for you.' So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often _see_ it, and had it in her hand, and 'twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw."
+
+"And did you see it yourself, Molly?"
+
+"Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough."
+
+     The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+     Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+     former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.
+
+     The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+     and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+     Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+     Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+     Irish for a pigmy.
+
+     It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+     one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word _luacharman_
+     is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+     the English word, _man_.--A rushy man,--that may be, a man of
+     the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+     is, unfrequented or boggy places.
+
+     The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+     court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+     Leprochaune:--
+
+     _Court._--Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+     character or designation.
+
+     _Witness._--My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+     fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+     carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+     keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+     cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+     let him go, and then you're as rich as a Jew.
+
+     _Court._--Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+     Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.
+
+     _Witness._--Yes, my lord, there was one--
+
+     _Court._--That will do.
+
+     With respect to "money matters," there appears to be a strong
+     resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+     Cluricaune.--"Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+     quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit," are
+     the words of Petronius.--See, for farther arguments in support
+     of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm's Essay on
+     the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+     work, under the head of "Ancient Testimonies."
+
+     "Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+     skill of the dwarfs in curious smith's-work."--"The Irish
+     Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+     making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+     the old Northern language a shoe-maker is called a
+     _shoe-smith_;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+     tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+     shoe-maker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+     with incredible quickness during the night."
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+    "Who sits upon the heath forlorn,
+    With robe so free and tresses torn?
+    Anon she pours a harrowing strain,
+    And then--she sits all mute again!
+    Now peals the wild funereal cry--
+    And now--it sinks into a sigh."
+                              OURAWNS.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANSHEE.
+
+XII.
+
+
+The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to "_the
+minister_" (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country--to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.
+
+But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth's death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.
+
+The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.
+
+About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall-door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o'clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.
+
+"What is the matter, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, "The master, Miss--the
+master--he is going from us;" and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.
+
+Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. "No, Miss," said Kavanagh; "it was not in Mallow----"
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, "I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;--I thought
+you might have been trusted:--what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say."
+
+Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;--but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.
+
+"Miss," said he, "as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master----"
+
+"Speak softly," said Miss Bunworth; "he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect."
+
+"Praise be to God for that, any way," replied Kavanagh; "but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely--we will lose him--the master--we will lose
+him, we will lose him!" and he wrung his hands together.
+
+"What is it you mean, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth.
+
+"Is it mean?" said Kavanagh: "the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+'tis not I alone who have heard her."
+
+"'Tis an idle superstition," said Miss Bunworth.
+
+"May be so," replied Kavanagh, as if the words 'idle superstition'
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind--"May be so," he
+continued; "but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me, keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master's name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+_berrin_ ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one's heart to hear it."
+
+"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, "my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story."
+
+Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bedside of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.
+
+The night was serene and moonlit--the sick man slept--and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bedside of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances, two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep--if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand--would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.
+
+XIII.
+
+
+The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned--as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars--as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene--and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man's table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.
+
+Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated--I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle ('black emblem of the informer') dangling from his
+waist-coat-button--went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British "parliament," that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger--recording angel of the
+law--wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state too like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, "It's all
+over, James;" and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man's voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles's foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles's playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.
+
+When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.
+
+The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:--suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur--then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic--and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:--the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy's room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son's chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, "Mother;"--but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, "Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?"
+
+He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, "Yes, my mother, alive, and---- But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen." He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted all her senses, he proceeded:--"do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me--'tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,--I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I _can_ describe I _will_--I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never--not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being--never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended--when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, 'Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.'--I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered."
+
+Charles's strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours' sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.
+
+Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.
+
+Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles's health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles' distance from Spring House.
+
+                        "_To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry._
+
+                                    Spring House, Tuesday morning,
+                                               October 15th, 1752.
+
+     "MY DEAREST MARY,
+
+     "I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+     friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days' journey at
+     this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+     will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+     sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+     have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+     my son's story. I can't tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+     approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+     be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+     I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+     soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+     Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+     son's ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+     on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+     postponed a day or two longer. Would to God--but no more of
+     this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+     man for _one_ week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+     his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+     before Sunday as you can.
+
+     "Ever my dear Mary's attached cousin and friend,
+                                                  "ANN MAC CARTHY."
+
+Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke's
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.
+
+                                       "Spring House, Sunday evening,
+                                                  20th October, 1752.
+
+     "DEAR ELLEN,
+
+     "As my mother's letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+     you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+     fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+     the extraordinary events of the last two days.
+
+     "The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+     was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+     the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+     this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+     rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+     last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+     Mr. Bourke's brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+     the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+     had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+     and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone clear and
+     bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+     black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+     and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+     as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+     blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+     narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+     number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+     shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+     mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+     far we were from Mr. Bourke's. ''Tis about ten spades from this
+     to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+     the avenue, ma'am.' 'Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke's
+     as soon as you reach the cross roads.' My mother had scarcely
+     spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+     very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+     right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+     the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+     giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+     'Heaven defend us!' exclaimed my mother. 'Go you over the
+     hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+     while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+     village near it.' 'Woman!' said Leary, beating the horse
+     violently, while his voice trembled--'that's no woman: the
+     sooner we get on, ma'am, the better;' and he continued his
+     efforts to quicken the horse's pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+     was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+     expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+     and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+     distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+     succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+     despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+     inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+     nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+     place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke's to the left,
+     and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+     started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+     plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+     woman, with uncovered head, and longhair that floated round her
+     shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+     white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+     the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+     which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+     hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+     and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+     had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+     the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+     uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+     then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+     instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+     little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+     pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+     of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+     up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+     garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+     closely wrapped around it. 'Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+     God's name,' said my mother; 'whatever world it belongs to, we
+     will provoke it no longer.' ''Tis the Banshee, ma'am,' said
+     Leary; 'and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+     where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I'm afraid
+     there's something bad going forward, or _she_ would not send us
+     there.' So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+     road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+     saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+     clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+     person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+     badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+     drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o'clock last
+     night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+     mother's letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+     some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+     week.
+
+     "You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+     day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+     here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+     morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+     inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+     the grounds a little before dinner. It seems that an
+     unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+     seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+     for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+     months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+     but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+     and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+     disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+     During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+     in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+     tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+     had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.
+
+     "Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+     between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+     rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+     were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+     pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+     which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+     instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+     leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+     immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+     injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+     merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+     few days. 'We shall know more by Sunday,' said Charles, as he
+     was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+     and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+     of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.
+
+     "On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+     poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+     aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+     and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+     search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+     of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+     and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+     Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+     was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+     working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+     escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+     taken until last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+     frantic, a little before our arrival.
+
+     "Charles's wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+     the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+     entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+     and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+     that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+     advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+     twelve o'clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+     announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+     before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+     The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+     otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+     their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+     before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+     The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+     heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+     was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+     information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+     But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+     screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+     the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+     followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+     a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+     furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+     hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+     body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+     the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+     I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+     Charles's room, to 'get his forgiveness,' as she said, 'before
+     he went away to accuse her for having killed him.' This wild
+     idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+     former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+     Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+     Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+     torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, 'James
+     Ryan, 'twas you killed him, and not I--'twas you killed him,
+     and not I.'
+
+     "Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+     mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+     the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+     accident. She conducted us to Charles's room, who she said, had
+     desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+     end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+     existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+     perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+     awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+     treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+     his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+     was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+     one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+     left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+     anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.
+
+     "Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy----but I am just called away. There seems
+     a slight stir in the family; perhaps----"
+
+The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles's seven-and-twentieth birthday, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.
+
+     "BANSHEE, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+     credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+     to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+     lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+     family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+     no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+     believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege."--O'BRIEN'S
+     _Irish Dictionary_.
+
+     For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+     "Personal Sketches, &c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;" Miss Lefanu's
+     Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+     32; "The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw" (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+     in a note on "the Lady of the Lake,") &c.
+
+     Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+     Banshee "one of the most beautiful" of the leading
+     superstitions of Europe. In his "Letters on Demonology," he
+     says that "several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+     anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+     who performed the office of the Irish Banshee," and
+     particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+     which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.
+
+     "The Welsh Gwr�ch y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+     some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+     omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+     leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+     in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+     mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+     _A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni._"--_MS. Communication from_ DR. OWEN
+     PUGHE. For some farther particulars, see, in "A Relation of
+     Apparitions, &c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones," his account of the
+     _Kyhirraeth_, "a doleful foreboding noise before death;" and
+     Howell's "Cambrian Superstitions," (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.
+
+     The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+     of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+     prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+     of Poitou. Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," records the
+     appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+     worshipful lineage of Oxenham.
+
+     "In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+     the window of the house in which a person is to die (_Deutsche
+     Sagen_, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+     (267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+     _Klage-weib_ (mourning woman,) in the _L�neburger Heath_
+     (_Spiels Archiv._ ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+     stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+     fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+     death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+     grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+     immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+     the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+     _Klage-weib_ has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+     course of the month."--THE BROTHERS GRIMM, _and MS.
+                               Communication from_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.
+
+    "Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings' helpless harms,
+    Ne let the _Pouke_, nor other evil spright,
+    Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,
+    Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
+        Fray us with things that be not."
+                                                SPENSER.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT HORSE.
+
+XIV.
+
+
+The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.
+
+Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them--it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;--but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.
+
+Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.
+
+This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.
+
+And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;--then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.
+
+"In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban," said Morty, "how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?"
+
+These words had no sooner passed Morty's lips than he found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman's jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman's appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear--judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.--"What's your name?" at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.
+
+Plucking up all his courage, "Morty Sullivan," replied he "at your
+service;" meaning the latter words only in civility.
+
+"_Ubbubbo!_" said the old woman, "we'll soon see that;" and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.
+
+"Take hold of my hand, Morty," said the old woman: "I'll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey's end." So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;--it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.
+
+Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.
+
+"Mount, Morty, mount!" cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, "O that I had spurs!" and tried to
+grasp the horse's mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.
+
+The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O'Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),[15] never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.
+
+    [15]  "Nulla manus,
+          Tam liberalis
+          Atque generalis
+          Atque universalis
+          Quam Sullivanis."
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O'ROURKE.
+
+XV.
+
+
+People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka's tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.
+
+"I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
+first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;--and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;--and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often
+in the year;--but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I'd better be telling you my story.
+
+"Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can't
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I'd just step to Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I,
+'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
+
+"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;--I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the _Ullagone_--when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.
+
+"So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,'
+says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I
+hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?'
+says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home
+again.' 'Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis,
+sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a
+minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields--my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I
+am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog--besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'
+
+"It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:--'I thank
+your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take
+your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up--I
+know not how far up he flew.
+
+"'Why, then,' said I to him,--thinking he did not know the right road
+home--very civilly, because why?--I was in his power entirely;--'sir,'
+says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.'
+
+"'_Arrah_, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a _cowld_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to
+him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and
+don't be interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this
+is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said
+no more.
+
+"At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus [in-line illustration] on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)
+
+"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no
+notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world
+_axed_ you to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,'
+said he; 'I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I;
+'is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall
+off in a minute, and be _kilt_ and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,--so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he: 'you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that's sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and 'twill keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I.
+'May be not,' said he, quite quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a
+fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.
+
+"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'I think I've nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,' ('twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) 'and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cockthrow.'
+
+"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says
+I. 'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there
+walks--who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.
+
+"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'How do you do?'
+'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.'
+'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a
+_dissolute_ island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.
+
+"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
+against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
+your business,' said he, 'Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says
+I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.'
+'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself,
+Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Indeed,
+and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won't let go;--so I will.' 'You had better,
+Dan,' says he again. 'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two
+words to that bargain, and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.'
+'We'll see how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.
+
+"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and _whap_! it came in two. 'Good morning to
+you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand: 'I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'Now help me,' says I,
+'but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know _me_? The _ould_ gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The
+same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him
+of _ould_. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you
+kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I
+hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,'
+says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all
+the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.
+
+"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to land if you
+please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I; 'that's
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you
+fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.'
+
+"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he. 'We are,'
+said I. 'We are not,' said he: 'If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I: 'I know better than that,
+for it's just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.'
+
+"'If you must, you must,' said he. 'There, take your own way;' and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right--sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn't
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying--'twas
+a voice I knew too--'Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;' and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;--for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.
+
+"'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish, would no
+place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that."
+
+
+
+
+THE CROOKENED BACK.
+
+XVI.
+
+
+Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says "she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient"), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son's fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.
+
+Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of "dark December" whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:--at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the "crookening of her back."
+
+"It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn't bear it. 'Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that's ten years last Easter--I won't forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn't come home to dinner. I
+don't know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+'Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn't a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn't long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn't a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn't move for near a minute. I couldn't
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn't go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on--and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. 'Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn't help
+moving, and couldn't stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn't; I tried to run, but wasn't able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard 'em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards' distance from them that would
+die to save me;--and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn't be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! 'Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else, did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: 'twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour."
+
+There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy's,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman's side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment's pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, "Granny, what was it?"
+
+The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, "It was
+the Phooka."
+
+     The _Pouke_ or _Phooka_, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+     plain terms, the Evil One. "Playing the puck," a common
+     Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to "playing the devil." Much
+     learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+     various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &c.] The
+     commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+     Puck of the Midsummer Night's Dream from the mischievous
+     Pouke.--Vide Drayton's Nymphidia.
+
+        "This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
+        Still walking like a ragged colt," &c.
+
+     In Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1587) we
+     find,
+
+        "---- and the countrie where Chgm�ra, that same _Pooke_,
+        Hath goatish bodie," &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+     _Mahr_; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+     German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+     bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+     those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+     they faint and fall to the earth.
+
+                                                 THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+
+
+THIERNA NA OGE.
+
+    "On Lough-Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays,
+    When the clear cold eve's declining,
+    He sees the round towers of other days
+    In the wave beneath him shining."
+                                              MOORE.
+
+
+
+
+FIOR USGA.
+
+XVII.
+
+
+A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.
+
+Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.
+
+One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates--but "you're
+welcome--you're welcome, heartily," was the porter's salute for all.
+
+Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king's daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.
+
+In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, "May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water."
+
+"Water!" said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want: "water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter," said he, "go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose."
+
+The king's daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, "Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you." The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king's daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.
+
+When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.
+
+The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king's palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.
+
+Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.
+
+Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.
+
+
+
+
+CORMAC AND MARY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+    "She is not dead--she has no grave--
+      She lives beneath Lough Corrib's water;[16]
+    And in the murmur of each wave
+      Methinks I catch the songs I taught her."
+
+    Thus many an evening on the shore
+      Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;
+    Still idly muttering o'er and o'er,
+      "She lives, detain'd by spells unholy.
+
+    "Death claims her not, too fair for earth,
+      Her spirit lives--alien of heaven;
+    Nor will it know a second birth
+      When sinful mortals are forgiven!
+
+    "Cold is this rock--the wind comes chill,
+      And mists the gloomy waters cover;
+    But oh! her soul is colder still--
+      To lose her God--to leave her lover!"
+
+    The lake was in profound repose,
+      Yet one white wave came gently curling,
+    And as it reach'd the shore, arose
+      Dim figures--banners gay unfurling.
+
+    Onward they move, an airy crowd:
+      Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;
+    While spear and helm, in pageant proud,
+      Appear in liquid undulation.
+
+    Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread
+      Their trackless way with antic capers;
+    And curtain clouds hang overhead,
+      Festoon'd by rainbow-colour'd vapours.
+
+    And when a breath of air would stir
+      That drapery of Heaven's own wreathing,
+    Light wings of prismy gossamer
+      Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.
+
+    Nor wanting was the choral song,
+      Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;
+    To sound of which this subtile throng
+      Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.
+
+    With music's strain, all came and went
+      Upon poor Cormac's doubting vision;
+    Now rising in wild merriment,
+      Now softly fading in derision.
+
+    "Christ save her soul," he boldly cried;
+      And when that blessed name was spoken,
+    Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,
+      And vanished all,--the spell was broken.
+
+    And now on Corrib's lonely shore,
+      Freed by his word from power of fa�ry,
+    To life, to love, restored once more,
+      Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.
+
+    [16] In the county of Galway.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.
+
+XIX.
+
+
+Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,[17] and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.
+
+    [17] In the county of Limerick.
+
+One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours' cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;[18] but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.
+
+    [18] Spancelled--fettered.
+
+"What in the wide world will I do?" said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: "that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse."
+
+"'Tis true for you, Larry," replied Welsh: "the times are bitter
+bad--no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there's Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for 'tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way."
+
+Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh's two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corncreaks
+answering one another across the water.
+
+"Boys! boys!" said Larry, "look there! look there! but for your lives
+don't make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word."
+
+They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.
+
+"'Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper's cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones," whispered Mick to his brother.
+
+"Now boys!" said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, "get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we'll just put them into
+the pound."
+
+But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.
+
+Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED LAKE.
+
+XX.
+
+
+In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire--others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.
+
+There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:--but Roderick's confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.
+
+"Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?" exclaimed the
+young farmer. "Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?"
+
+There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.
+
+"I'll take you at your word," said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going, going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:--
+
+    "She is fair as Cappoquin;
+    Have you courage her to win?
+    And her wealth it far outshines
+    Cullen's bog and Silvermines.
+    She exceeds all heart can wish;
+    Not brawling like the Foherish,
+    But as the brightly flowing Lee,
+    Graceful, mild, and pure is she!"
+
+Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:--no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.
+
+When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses' teeth, and up she made towards
+him.
+
+"Good morrow, Paddeen," said she.
+
+"Good morrow, Ma'am," said he.
+
+"What brought you here?" said she.
+
+"'Tis after Rory Keating's gold ring," said he, "I'm come."
+
+"Here it is for you," said Paddeen's fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]
+
+"Thank you, Ma'am," replied Paddeen, taking it from her:--"I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you're fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?"
+
+"Then you did not come to marry me?" cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.
+
+"Just wait till I come back again, my darling," said Paddeen: "I'm to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they'll wonder what has become of me."
+
+"Never mind the money," said the fat woman: "if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing."
+
+Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF O'DONOGHUE.
+
+XXI.
+
+
+In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O'Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called "O'Donoghue's Prison," in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.
+
+His end--for it cannot correctly be called his death--was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.
+
+The memory of the good O'Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,--a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince's reign was never felt by his people.
+
+Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O'Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May-morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.
+
+The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.
+
+The warrior was O'Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O'Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse's neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.
+
+    _Thierna na Oge_, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to
+    the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions
+    of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the
+    movements of time.
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.
+
+              ----"The mysterious depths
+    And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old."
+                              MATTIMA'S _Conchologist_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+XXII.
+
+
+On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.
+
+"'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well,
+to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "'tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to answer one--nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune," said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!--and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete--Is it
+not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.
+
+But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.
+
+Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the _cohuleen driuth_, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
+
+When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears--doubly salt, no doubt, from her--came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.
+
+"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.
+
+Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way
+of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but
+'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
+
+"What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.
+
+The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once--"Man," says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "Man, will you eat me?"
+
+"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?--Now 'twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!"
+
+"Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat
+me?"
+
+Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.
+
+"Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+"fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I'll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that's what I'll do."
+
+"Never say the word twice," says she; "I'm ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my
+hair."
+
+It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.
+
+Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; "Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?"
+
+"It's nothing else," says she quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind."
+
+"And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick.
+
+"What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the
+king of the waves, to be sure!"
+
+"And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.
+
+"Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;--to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of
+the sea!"
+
+"Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?"
+
+"'Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?"
+
+"Oh! yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want."
+
+"To speak the truth, then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king's daughter: so, if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets--but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?"
+
+"By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald--plenty of beds at your
+service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones."
+
+"You have?" says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. "'Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of--but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they'd have the one, need never ask for the
+other."
+
+However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.
+
+"There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd
+marry?--the Lord preserve us!--Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from."
+
+Dick had the _cohuleen driuth_ in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he--
+
+"Please your Reverence she's a king's daughter."
+
+"If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I
+tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish."
+
+"Please your Reverence," said Dick again, in an under tone, "she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon."
+
+"If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!"
+
+"But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I'm a made man if I marry her; and," said Dick, looking up slily,
+"I can make it worth any one's while to do the job."
+
+"Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the Priest; "why there's
+some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this
+before?--marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done."
+
+So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick--he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.
+
+It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds--two boys and a girl.
+
+In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.
+
+One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.
+
+Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishingnet, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own _cohuleen driuth_.
+
+She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.
+
+She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. "But," says she, "he won't lose me entirely, for I'll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them."
+
+She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.--The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the _cohuleen driuth_ on
+her head, she plunged in.
+
+Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the _cohuleen driuth_. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.
+
+Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; "For," says Dick, "she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children."
+
+While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.
+
+
+
+
+FLORY CANTILLON'S FUNERAL.
+
+XXIII.
+
+
+The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.[19] However this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.
+
+    [19] "The neighbouring inhabitants," says Dr. Smith, in his
+    History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, "show some rocks
+    visible in this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the
+    remains of an island, that was formerly the burial-place of the
+    family of Cantillon, the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh." p.
+    210.
+
+Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. "Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,"
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don't think
+I should say wrong.
+
+On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow's death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.
+
+Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there--more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.
+
+The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.
+
+The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.
+
+"If 'twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was," said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, "one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. 'Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,"
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, "didn't I know all
+the time well enough, 'twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man's Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how," said Connor, after a pause, "is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!"
+
+It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.
+
+As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding, when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.
+
+It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!
+
+The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.
+
+"This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth," said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.
+
+"True," replied another, with a voice still more fearful, "our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!"
+
+"But the time will come," said a third, bending over the coffin,
+
+    "When mortal eye--our work shall spy,
+    And mortal ear--our dirge shall hear."
+
+"Then," said a fourth, "our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!"
+
+As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.
+
+"The time is come," cried the unearthly being, "the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!"
+
+One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+church-yard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.
+
+XXIV.
+
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron[20]--O'Sullivan More,
+    Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?
+    His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;
+    No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.
+
+    Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known
+    On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;
+    For a beautiful spirit of ocean, 'tis said,
+    The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.
+
+    When, by moonlight, the waters were hush'd to repose,
+    That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;
+    Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell
+    O'er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.
+
+    Long, long had he loved her--long vainly essay'd
+    To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;
+    And long had he wander'd and watch'd by the tide,
+    To claim the fair spirit O'Sullivan's bride!
+
+    The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,
+    Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;
+    Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,
+    Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.
+
+    Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,
+    O'Sullivan felt 'twas the dawning of love,
+    And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,
+    Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.
+
+    The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,
+    And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;
+    The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,
+    Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.
+
+    Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,
+    Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?
+    The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown
+    To lie 'mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.
+
+    Down, down went the maid,--still the chieftain pursued;
+    Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.
+    Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,
+    The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!
+
+    They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,
+    Whence beauty and verdure stretch'd over the land.
+    'Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,
+    With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.
+
+    The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,
+    Softly faded away, from a magical pile,
+    A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen
+    Had the tints of the rainbow--red, yellow, and green.
+
+    And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,
+    Were there, as flung up--the wild sport of the storm;
+    Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,
+    It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.
+
+    "Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,
+    Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!
+    Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;
+    There are laws which e'en spirits are bound to obey!
+
+    "Once more must I visit the chief of my race,
+    His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.
+    In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:
+    One cause can detain me--one only--'tis death!"
+
+    They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;
+    The language of promise had nothing beyond.
+    His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:
+    The moment is gone--but no maiden returns.
+
+    What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear--
+    What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?
+    What sees he? what change has come over the flood--
+    What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?
+
+    Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?
+    That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!
+    For see all around him, in white foam and froth,
+    The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!
+
+    The palace of crystal has melted in air,
+    And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;
+    The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o'ercast,
+    The sunshine is darkness--the vision has past!
+
+    Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;
+    They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:
+    He heard, and he struggled--a wave to the shore,
+    Exhausted and faint, bears O'Sullivan More!
+
+    [20] The remains of Dunkerron Caslle are distant about a mile
+    from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is
+    recorded to have been built in 1596, by Owen O'Sullivan
+    More.--[_More_, is merely an epithet signifying _the Great_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL TUNE.
+
+XXV.
+
+
+Maurice Connor was the king, and that's no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum's March, and the Eagle's Whistle, and the Hen's Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.
+
+In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it--old or young it mattered not--just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going--going--going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!--whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm--there was no halting while the music lasted!
+
+Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without "blind Maurice and his
+pipes." His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.
+
+Down through Iveragh--a place that ought to be proud of itself, for
+'tis Daniel O'Connell's country--Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand--the dead
+image of a calm summer's sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.
+
+Here it was that Maurice's music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women--_O the darlints!_--for
+'twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. "Brave music," said every body, "and well done,"
+when Maurice stopped.
+
+"More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,"
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. "'Tis a pity," said he, "if we'd let the piper run dry
+after such music; 'twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn't come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays." So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: "Did you drink, piper?"
+
+"I will, sir," says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.
+
+"What will you drink, Maurice?" says Paddy.
+
+"I'm no ways particular," says Maurice; "I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring _raw_ water; but if 'tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn't lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey."
+
+"I've no glass, Maurice," said Paddy; "I've only the bottle."
+
+"Let that be no hindrance," answered Maurice; "my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I've tried it, sure."
+
+So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle--more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice's mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.
+
+"That was no bad whisky neither," says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.
+
+"By the holy frost, then!" says Paddy, "'tis but _cowld_ comfort
+there's in that bottle now; and 'tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you've left us no sample to judge by:" and
+to be sure Maurice had not.
+
+Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own--he was fairly tipsy. Don't think I blame him for it; 'tis often a
+good man's case; but true is the word that says, "when liquor's in,
+sense is out;" and puff, at a breath, before you could say "Lord save
+us!" out he blasted his wonderful tune.
+
+'Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; _bolg an
+dana_, as they used to call him--a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to drink with of a hot
+summer's day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here's my hand at an upset of them into English:
+
+    The big seals in motion,
+    Like waves of the ocean,
+      Or gouty feet prancing,
+    Came heading the gay fish,
+    Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,
+      Determined on dancing.
+
+    The sweet sounds they follow'd,
+    The gasping cod swallow'd;
+      'Twas wonderful, really!
+    And turbot and flounder,
+    'Mid fish that were rounder,
+      Just caper'd as gaily.
+
+    John-dories came tripping;
+    Dull hake, by their skipping
+      To frisk it seem'd given;
+    Bright mackerel went springing,
+    Like small rainbows winging
+      Their flight up to heaven.
+
+    The whiting and haddock
+    Left salt-water paddock,
+      This dance to be put in:
+    Where skate with flat faces
+    Edged out some odd plaices;
+      But soles kept their footing.
+
+    Sprats and herrings in powers
+    Of silvery showers
+      All number out-number'd;
+    And great ling so lengthy
+    Were there in such plenty,
+      The shore was encumber'd.
+
+    The scollop and oyster
+    Their two shells did roister,
+      Like castanets fitting;
+    While limpets moved clearly,
+    And rocks very nearly
+      With laughter were splitting.
+
+Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; 'twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor's wonderful tune!
+
+In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman--as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair--just the colour of the sea--fell down behind,
+without hinderance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.
+
+Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops--for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on--and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey--
+
+    "I'm a lady of honour
+      Who live in the sea;
+    Come down, Maurice Connor,
+      And be married to me.
+
+    "Silver plates and gold dishes
+      You shall have, and shall be
+    The king of the fishes,
+      When you're married to me."
+
+Drink was strong in Maurice's head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore 'twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself--so says Maurice,
+
+    "I'm obliged to you, madam:
+      Off a gold dish or plate,
+    If a king, and I had 'em,
+      I could dine in great state.
+
+    "With your own father's daughter
+      I'd be sure to agree;
+    But to drink the salt water
+      Wouldn't do so with me!"
+
+The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, "Well," says she, "Maurice, if you're
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?"
+
+In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.
+
+Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.
+
+When Maurice's mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water's edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. "Oh then,"
+says she, "as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but 'tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod--Lord help and pity me, but
+'tis a mighty unnatural thing!--and may be 'tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I'll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!--Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there's any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own _ould_ mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!"
+
+Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.
+
+Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother's heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.
+
+He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother's voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was--
+
+"Whisht with you, mother--sure I'm going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I'll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska." Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.
+
+That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance--some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.
+
+Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly distinguish Maurice Connor's voice
+singing these words to his pipes:--
+
+    Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,
+    Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;
+    Never would I have parted from thee
+    But for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
+
+    [21] This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+    well-known song of Deardra.
+
+    The Irish _Merrow_ answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+    is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+    Cornish _Morhuch_, to which it evidently bears analogy.
+
+    The romantic historians of Ireland describe the _Suire_ as
+    playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+    to that Island.
+
+
+
+
+THE DULLAHAN.
+
+    "Then wonder not at _headless folk_,
+      Since every day you greet 'em;
+    Nor treat old stories as a joke,
+      When fools you daily meet 'em."
+
+                      --_The Legendary._
+
+    "Says the friar, 'tis strange headless horses should trot."
+
+                                                    _Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD WOMAN.
+
+XXVI.
+
+
+In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight's
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.
+
+Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,--indeed, who is without them?--and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of "the stirrup cup,"
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.
+
+Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character--a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oilskin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren's blacking of matchless lustre!--and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.
+
+Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. "If they go at this rate,"
+said he to himself, "for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer's
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?" This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size--rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.
+
+Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd's
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. "Civility begets
+civility," they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady's silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, "_Ma colleen beg_,[22] just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I'll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us."
+
+    [22] My little girl.
+
+She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.
+
+"I hope you're comfortable there, my dear," said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; and on they went--trot,
+trot, trot--along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued _cronane_,[23] like a
+nurse _hushoing_. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. "'Tis
+only loose the shoe is," said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get _spilt_ in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.
+
+    [23] A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.
+
+"By the piper's luck, that always found what he wanted," said Larry,
+recollecting himself, "I've a nail in my pocket: 'tis not the first
+time I've put on a shoe, and may be it won't be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty."
+
+No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, "by your leave," or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church--and a pretty church it was.
+
+"Not so fast, if you please, young woman--not so fast," cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. "Where's my wages?" said Larry: "_Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge_,[24]--sure I've earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips--and
+I'll have it too!" But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the church-yard wall, and then over with her in an instant.
+
+    [24] Give me a kiss, my young girl.
+
+"Well, she's a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;--but I'll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either," exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the church-yard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried--rest his soul!--and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men--the Lord save
+us!--that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+church-yard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. "I'll just wait," said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; "when she comes round again, if I
+don't take the kiss, I won't, that's all,--and here she is!" Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them--a woman, it
+is true--but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.
+
+"Murder!" cried he. "Well, that accounts for her not speaking." Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!
+
+When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness, he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding--ding--ding--ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.
+
+    'Twas a spectre rung
+    That bell when it swung--
+        Swing-swang!
+    And the chain it squeaked,
+    And the pulley creaked,
+        Swing-swang!
+
+    And with every roll
+    Of the deep death toll
+        Ding-dong!
+    The hollow vault rang
+    As the clapper went bang,
+        Ding-dong!
+
+It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.
+
+Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.
+
+"I'm done for and lost for ever," roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.
+
+"Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome," cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. "A drink for Larry Dodd," shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.
+
+"'Tis capital stuff," he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,--for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought--but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.
+
+When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, "upon the lap
+of earth." Could it have been an ugly dream? "Oh no," said Larry, "a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death's head and cross marrow bones forenenting me on
+the fine old tombstone there that was _faced_ by Pat Kearney[25] of
+Kilcrea--but where is the horse?" He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. "'Tis home I must go," said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; "but how will I face Nancy?--what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.'s that he cost me?--'Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me--the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!--but what's gone is gone, that's a clear case!"--so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.'s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.
+
+    [25] _Faced_, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+    "_fecit_."
+
+"But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?" inquired his wife.
+
+Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.
+
+"Oh! Larry, Larry," muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; "'tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man--you are all alike for
+that matter--I've no pity for you--but, confess the truth."
+
+Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.
+
+"Nancy," said he, "I do confess:--it was a young woman without any
+head that----"
+
+His wife heard no more. "A woman I knew it was," cried she; "but a
+woman without a head, Larry!--well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!--that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her _baste_ of a husband, for a woman
+without a head!--O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!--that you don't see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.
+
+"O Larry, you villain, you'll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O--O--O--"
+
+"Well," says Larry, putting his hands in his coatpockets, "least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!"
+
+How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.
+
+
+
+
+HANLON'S MILL.
+
+XXVII.
+
+
+One fine summer's evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien's,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon's mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.
+
+Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.
+
+Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish _karacter_. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell as how "the great Burke" went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.
+
+But it was Michael Noonan's walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,
+
+    "Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;"
+
+and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien's door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon's mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon's mill.
+
+Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien's before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan's.
+
+"Is it home you're going with the brogues this blessed night?" said
+Darby to him.
+
+"Where else would it be?" replied Mick: "but, by my word, 'tis not
+across the Inch back again I'm going, after all I heard coming here;
+'tis to no good that old Hanlon's mill is busy again."
+
+"True, for you," said Darby; "and may be you'd take the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as 'tis along the road you go.
+I'm waiting here to see a sister's son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman." "That same I'll do," answered Mick, "with a thousand
+welcomes." So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick--God reward him for
+it--was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.
+
+The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse's head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close along-side
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby's horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.
+
+Poor Mick's heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery--took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.
+
+Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon's huntsman, coming on the master's best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick's mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan's bridle when he came
+up.
+
+"Mick, dear--for the love of heaven! don't stop me," cried Dan.
+
+"Why, what's the hurry?" said Mick.
+
+"Oh, the master!--he's off,--he's off--he'll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!"
+
+"Why, what would ail his honour?" said Mick; "sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he--"
+
+"Stout and hearty was he?" answered Madden; "and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn't
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he'd ride the old General to-day; and sure,"
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, "who'd have
+thought that the first thing I'd see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and"--poor Dan's
+grief choked his voice--"oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she's a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor."
+
+Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan's;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night's moon saw Ballygibblin--and more's the pity--a house of
+mourning.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH COACH.
+
+XXVIII.
+
+
+    'Tis midnight!--how gloomy and dark!
+      By Jupiter there's not a star!--
+    'Tis fearful!--'tis awful!--and hark!
+      What sound is that comes from afar?
+
+    Still rolling and rumbling, that sound
+      Makes nearer and nearer approach;
+    Do I tremble, or is it the ground?--
+      Lord save us!--what is it?--a coach!--
+
+    A coach!--but that coach has no head;
+      And the horses are headless as it:
+    Of the driver the same may be said,
+      And the passengers inside who sit.
+
+    See the wheels! how they fly o'er the stones!
+      And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:
+    Their spokes are of dead men's thigh bones,
+      And the pole is the spine of the back!
+
+    The hammer-cloth, shabby display,
+      Is a pall rather mildew'd by damps;
+
+    And to light this strange coach on its way,
+      Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!
+
+    From the gloom of Rathcooney church-yard,
+      They dash down the hill of Glanmire;
+    Pass Lota in gallop as hard
+      As if horses were never to tire!
+
+    With people thus headless 'tis fun
+      To drive in such furious career;
+    Since _headlong_ their horses can't run,
+      Nor coachman be _heady_ from beer.
+
+    Very steep is the Tivoli lane,
+      But up-hill to them is as down;
+    Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain
+      These Dullahans rushing to town.
+
+    Could they feel as I've felt--in a song--
+      A spell that forbade them depart;
+    They'd a lingering visit prolong,
+      And after their head lose their heart!
+
+    No matter!--'tis past twelve o'clock;
+      Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,
+    And, taking the road to Blackrock,
+      Cork city is soon left behind.
+
+    Should they hurry thus reckless along,
+      To supper instead of to bed,
+    The landlord will surely be wrong,
+      If he charge it at so much a head!
+
+    Yet mine host may suppose them too poor
+      To bring to his wealth an increase;
+    As till now, all who drove to his door,
+      Possess'd at least _one crown_ a-piece.
+
+    Up the Deadwoman's hill they are roll'd;
+      Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;
+    Ballintemple they reach, and behold!
+      At its church-yard they stop and alight.
+
+    "Who's there?" said a voice from the ground,
+      "We've no room, for the place is quite full."
+    "O! room must be speedily found,
+      For we come from the parish of Skull.
+
+    "Though Murphys and Crowleys appear
+      On headstones of deep-letter'd pride;
+    Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,
+      Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;
+
+    "Yet here for the night we lie down,
+      To-morrow we speed on the gale;
+    For having no heads of our own,
+      We seek the Old Head of Kinsale."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.
+
+XXIX.
+
+
+"God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,"
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.
+
+Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever _rattled_ a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen's day hunt.
+
+Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your "nasty particular sort of fellows" in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, "Charley," the saddlers said, "was the
+devil to _plase_." An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer "Charley's farm" (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself "Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;" and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert--and who will doubt
+it--that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.
+
+This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the "Harp of Erin." Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. "I won't bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you'll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It's as good _parliament_ as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear 'x
+_waters_,' and carry the bead after that, may be."
+
+Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly "Harp of Erin," with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip's at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the "real stuff,"
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend's hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.
+
+The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman's currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the "Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers," always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.--Away he went singing like a thrush--
+
+    "Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,
+    Breaking windows--(_hiccup_!)--sinking,
+    Ever raking--never thinking,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+    "Spending faster than it comes,
+    Beating--(_hiccup, hic_,) and duns,
+    Duhallow's true-begotten sons,
+                    Live the rakes of Mallow."
+
+Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly "Harp of Erin" had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated _turn out_ on St.
+Stephen's day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson's bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued--
+
+    "Living short, but merry lives,
+    Going where the devil drives,
+    Keeping----"
+
+"Keeping" he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley's eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the gravestones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced--the head advanced--Charley's old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.
+
+After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation "I'm sold now for ever!" was over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion's silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion's face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure's coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. "I ought to see farther than
+this, too," thought Charley, "although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless 'tis Con's whiskey that has blinded me entirely." However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, "'By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!"
+
+"Look again, Charley Culnane," said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.
+
+Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently hitherto
+concealed from Charley's eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley's side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.
+
+On they went--heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.--The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:--
+
+"Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!"
+
+"Humph," growled the head from under the horseman's right arm.
+
+"'Tis not an over civil answer," thought Charley; "but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I'll try him on the other track. Ahem!" said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. "Ahem! that's a mighty neat coat
+of your honour's, although 'tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut."
+
+"Humph," growled again the head.
+
+This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. "'Tis a sensible head," thought Charley,
+"although an ugly one, for 'tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery." A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.
+
+"To be sure, that's a brave horse your honour rides," recommenced the
+persevering Charley.
+
+"You may say that, with your own ugly mouth," growled the head.
+
+Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:--
+
+"May be your honour wouldn't be after riding him across the country?"
+
+"Will you try me, Charley?" said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.
+
+"Faith, and that's what I'd do," responded Charley, "only I'm afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I've every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels."
+
+This was true enough; Charley's courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman's proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.
+
+"Will you take my word," said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, "for the safety of your mare?"
+
+"Done," said Charley; and away they started, helter skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, "Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!"
+
+Charley pulled up hard. "Ay," said he, "you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that's the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I'd win it hollow!"
+
+It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley's mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.
+
+"Charley Culnane," says he, "you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I've tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that's the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare."
+
+Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger's right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman's scarlet hunting-coat. The horse's head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.
+
+Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife's pudding, the new
+snaffle--even the match against squire Jephson--all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen's day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley's "X water parliament." This, however, should be
+told, that Charley's old mare beat Mr. Jephson's bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn't
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don't know any
+other reason for his doing so.
+
+     DULLAHAN or DULACHAN signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+     _Durrachan_ or _Dullahan_, by which in some places the goblin
+     is known, has the same signification. It comes from _Dorr_ or
+     _Durr_, anger, or _Durrach_, malicious, fierce, &c.--_MS.
+     communication from the late_ MR. EDWARD O'REILLY.
+
+     The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+     black is evidently a component part of the word.
+
+     The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+     Ireland "_Coach a bower_;" and its appearance is generally
+     regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.
+
+     The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+     appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+     extended.
+
+     In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+     that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.
+
+     In Wales, the apparition of "_Fenyw heb un pen_," the headless
+     woman, and "_Ceffyl heb un pen_," the headless horse, are
+     generally accredited.--_MS. communication from_ MISS WILLIAMS.
+
+     "The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+     Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+     Queensberry,--'Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,'--who,
+     instead of setting fire to the world in mamma's chariot, amuses
+     herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+     the great gallery."--_MS. communication from_ SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+     In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+     paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+     some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+     "Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+     up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,"
+     &c.
+
+     Cervantes mentions tales of the "_Caballo sin cabe�a_ among the
+     _cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+     dilatadas noches del invierno_," &c.
+
+     "The people of Basse Br�tagne believe, that when the death of
+     any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+     call _carriquet au nankon_,) and covered with a white sheet,
+     passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+     creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard."--_Journal des
+     Sciences_, 1826, _communicated by_ DR. WILLIAM GRIMM.
+
+     See also _Thiele's Danske Folkesagn_, vol. iv. p. 66, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIR DARRIG.
+
+    Whene'er such wanderers I meete,
+      As from their night-sports they trudge home,
+    With counterfeiting voice I greete,
+      And call them on with me to roame
+            Through woods, through lakes,
+            Through bogs, through brakes;
+      Or else, unseene, with them I go,
+            All in the nicke,
+            To play some tricke,
+      And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!
+
+                                     --_Old Song._
+
+
+
+
+DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER
+
+XXX.
+
+
+One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day's work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter[26] to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,[27] was mending a rent in Patrick's old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. "I was just thinking," said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes--"I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it."
+
+    [26] A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+    tallow, is used as a candle.
+
+    [27] Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+    firmly sewed or bound together.
+
+"And that's no lie for you, Pat," said his wife; "but, whisht! what
+noise is that I _hard_?" and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. "The _Vargin_ herself defend us
+all!" cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, "if 'tis not the banshee!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Patrick, "it's only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;" and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.
+
+"Whisht, whisht!" said Patrick--"what a noise ye're all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can't you go and see who's at the door?"
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.
+
+"Why, then, is it me you're speaking to?" said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; "and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be _rund_ away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?--the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke."
+
+"Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I'll go myself." So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of his way to the door.
+"Who's there?" said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+"In the name of Saint Patrick, who's there?" "'Tis I, Pat," answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire's. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome, entirely," said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye'll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying." "Thank
+you, Pat," said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.[28]
+
+    [28] See Weld's Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.
+
+"But what made you keep me so long at the door?"
+
+"Why then, your honour, 'twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather--the Lord rest his soul!"
+
+"And what was that, Pat?" said the squire.
+
+"Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was _ould_ Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them _spake_ to such perfection, that it did one's heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley--his honour's lordship is the real good
+gentleman--and 'tis Mr. Gandsey's music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy's grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+_tobaccy_; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?--but a large
+army of the good people, 'coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! 'Are ye all ready?' said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. 'No,' said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. 'No, general,' said he: 'if you don't get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye'll lose the battle."
+
+"'There's Diarmid Bawn,' said the general, pointing to Judy's
+grandfather, your honour, 'make a horse of him.'
+
+"So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.
+
+"'Is that what you'd be after, you spalpeen?' said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; 'I'm not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.' So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.
+
+"Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid's left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid's faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.
+
+"'Let every man take a hand of _tobaccy_ for Diarmid Bawn,' said the
+general; and so they did; and away they flew, for 'twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.
+
+"When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of _tobaccy_ in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been _kilt_ entirely, if it
+wasn't for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the _tobaccy_ heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, 'That 'twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he'd know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.' That's what he
+said, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Pat," said the squire; "it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy's alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I'll make the best of my way home." So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, "May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for 'twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride."
+
+
+
+
+TEIGUE OF THE LEE.
+
+XXXI.
+
+
+"I can't stop in the house--I won't stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!--to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I'm angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won't stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under." This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+"I'll not stop here," said John; "and that ends the matter."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you."
+
+John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud "Ho, ho, ho!" as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, John!" shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; "do you think you'll see Teigue?--oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there's plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and 'tis time you had the cloth laid."
+
+"Lord bless us! there's more of it!--I'll never stay another day
+here," repeated John.
+
+"Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly, and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons."
+
+John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say--"Who
+are you?--come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;" but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a "Good-bye--I'll watch you at dinner, John!"
+
+"Lord between us and harm! this beats all!--I'll watch you at
+dinner!--may be you will;--'tis the broad daylight, so 'tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I'll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?--if he tells it, I'm a ruined
+man!--there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he's far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it--I can't tell for the world! But what's that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?--'tis not a man!--oh, what a fool I am! 'tis
+only the old stump of a tree!--But this is a shocking place--I'll
+never stop in it, for I'll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one."
+
+The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom--their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.
+
+John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:--
+
+"Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won't you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that's
+good; sure you won't forget poor Teigue?"
+
+John dropped the glass he had in his hand.
+
+"Who is that?" said Mr. Pratt's brother, an officer of the artillery.
+
+"That is Teigue," said Mr. Pratt, laughing, "whom you must often have
+heard me mention."
+
+"And pray, Mr. Pratt," inquired another gentleman, "who _is_ Teigue?"
+
+"That," he replied, "is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it."
+
+"It is very extraordinary," said several of the company.
+
+"But," remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, "your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?"
+
+"When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone."
+
+"How does he know that you are watching?"
+
+"That's more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+'Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.' James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. 'Here Teigue,' said
+he, 'come for it now.' 'Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.' This was done, and we stood looking at it. 'There, now,
+go away,' he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. 'Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won't take it.' We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day."
+
+"Oh," said the colonel, "I'll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I'll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.--Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?"
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell," shouted Teigue. "Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you're a pretty boy;--a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you're no quaker, nor any thing else:--ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there's Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.--And there's Mr.
+Cole,--did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you've brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all."
+
+"You scoundrel!" exclaimed the colonel: "I'll make you show yourself;"
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel's heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. "Come on, colonel," said Mr. Bell; "let us catch this
+impudent rascal."
+
+"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am--here's Teigue--why don't you catch
+him?--Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm."
+
+"Let us see your face, you scoundrel," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!--look at me--look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?--you'll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner."
+
+"If you're upon the earth I'll find you, you villain!" said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. "He's round that corner," said
+Mr. Bell--"run, run."
+
+They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?--do you hear
+him?--Ho, ho, ho! you're a fine colonel to follow the wind."
+
+"Not that way, Mr. Bell--not that way; come here," said the colonel.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:--you a soldier!--ho, ho, ho!" The colonel was enraged--he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit--(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed--"Now, colonel Pratt--now, if you're a soldier, here's a
+leap for you;--now look at Teigue--why don't you look at him?--Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you're warm, I'm sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!" The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. "Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?--Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye--I'll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house--look at your watch, colonel:--there's a dive for you!" and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.
+
+"Well, did you see Teigue?" said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.--"Give me some
+wine," said the colonel. "I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he'd be
+here in ten minutes: 'tis more than that now, but he's not come."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn't he here?--Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I'm tired; and that's the colonel's doing." A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.
+
+"Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall."
+
+The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys' attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and "Ho, ho, ho!--good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!--'tis a good dinner, and there's the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen--good-bye to you, colonel--good-bye, Mr. Bell!--good-bye to
+you all!"--brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue's voice was heard no more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.
+
+
+
+
+NED SHEEHY'S EXCUSE.
+
+XXXII.
+
+
+Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody--no, not his
+worst enemy--could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o'clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.
+
+But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,--for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady's maid,--that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.
+
+In your grand houses--not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin--I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,--by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man--one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes--Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.
+
+But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak--he was a second whisperer!--there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds' ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was "No go." Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton's famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy's Leap to this hour.
+
+So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, "I'll turn
+off Ned," he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.
+
+One cold winter's day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,
+
+"Ned," said he, "go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson's horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O'Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.--Don't loiter, for your life."
+
+"Is it I, sir?" says Ned. "Well, that beats any thing; as if I'd stop
+out a minute!" So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.
+
+Four, five, six o'clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O'Toole, and the four misses O'Toole, and Mr. O'Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O'Toole, and Mr. James O'Toole, which were all the young O'Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.
+
+He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,
+
+"There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I'll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I'll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will."
+
+"Don't say so, Dick, dear," said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) "don't swear, Dick, dear," said
+she; "but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O'Toole,
+yesterday, I was, 'pon honour."
+
+Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned's face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.
+
+"Ned!" thundered his master in great indignation,--and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: "Get up, you scoundrel," said he.
+
+Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master's hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking--"O,
+sir!--don't be angry, sir!--don't be angry, and I'll roast you
+easier--easy as a lamb!"
+
+"Roast me easier, you vagabond!" said Mr. Gumbleton; "what do you
+mean?--I'll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?--Modderaroo
+will never get over it.--Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don't
+get you transported."
+
+"Thank God, master dear," said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened--"it's yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;--may whisky be my poison--"
+
+"It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel," said Mr.
+Gumbleton.
+
+"Well, then, _may_ whiskey be my poison," said Ned, "if 'twas not I
+was--in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned 'twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey's--I don't deny
+it--why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened."
+
+"Ned, my man," said Mr. Gumbleton, "I'll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow--"
+
+"Begging your honour's pardon," said Ned, earnestly, "for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows--they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and 'tis myself rep_i_nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I'll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don't pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day's luck or grace."
+
+"I know you, Ned," said Mr. Gumbleton. "Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don't intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir."
+
+Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy's excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.
+
+"No wonder your honour," said he, "should be a bit angry--grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don't blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all's heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+_joint_ (giant,) and I only a man.
+
+"I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o'clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour's hat. Well, I didn't care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy's field--sure
+your honour ought to know the place well--just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders."
+
+(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)
+
+"Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. 'How early you are at your work, my little fellows!' says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey's; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:--
+
+    'Ned! Ned!
+    By my cap so red!
+    You're as good, Ned,
+    As a man that is dead.'
+
+'A clean pair of spurs is all that's for it now,' said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. 'What river is this?' said I to myself--for
+there was nobody else to ask--'I thought,' says I, 'I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.' So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn't know what to do; but I thought in myself, it's a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!--fire!--robbery!--any thing
+that would be natural in such a place--but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn't do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. 'May be,'
+said I, 'my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.' But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too _study_ (steady) for a jacky lantern. 'I'll try you,' says
+I--'so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the _slob_.[29] At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.
+
+    [29] Or _slaib_; mire on the sea strand or river's
+    bank.--O'BRIEN.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, 'twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man's!--so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, 'Why don't you open the door to Ned Sheehy?' 'How pat my name is
+to you,' said I, without speaking out, 'on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;' and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.
+
+"'Why, then, Ned Sheehy,' says he, 'how grand you're grown, that you
+won't come in and see a friend, as you're passing by?'
+
+"'Pray, sir,' says I, looking at him--though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself--'Pray, sir,' says I,
+'may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?'
+
+"'Suppose I was,' says he: 'has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?'
+
+"'I'm not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,' says I, 'if 'tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.'
+
+"'Well,' says he, 'no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here's a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.'
+
+"Now, your honour, though 'twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood--to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within--for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door--if I don't love the creature
+as I love my own life--I went in with Jack Myers.
+
+"Civil enough he was--I'll never say otherwise to my dying hour--for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice--'twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened--spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, 'Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?'
+
+"'The never a word, sir,' says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.
+
+"'Have you no news,' says the voice, 'Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?'
+
+"'No, sir,' says I, 'never the word.'
+
+"'What brought you in here, Ned, then?' says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.
+
+"'Turn the scoundrel out,' says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.
+
+"'The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!' says I. 'Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!' says I, speaking to myself, 'my man, you're in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!' But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one's heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+'I'd better get up in a tree,' says I, 'for they say 'tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I'm in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.'
+
+"I could not help wondering how a _berrin_ (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I'll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you'd meet with in a day's walk.
+
+"'Where's the spit?' says one.
+
+"'Here 'tis,' says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.
+
+"If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the _Hannibals_
+father Quinlan told us about in his _sarmint_ last Sunday.
+
+"'Who'll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?' says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.
+
+"'Who'd turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?' says another.
+
+"Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?
+
+"'Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,' says he.
+
+"'I'm not here at all, sir,' says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.
+
+"'That won't do for you, my man,' says he; 'you'd better come down, or
+may be I'd make you.'
+
+"'I'm coming, sir,' says I; for 'tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.
+
+"'Don't scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,' says the man on the
+spit.
+
+"'And my lord, sir, and ar'n't you dead, sir,' says I, 'and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he.
+
+"'But surely you are, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.'
+
+"'I ar'n't,' says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.
+
+"So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be 'twould be the worse turn for myself.
+
+"'Will that do, sir?' says I, turning him as easy as I could.
+
+"'That's too easy,' says he: so I turned him faster.
+
+"'That's too fast,' says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.
+
+"Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. 'Murder!' says I, shouting out; 'I'm done for at
+long last--now or never!'--when all of a sudden, and 'twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.
+
+"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' says the voice,--for 'twas shut
+against me,--and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.
+
+"'Have you any news for me?' says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'and plenty.' So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.
+
+"'If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,' said the voice.
+
+"'And how could I tell it to you, sir,' says I, 'before it happened?'
+
+"'No matter,' says he, 'you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you'd have
+been _kilt_ entirely.' So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought 'twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour's
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if 'twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me."
+
+"It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel," said Mr. Gumbleton; "have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?"
+
+"But never one, your honour, that really happened before," said Ned,
+with unblushing front. "Howsomever, since your honour fancies 'tis
+drinking I was, I'd rather never drink again to the world's end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I'm forgiven this once, and
+get another trial----"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gumbleton, "you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don't believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones."
+
+So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned's countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.
+
+"Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last," exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: "I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the _differ_
+(difference) to his cost."
+
+Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton's cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCKY GUEST.
+
+XXXIII.
+
+
+The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on "the
+master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.
+
+An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of _Coum an
+'ir morriv_ (the dead man's hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name "_currigguib_," a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.
+
+Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.
+
+"I have told you," she said, "what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother's roof."
+
+Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public speaking," she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:--
+
+"It was one May eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days," said Ellen, with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the _Drutheen_, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.
+
+"My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big _chimbley_.
+
+"'God bless us,' says my mother, 'but 'tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.'
+
+"I don't, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we'd like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in--having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.
+
+"We were all watching to see who'd come in, for there was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who'd
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn't mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
+
+"We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman's hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+_labbig_,[30] scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.
+
+    [30] _Labbig_--bed, from _Leaba_.--Vide O'BRIEN and O'REILLY.
+
+"When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 'twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o'clock; and then, if we'd look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the keyhole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so 'twas
+just fitting for the little arm.
+
+"The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and 'tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we'd instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane--but he was drunk--walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.
+
+"As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.
+
+"But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord--God forgive him--took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father--and small blame to him for
+that--refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.
+
+"It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the _moral_ (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock!--twelve
+o'clock!--no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.
+
+"My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."
+
+Here young Ellen's voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.
+
+     FIR DARRIG means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+     community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+     Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+     his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+     is doubtless the same as the Scottih _Red Cap_; which a writer
+     in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+     analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+     spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+     hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+     Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+     common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+     the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton's
+     "Lubber Fiend") and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+     of the Folletos, "Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+     effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+     vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+     reperisse."--_Otia Imperialia._
+
+     The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+     Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+     according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+     waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+     warbling of birds, &c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+     Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+     invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+     generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+     and red shoes.
+
+
+
+
+TREASURE LEGENDS.
+
+    "Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back
+    When gold and silver becks me to come on."
+
+                                        _King John._
+
+    "This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so."
+
+                                    _Winter's Tale._
+
+
+
+
+DREAMING TIM JARVIS.
+
+XXXIV.
+
+
+Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.
+
+Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.
+
+But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him--"Tim Jarvis, you're
+all behind, Tim, like the cow's tail." Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver--and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney's
+coaster--and so he did!
+
+Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he--"Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?"
+
+"Surely I do, sir," said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.
+
+"Tim," says he, "what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?"
+
+"Please your honour," says Tim, "I'm come to seek my fortune."
+
+"You're a fool for your pains, Tim, if that's all," remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; "this is a big place to seek one's
+fortune in, to be sure, but it's not so easy to find it."
+
+Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.
+
+"There's many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes," said
+Tim.
+
+"True," said the stranger.
+
+"But," continued Tim, looking up, "the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I'm told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts."
+
+"And who told you that, Tim?"
+
+"Why then, sir, that's what I can't tell myself rightly--only I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!" said the stranger, laughing; "I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll's ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom."
+
+Tim knew Jerry Driscoll's ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it--so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he--
+
+"By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!"
+
+The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband--the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him--and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. "It wasn't for nothing," says Tim, "I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you'll see what'll come out of it--mind my words."
+
+A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours--as well they might--thought he was cracked!
+
+The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll's field, though it was
+said to be "the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil."
+
+It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:--"Norah, did you see e'er a cow you'd like?"--or, "Norah,
+dear, hasn't Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?"--or, "Norah honey,
+wouldn't you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle's?"
+
+As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze-bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.
+
+"How shall we bother Tim?" said one voice.
+
+"Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+_ould sarpint_; 'tis long since he has had a good meal," said another
+voice.
+
+Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.
+
+"No," said a third voice; "plunge him in the bog, neck and heels."
+
+Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.[31]
+
+    [31]  "I'non mori, e non rimasi vivo:
+          Pensa oramai per te, s'hai fior d'ingegno
+          Qual io divenni d'uno e d'altro privo."
+
+                        Dante, _Inferno_, canto 34.
+
+"Stop!" said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.
+
+When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up--he then took a big
+one--and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim--down, down and down he went--until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out--
+
+    "Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!
+    Welcome, down here!"
+
+Though Tim's teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer--"I'm he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself." But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, "Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?"
+
+"Mighty well! I thank your honour," said Tim; "and 'twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!"
+
+There was a great laugh at Tim's answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, "Shut your eyes, and you'll see,
+Tim."
+
+"By my word, then," said Tim, "that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I'm not the man to gainsay you, so I'll do as you bid me, any how."
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens[32], as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, "Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man," says
+he, "and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we've altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent."
+
+    [32] An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.
+
+"Oh, then, long life to you, sir!" said Tim, "and there's no doubt of
+that."
+
+"But what will you say, Tim," inquired the little fellow, "if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?"
+
+"Your honour's honour, and your honour's glory," answered Tim, "I'll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you--and
+indeed I've enough to do with them. I'd make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah--she has been a good wife to me. We'll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I'd have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if 'twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I'd build a new cabin;
+and I'd have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I'd snap my fingers at the 'squire, and beat his hounds, if they'd
+come coursing through my fields; and I'd have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy Leary's brats--that's my sister that
+was--and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I'd have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I'd have every thing," said Tim, "in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money--hurra-whoop!--and that's what I'd do."
+
+"Take care, Tim," said the little fellow, "your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop."
+
+But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man."
+
+"I hope, gentlemen," said he, "we won't part for good and all; but may
+be ye'll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I've done with your money."
+
+To this there was no answer, only another shout--"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis--go home--fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye'll
+never see the light of day again."
+
+Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before--away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.
+
+He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs--and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll's, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat "her dreaming blackguard."
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.
+
+Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato-garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.
+
+Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding--"If they stayed with me I wouldn't have
+luck with them, sir; and father O'Shea told me 'twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn't, they'd have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way."
+
+I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the _sarpint_ in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. "The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm," was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis's
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.
+
+
+
+
+RENT-DAY.
+
+XXXV.
+
+
+"Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?" muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. "What will we do? to-morrow's rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don't pay up our rent, he'll cant every
+_ha'perth_ we have; and then, sure enough, there's Judy and myself,
+and the poor little _grawls_,[33] will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!--Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!"
+
+    [33] Children.
+
+Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,
+
+    "How ill the scene that offers rest,
+    And heart that cannot rest, agree!"
+
+Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.
+
+"What's the matter with you, my poor man?" said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman's sudden appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn't pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o'clock next
+day.
+
+"A sad story indeed," said the stranger; "but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord's agent, he won't have the heart
+to turn you out."
+
+"Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!" exclaimed
+Bill. "I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out."
+
+"Take this, my poor fellow, take this," said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill's old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. "Pay the fellow your rent, but I'll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!"
+
+These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.
+
+"O'Donoghue, O'Donoghue!" shouted Bill; "the good, the blessed
+O'Donoghue!" and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.
+
+The next day Bill proceeded to the agent's; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.
+
+"Why don't you take off your hat, fellow; don't you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?" said the agent.
+
+"I know I'm not speaking to the king, sir," said Bill; "and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I've no right either to respect or love an agent!"
+
+"You scoundrel!" retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, "I'll teach you how to
+be insolent again--I have the power, remember."
+
+"To the cost of the country, I know you have," said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.
+
+"But come," said the magistrate; "have you got the money for me?--this
+is rent-day. If there's one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that's due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession."
+
+"There is your rent," said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; "you'd better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all."
+
+The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold--real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one's pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.
+
+The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king's head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.
+
+From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O'Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.
+
+Like the butterfly, the spirit of O'Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.
+
+
+
+
+LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.
+
+XXXVI.
+
+
+Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant's Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?--who ever thinks of going--
+
+    --"westward, where Dick Martin _ruled_
+    The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?"
+
+The Ulster-man's ancient denunciation "to hell or to Connaught," has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground--a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium--in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, "I'll warrant he'll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o' green Erin, only
+something poorer;" and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+"worse would be needless;" but so it is.
+
+"My gracious me," said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, "I wonder a
+gentleman of your _teeste_ and _curosity_ would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a _tower_ (tour) of Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the _ould_ abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair."
+
+Polly M'Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The "old abbey" is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni's princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of "O'Rourke's old hall," gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.
+
+The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; "but,"
+continued he, "for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour's after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that's worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?" He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts--as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. "That's Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir," resumed my guide, "and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+_moral_ of it, only that it's round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, 'tis as good as fourscore years--I often _hard_ my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story--since Manus O'Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O'Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o'clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he'd find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O'Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother's father was a cow-boy to the earl O'Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M'Clure's--the old Frank that was then at that time--and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and 'tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he'd eat him, says he, in good English,
+
+"'Arrah, then, Manus,' says he, 'what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.'
+
+"'Oh, plase your honour,' says Manus, 'I beg my life:' and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.
+
+"'Well, as you have some blood of the O'Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I'll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.'
+
+"'Go home,' says the Payshtha--'go home, Manus,' says he; 'and if you
+can't make better use of your time, get drunk; but don't come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I'll show you something that you'll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.'
+
+"With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn't long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.
+
+"'Plase your honour,' says Manus, 'if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?'
+
+"'May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I'm bound to look after the Thiernas[34] of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch this cave, and what's in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.'
+
+    [34] _Tighearna_--a lord. Vide O'BRIEN.
+
+"'May be you are a sort of a banshee?'
+
+"'I am not, you fool,' said the little man. 'The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.'
+
+"Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O'Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant's tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.
+
+"'And now, Manus,' says the little man, 'ye seen the whole o' this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.' The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus's face, and says to
+him in a great passion, 'Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don't ye go
+about your business?'
+
+"'How can I?--sure you must show me the way out,' says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.
+
+"'Can't we go out the way we came?' says Manus.
+
+"'No, you must go out at the other end--that's the rule o' this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.' With
+that the little man gave him one _hoise_, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story."
+
+     As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+     all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+     concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+     expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+     admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+     exists a striking similarity.
+
+     Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+     by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l'Antiquite,
+     traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+     discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+     numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+     they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+     Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele's Danske Folkesagn, i.
+     112, ii. 24. Kirke's Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &c.
+
+     The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+     supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+     seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+     rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+     Holgar, and Groen Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+     the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+     sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+     receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+     appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.
+
+     In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+     soliloquizing--"Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+     that He keeps it from us."
+
+
+
+
+ROCKS AND STONES.
+
+    "Forms in silence frown'd,
+    Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye
+    Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,
+    Wedding themselves with gloom--or grew
+    Gigantic to my troubled view,
+    And seem'd to gather round me."
+                 BANIM'S _Celt's Paradise_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.
+
+XXXVII.
+
+
+From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without "a crooked thought and a cross job." Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.
+
+This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains--_Labacally_, the hag's bed--not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.
+
+O'Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son--never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.
+
+Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman's, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.
+
+    "Infant heir of proud Fermoy,
+      Fear not fields of slaughter;
+    Storm and fire fear not, my boy,
+      But shun the fatal water."
+
+These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.
+
+The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord's vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:
+
+    ----"Put but a little water in a spoon,
+    And it shall be, as all the ocean,
+    Enough to stifle such a _being_ up."
+
+A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.
+
+The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+
+A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.
+
+Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.
+
+On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brien
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.
+
+Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning's sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.
+
+These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son--many a wife of a husband--many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!
+
+It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. "Thine, Regan,
+be the task," he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.
+
+With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning's dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!
+
+Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith's
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.
+
+The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;
+
+    "The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;
+    White-tooth'd, graceful, magnanimous, and active."
+
+The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag's
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.
+
+The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+_Clough-a-Regaun_ is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!
+
+
+
+
+CLOUGH NA CUDDY.
+
+XXXIX.
+
+
+Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen--"sweet Innisfallen," as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.
+
+However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner--the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.
+
+Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of "the fat father." Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it--and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. 'Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.
+
+    "He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.--What then?
+    He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!"
+
+Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled "blackjack" stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.
+
+Spiritual affairs--for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery--demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning's light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.
+
+The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off--"Hah!" exclaimed Cuddy, "what a noble haunch goes
+there!--how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!"
+
+As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.
+
+Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire satisfaction. "Welcome, Father
+Cuddy," said the prior: "grace be on you."
+
+"Grace before meat, then," said Cuddy, "for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water."
+
+A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy's appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:--he tried another,--it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!
+
+I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as "_in vino veritas_" his song will well become
+this veritable history.
+
+    CANTAT MONACHUS.
+
+    I.
+           Hoc erat in votis,
+         Et bene sufficerit totis
+        Si dum porto sacculum
+    Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!
+          Et si parvis
+            In arvis
+            Nullam
+            Invenero pullam,
+        Ovum gentiliter pre�bebit recens
+            Puella decens.
+        Manu nec dabis invit�
+            Flos vallium harum,
+            Decus puellarum,
+            Candida Marguerita!
+
+THE FRIAR'S SONG.
+
+    I.
+
+            My vows I can never fulfil,
+                      Until
+        I have breakfasted, one way or other;
+              And I freely protest,
+              That I never can rest
+              'Till I borrow or beg
+                    An egg,
+    Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.
+              But Maggy, my dear,
+              While you're here,
+                  I don't fear
+    To want eggs that have just been laid newly;
+              For och! you're a pearl
+                Of a girl,
+      And you're called so in _Latin_ most truly.
+
+    II.
+
+        Me hora jucunda coen�
+        Dilectat bene,
+      Et rerum sine dubio grandium
+      Maxima est prandium:
+        Sed mihi crede,
+        In h�c �de,
+    Multo magis gaudeo,
+      Cum gallicantum audio,
+        In sinu tuo
+        Videns ova duo.
+      Oh semper me tractes ita!
+        Panibus de hordeo factis,
+        Et copi� lactis,
+      Candida Margarita!
+
+    III.
+
+    There is most to my mind something that is still upper
+                        Than supper,
+    Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner
+                        After dinner:
+    But soon as I hear the cock crow
+                        In the morning,
+    That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,
+                      By that warning,
+    While your buttermilk helps me to float
+                        Down my throat
+          Those sweet cakes made of oat.
+                        I don't envy an earl,
+                        Sweet girl,
+    Och, 'tis you are a beautiful pearl.
+
+Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery's delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.
+
+This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man's drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with _the venerable Bead_,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his "soul-case," so he figuratively termed
+the body.
+
+His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!--he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. "Bless my eyes," said Father
+Cuddy, "every thing is changing now-a-days!--the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think _Camceachta_ (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where."
+
+Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.
+
+"Ah, Margery, merry Margery!" cried Cuddy, "you tempting little rogue!
+
+    'Flos vallium harum,
+    Decus puellarum,
+    Candida Margarita.'
+
+"I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!" and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.
+
+At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.
+
+Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. "Bless my soul and body!" said the good father, "I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!" Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer's morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.
+
+Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.
+
+Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.
+
+Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.
+
+"Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what's your business?"
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter's place.
+
+"Business!--my business!" repeated the confounded Cuddy,--"why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?"
+
+"Hence, fellow!" said the porter's representative, in a surly tone;
+"nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales."
+
+"Fellow!" exclaimed the father: "mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!--Scoundrel!" cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, "do you not see my garb--my holy garb?"
+
+"Ay, fellow," replied he of the keys--"the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty--whom God preserve!"
+
+"Queen of England!" said Cuddy; "there never was a sovereign queen of
+England--this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night--the world's turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?"
+
+"Know you!--how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey.
+"Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since."
+
+"'Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery's fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad--no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. "A hundred years!--what was your great-grandmother's name?"
+
+"She was a Mahony of Dunlow--Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother--"
+
+"What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!" shouted Cuddy.
+"St. Brandon help me!--the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!--why, 'twas only last night--a hundred years!--your
+great-grandmother, said you?--There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!"
+
+That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery's fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.
+
+The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy--so is the stone
+called--remains in Lord Kenmare's park, an indisputable evidence of
+the fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIANT'S STAIRS.
+
+XL.
+
+
+On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne's Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.
+
+Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, "_genus_."
+
+One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.
+
+There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O'Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.
+
+Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. "The seven years--my time of service,--are clean out, Robin,"
+said he, "and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after."
+
+"And how will I know," said Robin--cunning enough, even in his
+sleep--"but this is all a dream?"
+
+"Take that," said the boy, "for a token"--and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.
+
+Robin was well acquainted with the Giant's Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.
+
+Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk's
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin's dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant's
+Stairs.
+
+After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant's Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant's Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, "'Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream."
+
+"And whose doing is it," said Tom, "but your own?"
+
+At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king's palace unfolded itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.
+
+"Robin, Robin," said he, "if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?" But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+"What seek you?" he demanded in a voice of thunder.
+
+"I come," answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on--for his heart was almost fainting within him--"I come," said he,
+"to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night."
+
+"And who sent you here?" said the giant.
+
+"'Twas of my own accord I came," said Robin.
+
+"Then you must single him out from among my pages," said the giant;
+"and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me."
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.
+
+"Here," said Mahon, "you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice."
+
+Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin's own sledge battering on his anvil.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.
+
+"'Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry," remarked
+Robin, "although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. 'Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!"
+
+"Ay," said the giant, "that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith."
+
+Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and, all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, "Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne."
+
+"It is Philip Ronayne--happy Philip Ronayne," said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant's Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.
+
+Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure--Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline--the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.
+
+"Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?" was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.
+
+"Am I sure? Well, that's a queer question," was Robin's reply; "seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the _purly_ wart on the right side of his
+little nose."
+
+However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne's court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.
+
+Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years' apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.
+
+      And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o'er;
+        The tales my infancy had loved to hear,
+        Like blissful visions fade and disappear.
+      Such tales Momonia's peasant tells no more!
+      Vanish'd are MERMAIDS from the sea beat shore;
+        Check'd is the HEADLESS HORSEMAN'S strange career;
+        FIR DARRIG'S voice no longer mocks the ear,
+      Nor ROCKS bear wondrous imprints as of yore!
+      Such is "the march of mind." But did the fays
+        (Creatures of whim--the gossamers of will)
+        In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill
+      As stormier spirits of our modern days?
+    Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:
+    My constant prayer--"may peace be with thee still!"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire--
+
+    "Who every year can mend your cheer
+      With tales both old and new."
+
+The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.
+
+The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.
+
+I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely "pulled the old woman out of our hearts," as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even _score above the breath_. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.
+
+But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon's court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday's sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went "to raise the water," as if the
+South'ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy _cortege_ awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.
+
+I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G----, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair-day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself _artist from Vauxhall_, and that he
+exhibits _fantoccini_; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G----. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch's sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord ---- could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.
+
+It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.
+
+As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much
+
+                               Your obliged and thankful servant,
+                                                        WALTER SCOTT.
+
+27th April, 1825.
+
+    ABBOTSFORD, MELROSE.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The
+South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South
+of Ireland, by T. Crofton Crocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland
+
+Author: T. Crofton Crocker
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2012 [EBook #39752]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY LEGENDS OF SOUTH OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Watson, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1 class="booktitle">FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.</h1>
+
+<p class="h4">BY</p>
+
+<p class="h3">T. CROFTON CROKER.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="h4">A New Edition.</p>
+
+<p class="h5">WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, AFTER DESIGNS OF
+THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="inset18">
+<p>"Come l'araba Fenice<br />
+Che ci sia, ognun lo dice;<br />
+Dove sia, nessun lo sa."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Metastasio.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="h5">Philadelphia:</p>
+
+<p class="h4">LEA AND BLANCHARD.</p>
+
+<p class="h5">1844.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>The erudite Lessing styles a preface "the history of a book." Now,
+though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the
+word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten
+years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the
+present condensed and revised edition from being considered an
+abridgment.</p>
+
+<p>However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of
+compressing into one volume the three in which the "Fairy Legends"
+originally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of
+selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to
+perform; but the following statement will show the system proceeded
+on.</p>
+
+<p>Forty tales descriptive of Irish superstitions now appear instead of
+fifty. All superfluous annotations have been struck out, and a brief
+summary at the end of each section substituted, explanatory of the
+classification adopted, and in which a few additional notes have been
+introduced,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> as well as upon the text. It is therefore hoped that this
+curtailment will be regarded as an essential improvement; some useless
+repetition in the tales being thereby avoided, and much irrelevant
+matter in the notes dispensed with, although nothing which illustrates
+in the slightest degree the popular Fairy Creed of Ireland has been
+sacrificed. At the same time, the omission of a portion of the ten
+immaterial tales will sufficiently answer doubts idly raised as to the
+question of authorship.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/004.jpg" width="209" height="213" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Shefro.</td>
+  <td class="tdrfirst">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#I">I</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knocksheogowna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#II">II</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knockfierna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#III">III</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Knockgrafton,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">21</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">IV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Priest's Supper,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#V">V</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Brewery of Egg-shells,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">30</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">VI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Legend of Bottle Hill,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">34</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">VII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Confessions of Tom Bourke,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">43</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Fairies or no Fairies,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">56</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">61</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Cluricaune.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">IX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Haunted Cellar,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">63</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#X">X</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Master and Man,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">70</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XI">XI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Little Shoe,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">77</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">79</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Banshee.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XII">XII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Bunworth Banshee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">81</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The M<sup>c</sup>Carthy Banshee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">85</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Phooka.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Spirit Horse,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">101</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XV">XV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Daniel O'Rourke,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">105</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Crookened Back,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">117</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Thierna na Oge.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVII">XVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Fior Usga,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">119</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Cormac and Mary (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">122</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIX">XIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Lough Gur,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">124</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XX">XX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Enchanted Lake,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">126</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXI">XXI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of O'Donoghue,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">130</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">132</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Merrow.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXII">XXII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lady of Gollerus,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">133</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Flory Cantillon's Funeral,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">139</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lord of Dunkerron (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">143</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXV">XXV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Wonderful Tune,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">146</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">154</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Dullahan.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Good Woman,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">155</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Hanlon's Mill,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">163</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Death Coach (<i>Ballad</i>,)</td>
+  <td class="tdr">167</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Headless Horseman,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">169</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">178</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Fir Darrig.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXX">XXX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Diarmid Bawn, the Piper,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">179</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Teigue of the Lee,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">184</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Ned Sheehy's Excuse,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">190</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Lucky Guest,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">201</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">208</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Treasure Legends.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Dreaming Tim Jarvis,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">209</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Rent Day,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">217</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Linn-na-Payshtha,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><i>Note on the Section.</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr">225</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Rocks and Stones.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Legend of Cairn Thierna,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">226</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Rock of the Candle,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">229</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Clough-na-Cuddy,</td>
+  <td class="tdr">232</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#XL">XL</a>.</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Giant's Stairs.</td>
+  <td class="tdr">240</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">Appendix</span>&mdash;Letter from Sir Walter Scott.</td>
+  <td class="tdr1">247</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/006.jpg" width="159" height="84" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/007a.jpg" width="221" height="162" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>TO THE DOWAGER LADY CHATTERTON.</h2>
+
+<p class="h3">CASTLE MAHON.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Thee</span>, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Whence cold and doubting reasoners are exiled,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A land of dreams, with air-built castles piled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moonlight <span class="smcap">Shefros</span> there, in merry band<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With artful <span class="smcap">Cluricaune</span>, should ready stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To welcome thee&mdash;Imagination's child!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till on thy ear would burst so sadly wild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The <span class="smcap">Banshee's</span> shriek, who points with wither'd hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the dim twilight should the <span class="smcap">Phooka</span> come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose dusky form fades in the sunny light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That opens clear calm <span class="smcap">Lakes</span> upon thy sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where blessed spirits dwell in endless bloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know thee, Lady&mdash;thou wilt not deride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such Fairy Scenes.&mdash;Then onward with thy Guide.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<img class="inset"  src="images/007b.jpg" width="296" height="66" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/008.jpg" width="221" height="242" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">The Wood Engravings after Designs by Mr.
+<span class="smcap">Brooke, R. H. A.</span>, Mr.
+<span class="smcap">M<sup>c</sup>Clise</span>, and the
+<span class="smcap">Author.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">Irish FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="506" height="295" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">&quot;Look there! look there, mammy!&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2"><a id="FAIRY_LEGENDS"></a>FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<p class="h3">THE SHEFRO.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/011.jpg" width="373" height="278" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset20">
+<p>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"Fairy Elves<br />
+Whose midnight revels, by a forest side<br />
+Or fountain some belated peasant sees,<br />
+Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon<br />
+Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth<br />
+Wheels her pale course."&mdash;</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Milton.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE SHEFRO.</p>
+
+<h2 id="I">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKSHEOGOWNA.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<p>In Tipperary is one of the most singularly shaped hills in the world.
+It has got a peak at the top like a conical nightcap thrown carelessly
+over your head as you awake in the morning. On the very point is built
+a sort of lodge, where in the summer the lady who built it and her
+friends used to go on parties of pleasure; but that was long after the
+days of the fairies, and it is, I believe, now deserted.</p>
+
+<p>But before lodge was built, or acre sown, there was close to the head
+of this hill a large pasturage, where a herdsman spent his days and
+nights among the herd. The spot had been an old fairy ground, and the
+good people were angry that the scene of their light and airy gambols
+should be trampled by the rude hoofs of bulls and cows. The lowing of
+the cattle sounded sad in their ears, and the chief of the fairies of
+the hill determined in person to drive away the new comers; and the
+way she thought of was this. When the harvest nights came on, and the
+moon shone bright and brilliant over the hill, and the cattle were
+lying down hushed and quiet, and the herdsman, wrapt in his mantle,
+was musing with his heart gladdened by the glorious company of the
+stars twinkling above him, she would come and dance before him,&mdash;now
+in one shape&mdash;now in another,&mdash;but all ugly and frightful to behold.
+One time she would be a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a
+tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then in a moment
+she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">[13]</a><br /><a id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> bull's head,
+and a lambent flame playing round it. Then into a great ape, with
+duck's feet, and a turkey cock's tail. But I should be all day about
+it were I to tell you all the shapes she took. And then she would
+roar, or neigh, or hiss, or bellow, or howl, or hoot, as never yet was
+roaring, neighing, hissing, bellowing, howling, or hooting, heard in
+this world before or since. The poor herdsman would cover his face,
+and call on all the saints for help, but it was no use. With one puff
+of her breath she would blow away the fold of his great coat, let him
+hold it never so tightly over his eyes, and not a saint in heaven paid
+him the slightest attention. And to make matters worse, he never could
+stir; no, nor even shut his eyes, but there was obliged to stay, held
+by what power he knew not, gazing at these terrible sights until the
+hair of his head would lift his hat half a foot over his crown, and
+his teeth would be ready to fall out from chattering. But the cattle
+would scamper about mad, as if they were bitten by the fly; and this
+would last until the sun rose over the hill.</p>
+
+<p>The poor cattle from want of rest were pining away, and food did them
+no good; besides, they met with accidents without end. Never a night
+passed that some of them did not fall into a pit, and get maimed, or,
+may be, killed. Some would tumble into a river and be drowned; in a
+word, there seemed never to be an end of the accidents. But what made
+the matter worse, there could not be a herdsman got to tend the cattle
+by night. One visit from the fairy drove the stoutest hearted almost
+mad. The owner of the ground did not know what to do. He offered
+double, treble, quadruple wages, but not a man could be found for the
+sake of money to go through the horror of facing the fairy. She
+rejoiced at the successful issue of her project, and continued her
+pranks. The herd gradually thinning, and no man daring to remain on
+the ground, the fairies came back in numbers, and gambolled as merrily
+as before, quaffing dew-drops from acorns, and spreading their feast
+on the heads of capacious mushrooms.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? the puzzled farmer thought in vain. He found that
+his substance was daily diminishing, his people terrified, and his
+rent-day coming round. It is no wonder that he looked gloomy, and
+walked mournfully<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> down the road. Now in that part of the world dwelt
+a man of the name of Larry Hoolahan, who played on the pipes better
+than any other player within fifteen parishes. A roving, dashing blade
+was Larry, and feared nothing. Give him plenty of liquor, and he would
+defy the devil. He would face a mad bull, or fight single-handed
+against a fair. In one of his gloomy walks the farmer met him, and on
+Larry's asking the cause of his down looks, he told him all his
+misfortunes. "If that is all ails you," said Larry, "make your mind
+easy. Were there as many fairies on Knocksheogowna as there are potato
+blossoms in Eliogurty, I would face them. It would be a queer thing,
+indeed, if I, who never was afraid of a proper man, should turn my
+back upon a brat of a fairy not the bigness of one's thumb." "Larry,"
+said the farmer, "do not talk so bold, for you know not who is hearing
+you; but if you make your words good, and watch my herds for a week on
+the top of the mountain, your hand shall be free of my dish till the
+sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight."</p>
+
+<p>The bargain was struck, and Larry went to the hill-top, when the moon
+began to peep over the brow. He had been regaled at the farmer's
+house, and was bold with the extract of barley-corn. So he took his
+seat on a big stone under a hollow of the hill, with his back to the
+wind, and pulled out his pipes. He had not played long when the voice
+of the fairies was heard upon the blast, like a slow stream of music.
+Presently they burst out into a loud laugh, and Larry could plainly
+hear one say, "What! another man upon the fairies' ring? Go to him,
+queen, and make him repent his rashness;" and they flew away. Larry
+felt them pass by his face as they flew, like a swarm of midges; and,
+looking up hastily, he saw between the moon and him a great black cat,
+standing on the very tip of its claws, with its back up, and mewing
+with the voice of a water-mill. Presently it swelled up towards the
+sky, and turning round on its left hind-leg, whirled till it fell to
+the ground, from which it started up in the shape of a salmon, with a
+cravat round its neck, and a pair of new topboots. "Go on, jewel,"
+said Larry; "if you dance, I'll pipe;" and he struck up. So she turned
+into this, and that,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> and the other, but still Larry played on, as he
+well knew how. At last she lost patience, as ladies will do when you
+do not mind their scolding, and changed herself into a calf,
+milk-white as the cream of Cork, and with eyes as mild as those of the
+girl I love. She came up gentle and fawning, in hopes to throw him off
+his guard by quietness, and then to work him some wrong. But Larry was
+not so deceived; for when she came up, he, dropping his pipes, leaped
+upon her back.</p>
+
+<p>Now from the top of Knocksheogowna, as you look westward to the broad
+Atlantic, you will see the Shannon, queen of rivers; "spreading like a
+sea," and running on in gentle course to mingle with the ocean through
+the fair city of Limerick. It on this night shone under the moon, and
+looked beautiful from the distant hill. Fifty boats were gliding up
+and down on the sweet current, and the song of the fishermen rose
+gaily from the shore. Larry, as I said before, leaped upon the back of
+the fairy, and she, rejoiced at the opportunity, sprung from the
+hill-top, and bounded clear, at one jump, over the Shannon, flowing as
+it was just ten miles from the mountain's base. It was done in a
+second, and when she alighted on the distant bank, kicking up her
+heels, she flung Larry on the soft turf. No sooner was he thus
+planted, than he looked her straight in the face, and scratching his
+head, cried out, "By my word, well done! that was not a bad leap <i>for
+a calf</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him for a moment, and then assumed her own shape.
+"Laurence," said she, "you are a bold fellow; will you come back the
+way you went?" "And that's what I will," said he, "if you let me." So
+changing to a calf again, again Larry got on her back, and at another
+bound they were again upon the top of Knocksheogowna. The fairy, once
+more resuming her figure, addressed him: "You have shown so much
+courage, Laurence," said she, "that while you keep herds on this hill
+you never shall be molested by me or mine. The day dawns, go down to
+the farmer, and tell him this; and if any thing I can do may be of
+service to you, ask, and you shall have it." She vanished accordingly;
+and kept her word in never visiting the hill during Larry's life: but
+he never troubled her with requests. He piped and drank at the
+farmer's expense,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> and roosted in his chimney corner, occasionally
+casting an eye to the flock. He died at last, and is buried in a green
+valley of pleasant Tipperary: but whether the fairies returned to the
+hill of Knocksheogowna<a id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> after his death, is more than I can say.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/017.jpg" width="290" height="72" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="II">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA.<a id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor"><small>[2]</small></a></h2>
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p>It is a very good thing not to be any way in dread of the fairies, for
+without doubt they have then less power over a person; but to make too
+free with them, or to disbelieve in them altogether, is as foolish a
+thing as man, woman, or child can do.</p>
+
+<p>It has been truly said, that "good manners are no burden," and that
+"civility costs nothing;" but there are some people fool-hardy enough
+to disregard doing a civil <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>thing, which, whatever they may think, can
+never harm themselves or any one else, and who at the same time will
+go out of their way for a bit of mischief, which never can serve them;
+but sooner or later they will come to know better, as you shall hear
+of Carroll O'Daly, a strapping young fellow up out of Connaught, whom
+they used to call, in his own country, "Devil Daly."</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O'Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and
+the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an old
+churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night as go
+from one room into another, without ever making the sign of the cross,
+or saying, "Good luck attend you, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that he was once journeying, in the county of Limerick,
+towards "the Balbec of Ireland," the venerable town of Kilmallock; and
+just at the foot of Knockfierna he overtook a respectable-looking man
+jogging along upon a white pony. The night was coming on, and they
+rode side by side for some time, without much conversation passing
+between them, further than saluting each other very kindly; at last,
+Carroll O'Daly asked his companion how far he was going?</p>
+
+<p>"Not far your way," said the farmer, for such his appearance bespoke
+him; "I'm only going to the top of this hill here."</p>
+
+<p>"And what might take you there," said O'Daly, "at this time of the
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why then," replied the farmer, "if you want to know; 'tis the <i>good
+people</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"The fairies you mean," said O'Daly.</p>
+
+<p>"Whist! whist!" said his fellow-traveller, "or you may be sorry for
+it;" and he turned his pony off the road they were going, towards a
+little path which led up the side of the mountain, wishing Carroll
+O'Daly good night and a safe journey.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow," thought Carroll, "is about no good this blessed night,
+and I would have no fear of swearing wrong if I took my Bible oath
+that it is something else beside the fairies, or the good people, as
+he calls them, that is taking him up the mountain at this hour. The
+fairies!" he repeated, "is it for a well-shaped man like him to be
+going after<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> little chaps like the fairies! To be sure some say there
+are such things, and more say not; but I know this, that never afraid
+would I be of a dozen of them, ay, of two dozen, for that matter, if
+they are no bigger than what I hear tell of."</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O'Daly, whilst these thoughts were passing in his mind, had
+fixed his eyes steadfastly on the mountain, behind which the full moon
+was rising majestically. Upon an elevated point that appeared darkly
+against the moon's disk, he beheld the figure of a man leading a pony,
+and he had no doubt it was that of the farmer with whom he had just
+parted company.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden resolve to follow flashed across the mind of O'Daly with the
+speed of lightning: both his courage and curiosity had been worked up
+by his cogitations to a pitch of chivalry; and, muttering, "Here's
+after you, old boy!" he dismounted from his horse, bound him to an old
+thorntree, and then commenced vigorously ascending the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Following as well as he could the direction taken by the figures of
+the man and pony, he pursued his way, occasionally guided by their
+partial appearance: and after toiling nearly three hours over a rugged
+and sometimes swampy path, came to a green spot on the top of the
+mountain, where he saw the white pony at full liberty grazing as
+quietly as may be. O'Daly looked around for the rider, but he was
+nowhere to be seen; he, however, soon discovered, close to where the
+pony stood, an opening in the mountain like the mouth of a pit, and he
+remembered having heard, when a child, many a tale about the
+"Poul-duve," or Black Hole of Knockfierna; how it was the entrance to
+the fairy castle which was within the mountain; and how a man whose
+name was Ahern, a land surveyor in that part of the country, had once
+attempted to fathom it with a line, and had been drawn down into it,
+and was never again heard of; with many other tales of the like
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"But," thought O'Daly, "these are old woman's stories: and since I've
+come up so far, I'll just knock at the castle door and see if the
+fairies are at home."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done; for, seizing a large stone, as big, ay,
+bigger than his two hands, he flung it with all his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> strength down
+into the Poul-duve of Knockfierna. He heard it bounding and tumbling
+about from one rock to another with a terrible noise, and he leaned
+his head over to try and hear when it would reach the bottom,&mdash;and
+what should the very stone he had thrown in do but come up again with
+as much force as it had gone down, and gave him such a blow full in
+the face, that it sent him rolling down the side of Knockfierna, head
+over heels, tumbling from one crag to another, much faster than he
+came up. And in the morning Carroll O'Daly was found lying beside his
+horse; the bridge of his nose broken, which disfigured him for life;
+his head all cut and bruised, and both his eyes closed up, and as
+black as if Sir Daniel Donnelly had painted them for him.</p>
+
+<p>Carroll O'Daly was never bold again in riding along near the haunts of
+the fairies after dusk; but small blame to him for that; and if ever
+he happened to be benighted in a lonesome place, he would make the
+best of his way to his journey's end, without asking questions, or
+turning to the right or to the left, to seek after the good people, or
+any who kept company with them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/020.jpg" width="329" height="176" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="III">THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.</h2>
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<p>There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
+the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on
+his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed
+upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so
+much, that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees
+for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
+lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
+inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great, that
+he scarcely appeared to be a human being. And some ill-minded persons
+had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
+knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
+skilful hand in platting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
+was the way he made his livelihood.</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his
+always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore,<a id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> in his little
+straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any
+one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy,
+had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it
+happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
+Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
+account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he
+came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right hand
+side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways com<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>fortable in
+his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that
+he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to
+rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon,
+which,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Rising in clouded majesty, at length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Apparent Queen, unveil'd her peerless light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
+little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard
+such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices,
+each mingling and blending with the other so strangely, that they
+seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words
+of the song were these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, when
+there would be a moment's pause, and then the round of melody went on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath, lest he
+might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the
+singing was within the moat, and, though at first it had charmed him
+so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and
+over so often without any change; so, availing himself of the pause
+when the <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, had been sung three times, he took up
+the tune and raised it with the words <i>augus Da Cadine</i>, and then went
+on singing with the voices inside of the moat, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>,
+finishing the melody when the pause again came, with <i>augus Da
+Cadine</i>.<a id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
+they heard this addition to their tune, were so much delighted, that
+with instant resolve it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
+whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
+conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
+through the moat, twirling round and round with the lightness of a
+straw, to the sweetest music that <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>kept time to his motion. The
+greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the
+musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and every thing to
+his heart's content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he
+was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
+fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
+frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lusmore! Lusmore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doubt not, nor deplore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the hump which you bore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On your back is no more!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look down on the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And view it, Lusmore!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
+and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over
+the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and
+he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the
+ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he
+did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against
+the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round
+again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which
+appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a
+resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim.
+At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke, he found that
+it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing
+sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of
+Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about
+him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put
+his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on
+his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now
+become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and more than that, he
+found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the
+fairies had made for him.</p>
+
+<p>Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> springing up at
+every step, as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
+creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great
+work to persuade every one that he was the same man&mdash;in truth he was
+not, so far as outward appearance went.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got
+about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for
+miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.</p>
+
+<p>One morning as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door,
+up came an old woman to him, and asked if he could direct her to
+Cappagh.</p>
+
+<p>"I need give you no directions, my good woman," said Lusmore, "for
+this is Cappagh; and who do you want here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have come," said the woman, "out of Decie's country, in the county
+of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had
+his hump taken off by the fairies: for there is a son of a gossip of
+mine has got a hump on him that will be his death; and may be, if he
+could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him.
+And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: 'tis to find
+out about this charm, if I can."</p>
+
+<p>Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
+the particulars; how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
+Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and
+how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
+easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the
+county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and
+they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
+creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
+the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
+the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
+nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Madden for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
+there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much
+sweeter than before;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore
+had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: <i>Da
+Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>Da Luan</i>, <i>Da Mort</i>, <i>augus
+Da Cadine</i>, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great
+hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the
+fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune
+higher again than Lusmore had: so having heard them sing it over seven
+times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time, or the
+humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly,
+<i>augus da Cadine augus Da Hena</i>,<a id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> thinking that if one day was good,
+two were better; and that, if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes
+given to him, he should have two.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
+whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
+crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
+and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one
+stepped up to him above all the rest and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Jack Madden! Jack Madden!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your words came so bad in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tune we feel glad in;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This castle you're had in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That your life we may sadden;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump, and put it
+down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
+firmly, as if it was nailed on with twelvepenny nails, by the best
+carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked
+him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came
+to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the
+foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well, to be sure
+how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any
+thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they
+brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts
+and their looks as ever two gossips were; <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>and what through the weight
+of his other hump and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving,
+they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy
+tunes again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/026.jpg" width="176" height="162" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="IV">THE PRIEST'S SUPPER.</h2>
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<p>It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good
+people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of
+heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of
+their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down further to
+a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the
+fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks on a bright
+moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their
+merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the
+county Cork&mdash;a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers;
+but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are
+enough to strike poverty into any place: however, as the fairies can
+have every thing they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them
+much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places
+where it is not likely any one will come to spoil their sport.</p>
+
+<p>On a nice green sod by the river's side were the little fellows
+dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> caps wagging
+about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds,
+that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were
+not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols,
+spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing, and diving and
+going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cease, cease with your drumming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Here's an end to our mumming;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">By my smell<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">I can tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A priest this way is coming!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could,
+concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if
+their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look
+like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves in the hollow of
+stones; or at the shady side of brambles, and others under the bank of
+the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.</p>
+
+<p>The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was
+within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking
+to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey
+at the first cabin he came to. According to this determination, he
+stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered
+with "My blessing on all here."</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he
+went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now
+it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his
+reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes which "the old
+woman," for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past
+twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the
+net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a
+short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. "No
+matter," thought Dermod, "there can be no harm in stepping down to
+try, and may be as I want the fish for the priest's supper, that one
+will be there before me."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a
+salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of "the spreading Lee;" but
+as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could
+not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming
+along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the
+water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with
+an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent
+to his feelings by muttering, "May bitter bad luck attend you night
+and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there's any shame in you to give
+me the slip after this fashion! And I'm clear in my own mind you'll
+come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you&mdash;did
+I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's not true for you," said one of the little fairies, who had
+scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod
+Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels; "there was only
+a dozen and a half of us pulling against you."</p>
+
+<p>Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: "Make
+yourself noways uneasy about the priest's supper; for if you will go
+back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper
+as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have nothing at all to do with you," replied Dermod, in a tone
+of determination; and after a pause he added, "I'm much obliged to you
+for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or
+the like of you for a supper; and more than that, I know Father
+Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for
+ever, out of regard to any thing you could put before him&mdash;so there's
+an end of the matter."</p>
+
+<p>The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod's
+manner, continued, "Will you ask the priest one civil question for
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he
+thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question.
+"I see no objection to do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> that same, gentlemen," said Dermod; "But I
+will have nothing in life to do with your supper,&mdash;mind that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding
+after him from all parts, "go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us
+whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of
+good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says
+without delay."</p>
+
+<p>Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out
+on the table, and his good wife handing the biggest of them all, a
+beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a
+frosty night, over to Father Horrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"Please your reverence," said Dermod, after some hesitation, "may I
+make bold to ask your honour one question?"</p>
+
+<p>"What may that be?" said Father Horrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, begging your reverence's pardon for my freedom, it is, if
+the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?" said the priest, fixing his
+eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the
+truth," said Dermod. "It was the good people themselves who sent me to
+ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of
+the river waiting for me to go back with the answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Go back by all means," said the priest, "and tell them, if they want
+to know, to come here to me themselves, and I'll answer that or any
+other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in
+life."</p>
+
+<p>Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round
+about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke
+out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that
+they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there;
+and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and
+in such numbers, that he was quite bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went
+to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who
+made quite light of the thing;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> but Dermod could not help thinking it
+a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to
+banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to
+his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have
+been got away from him in such a manner.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/030.jpg" width="167" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="V">THE BREWERY OF EGG-SHELLS.</h2>
+
+<h3>V.</h3>
+
+<p>It may be considered impertinent, were I to explain what is meant by a
+changeling; both Shakspeare and Spenser have already done so, and who
+is there unacquainted with the Mid-summer Night's Dream<a id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and the
+Fairy Queen?<a id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Now Mrs. Sullivan fancied that her youngest child had been changed by
+"fairies' theft," to use Spenser's words, and certainly appearances
+warranted such a conclusion; for in one night her healthy, blue-eyed
+boy had become shrivelled up into almost nothing, and never ceased
+squalling and crying. This naturally made poor Mrs. Sullivan very
+unhappy; and all the neighbours, by way of comforting her, said, that
+her own child was, beyond any kind of doubt, <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>with the good people,
+and that one of themselves had been put in his place.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sullivan, of course, could not disbelieve what every one told
+her, but she did not wish to hurt the thing; for although its face was
+so withered, and its body wasted away to a mere skeleton, it had still
+a strong resemblance to her own boy; she, therefore, could not find it
+in her heart to roast it alive on the griddle, or to burn its nose off
+with the red-hot tongs, or to throw it out in the snow on the
+road-side, notwithstanding these, and several like proceedings, were
+strongly recommended to her for the recovery of her child.</p>
+
+<p>One day who should Mrs. Sullivan meet but a cunning woman, well known
+about the country by the name of Ellen Leah (or Gray Ellen). She had
+the gift, however she got it, of telling where the dead were, and what
+was good for the rest of their souls; and could charm away warts and
+wens, and do a great many wonderful things of the same nature.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in grief this morning, Mrs. Sullivan," were the first words of
+Ellen Leah to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You may say that, Ellen," said Mrs. Sullivan, "and good cause I have
+to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me
+out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your
+pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his
+place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen."</p>
+
+<p>"Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan," said Ellen Leah; "but are you
+sure 'tis a fairy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" echoed Mrs. Sullivan, "sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can
+I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother's soul must feel for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take an old woman's advice?" said Ellen Leah, fixing her
+wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause,
+she added, "but may be you'll call it foolish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you get me back my child,&mdash;my own child, Ellen?" said Mrs.
+Sullivan with great energy.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do as I bid you," returned Ellen Leah, "you'll know." Mrs.
+Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. "Put down the
+big pot, full of water, on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> fire, and make it boil like mad; then
+get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw
+away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling
+water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy.
+If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker
+and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble
+with him after that, I promise you."</p>
+
+<p>Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the
+pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water
+boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot&mdash;it surely was.</p>
+
+<p>The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle,
+every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a
+star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon
+it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking
+the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked,
+with the voice of a very old man, "What are you doing, mammy?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sullivan's heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready
+to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the
+poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the
+words, "I'm brewing, <i>a vick</i>" (my son).</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you brewing, mammy?" said the little imp, whose
+supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a
+fairy substitute.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the poker was red," thought Mrs. Sullivan; but it was a large
+one, and took a long time heating: so she determined to keep him in
+talk until the poker was in a proper state to thrust down his throat,
+and therefore repeated the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it what I'm brewing, <i>a vick</i>," said she, "you want to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mammy: what are you brewing?" returned the fairy.</p>
+
+<p>"Egg-shells, <i>a vick</i>," said Mrs. Sullivan.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" shrieked the imp, starting up in the cradle, and clapping his
+hands together, "I'm fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never
+saw a brewery of egg-shells before!"<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> The poker was by this time quite
+red, and Mrs. Sullivan seizing it, ran furiously towards the cradle;
+but somehow or other her foot slipped, and she fell flat on the floor,
+and the poker flew out of her hand to the other end of the house.
+However, she got up, without much loss of time, and went to the cradle
+intending to pitch the wicked thing that was in it into the pot of
+boiling water, when there she saw her own child in a sweet sleep, one
+of his soft round arms rested upon the pillow&mdash;his features were as
+placid as if their repose had never been disturbed, save the rosy
+mouth which moved with a gentle and regular breathing.</p>
+
+<p>Who can tell the feelings of a mother when she looks upon her sleeping
+child? Why should I, therefore, endeavour to describe those of Mrs.
+Sullivan at again beholding her long-lost boy? The fountain of her
+heart overflowed with the excess of joy&mdash;and she wept!&mdash;tears trickled
+silently down her cheeks, nor did she strive to check them&mdash;they were
+tears not of sorrow, but of happiness.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/033.jpg" width="351" height="193" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="VI">LEGEND OF BOTTLE HILL.</h2>
+
+<h3>VI.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come listen to a tale of times of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come listen to me&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was in the good days, when the little people, most impudently
+called fairies, were more frequently seen than they are in these
+unbelieving times, that a farmer, named Mick Purcell, rented a few
+acres of barren ground in the neighbourhood of the once celebrated
+preceptory of Mourne, situated about three miles from Mallow, and
+thirteen from "the beautiful city called Cork." Mick had a wife and
+family: they all did what they could, and that was but little, for the
+poor man had no child grown up big enough to help him in his work: and
+all the poor woman could do was to mind the children, and to milk the
+one cow, and to boil the potatoes, and to carry the eggs to market to
+Mallow; but with all they could do, 'twas hard enough on them to pay
+the rent. Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came
+a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the
+chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,&mdash;<i>she</i> was sold
+in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he
+hadn't enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.</p>
+
+<p>"Why then, Molly," says he, "what'll we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wisha, then, mavournene, what would you do but take the cow to the
+fair of Cork and sell her?" says she; "and Monday is fair day, and so
+you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested <i>again</i> the
+fair."</p>
+
+<p>"And what'll we do when she's gone?" says Mick, sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Never a know I know, Mick; but sure God won't leave us without Him,
+Mick; and you know how good He was to us when poor little Billy was
+sick, and we had nothing at all for him to take, that good doctor
+gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> at Ballydahin come riding and asking for a drink of milk;
+and how he gave us two shillings; and how he sent the things and
+bottles for the child, and gave me my breakfast when I went over to
+ask a question, so he did: and how he came to see Billy, and never
+left off his goodness till he was quite well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you are always that way, Molly, and I believe you are right after
+all, so I won't be sorry for selling the cow; but I'll go to-morrow,
+and you must put a needle and thread through my coat, for you know
+'tis ripped under the arm."</p>
+
+<p>Molly told him he should have every thing right; and about twelve
+o'clock next day he left her, getting a charge not to sell his cow
+except for the highest penny. Mick promised to mind it, and went his
+way along the road. He drove his cow slowly through the little stream
+which crosses it and runs by the old walls of Mourne. As he passed he
+glanced his eye upon the towers and one of the old elder trees which
+were only then little bits of switches.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, if I only had half the money that's buried in you, 'tisn't
+driving this poor cow I'd be now! Why, then, isn't it too bad that it
+should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me
+wanting? Well, if it is God's will, I'll have some money myself coming
+back."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he moved on after his beast; 'twas a fine day, and the sun
+shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them;
+he then crossed an extensive mountain tract, and after six long miles
+he came to the top of that hill&mdash;Bottle Hill 'tis called now, but that
+was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morrow," says he. "Good morrow," kindly, says Mick, looking at
+the stranger, who was a little man, you'd almost call him a dwarf,
+only he wasn't quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old,
+wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower,
+only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his
+lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes never
+were quiet, but looking at every thing, and although they were red,
+they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did
+not much like the little man's company; and he couldn't see one bit of
+his legs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> nor his body; for, though the day was warm, he was all
+wrapped up in a big great-coat. Mick drove his cow something faster,
+but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn't know how he walked,
+for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for
+fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller
+did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the
+other, but to glide over the rough road, and rough enough it was, like
+a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick's heart trembled
+within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn't come
+out that day, or that he was on fair hill, or that he hadn't the cow
+to mind, that he might run away from the bad thing&mdash;when, in the midst
+of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going with the cow, honest man?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the fair of Cork then," says Mick, trembling at the shrill and
+piercing tones of the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to sell her?" said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sell her to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Mick started&mdash;he was afraid to have any thing to do with the little
+man, and he was more afraid to say no.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll you give for her?" at last says he.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what, I'll give you this bottle," said the little one,
+pulling a bottle from under his coat.</p>
+
+<p>Mick looked at him and the bottle, and, in spite of his terror, he
+could not help bursting into a loud fit of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Laugh if you will," said the little man, "but I tell you this bottle
+is better for you than all the money you will get for the cow in
+Cork&mdash;ay, than ten thousand times as much."</p>
+
+<p>Mick laughed again. "Why then," says he, "do you think I am such a
+fool as to give my good cow for a bottle&mdash;and an empty one, too?
+indeed, then, I won't."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better give me the cow, and take the bottle&mdash;you'll not be
+sorry for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, and what would Molly say? I'd never hear the end of it;
+and how would I pay the rent? and what would we all do without a penny
+of money?</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you this bottle is better to you than money; take it, and give
+me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mick started.</p>
+
+<p>"How does he know my name?" thought he.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger proceeded: "Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
+for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
+do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?"</p>
+
+<p>Mick was going to say "God forbid!" but the little man went on (and he
+was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
+civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
+that's what many people, that hold their heads higher, don't mind
+now).</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
+you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
+coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
+to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir," said Mick; "and if I
+was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
+empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I'd give you the
+cow in the name&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind names," said the stranger, "but give me the cow; I would
+not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
+what I direct exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Mick hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
+rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
+poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
+Purcell!" said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
+look ten times more ugly than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"May be 'tis true," said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
+to do&mdash;he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
+fit of desperation he seized the bottle&mdash;"Take the cow," said he, "and
+if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you."</p>
+
+<p>"I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
+truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
+tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that?" says Mick.</p>
+
+<p>"When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
+yourself, and make her sweep the room clean,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> set the table out right,
+and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
+saying these words: 'Bottle, do your duty,' and you will see the end
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And is this all?" says Mick.</p>
+
+<p>"No more," said the stranger. "Good by, Mick Purcell&mdash;you are a rich
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"God grant it!" said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
+Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
+turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
+nowhere to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord between us and harm!" said Mick: "<i>He</i> can't belong to this
+earth; but where is the cow?" She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
+muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"And what would I do if it broke?" thought he. "Oh! but I'll take care
+of that;" so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
+his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
+wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
+his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
+sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer'n't at Cork all the way!
+What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
+money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why then, Molly, if you'll give me time, I'll tell you all about it.
+If you want to know where the cow is, 'tisn't Mick can tell you, for
+the never a know does he know where she is now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! then, you sold her; and where's the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I'll tell you all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?" said Molly, spying its
+neck sticking out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, be easy now, can't you," says Mick, "till I tell it to
+you?" and putting the bottle on the table, "That's all I got for the
+cow."</p>
+
+<p>His poor wife was thunderstruck. "All you got! and what good is that,
+Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what'll we do for
+the rent, and what&mdash;&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, Molly," says Mick, "can't you hearken to reason? Didn't I tell
+you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,&mdash;no, he did not
+meet me neither, but he was there with me&mdash;on the big hill, and how he
+made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
+for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!" said Molly, seizing
+the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband's head; but Mick caught it,
+and quietly (for he minded the old man's advice) loosened his wife's
+grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
+crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
+between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
+particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
+priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
+be, he didn't know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
+them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
+to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
+every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
+for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
+ground, looked at it and said, "Bottle, do your duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Look there! look there, mammy!" said his chubby eldest son, a boy
+about five years old&mdash;"look there! look there!" and he sprang to his
+mother's side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
+bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
+gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
+when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
+at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
+dishes before, and didn't think they could ever admire them enough;
+the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
+said, "Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
+to be hungry after such a good day's work."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle."</p>
+
+<p>Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
+a hearty meal, though they couldn't taste half the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," says Molly, "I wonder will those two good little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> gentlemen
+carry away these fine things again?" They waited, but no one came; so
+Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, "Why, then,
+Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you'll be a rich man yet, Mick
+Purcell."</p>
+
+<p>Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
+settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
+more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
+and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
+they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
+landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
+he got all his money&mdash;sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
+so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
+offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
+at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
+very rich, thought he'd never want any more money, and gave him the
+bottle: but Mick was mistaken&mdash;he and his family spent money as if
+there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
+poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
+Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
+hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
+day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
+reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
+curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
+rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
+couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
+blue sky,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thrilling with music, was melting in light."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
+the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
+old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
+eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
+startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:&mdash;"Well, Mick
+Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that's no lie for you, sir. Good
+morning to you, but it is not rich I am now&mdash;but have you another
+bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
+it, sir, here is the cow for it."</p>
+
+<p>"And here is the bottle," said the old man, smiling; "you know what to
+do with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
+rich man."</p>
+
+<p>"And good bye to you, sir," said Mick, as he turned back; "and good
+luck to you, and good luck to the big hill&mdash;it wants a name&mdash;Bottle
+Hill.&mdash;Good bye, sir, good bye;" so Mick walked back as fast as he
+could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
+cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
+it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,&mdash;"Oh! sure,
+I've another bottle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Arrah! then have you? why, then, you're a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
+that's what you are."</p>
+
+<p>In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
+bottle, exultingly cried out, "Bottle, do your duty." In a twinkling,
+two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
+know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
+and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
+again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
+thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
+and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
+under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
+got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
+came out to Mick.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you want now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
+the ladies and gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Come along, then." So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
+where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: "Ah! ha!"
+says he to himself, "may be I won't have you by and by."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now," says his landlord, "show us your bottle." Mick set it on the
+floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
+the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
+roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
+salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
+called out, "Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I'll have you
+hanged!"</p>
+
+<p>"They never shall stop," said Mick, "till I get my own bottle that I
+see up there at top of that shelf."</p>
+
+<p>"Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!"
+says the landlord.</p>
+
+<p>Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
+bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
+by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
+landlord's only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
+old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
+bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so 'twill be
+always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
+a strange story.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/042.jpg" width="195" height="275" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="VII">THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.</h2>
+
+<h3>VII.</h3>
+
+<p>Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
+appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
+the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
+Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
+sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom's father
+had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
+inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
+landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
+civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
+the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
+pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
+son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
+death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
+greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
+invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
+communicating with those mysterious beings called "the good people."</p>
+
+<p>Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
+years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
+rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
+clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
+with persons of a quick but limited intellect&mdash;they are small, gray,
+and lively. The large and projecting eye-brows under, or rather
+within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
+intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
+of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
+act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
+boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
+sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
+with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
+him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
+to meet the most favourable reception. "Very well, sir;" "That's true,
+sir;" "I'm very thankful to your honour," and other expressions of
+kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
+part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
+he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
+in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
+dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
+you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
+tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
+lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
+with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
+guard.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
+(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
+distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
+no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
+The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
+a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
+from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
+successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
+seasons, at least, when a man's business requires him to keep
+possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
+get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
+one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
+better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
+exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
+and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
+on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
+friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
+it may appear at first very singular,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> that he is much more punctual
+in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
+his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
+affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
+I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
+to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
+opposite conduct in the generality of mankind&mdash;a hope of future
+benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
+as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
+who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
+objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
+reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
+to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
+whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
+faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
+of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
+high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is <i>struck</i><a id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in his
+neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
+difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
+violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
+and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
+unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
+supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
+his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
+token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, <i>after</i> their
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
+from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
+months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
+living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
+a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
+refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
+much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
+because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the <i>good people</i>
+belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
+could take none from her.</p>
+
+<p>About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
+Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom's, had some business to transact
+with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
+At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
+legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
+arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
+between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
+Martin's house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
+glass of punch, made of some excellent <i>potteen</i>, which was on the
+table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
+the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
+the room, was rather a favourite of Tom's, this seemed a good
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "that was a curious business of Molly
+Dwyer's, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day."</p>
+
+<p>"You may say that, sir," replied Tom Bourke; "but I had to travel far
+for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma'am," said he, turning
+to Mrs. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
+in your own family," said Mrs. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"So I had, ma'am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Tom," said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, "take
+another tumbler;" and he then added, "I wish you would tell us
+something of the manner in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> which so many of your children died. I am
+told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
+that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
+physicians had given over."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true for you, sir," returned Tom; "your father, the doctor (God
+be good to him, I won't belie him in his grave) told me, when my
+fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
+all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
+after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
+rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
+I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
+did, I would not be left trusting to two of 'em now."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you find it out, Tom?" inquired Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, I'll tell you, sir," said Bourke: "When your father said
+what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
+the little <i>bohereen</i>, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
+Dick Heafy's ground; for 'twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
+of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
+thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
+face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
+she never got the better of all she cried at her brother's berrin
+(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
+old bocough,<a id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> that used to come about the place once or twice a
+year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
+neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. 'Bad enough, Shamous
+(James),' says I. 'I'm sorry for your trouble,' says he; 'but you're a
+foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
+only do what you ought with him.' 'What more can I do with him,
+Shamous?' says I: 'the doctors give him over.' 'The doctors know no
+more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
+milk,' says Shamous: 'but go to such a one,' says he, telling me his
+name, 'and try what he'll say to you.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And who was that, Tom?" asked Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not tell you that, sir," said Bourke, with a mysterious look:
+"howsoever, you often saw him, and he does not live far from this. But
+I had a trial of him before; and if I went to him at first, may be I'd
+have now some of them that's gone, and so Shamous often told me. Well,
+sir, I went to this man, and he came with me to the house. By course,
+I did every thing as he bid me. According to his order, I took the
+little boy out of the dwelling-house immediately, sick as he was, and
+made a bed for him and myself in the cow-house. Well, sir, I lay down
+by his side, in the bed, between two of the cows, and he fell asleep.
+He got into a perspiration, saving your presence, as if he was drawn
+through the river, and breathed hard, with a great <i>impression</i>
+(oppression) on his chest, and was very bad&mdash;very bad entirely through
+the night. I thought about twelve o'clock he was going at last, and I
+was just getting up to go call the man I told you of; but there was no
+occasion. My friends were getting the better of them that wanted to
+take him away from me. There was nobody in the cow-house but the child
+and myself. There was only one half-penny candle lighting, and that
+was stuck in the wall at the far end of the house. I had just enough
+of light where we were laying to see a person walking or standing near
+us: and there was no more noise than if it was a churchyard, except
+the cows chewing the fodder in the stalls. Just as I was thinking of
+getting up, as I told you&mdash;I wont belie my father, sir&mdash;he was a good
+father to me&mdash;I saw him standing at the bed-side, holding out his
+right hand to me, and leaning his other hand on the stick he used to
+carry when he was alive, and looking pleasant and smiling at me, all
+as if he was telling me not to be afeard, for I would not lose the
+child. 'Is that you, father?' says I. He said nothing. 'If that's
+you,' says I again, 'for the love of them that's gone, let me catch
+your hand.' And so he did, sir; and his hand was as soft as a child's.
+He stayed about as long as you'd be going from this to the gate below
+at the end of the avenue, and then went away. In less than a week the
+child was as well as if nothing ever ailed him; and there isn't
+to-night a healthier boy of nineteen, from this blessed house to the
+town of Ballyporeen, across the Kilworth mountains."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I think, Tom," said Mr. Martin, "it appears as if you are more
+indebted to your father than to the man recommended to you by Shamous;
+or do you suppose it was he who made favour with your enemies among
+the good people, and that then your father&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," said Bourke, interrupting him; "but don't
+call them my enemies. 'Twould not be wishing to me for a good deal to
+sit by when they are called so. No offence to you, sir.&mdash;Here's
+wishing you a good health and long life."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you," returned Mr. Martin, "I meant no offence, Tom; but was
+it not as I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you that, sir," said Bourke; "I'm bound down, sir.
+Howsoever, you may be sure the man I spoke of, and my father, and
+those they know, settled it between them."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, of which Mrs. Martin took advantage to inquire of
+Tom, whether something remarkable had not happened about a goat and a
+pair of pigeons, at the time of his son's illness&mdash;circumstances often
+mysteriously hinted at by Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"See that now," said he, returning to Mr. Martin, "how well she
+remembers it! True for you, ma'am. The goat I gave the mistress your
+mother, when the doctors ordered her goats' whey."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Martin nodded assent, and Tom Bourke continued&mdash;"Why, then, I'll
+tell you how that was. The goat was as well as e'er a goat ever was,
+for a month after she was sent to Killaan to your father's. The
+morning after the night I just told you of, before the child woke, his
+mother was standing at the gap leading out of the barn-yard into the
+road, and she saw two pigeons flying from the town of Kilworth, off
+the church, down towards her. Well, they never stopped, you see, till
+they came to the house on the hill at the other side of the river,
+facing our farm. They pitched upon the chimney of that house, and
+after looking about them for a minute or two, they flew straight
+across the river, and stopped on the ridge of the cow-house where the
+child and I were lying. Do you think they came there for nothing,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, Tom," returned Mr. Martin.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, the woman came in to me, frightened, and told me. She began to
+cry.&mdash;'Whisht, you fool!' says I: ''tis all for the better.' 'Twas
+true for me. What do you think, ma'am; the goat that I gave your
+mother, that was seen feeding at sunrise that morning by Jack Cronin,
+as merry as a bee, dropped down dead, without any body knowing why,
+before Jack's face; and at that very moment he saw two pigeons fly
+from the top of the house out of the town, towards the Lismore road.
+'Twas at the same time my woman saw them, as I just told you."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas very strange, indeed, Tom," said Mr. Martin; "I wish you could
+give us some explanation of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could, sir," was Tom Bourke's answer; "but I'm bound down. I
+can't tell but what I'm allowed to tell, any more than a sentry is let
+walk more than his rounds."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you said something of having had some former knowledge of the
+man that assisted in the cure of your son," said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"So I had, sir," returned Bourke. "I had a trial of that man. But
+that's neither here nor there. I can't tell you any thing about that,
+sir. But would you like to know how he got his skill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! very much indeed," said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"But you can tell us his Christian name, that we may know him the
+better through the story," added Mrs. Martin. Tom Bourke paused for a
+minute to consider this proposition.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I believe I may tell you that, any how; his name is Patrick. He
+was always a smart, active, 'cute boy, and would be a great clerk if
+he stuck to it. The first time I knew him, sir, was at my mother's
+wake. I was in great trouble, for I did not know where to bury her.
+Her people and my father's people&mdash;I mean their friends, sir, among
+the <i>good people</i>, had the greatest battle that was known for many a
+year, at Dunmanwaycross, to see to whose churchyard she'd be taken.
+They fought for three nights, one after another, without being able to
+settle it. The neighbours wondered how long I was before I buried my
+mother; but I had my reasons, though I could not tell them at that
+time. Well, sir, to make my story short, Patrick came on the fourth
+morning and told me he settled the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> business, and that day we buried
+her in Kilcrumper churchyard with my father's people."</p>
+
+<p>"He was a valuable friend, Tom," said Mrs. Martin, with difficulty
+suppressing a smile. "But you were about to tell how he became so
+skilful."</p>
+
+<p>"So I will, and welcome," replied Bourke. "Your health, ma'am. I am
+drinking too much of this punch, sir; but to tell the truth, I never
+tasted the like of it: it goes down one's throat like sweet oil. But
+what was I going to say?&mdash;Yes&mdash;well&mdash;Patrick, many a long year ago,
+was coming home from a <i>berrin</i> late in the evening, and walking by
+the side of the river opposite the big inch,<a id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> near Ballyhefaan
+ford.<a id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He had taken a drop, to be sure; but he was only a little
+merry, as you may say, and knew very well what he was doing. The moon
+was shining, for it was in the month of August, and the river was as
+smooth and as bright as a looking-glass. He heard nothing for a long
+time but the fall of the water at the mill wier about a mile down the
+river, and now and then the crying of the lambs on the other side of
+the river. All at once, there was a noise of a great number of people,
+laughing as if they'd break their hearts, and of a piper playing among
+them. It came from the inch at the other side of the ford, and he saw,
+through the mist that hung over the river, a whole crowd of people
+dancing on the inch. Patrick was as fond of a dance as he was of a
+glass, and that's saying enough for him; so he whipped<a id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> off his
+shoes and stockings, and away with him across the ford. After putting
+on his shoes and stockings at the other side of the river, he walked
+over to the crowd, and mixed with them for some time without being
+minded. He thought, sir, that he'd show them better dancing than any
+of themselves, for he was proud of his feet, sir, and good right he
+had, for there was not a boy in the same parish could foot a double or
+treble with him. But pwah!&mdash;his dancing was no more to theirs than
+mine would be to the mistress there. They did not seem as if they had
+a bone in their bodies, and they kept it up as if nothing could tire
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>them. Patrick was 'shamed within himself, for he thought he had not
+his fellow in all the country round; and was going away when a little
+old man, that was looking at the company for some time bitterly as if
+he did not like what was going on, came up to him. 'Patrick,' says he.
+Patrick started, for he did not think any body there knew him.
+'Patrick,' says he, 'you're discouraged, and no wonder for you. But
+you have a friend near you. I'm your friend, and your father's friend,
+and I think worse (more) of your little finger than I do of all that
+are here, though they think no one is as good as themselves. Go into
+the ring and call for a lilt. Don't be afeard. I tell you the best of
+them did not do as well as you shall, if you will do as I bid you.'
+Patrick felt something within him as if he ought not to gainsay the
+old man. He went into the ring, and called the piper to play up the
+best double he had. And, sure enough, all that the others were able
+for was nothing to him! He bounded like an eel, now here and now
+there, as light as a feather, although the people could hear the music
+answered by his steps, that beat time to every turn of it, like the
+left foot of the piper. He first danced a hornpipe on the ground. Then
+they got a table, and he danced a treble on it that drew down shouts
+from the whole company. At last he called for a trencher; and when
+they saw him, all as if he was spinning on it like a top, they did not
+know what to make of him. Some praised him for the best dancer that
+ever entered a ring; others hated him because he was better than
+themselves; although they had good right to think themselves better
+than him or any other man that never went the long journey."</p>
+
+<p>"And what was the cause of his great success?" inquired Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"He could not help it, sir," replied Tom Bourke. "They that could make
+him do more than that made him do it. Howsomever, when he had done,
+they wanted him to dance again, but he was tired, and they could not
+persuade him. At last he got angry, and swore a big oath, saving your
+presence, that he would not dance a step more; and the word was hardly
+out of his mouth, when he found himself all alone, with nothing but a
+white cow grazing by his side."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did he ever discover why he was gifted with these extraordinary
+powers in the dance, Tom?" said Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you that too, sir," answered Bourke, "when I come to it.
+When he went home, sir, he was taken with a shivering, and went to
+bed; and the next day they found he got the fever, or something like
+it, for he raved like as if he was mad. But they couldn't make out
+what it was he was saying, though he talked constant. The doctors gave
+him over. But it's little they know what ailed him. When he was, as
+you may say, about ten days sick, and every body thought he was going,
+one of the neighbours came in to him with a man, a friend of his, from
+Ballinlacken, that was keeping with him some time before. I can't tell
+you his name either, only it was Darby. The minute Darby saw Patrick,
+he took a little bottle, with the juice of herbs in it, out of his
+pocket, and gave Patrick a drink of it. He did the same every day for
+three weeks, and then Patrick was able to walk about, as stout and as
+hearty as ever he was in his life. But he was a long time before he
+came to himself; and he used to walk the whole day sometimes by the
+ditch side, talking to himself, like as if there was some one along
+with him. And so there was surely, or he wouldn't be the man he is
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it was from some such companion he learned his skill," said
+Mr. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"You have it all now, sir," replied Bourke. "Darby told him his
+friends were satisfied with what he did the night of the dance; and
+though they couldn't hinder the fever, they'd bring him over it, and
+teach him more than many knew beside him. And so they did. For you see
+all the people he met on the inch that night were friends of a
+different faction; only the old man that spoke to him; he was a friend
+of Patrick's family, and it went again' his heart, you see, that the
+others were so light, and active, and he was bitter in himself to hear
+'em boasting how they'd dance with any set in the whole country round.
+So he gave Patrick the gift that night, and afterwards gave him the
+skill that makes him the wonder of all that know him. And to be sure
+it was only learning he was that time when he was wandering in his
+mind after the fever."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have heard many strange stories about that inch near Ballyhefaan
+ford," said Mr. Martin. "'Tis a great place for the good people, isn't
+it, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may say that, sir," returned Bourke. "I could tell you a great
+deal about it. Many a time I sat for as good as two hours by
+moonlight, at th' other side of the river, looking at 'em playing goal
+as if they'd break their hearts over it; with their coats and
+waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one party, and
+red ones on th' other, just as you'd see on a Sunday in Mr. Simming's
+big field. I saw 'em one night play till the moon set, without one
+party being able to take the ball from th' other. I'm sure they were
+going to fight, only, 'twas near morning. I'm told your grandfather,
+ma'am, used to see 'em, there, too," said Bourke, turning to Mrs.
+Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"So I have been told, Tom," replied Mrs. Martin. "But don't they say
+that the churchyard of Kilcrumper<a id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> is just as favourite a place
+with the good people as Ballyhefaan inch."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, may be, you never heard, ma'am, what happened to Davy
+Roche in that same churchyard," said Bourke; and turning to Mr.
+Martin, added, "'twas a long time before he went into your service,
+sir. He was walking home of an evening, from the fair of Kilcummer, a
+little merry, to be sure, after the day, and he came up with a berrin.
+So he walked along with it, and thought it very queer, that he did not
+know a mother's soul in the crowd, but one man, and he was sure that
+man was dead many years afore. Howsomever, he went on with the berrin,
+till they came to Kilcrumper churchyard; and then he went in and staid
+with the rest, to see the corpse buried. As soon as the grave was
+covered, what should they do but gather about a piper, that come along
+with 'em, and fall to dancing as if it was a wedding. Davy longed to
+be among 'em (for he hadn't a bad foot of his own, that time, whatever
+he may now;) but he was loath to begin, because they all seemed
+strange to him, only the man I told you that he thought was dead.
+Well, at last this man saw what Davy wanted, and came up to him.
+'Davy,' says he, 'take out a <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>partner, and show what you can do, but
+take care and don't offer to kiss her.' 'That I won't,' says Davy,
+'although her lips were made of honey.' And with that he made his bow
+to the <i>purtiest</i> girl in the ring, and he and she began to dance.
+'Twas a jig they danced, and they did it to th' admiration, do you
+see, of all that were there. 'Twas all very well till the jig was
+over; but just as they had done, Davy, for he had a drop in, and was
+warm with the dancing, forgot himself, and kissed his partner,
+according to custom. The smack was no sooner off his lips, you see,
+than he was left alone in the churchyard, without a creature near him,
+and all he could see was the tall tombstones. Davy said they seemed as
+if they were dancing too, but I suppose that was only the wonder that
+happened him, and he being a little in drink. Howsomever, he found it
+was a great many hours later than he thought it; 'twas near morning
+when he came home; but they couldn't get a word out of him till the
+next day, when he woke out of a dead sleep about twelve o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>When Tom had finished the account of Davy Roche and the berrin, it
+became quite evident that spirits of some sort were working too strong
+within him to admit of his telling many more tales of the good people.
+Tom seemed conscious of this.&mdash;He muttered for a few minutes broken
+sentences concerning church-yards, river-sides, peprechans, and <i>dina
+magh</i>, which were quite unintelligible, perhaps to himself, certainly
+to Mr. Martin and his lady. At length he made a slight motion of the
+head upwards, as if he would say, "I can talk no more;" stretched his
+arm on the table, upon which he placed the empty tumbler slowly, and
+with the most knowing and cautious air; and rising from his chair,
+walked, or rather rolled, to the parlour door. Here he turned round to
+face his host and hostess; but after various ineffectual attempts to
+bid them good night, the words, as they rose, being always choked by a
+violent hiccup, while the door, which he held by the handle, swung to
+and fro, carrying his unyielding body along with it, he was obliged to
+depart in silence. The cow-boy, sent by Tom's wife, who knew well what
+sort of allurement detained him, when he remained out after a certain
+hour, was in attendance to conduct his master home. I have no doubt
+that he returned without meeting any material injury, as I know<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> that
+within the last month, he was, to use his own words, "As stout and
+hearty a man as any of his age in the county Cork."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/056.jpg" width="284" height="208" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="VIII">FAIRIES OR NO FAIRIES.</h2>
+
+<h3>VIII.</h3>
+
+<p>John Mulligan was as fine an old fellow as ever threw a Carlow spur
+into the sides of a horse. He was, besides, as jolly a boon companion
+over a jug of punch as you would meet from Carnsore Point to Bloody
+Farland. And a good horse he used to ride; and a stiffer jug of punch
+than his was not in nineteen baronies. May be he stuck more to it than
+he ought to have done&mdash;but that is nothing whatever to the story I am
+going to tell.</p>
+
+<p>John believed devoutly in fairies; and an angry man was he if you
+doubted them. He had more fairy stories than would make, if properly
+printed in a rivulet of print running down a meadow of margin, two
+thick quartos for Mr. Murray, of Albemarle street; all of which he
+used to tell on all occasions that he could find listeners. Many
+believed his stories&mdash;many more did not believe them&mdash;but nobody, in
+process of time, used to contradict the old gentleman, for it was a
+pity to vex him. But he had a couple of young neighbours who were just
+come down from their first vacation in Trinity College to spend the
+summer months with an uncle of theirs, Mr. Whaley, an old Cromwellian,
+who lived at Ballybegmullinahone, and they were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> too full of logic to
+let the old man have his own way undisputed.</p>
+
+<p>Every story he told they laughed at, and said that it was
+impossible&mdash;that it was merely old woman's gabble, and other such
+things. When he would insist that all his stories were derived from
+the most credible sources&mdash;nay, that some of them had been told him by
+his own grandmother, a very respectable old lady, but slightly
+affected in her faculties, as things that came under her own
+knowledge&mdash;they cut the matter short by declaring that she was in her
+dotage, and at the best of times had a strong propensity to pulling a
+long bow.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said they, "Jack Mulligan did you ever see a fairy yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," was the reply.&mdash;"Never, as I am a man of honour and credit."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," they answered, "until you do, do not be bothering us
+with any more tales of my grandmother."</p>
+
+<p>Jack was particularly nettled at this, and took up the cudgels for his
+grandmother; but the younkers were too sharp for him, and finally he
+got into a passion, as people generally do who have the worst of an
+argument. This evening it was at their uncle's, an old crony of his,
+with whom he had dined&mdash;he had taken a large portion of his usual
+beverage, and was quite riotous. He at last got up in a passion,
+ordered his horse, and, in spite of his host's entreaties, galloped
+off, although he had intended to have slept there; declaring that he
+would not have any thing more to do with a pair of jackanapes puppies,
+who, because they had learned how to read good-for-nothing books in
+cramp writing, and were taught by a parcel of wiggy, red-snouted,
+prating prigs, ("not," added he, "however, that I say a man may not be
+a good man and have a red nose,") they imagined they knew more than a
+man who had held buckle and tongue together facing the wind of the
+world for five dozen years.</p>
+
+<p>He rode off in a fret, and galloped as hard as his horse Shaunbuie
+could powder away over the limestone. "Yes, indeed!" muttered he, "the
+brats had me in one thing&mdash;I never did see a fairy; and I would give
+up five as good acres as ever grew apple-potatoes to get a glimpse of
+one&mdash;and by the powers! what is that?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He looked, and saw a gallant spectacle. His road lay by a noble
+demesne, gracefully sprinkled with trees, not thickly planted as in a
+dark forest, but disposed, now in clumps of five or six, now standing
+singly, towering over the plain of verdure around them as a beautiful
+promontory arising out of the sea. He had come right opposite the
+glory of the wood. It was an oak, which in the oldest title-deeds of
+the county, and they were at least five hundred years old, was called
+the old oak of Ballinghassig. Age had hollowed its centre, but its
+massy boughs still waved with their dark serrated foliage. The moon
+was shining on it bright. If I were a poet, like Mr. Wordsworth, I
+should tell you how the beautiful light was broken into a thousand
+different fragments&mdash;and how it filled the entire tree with a glorious
+flood, bathing every particular leaf, and showing forth every
+particular bough; but, as I am not a poet, I shall go on with my
+story. By this light Jack saw a brilliant company of lovely little
+forms dancing under the oak with an unsteady and rolling motion. The
+company was large. Some spread out far beyond the farthest boundary of
+the shadow of the oak's branches&mdash;some were seen glancing through the
+flashes of light shining through its leaves&mdash;some were barely visible,
+nestling under the trunk&mdash;some, no doubt, were entirely concealed from
+his eyes. Never did man see any thing more beautiful. They were not
+three inches in height, but they were white as the driven snow, and
+beyond number numberless. Jack threw the bridle over his horse's neck,
+and drew up to the low wall which bounded the demesne, and leaning
+over it, surveyed with infinite delight, their diversified gambols. By
+looking long at them, he soon saw objects which had not struck him at
+first; in particular that in the middle was a chief of superior
+stature, round whom the group appeared to move. He gazed so long that
+he was quite overcome with joy, and could not help shouting out:
+"Bravo! little fellow," said he, "well kicked and strong." But the
+instant he uttered the words the night was darkened, and the fairies
+vanished with the speed of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Jack, "I had held my tongue; but no matter now. I shall
+just turn bridle about and go back to Ballybegmullinahone Castle, and
+beat the young Master<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> Whaleys, fine reasoners as they think
+themselves, out of the field clean."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done: and Jack was back again as if upon the wings
+of the wind. He rapped fiercely at the door, and called aloud for the
+two collegians.</p>
+
+<p>"Halloo!" said he, "young Flatcaps, come down, if you dare. Come down,
+if you dare, and I shall give you <i>oc-oc-</i>ocular demonstration of the
+truth of what I was saying."</p>
+
+<p>Old Whaley put his head out of the window, and said, "Jack Mulligan,
+what brings you back so soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fairies," shouted Jack; "the fairies!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," muttered the Lord of Ballybegmullinahone, "the last
+glass you took was too little watered; but, no matter&mdash;come in and
+cool yourself over a tumbler of punch."</p>
+
+<p>He came in and sat down again at table. In great spirits he told his
+story;&mdash;how he had seen thousands and tens of thousands of fairies
+dancing about the old oak of Ballinghassig; he described their
+beautiful dresses of shining silver; their flat-crowned hats,
+glittering in the moonbeams; and the princely stature and demeanour of
+the central figure. He added, that he heard them singing and playing
+the most enchanting music; but this was merely imagination. The young
+men laughed, but Jack held his ground. "Suppose," said one of the
+lads, "we join company with you on the road, and ride along to the
+place, where you saw that fine company of fairies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Done!" cried Jack; "but I will not promise that you will find them
+there, for I saw them scudding up in the sky like a flight of bees,
+and heard their wings whizzing through the air." This, you know, was a
+bounce, for Jack had heard no such thing.</p>
+
+<p>Off rode the three, and came to the demesne of Oakwood. They arrived
+at the wall flanking the field where stood the great oak; and the
+moon, by this time, having again emerged from the clouds, shone bright
+as when Jack had passed. "Look there," he cried, exultingly: for the
+same spectacle again caught his eyes, and he pointed to it with his
+horsewhip; "look, and deny if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said one of the lads, pausing, "true it is that we do see a
+company of white creatures; but were they fairies ten times over, I
+shall go among them;" and he dismounted to climb over the wall.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Tom! Tom," cried Jack, "stop, man, stop! what are you doing? The
+fairies&mdash;the good people, I mean&mdash;hate to be meddled with. You will be
+pinched or blinded; or your horse will cast its shoe; or&mdash;look! a
+wilful man will have his way. Oh! oh! he is almost at the oak&mdash;God
+help him! for he is past the help of man."</p>
+
+<p>By this time Tom was under the tree, and burst out laughing. "Jack,"
+said he, "keep your prayers to yourself. Your fairies are not bad at
+all. I believe they will make tolerably good catsup."</p>
+
+<p>"Catsup," said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the
+second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of
+the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly&mdash;"What do you mean by
+catsup?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," replied Tom, "but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they
+were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his
+horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never
+looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face
+the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the
+people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing
+but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.</p>
+
+<p>I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little
+dignity: but&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"These our actors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As I foretold you, were all spirits, and<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are melted into air&mdash;into thin air."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/060.jpg" width="244" height="211" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The name <span class="smcap">Shefro</span>, by which the foregoing section is
+distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion,
+and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed
+to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed
+to have castles or mansions of their own.&mdash;See <i>Stewart's
+Popular Superstitions of the Highlands</i>, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sia</i>, <i>sigh</i>, <i>sighe</i>, <i>sigheann</i>, <i>siabhra</i>, <i>siachaire</i>,
+<i>siogidh</i>, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common
+Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag
+or witch. Thus we have the compounds <i>Leannan-sighe</i>, a
+familiar, from <i>Leannan</i>, a pet, and <i>Sioghdhraoidheachd</i>,
+enchantment with or by spirits.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sigh g&agrave;oithe</i> or <i>siaheann-g&agrave;oithe</i>, a whirlwind, is so termed
+because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of
+day called <i>Sia</i>, because twilight,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again,
+<i>Sigh</i> is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed
+to dwell within. <i>Sidhe</i>, <i>sidheadh</i>, and <i>sigh</i>, are names for
+a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the
+fairies.</p>
+
+<p>The term <i>Shoges</i>, i.e. <i>Sigh oges</i> (young or little spirits,)
+Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of
+"The Irish Hudibras," 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which,
+entitled "The Fingallian Travesty," is among the Sloane MSS.
+No. 900. In the Third Part of O'Flaherty's Ogygia, it is
+related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were
+chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for "<i>Sidhe</i>, or
+fairies," by some pagan ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"The Irish," according to the Rev. James Hely's translation of
+O'Flaherty, "call these <i>Sidhe</i>, a&euml;rial spirits or phantoms,
+because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the
+common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations
+are called by us <i>Sidhe</i> or <i>Siodha</i>."</p>
+
+<p>For a similar extended use of the German word <i>Alp</i>, <i>Elf</i>, &amp;c.
+see Introductory Essay to the Grimms' <i>Irische Elfenm&auml;rchen</i>,
+pp. 55-62.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE CLURICAUNE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/063.jpg" width="381" height="253" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+"&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;- That sottish elf<br />
+Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine,<br />
+Draining the cellar with as free a hand<br />
+As if it were his purse which ne'er lacked coin;&mdash;<br />
+And then, with feign'd contrition ruminates<br />
+Upon his wasteful pranks, and revelry,<br />
+In some secluded dell or lonely grove<br />
+Tinsel'd by Twilight."&mdash;</p>
+<p class="right">&#916;</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="IX">THE HAUNTED CELLAR.</h2>
+
+<h3>IX.</h3>
+
+<p>There are few people who have not heard of the Mac Carthies&mdash;one of
+the real old Irish families, with the true Milesian blood running in
+their veins, as thick as buttermilk. Many were the clans of this
+family in the south; as the Mac Carthy-more&mdash;and the Mac
+Carthy-reagh&mdash;and the Mac Carthy of Muskerry; and all of them were
+noted for their hospitality to strangers, gentle and simple.</p>
+
+<p>But not one of that name, or of any other, exceeded Justin Mac Carthy,
+of Ballinacarthy, at putting plenty to eat and drink upon his table;
+and there was a right hearty<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> welcome for every one who would share it
+with him. Many a wine-cellar would be ashamed of the name if that at
+Ballinacarthy was the proper pattern for one; large as that cellar
+was, it was crowded with bins of wine, and long rows of pipes, and
+hogsheads, and casks, that it would take more time to count than any
+sober man could spare in such a place, with plenty to drink about him,
+and a hearty welcome to do so.</p>
+
+<p>There are many, no doubt, who will think that the butler would have
+little to complain of in such a house; and the whole country round
+would have agreed with them, if a man could be found to remain as Mr.
+Mac Carthy's butler for any length of time worth speaking of; yet not
+one who had been in his service gave him a bad word.</p>
+
+<p>"We have no fault," they would say, "to find with the master; and if
+he could but get any one to fetch his wine from the cellar, we might
+every one of us have grown gray in the house, and have lived quiet and
+contented enough in his service until the end of our days."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a queer thing that, surely," thought young Jack Leary, a lad who
+had been brought up from a mere child in the stables of Ballinacarthy
+to assist in taking care of the horses, and had occasionally lent a
+hand in the butler's pantry:&mdash;"'tis a mighty queer thing, surely, that
+one man after another cannot content himself with the best place in
+the house of a good master, but that every one of them must quit, all
+through the means, as they say, of the wine-cellar. If the master,
+long life to him! would but make me his butler, I warrant never the
+word more would be heard of grumbling at his bidding to go to the
+wine-cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Young Leary accordingly watched for what he conceived to be a
+favourable opportunity of presenting himself to the notice of his
+master.</p>
+
+<p>A few mornings after, Mr. Mac Carthy went into his stable-yard rather
+earlier than usual, and called loudly for the groom to saddle his
+horse, as he intended going out with the hounds. But there was no
+groom to answer, and young Jack Leary led Rainbow out of the stable.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is William?" inquired Mr. Mac Carthy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir?" said Jack; and Mr. Mac Carthy repeated the question.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it William, please your honour?" returned Jack; "why, then, to
+tell the truth, he had just <i>one</i> drop too much last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did he get it?" said Mr. Mac Carthy; "for since Thomas went
+away, the key of the wine-cellar has been in my pocket, and I have
+been obliged to fetch what was drank myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorrow a know I know," said Leary, "unless the cook might have given
+him the <i>least taste</i> in life of whiskey. But," continued he,
+performing a low bow by seizing with his right hand a lock of hair,
+and pulling down his head by it, whilst his left leg which had been
+put forward, was scraped back against the ground, "may I make so bold
+as just to ask your honour one question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Speak out, Jack," said Mr. Mac Carthy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, does your honour want a butler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you recommend me one," returned his master, with a smile of good
+humour upon his countenance, "and one who will not be afraid of going
+to my wine-cellar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is the wine-cellar all the matter?" said young Leary: "not a doubt
+have I of myself then for that."</p>
+
+<p>"So you mean to offer me your services in the capacity of butler?"
+said Mr. Mac Carthy, with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so," answered Leary, now for the first time looking up from
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I believe you to be a good lad, and have no objection to give
+you a trial."</p>
+
+<p>"Long may your honour reign over us, and the Lord spare you to us!"
+ejaculated Leary, with another national bow, as his master rode off;
+and he continued for some time to gaze after him with a vacant stare,
+which slowly and gradually assumed a look of importance.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Leary," said he at length, "Jack&mdash;is it Jack?" in a tone of
+wonder; "faith, 'tis not Jack now, but Mr. John, the butler;" and with
+an air of becoming consequence he strided out of the stable-yard
+towards the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>It is of little purport to my story, although it may afford an
+instructive lesson to the reader, to depict the sudden transition of
+nobody into somebody. Jack's former stable companion, a poor
+superannuated hound named Bran, who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> had been accustomed to receive
+many an affectionate tap on the head, was spurned from him with a kick
+and an "Out of the way, sirrah." Indeed, poor Jack's memory seemed
+sadly affected by this sudden change of situation. What established
+the point beyond all doubt was his almost forgetting the pretty face
+of Peggy, the kitchen wench, whose heart he had assailed but the
+preceding week by the offer of purchasing a gold ring for the fourth
+finger of her right hand, and a lusty imprint of good-will upon her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Mac Carthy returned from hunting, he sent for Jack Leary&mdash;so
+he still continued to call his new butler. "Jack," said he, "I believe
+you are a trustworthy lad, and here are the keys of my cellar. I have
+asked the gentlemen with whom I hunted to-day to dine with me, and I
+hope they may be satisfied at the way in which you will wait on them
+at table; but, above all, let there be no want of wine after dinner."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. John having a tolerably quick eye for such things, and being
+naturally a handy lad, spread his cloth accordingly, laid his plates
+and knives and forks in the same manner he had seen his predecessors
+in office perform these mysteries, and really, for the first time, got
+through attendance on dinner very well.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be forgotten, however, that it was at the house of an
+Irish country squire, who was entertaining a company of booted and
+spurred fox-hunters, not very particular about what are considered
+matters of infinite importance under other circumstances and in other
+societies.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, few of Mr. Mac Carthy's guests, (though all excellent
+and worthy men in their way,) cared much whether the punch produced
+after soup was made of Jamaica or Antigua rum; some even would not
+have been inclined to question the correctness of good old Irish
+whiskey; and, with the exception of their liberal host himself, every
+one in company preferred the port which Mr. Mac Carthy put on his
+table to the less ardent flavour of claret,&mdash;a choice rather at
+variance with modern sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>It was waxing near midnight, when Mr. Mac Carthy rang the bell three
+times. This was a signal for more wine; and Jack proceeded to the
+cellar to procure a fresh supply, but it must be confessed not without
+some little hesitation.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The luxury of ice was then unknown in the south of Ireland; but the
+superiority of cool wine had been acknowledged by all men of sound
+judgment and true taste.</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather of Mr. Mac Carthy, who had built the mansion of
+Ballinacarthy upon the site of an old castle which had belonged to his
+ancestors, was fully aware of this important fact; and in the
+construction of his magnificent wine-cellar had availed himself of a
+deep vault, excavated out of the solid rock in former times as a place
+of retreat and security. The descent to this vault was by a flight of
+steep stone stairs, and here and there in the wall were narrow
+passages&mdash;I ought rather to call them crevices; and also certain
+projections which cast deep shadows, and looked very frightful when
+any one went down the cellar stairs with a single light: indeed, two
+lights did not much improve the matter, for though the breadth of the
+shadows became less, the narrow crevices remained as dark and darker
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Summoning up all his resolution, down went the new butler, bearing in
+his right hand a lantern and the key of the cellar, and in his left a
+basket, which he considered sufficiently capacious to contain an
+adequate stock for the remainder of the evening; he arrived at the
+door without any interruption whatever; but when he put the key, which
+was of an ancient and clumsy kind&mdash;for it was before the days of
+Bramah's patent,&mdash;and turned it in the lock, he thought he heard a
+strange kind of laughing within the cellar, to which some empty
+bottles that stood upon the floor outside vibrated so violently, that
+they struck against each other: in this he could not be mistaken,
+although he may have been deceived in the laugh; for the bottles were
+just at his feet, and he saw them in motion.</p>
+
+<p>Leary paused for a moment, and looked about him with becoming caution.
+He then boldly seized the handle of the key, and turned it with all
+his strength in the lock, as if he doubted his own power of doing so;
+and the door flew open with a most tremendous crash, that, if the
+house had not been built upon the solid rock, would have shook it from
+the foundation.</p>
+
+<p>To recount what the poor fellow saw would be impossible, for he seems
+not to know very clearly himself: but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> what he told the cook the next
+morning was, that he heard a roaring and bellowing like a mad bull,
+and that all the pipes and hogsheads and casks in the cellar went
+rocking backwards and forwards with so much force, that he thought
+every one would have been staved in, and that he should have been
+drowned or smothered in wine.</p>
+
+<p>When Leary recovered, he made his way back as well as he could to the
+dining-room, where he found his master and the company very impatient
+for his return.</p>
+
+<p>"What kept-you?" said Mr. Mac Carthy in an angry voice; "and where is
+the wine? I rung for it half an hour since."</p>
+
+<p>"The wine is in the cellar, I hope, sir," said Jack, trembling
+violently; "I hope 'tis not all lost."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, fool?" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy in a still more
+angry tone: "why did you not fetch some with you?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked wildly about him, and only uttered a deep groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Mr. Mac Carthy to his guests, "this is too much.
+When I next see you to dinner, I hope it will be in another house, for
+it is impossible I can remain longer in this, where a man has no
+command over his own wine-cellar, and cannot get a butler to do his
+duty. I have long thought of moving from Ballinacarthy; and I am now
+determined, with the blessing of God, to leave it to-morrow. But wine
+shall you have, were I to go myself to the cellar for it." So saying,
+he rose from the table, took the key and lantern from his half
+stupified servant, who regarded him with a look of vacancy, and
+descended the narrow stairs, already described, which led to his
+cellar.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the door, which he found open, he thought he heard
+a noise, as if of rats or mice scrambling over the casks, and on
+advancing perceived a little figure, about six inches in height,
+seated astride upon the pipe of the oldest port in the place, and
+bearing the spigot upon his shoulder. Raising the lantern, Mr. Mac
+Carthy contemplated the little fellow with wonder: he wore a red
+nightcap on his head; before him was a short leather apron, which now,
+from his attitude, fell rather on one side; and he had stockings of a
+light blue colour, so long as nearly to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> cover the entire of his legs;
+with shoes, having huge silver buckles in them, and with high heels
+(perhaps out of vanity to make him appear taller). His face was like a
+withered winter apple; and his nose, which was of a bright crimson
+colour, about the tip wore a delicate purple bloom, like that of a
+plum: yet his eyes twinkled</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"like those mites<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of candied dew in moony nights&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and his mouth twitched up at one side with an arch grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Mac Carthy, "have I found you at last?
+disturber of my cellar&mdash;what are you doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, and master," returned the little fellow, looking up at him with
+one eye, and with the other throwing a sly glance towards the spigot
+on his shoulder, "a'n't we going to move to-morrow? and sure you would
+not leave your own little Cluricaune Naggeneen behind you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" thought Mr. Mac Carthy, "if you are to follow me, Master
+Naggeneen, I don't see much use in quitting Ballinacarthy." So filling
+with wine the basket which young Leary in his fright had left behind
+him, and locking the cellar door, he rejoined his guests.</p>
+
+<p>For some years after, Mr. Mac Carthy had always to fetch the wine for
+his table himself, as the little Cluricaune Naggeneen seemed to feel a
+personal respect towards him. Notwithstanding the labour of these
+journeys, the worthy lord of Ballinacarthy lived in his paternal
+mansion to a good round age, and was famous to the last for the
+excellence of his wine, and the conviviality of his company; but at
+the time of his death, that same conviviality had nearly emptied his
+wine-cellar; and as it was never so well filled again, nor so often
+visited, the revels of Master Naggeneen became less celebrated, and
+are now only spoken of amongst the legendary lore of the country. It
+is even said that the poor little fellow took the declension of the
+cellar so to heart, that he became negligent and careless of himself,
+and that he has been sometimes seen going about with hardly a skreed
+to cover him.</p>
+
+<p>Some, however, believe that he turned brogue-maker, and assert that
+they have seen him at his work, and heard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> him whistling as merry as a
+blackbird on a May morning, under the shadow of a brown jug of foaming
+ale, bigger&mdash;ay bigger than himself; decently dressed enough, they
+say;&mdash;only looking mighty old. But still 'tis clear he has his wits
+about him, since no one ever had the luck to catch him, or to get hold
+of the purse he has with him, which they call <i>spr&eacute;-na-skillinagh</i>,
+and 'tis said is never without a shilling in it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/070.jpg" width="207" height="205" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="X">MASTER AND MAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>X.</h3>
+
+<p>Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his
+brogue at a patron, emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh: fearing
+for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should
+pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it: drunk
+or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel;
+and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or ending a
+dispute. More is the pity, that through the means of his drinking, and
+fearing and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into
+bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company
+any one could come across.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not
+long after Christmas; the moon was round<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> and bright; but although it
+was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with the
+cold. "By my word," chattered Billy, "a drop of good liquor would be
+no bad thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him; and I wish I
+had a full measure of the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Never wish it twice, Billy," said a little man in a three-cornered
+hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with great silver buckles in
+his shoes, so big that it was a wonder how he could carry them, and he
+held out a glass as big as himself, filled with as good liquor as ever
+eye looked on or lip tasted.</p>
+
+<p>"Success, my little fellow," said Billy Mac Daniel, nothing daunted,
+though well he knew the little man to belong to the <i>good people</i>;
+"here's your health, any way, and thank you kindly; no matter who pays
+for the drink;" and he took the glass and drained it to the very
+bottom, without ever taking a second breath to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Success," said the little man; "and you're heartily welcome, Billy;
+but don't think to cheat me as you have done others,&mdash;out with your
+purse and pay me like a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it I pay you?" said Billy: "could I not just take you up and put
+you in my pocket as easily as a blackberry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Mac Daniel," said the little man, getting very angry, "you
+shall be my servant for seven years and a day, and that is the way I
+will be paid; so make ready to follow me."</p>
+
+<p>When Billy heard this, he began to be very sorry for having used such
+bold words towards the little man; and he felt himself, yet could not
+tell how, obliged to follow the little man the livelong night about
+the country, up and down, and over hedge and ditch, and through bog
+and brake, without any rest.</p>
+
+<p>When morning began to dawn, the little man turned round to him and
+said, "You may now go home, Billy, but on your peril don't fail to
+meet me in the Fort-field to-night; or if you do, it may be the worse
+for you in the long run. If I find you a good servant, you will find
+me an indulgent master."</p>
+
+<p>Home went Billy Mac Daniel; and though he was tired and weary enough,
+never a wink of sleep could he get for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> thinking of the little man;
+but he was afraid not to do his bidding, so up he got in the evening,
+and away he went to the Fort-field. He was not long there before the
+little man came towards him and said, "Billy, I want to go a long
+journey to-night; so saddle one of my horses, and you may saddle
+another for yourself, as you are to go along with me, and may be tired
+after your walk last night."</p>
+
+<p>Billy thought this very considerate of his master, and thanked him
+accordingly: "But," said he, "if I may be so bold, sir, I would ask
+which is the way to your stable, for never a thing do I see but the
+fort here, and the old thorn tree in the corner of the field, and the
+stream running at the bottom of the hill, with the bit of bog over
+against us."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask no questions, Billy," said the little man, "but go over to that
+bit of bog, and bring me two of the strongest rushes you can find."</p>
+
+<p>Billy did accordingly, wondering what the little man would be at; and
+he picked out two of the stoutest rushes he could find, with a little
+bunch of brown blossom stuck at the side of each, and brought them
+back to his master. "Get up, Billy," said the little man, taking one
+of the rushes from him and striding across it.</p>
+
+<p>"Where will I get up, please your honour?" said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, upon horseback, like me, to be sure," said the little man.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it after making a fool of me you'd be," said Billy, "bidding me
+get a horse-back upon that bit of a rush? May be you want to persuade
+me that the rush I pulled but awhile ago out of the bog over there is
+a horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up! up! and no words," said the little man, looking very vexed; "the
+best horse you ever rode was but a fool to it." So Billy, thinking all
+this was in joke, and fearing to vex his master, straddled across the
+rush: "Borram! Borram! Borram!" cried the little man three times
+(which in English, means to become great), and Billy did the same
+after him: presently the rushes swelled up into fine horses, and away
+they went full speed; but Billy, who had put the rush between his
+legs, without much minding how he did it, found himself sitting on
+horseback the wrong way, which was rather awkward, with his face to
+the horse's tail;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> and so quickly had his steed started off with him,
+that he had no power to turn round, and there was therefore nothing
+for it but to hold on by the tail.</p>
+
+<p>At last they came to their journey's end, and stopped at the gate of a
+fine house: "Now, Billy," said the little man, "do as you see me do,
+and follow me close; but as you did not know your horse's head from
+his tail, mind that your own head does not spin round until you can't
+tell whether you are standing on it or on your heels: for remember
+that old liquor, though able to make a cat speak, can make a man
+dumb."</p>
+
+<p>The little man then said some queer kind of words, out of which Billy
+could make no meaning; but he contrived to say them after him for all
+that; and in they both went through the key-hole of the door, and
+through one key-hole after another, until they got into the
+wine-cellar, which was well stored with all kinds of wine.</p>
+
+<p>The little man fell to drinking as hard as he could, and Billy, noway
+disliking the example, did the same. "The best of masters are you
+surely," said Billy to him; "no matter who is the next; and well
+pleased will I be with your service if you continue to give me plenty
+to drink."</p>
+
+<p>"I have made no bargain with you," said the little man, "and will make
+none; but up and follow me." Away they went, through key-hole after
+key-hole; and each mounting upon the rush which he had left at the
+hall door, scampered off, kicking the clouds before them like
+snowballs, as soon as the words, "Borram, Borram, Borram," had passed
+their lips.</p>
+
+<p>When they came back to the Fort-field, the little man dismissed Billy,
+bidding him to be there the next night at the same hour. Thus did they
+go on, night after night, shaping their course one night here, and
+another night there&mdash;sometimes north, and sometimes east, and
+sometimes south, until there was not a gentleman's wine-cellar in all
+Ireland they had not visited, and could tell the flavour of every wine
+in it as well&mdash;ay, better than the butler himself.</p>
+
+<p>One night, when Billy Mac Daniel met the little man as usual in the
+Fort-field, and was going to the bog to fetch the horses for their
+journey, his master said to him, "Billy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> I shall want another horse
+to-night, for may be we may bring back more company with us than we
+take." So Billy, who now knew better than to question any order given
+to him by his master, brought a third rush, much wondering who it
+might be that should travel back in their company, and whether he was
+about to have a fellow-servant. "If I have," thought Billy, "he shall
+go and fetch the horses from the bog every night; for I don't see why
+I am not, every inch of me, as good a gentleman as my master."</p>
+
+<p>Well, away they went, Billy leading the third horse, and never stopped
+until they came to a snug farmer's house in the county Limerick, close
+under the old castle of Carrigogunniel, that was built, they say, by
+the great Brian Boru. Within the house there was great carousing going
+forward, and the little man stopped outside for some time to listen;
+then turning round all of a sudden, said, "Billy, I will be a thousand
+years old to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"God bless us, sir," said Billy, "will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say these words again, Billy," said the little man, "or you
+will be my ruin for ever. Now, Billy, as I will be a thousand years in
+the world to-morrow, I think it is full time for me to get married."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so too, without any kind of doubt at all," said Billy, "if
+ever you mean to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"And to that purpose," said the little man, "have I come all the way
+to Carrigogunniel; for in this house, this very night, is young Darby
+Riley going to be married to Bridget Rooney; and as she is a tall and
+comely girl, and has come of decent people, I think of marrying her
+myself, and taking her off with me."</p>
+
+<p>"And what will Darby Riley say to that?" said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" said the little man, putting on a mighty severe look: "I
+did not bring you here with me to ask questions;" and without holding
+further argument, he began saying the queer words, which had the power
+of passing him through the key-hole as free as air, and which Billy
+thought himself mighty clever to be able to say after him.</p>
+
+<p>In they both went; and for the better viewing the company, the little
+man perched himself up as nimbly as a cocksparrow upon one of the big
+beams which went across the house over all their heads, and Billy did
+the same upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> another facing him; but not being much accustomed to
+roosting in such a place, his legs hung down as untidy as may be, and
+it was quite clear he had not taken pattern after the way in which the
+little man had bundled himself up together. If the little man had been
+a tailor all his life, he could not have sat more contentedly upon his
+haunches.</p>
+
+<p>There they were, both master and man, looking down upon the fun that
+was going forward&mdash;and under them were the priest and piper&mdash;and the
+father of Darby Riley, with Darby's two brothers and his uncle's
+son&mdash;and there were both the father and the mother of Bridget Rooney,
+and proud enough the old couple were that night of their daughter, as
+good right they had&mdash;and her four sisters with bran new ribands in
+their caps, and her three brothers all looking as clean and as clever
+as any three boys in Munster&mdash;and there were uncles and aunts, and
+gossips and cousins enough besides to make a full house of it&mdash;and
+plenty was there to eat and drink on the table for every one of them,
+if they had been double the number.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened, just as Mrs. Rooney had helped his reverence to the
+first cut of the pig's head which was placed before her, beautifully
+bolstered up with white savoys, that the bride gave a sneeze which
+made every one at table start, but not a soul said "God bless us." All
+thinking that the priest would have done so, as he ought if he had
+done his duty, no one wished to take the word out of his mouth, which
+unfortunately was pre-occupied with pig's head and greens. And after a
+moment's pause, the fun and merriment of the bridal feast went on
+without the pious benediction.</p>
+
+<p>Of this circumstance both Billy and his master were no inattentive
+spectators from their exalted stations. "Ha!" exclaimed the little
+man, throwing one leg from under him with a joyous flourish, and his
+eye twinkled with a strange light, whilst his eyebrows became elevated
+into the curvature of Gothic arches&mdash;"Ha!" said he, leering down at
+the bride, and then up at Billy, "I have half of her now, surely. Let
+her sneeze but twice more, and she is mine, in spite of priest,
+mass-book, and Darby Riley."</p>
+
+<p>Again the fair Bridget sneezed; but it was so gently, and she blushed
+so much, that few except the little man took or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> seemed to take any
+notice: and no one thought of saying "God bless us."</p>
+
+<p>Billy all this time regarded the poor girl with a most rueful
+expression of countenance; for he could not help thinking what a
+terrible thing it was for a nice young girl of nineteen, with large
+blue eyes, transparent skin, and dimpled cheeks, suffused with health
+and joy, to be obliged to marry an ugly little bit of a man who was a
+thousand years old, barring a day.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical moment the bride gave a third sneeze, and Billy
+roared out with all his might, "God save us!" Whether this exclamation
+resulted from his soliloquy, or from the mere force of habit, he never
+could tell exactly himself; but no sooner was it uttered, than the
+little man, his face glowing with rage and disappointment, sprung from
+the beam on which he had perched himself, and shrieking out in the
+shrill voice of a cracked bagpipe, "I discharge you my service, Billy
+Mac Daniel&mdash;take <i>that</i> for your wages," gave poor Billy a most
+furious kick in the back, which sent his unfortunate servant sprawling
+upon his face and hands right in the middle of the supper table.</p>
+
+<p>If Billy was astonished, how much more so was every one of the company
+into which he was thrown with so little ceremony; but when they heard
+his story, Father Cooney laid down his knife and fork, and married the
+young couple out of hand with all speed; and Billy Mac Daniel danced
+the Rinka at their wedding, and plenty did he drink at it too, which
+was what he thought more of than dancing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/076.jpg" width="290" height="89" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XI">THE LITTLE SHOE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XI.</h3>
+
+<p>"Now tell me, Molly," said Mr. Coote to Molly Cogan, as he met her on
+the road one day, close to one of the old gateways of Kilmallock,<a id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+"did you ever hear of the Cluricaune?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it the Cluricaune? why, then, sure I did, often and often; many's
+the time I heard my father, rest his soul! tell about 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"But did you ever see one, Molly, yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Och! no, I never <i>see</i> one in my life; but my grandfather, that's my
+father's father, you know, he <i>see</i> one, one time, and caught him
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Caught him! Oh! Molly, tell me how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, I'll tell you. My grandfather, you see, was out there
+above in the bog, drawing home turf, and the poor old mare was tired
+after her day's work, and the old man went out to the stable to look
+after her, and to see if she was eating her hay; and when he came to
+the stable door there, my dear, he heard something hammering,
+hammering, hammering, just for all the world like a shoemaker making a
+shoe, and whistling all the time the prettiest tune he ever heard in
+his whole life before. Well, my grandfather, he thought it was the
+Cluricaune, and he said to himself, says he, 'I'll catch you, if I
+can, and then, I'll have money enough always.' So he opened the door
+very quietly, and didn't make a bit of noise in the world that ever
+was heard; and looked all about, but the never a bit of the little man
+he could see anywhere, but he heard him hammering and whistling, and
+so he looked and looked, till at last he <i>see</i> the little fellow; and
+where was he, do you think, but in the girth under the mare; and there
+he was with his little bit of an apron on him, and hammer in <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>his
+hand, and a little red nightcap on his head, and he making a shoe; and
+he was so busy with his work, and he was hammering and whistling so
+loud, that he never minded my grandfather till he caught him fast in
+his hand. 'Faith I have you now,' says he, 'and I'll never let you go
+till I get your purse&mdash;that's what I won't; so give it here to me at
+once, now.'&mdash;'Stop, stop,' says the Cluricaune, 'stop, stop,' says he,
+'till I get it for you.' So my grandfather, like a fool, you see,
+opened his hand a little, and the little fellow jumped away laughing,
+and he never saw him any more, and the never the bit of the purse did
+he get, only the Cluricaune left his little shoe that he was making;
+and my grandfather was mad enough angry with himself for letting him
+go; but he had the shoe all his life, and my own mother told me she
+often <i>see</i> it, and had it in her hand, and 'twas the prettiest little
+shoe she ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you see it yourself, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no, my dear, it was lost long afore I was born; but my mother
+told me about it often and often enough."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The main point of distinction between the Cluricaune and the
+Shefro, arises from the sottish and solitary habits of the
+former, who are rarely found in troops or communities.</p>
+
+<p>The Cluricaune of the county of Cork, the Luricaune of Kerry,
+and the Lurigadaune of Tipperary, appear to be the same as the
+Leprechan or Leprochaune of Leinster, and the Logherry-man of
+Ulster; and these words are probably all provincialisms of the
+Irish for a pigmy.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible, and is in some measure borne out by the text of
+one of the preceding stories [IX.], that the word <i>luacharman</i>
+is merely an Anglo-Irish induction, compounded of (a rush,) and
+the English word, <i>man</i>.&mdash;A rushy man,&mdash;that may be, a man of
+the height of a rush, or a being who dwelt among rushes, that
+is, unfrequented or boggy places.</p>
+
+<p>The following dialogue is said to have taken place in an Irish
+court of justice, upon the witness having used the word
+Leprochaune:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>&mdash;Pray what is a leprochaune? the law knows no such
+character or designation.</p>
+
+<p><i>Witness.</i>&mdash;My lord, it is a little counsellor man in the
+fairies, or an attorney that robs them all, and he always
+carries a purse that is full of money, and if you see him and
+keep your eyes on him, and that you never turn them aside, he
+cannot get away, and if you catch him he gives you the purse to
+let him go, and then you're as rich as a Jew.</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>&mdash;Did you ever know of any one that caught a
+Leprochaune? I wish I could catch one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Witness.</i>&mdash;Yes, my lord, there was one&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Court.</i>&mdash;That will do.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to "money matters," there appears to be a strong
+resemblance between the ancient Roman Incubus and the Irish
+Cluricaune.&mdash;"Sed quomodo dicunt, ego nihil scio, sed audivi,
+quomodo incuboni pileum rapuisset et thesaurum invenit," are
+the words of Petronius.&mdash;See, for farther arguments in support
+of identity of the two spirits, the Brothers Grimm's Essay on
+the Nature of the Elves, prefixed to their translation of this
+work, under the head of "Ancient Testimonies."</p>
+
+<p>"Old German and Northern poems contain numerous accounts of the
+skill of the dwarfs in curious smith's-work."&mdash;"The Irish
+Cluricaune is heard hammering; he is particularly fond of
+making shoes, but these were in ancient times made of metal (in
+the old Northern language a shoe-maker is called a
+<i>shoe-smith</i>;) and, singularly enough, the wights in a German
+tradition manifest the same propensity; for, whatever work the
+shoe-maker has been able to cut out in the day, they finish
+with incredible quickness during the night."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Brothers Grimm.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/081.jpg" width="400" height="257" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset18"><p>
+"Who sits upon the heath forlorn,<br />
+With robe so free and tresses torn?<br />
+Anon she pours a harrowing strain,<br />
+And then&mdash;she sits all mute again!<br />
+Now peals the wild funereal cry&mdash;<br />
+And now&mdash;it sinks into a sigh."</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Ourawns.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XII">THE BANSHEE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XII.</h3>
+
+<p>The Reverend Charles Bunworth was rector of Buttevant, in the county
+of Cork, about the middle of the last century. He was a man of
+unaffected piety, and of sound learning; pure in heart, and benevolent
+in intention. By the rich he was respected, and by the poor beloved;
+nor did a difference of creed prevent their looking up to "<i>the
+minister</i>" (so was Mr. Bunworth called by them) in matters of
+difficulty and in seasons of distress, confident of receiving from him
+the advice and assistance that a father would afford to his children.
+He was the friend and the benefactor of the surrounding country&mdash;to
+him, from the neighbouring town of Newmarket, came both Curran and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+Yelverton for advice and instruction, previous to their entrance at
+Dublin College. Young, indigent and inexperienced, these afterwards
+eminent men received from him, in addition to the advice they sought,
+pecuniary aid; and the brilliant career which was theirs, justified
+the discrimination of the giver.</p>
+
+<p>But what extended the fame of Mr. Bunworth, far beyond the limits of
+the parishes adjacent to his own, was his performance on the Irish
+harp, and his hospitable reception and entertainment of the poor
+harpers who travelled from house to house about the country. Grateful
+to their patron, these itinerant minstrels sang his praises to the
+tingling accompaniment of their harps, invoking in return for his
+bounty abundant blessings on his white head, and celebrating in their
+rude verses the blooming charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
+It was all these poor fellows could do; but who can doubt that their
+gratitude was sincere, when, at the time of Mr. Bunworth's death, no
+less than fifteen harps were deposited in the loft of his granary,
+bequeathed to him by the last members of a race which has now ceased
+to exist. Trifling, no doubt, in intrinsic value were these relics,
+yet there is something in gifts of the heart that merits preservation;
+and it is to be regretted that, when he died, these harps were broken
+up one after the other, and used as fire-wood by an ignorant follower
+of the family, who, on a removal to Cork for a temporary change of
+scene, was left in charge of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bunworth may be doubted
+by some; but there are still living credible witnesses who declare
+their authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if not all
+of the following particulars.</p>
+
+<p>About a week previous to his dissolution, and early in the evening a
+noise was heard at the hall-door resembling the shearing of sheep; but
+at the time no particular attention was paid to it. It was nearly
+eleven o'clock the same night, when Kavanagh, the herdsman, returned
+from Mallow, whither he had been sent in the afternoon for some
+medicine, and was observed by Miss Bunworth, to whom he delivered the
+parcel, to be much agitated. At this time, it must be observed, her
+father was by no means considered in danger.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth: but the poor
+fellow, with a bewildered look, only uttered, "The master, Miss&mdash;the
+master&mdash;he is going from us;" and, overcome with real grief, he burst
+into a flood of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bunworth, who was a woman of strong nerve, inquired if any thing
+he had learned in Mallow induced him to suppose that her father was
+worse. "No, Miss," said Kavanagh; "it was not in Mallow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, with that stateliness of manner for
+which she is said to have been remarkable, "I fear you have been
+drinking, which, I must say, I did not expect at such a time as the
+present, when it was your duty to have kept yourself sober;&mdash;I thought
+you might have been trusted:&mdash;what should we have done if you had
+broken the medicine bottle, or lost it? for the doctor said it was of
+the greatest consequence that your master should take the medicine
+to-night. But I will speak to you in the morning, when you are in a
+fitter state to understand what I say."</p>
+
+<p>Kavanagh looked up with a stupidity of aspect which did not serve to
+remove the impression of his being drunk, as his eyes appeared heavy
+and dull after the flood of tears;&mdash;but his voice was not that of an
+intoxicated person.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss," said he, "as I hope to receive mercy hereafter, neither bit
+nor sup has passed my lips since I left this house; but the
+master&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Speak softly," said Miss Bunworth; "he sleeps, and is going on as
+well as we could expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Praise be to God for that, any way," replied Kavanagh; "but oh! Miss,
+he is going from us surely&mdash;we will lose him&mdash;the master&mdash;we will lose
+him, we will lose him!" and he wrung his hands together.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you mean, Kavanagh?" asked Miss Bunworth.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it mean?" said Kavanagh: "the Banshee has come for him, Miss, and
+'tis not I alone who have heard her."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis an idle superstition," said Miss Bunworth.</p>
+
+<p>"May be so," replied Kavanagh, as if the words 'idle superstition'
+only sounded upon his ear without reaching his mind&mdash;"May be so," he
+continued; "but as I came through the glen of Ballybeg, she was along
+with me,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> keening, and screeching, and clapping her hands, by my side,
+every step of the way, with her long white hair falling about her
+shoulders, and I could hear her repeat the master's name every now and
+then, as plain as ever I heard it. When I came to the old abbey, she
+parted from me there, and turned into the pigeon-field next the
+<i>berrin</i> ground, and folding her cloak about her, down she sat under
+the tree that was struck by the lightning, and began keening so
+bitterly, that it went through one's heart to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Kavanagh," said Miss Bunworth, who had, however, listened attentively
+to this remarkable relation, "my father is, I believe, better; and I
+hope will himself soon be up and able to convince you that all this is
+but your own fancy; nevertheless, I charge you not to mention what you
+have told me, for there is no occasion to frighten your
+fellow-servants with the story."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bunworth gradually declined; but nothing particular occurred until
+the night previous to his death: that night both his daughters,
+exhausted with continued attendance and watching, were prevailed upon
+to seek some repose; and an elderly lady, a near relative and friend
+of the family, remained by the bedside of their father. The old
+gentleman then lay in the parlour, where he had been in the morning
+removed at his own request, fancying the change would afford him
+relief; and the head of his bed was placed close to the window. In a
+room adjoining sat some male friends, and, as usual on like occasions
+of illness, in the kitchen many of the followers of the family had
+assembled.</p>
+
+<p>The night was serene and moonlit&mdash;the sick man slept&mdash;and nothing
+broke the stillness of their melancholy watch, when the little party
+in the room adjoining the parlour, the door of which stood open, was
+suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the bed: a rose tree
+grew outside the window, so close as to touch the glass; this was
+forced aside with some noise, and a low moaning was heard, accompanied
+by clapping of hands, as if of a female in deep affliction. It seemed
+as if the sound proceeded from a person holding her mouth close to the
+window. The lady who sat by the bedside of Mr. Bunworth went into the
+adjoining room, and in a tone of alarm, inquired of the gentlemen
+there, if they had heard the Banshee? Skeptical of supernatural
+appearances,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> two of them rose hastily and went out to discover the
+cause of these sounds, which they also had distinctly heard. They
+walked all around the house, examining every spot of ground,
+particularly near the window from whence the voice had proceeded; the
+bed of earth beneath, in which the rose tree was planted, had been
+recently dug, and the print of a footstep&mdash;if the tree had been forced
+aside by mortal hand&mdash;would have inevitably remained; but they could
+perceive no such impression; and an unbroken stillness reigned
+without. Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search
+anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which and the
+lightness of the night, they were enabled to see some distance around
+them; but all was silent and deserted, and they returned surprised and
+disappointed. How much more then were they astonished at learning that
+the whole time of their absence, those who remained within the house
+had heard the moaning and clapping of hands even louder and more
+distinct than before they had gone out; and no sooner was the door of
+the room closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful
+sounds! Every succeeding hour the sick man became worse, and as the
+first glimpse of the morning appeared, Mr. Bunworth expired.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIII">LEGENDS OF THE BANSHEE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XIII.</h3>
+
+<p>The family of Mac Carthy have for some generations possessed a small
+estate in the county of Tipperary. They are the descendants of a race,
+once numerous and powerful in the south of Ireland; and though it is
+probable that the property they at present hold is no part of the
+large possessions of their ancestors, yet the district in which they
+live is so connected with the name of Mac Carthy by those associations
+which are never forgotten in Ireland, that they have preserved with
+all ranks a sort of influence much greater than that which their
+fortune or connexions could otherwise give them. They are, like most
+of this class, of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> the Roman Catholic persuasion, to which they adhere
+with somewhat of the pride of ancestry, blended with a something, call
+it what you will, whether bigotry, or a sense of wrong, arising out of
+repeated diminutions of their family possessions, during the more
+rigorous periods of the penal laws. Being an old family, and
+especially being an old Catholic family, they have of course their
+Banshee; and the circumstances under which the appearance, which I
+shall relate, of this mysterious harbinger of death, took place, were
+told me by an old lady, a near connexion of theirs, who knew many of
+the parties concerned, and who, though not deficient in understanding
+or education, cannot to this day be brought to give a decisive opinion
+as to the truth or authenticity of the story. The plain inference to
+be drawn from this is, that she believes it, though she does not own
+it; and as she was a contemporary of the persons concerned&mdash;as she
+heard the account from many persons about the same period, all
+concurring in the important particulars&mdash;as some of her authorities
+were themselves actors in the scene&mdash;and as none of the parties were
+interested in speaking what was false; I think we have about as good
+evidence that the whole is undeniably true as we have of many
+narratives of modern history, which I could name, and which many grave
+and sober-minded people would deem it very great pyrrhonism to
+question. This, however, is a point which it is not my province to
+determine. People who deal out stories of this sort must be content to
+act like certain young politicians, who tell very freely to their
+friends what they hear at a great man's table; not guilty of the
+impertinence of weighing the doctrines, and leaving it to their
+hearers to understand them in any sense, or in no sense, just as they
+may please.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Mac Carthy was, in the year 1749, the only surviving son of a
+very numerous family. His father died when he was little more than
+twenty, leaving him the Mac Carthy estate, not much encumbered,
+considering that it was an Irish one. Charles was gay, handsome,
+unfettered either by poverty, a father, or guardians, and therefore
+was not at the age of one-and-twenty, a pattern of regularity and
+virtue. In plain terms, he was an exceedingly dissipated&mdash;I fear I may
+say debauched young man. His companions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> were, as may be supposed, of
+the higher classes of the youth in his neighbourhood, and, in general,
+of those whose fortunes were larger than his own, whose dispositions
+to pleasure were therefore under still less restrictions, and in whose
+example he found at once an incentive and an apology for his
+irregularities. Besides, Ireland, a place to this day not very
+remarkable for the coolness and steadiness of its youth, was then one
+of the cheapest countries in the world in most of those articles which
+money supplies for the indulgence of the passions. The odious
+exciseman, with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen
+held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the
+ink-bottle ('black emblem of the informer') dangling from his
+waist-coat-button&mdash;went not then from ale-house to ale-house,
+denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirit, who preferred
+selling whisky, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to
+elude them,) to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its
+name from the British "parliament," that compelled its circulation
+among a reluctant people. Or if the gauger&mdash;recording angel of the
+law&mdash;wrote down the peccadillo of a publican, he dropped a tear upon
+the word, and blotted it out for ever! For, welcome to the tables of
+their hospitable neighbours, the guardians of the excise, where they
+existed at all, scrupled to abridge those luxuries which they freely
+shared; and thus the competition in the market between the smuggler,
+who incurred little hazard, and the personage ycleped fair trader, who
+enjoyed little protection, made Ireland a land flowing, not merely
+with milk and honey, but with whisky and wine. In the enjoyments
+supplied by these, and in the many kindred pleasures to which frail
+youth is but too prone, Charles Mac Carthy indulged to such a degree,
+that just about the time when he had completed his four-and-twentieth
+year, after a week of great excesses, he was seized with a violent
+fever, which, from its malignity, and the weakness of his frame, left
+scarcely a hope of his recovery. His mother, who had at first made
+many efforts to check his vices, and at last had been obliged to look
+on at his rapid progress to ruin in silent despair, watched day and
+night at his pillow. The anguish of parental feeling was blended with
+that still deeper misery which those only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> know who have striven hard
+to rear in virtue and piety a beloved and favourite child; have found
+him grow up all that their hearts could desire, until he reached
+manhood; and then, when their pride was highest, and their hopes
+almost ended in the fulfilment of their fondest expectations, have
+seen this idol of their affections plunge headlong into a course of
+reckless profligacy, and, after a rapid career of vice, hang upon the
+verge of eternity, without the leisure for, or the power of,
+repentance. Fervently she prayed that, if his life could not be
+spared, at least the delirium, which continued with increasing
+violence from the first few hours of his disorder, might vanish before
+death, and leave enough of light and of calm for making his peace with
+offended Heaven. After several days, however, nature seemed quite
+exhausted, and he sunk into a state too like death to be mistaken for
+the repose of sleep. His face had that pale, glossy, marble look,
+which is in general so sure a symptom that life has left its tenement
+of clay. His eyes were closed and sunk; the lids having that
+compressed and stiffened appearance which seemed to indicate that some
+friendly hand had done its last office. The lips, half-closed and
+perfectly ashy, discovered just so much of the teeth as to give to the
+features of death their most ghastly, but most impressive look. He lay
+upon his back, with his hands stretched beside, quite motionless; and
+his distracted mother, after repeated trials, could discover not the
+least symptom of animation. The medical man who attended, having tried
+the usual modes for ascertaining the presence of life, declared at
+last his opinion that it was flown, and prepared to depart from the
+house of mourning. His horse was seen to come to the door. A crowd of
+people who were collected before the windows, or scattered in groups
+on the lawn in front, gathered round when the door opened. These were
+tenants, fosterers, and poor relations of the family, with others
+attracted by affection, or by that interest which partakes of
+curiosity, but is something more, and which collects the lower ranks
+round a house where a human being is in his passage to another world.
+They saw the professional man come out from the hall door and approach
+his horse, and while slowly, and with a melancholy air, he prepared to
+mount, they clustered round him with inquiring<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> and wishful looks. Not
+a word was spoken; but their meaning could not be misunderstood; and
+the physician, when he had got into his saddle, and while the servant
+was still holding the bridle, as if to delay him, and was looking
+anxiously at his face, as if expecting that he would relieve the
+general suspense, shook his head, and said in a low voice, "It's all
+over, James;" and moved slowly away. The moment he had spoken, the
+women present, who were very numerous, uttered a shrill cry, which,
+having been sustained for about half a minute, fell suddenly into a
+full, loud, continued and discordant but plaintive wailing, above
+which occasionally were heard the deep sounds of a man's voice,
+sometimes in broken sobs, sometimes in more distinct exclamations of
+sorrow. This was Charles's foster-brother, who moved about in the
+crowd, now clapping his hands, now rubbing them together in an agony
+of grief. The poor fellow had been Charles's playmate and companion
+when a boy, and afterwards his servant; had always been distinguished
+by his peculiar regard, and loved his young master, as much, at least,
+as he did his own life.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Mac Carthy became convinced that the blow was indeed struck,
+and that her beloved son was sent to his last account, even in the
+blossoms of his sin, she remained for some time gazing with fixedness
+upon his cold features; then, as if something had suddenly touched the
+string of her tenderest affections, tear after tear trickled down her
+cheeks, pale with anxiety and watching. Still she continued looking at
+her son, apparently unconscious that she was weeping, without once
+lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, until reminded of the sad duties
+which the custom of the country imposed upon her, by the crowd of
+females belonging to the better class of the peasantry, who now,
+crying audibly, nearly filled the apartment. She then withdrew, to
+give directions for the ceremony of waking, and for supplying the
+numerous visiters of all ranks with the refreshments usual on these
+melancholy occasions. Though her voice was scarcely heard, and though
+no one saw her but the servants and one or two old followers of the
+family, who assisted her in the necessary arrangements, every thing
+was conducted with the greatest regularity; and though she made no
+effort to check her sorrows, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> never once suspended her attention,
+now more than ever required to preserve order in her household, which,
+in this season of calamity, but for her would have been all confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The night was pretty far advanced; the boisterous lamentations which
+had prevailed during part of the day in and about the house had given
+place to a solemn and mournful stillness; and Mrs. Mac Carthy, whose
+heart, notwithstanding her long fatigue and watching, was yet too sore
+for sleep, was kneeling in fervent prayer in a chamber adjoining that
+of her son:&mdash;suddenly her devotions were disturbed by an unusual
+noise, proceeding from the persons who were watching round the body.
+First, there was a low murmur&mdash;then all was silent, as if the
+movements of those in the chamber were checked by a sudden panic&mdash;and
+then a loud cry of terror burst from all within:&mdash;the door of the
+chamber was thrown open, and all who were not overturned in the press
+rushed wildly into the passage which led to the stairs, and into which
+Mrs. Mac Carthy's room opened. Mrs. Mac Carthy made her way through
+the crowd into her son's chamber, where she found him sitting up in
+the bed, and looking vacantly around like one risen from the grave.
+The glare thrown upon his sunk features and thin lathy frame gave an
+unearthly horror to his whole aspect. Mrs. Mac Carthy was a woman of
+some firmness; but she was a woman, and not quite free from the
+superstitions of her country. She dropped on her knees, and, clasping
+her hands, began to pray aloud. The form before her moved only its
+lips and barely uttered, "Mother;"&mdash;but though the pale lips moved, as
+if there was a design to finish the sentence, the tongue refused its
+office. Mrs. Mac Carthy sprung forward, and catching the arm of her
+son, exclaimed, "Speak! in the name of God and his saints, speak! are
+you alive?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned to her slowly, and said, speaking still with apparent
+difficulty, "Yes, my mother, alive, and&mdash;&mdash; But sit down and collect
+yourself; I have that to tell, which will astonish you still more than
+what you have seen." He leaned back on his pillow, and while his
+mother remained kneeling by the bed-side, holding one of his hands
+clasped in hers, and gazing on him with the look of one who
+distrusted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> all her senses, he proceeded:&mdash;"do not interrupt me until
+I have done. I wish to speak while the excitement of returning life is
+upon me, as I know I shall soon need much repose. Of the commencement
+of my illness I have only a confused recollection; but within the last
+twelve hours, I have been before the judgment-seat of God. Do not
+stare incredulously on me&mdash;'tis as true as have been my crimes, and,
+as I trust, shall be my repentance. I saw the awful Judge arrayed in
+all the terrors which invest him when mercy gives place to justice.
+The dreadful pomp of offended omnipotence, I saw,&mdash;I remember. It is
+fixed here; printed on my brain in characters indelible; but it
+passeth human language. What I <i>can</i> describe I <i>will</i>&mdash;I may speak it
+briefly. It is enough to say, I was weighed in the balance and found
+wanting. The irrevocable sentence was upon the point of being
+pronounced; the eye of my Almighty Judge, which had already glanced
+upon me, half spoke my doom; when I observed the guardian saint, to
+whom you so often directed my prayers when I was a child, looking at
+me with an expression of benevolence and compassion. I stretched forth
+my hands to him, and besought his intercession; I implored that one
+year, one month might be given to me on earth, to do penance and
+atonement for my transgressions. He threw himself at the feet of my
+Judge, and supplicated for mercy. Oh! never&mdash;not if I should pass
+through ten thousand successive states of being&mdash;never, for eternity,
+shall I forget the horrors of that moment, when my fate hung
+suspended&mdash;when an instant was to decide whether torments unutterable
+were to be my portion for endless ages? But Justice suspended its
+decree, and Mercy spoke in accents of firmness, but mildness, 'Return
+to that world in which thou hast lived but to outrage the laws of Him
+who made that world and thee. Three years are given thee for
+repentance; when these are ended, thou shalt again stand here, to be
+saved or lost for ever.'&mdash;I heard no more; I saw no more, until I
+awoke to life, the moment before you entered."</p>
+
+<p>Charles's strength continued just long enough to finish these last
+words, and on uttering them he closed his eyes, and lay quite
+exhausted. His mother, though, as was before<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> said, somewhat disposed
+to give credit to supernatural visitations, yet hesitated whether or
+not she should believe that, although awakened from a swoon, which
+might have been the crisis of his disease, he was still under the
+influence of delirium. Repose, however, was at all events necessary,
+and she took immediate measures that he should enjoy it undisturbed.
+After some hours' sleep, he awoke refreshed, and thenceforward
+gradually but steadily recovered.</p>
+
+<p>Still he persisted in his account of the vision, as he had at first
+related it; and his persuasion of its reality had an obvious and
+decided influence on his habits and conduct. He did not altogether
+abandon the society of his former associates, for his temper was not
+soured by his reformation; but he never joined in their excesses, and
+often endeavoured to reclaim them. How his pious exertions succeeded,
+I have never learnt; but of himself it is recorded, that he was
+religious without ostentation, and temperate without austerity; giving
+a practical proof that vice may be exchanged for virtue, without a
+loss of respectability, popularity, or happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Time rolled on, and long before the three years were ended, the story
+of his vision was forgotten, or, when spoken of, was usually mentioned
+as an instance proving the folly of believing in such things.
+Charles's health from the temperance and regularity of his habits,
+became more robust than ever. His friends, indeed, had often occasion
+to rally him upon a seriousness and abstractedness of demeanour,
+which grew upon him as he approached the completion of his
+seven-and-twentieth year, but for the most part his manner exhibited
+the same animation and cheerfulness for which he had always been
+remarkable. In company he evaded every endeavour to draw from him a
+distinct opinion on the subject of the supposed prediction; but among
+his own family it was well known that he still firmly believed it.
+However, when the day had nearly arrived on which the prophecy was, if
+at all, to be fulfilled, his whole appearance gave such promise of a
+long and healthy life, that he was persuaded by his friends to ask a
+large party to an entertainment at Spring House, to celebrate his
+birth-day. But the occasion of this party, and the circumstances
+which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> attended it, will be best learned from a perusal of the
+following letters, which have been carefully preserved by some
+relations of his family. The first is from Mrs. Mac Carthy to a lady,
+a very near connexion and valued friend of hers, who lived in the
+county of Cork, at about fifty miles' distance from Spring House.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="in3"><i>"To Mrs. Barry, Castle Barry.</i></span></p>
+
+<p class="right">Spring House, Tuesday morning,<br />October 15th, 1752.</p>
+
+<p>"MY DEAREST MARY,</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I am going to put your affection for your old
+friend and kinswoman to a severe trial. A two days' journey at
+this season, over bad roads and through a troubled country, it
+will indeed require friendship such as yours to persuade a
+sober woman to encounter. But the truth is, I have, or fancy I
+have, more than usual cause for wishing you near me. You know
+my son's story. I can't tell how it is, but as next Sunday
+approaches, when the prediction of his dream or his vision will
+be proved false or true, I feel a sickening of the heart, which
+I cannot suppress, but which your presence, my dear Mary, will
+soften, as it has done so many of my sorrows. My nephew, James
+Ryan, is to be married to Jane Osborne (who, you know, is my
+son's ward,) and the bridal entertainment will take place here
+on Sunday next, though Charles pleaded hard to have it
+postponed a day or two longer. Would to God&mdash;but no more of
+this till we meet. Do prevail upon yourself to leave your good
+man for <i>one</i> week, if his farming concerns will not admit of
+his accompanying you; and come to us with the girls, as soon
+before Sunday as you can.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever my dear Mary's attached cousin and friend,</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">"Ann Mac Carthy"</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Although this letter reached Castle Barry early on Wednesday, the
+messenger having travelled on foot, over bog and moor, by paths
+impassable to horse or carriage, Mrs. Barry, who at once determined on
+going, had so many arrangements to make for the regulation of her
+domestic affairs (which, in Ireland, among the middle orders<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> of the
+gentry, fall soon into confusion when the mistress of the family is
+away,) that she and her two younger daughters were unable to leave
+home until late on the morning of Friday. The eldest daughter
+remained, to keep her father company, and superintend the concerns of
+the household. As the travellers were to journey in an open one-horse
+vehicle, called a jaunting-car (still used in Ireland,) and as the
+roads, bad at all times, were rendered still worse by the heavy rains,
+it was their design to make two easy stages; to stop about mid-way the
+first night, and reach Spring House early on Saturday evening. This
+arrangement was now altered, as they found that from the lateness of
+their departure, they could proceed, at the utmost, no further than
+twenty miles on the first day; and they therefore purposed sleeping at
+the house of a Mr. Bourke, a friend of theirs, who lived at somewhat
+less than that distance from Castle Barry. They reached Mr. Bourke's
+in safety, after rather a disagreeable drive. What befell them on
+their journey the next day to the Spring House, and after their
+arrival there, is fully related in a letter from the second Miss Barry
+to her eldest sister.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">"Spring House, Sunday evening,<br />20th October, 1752.</p>
+
+<p>"DEAR ELLEN,</p>
+
+<p>"As my mother's letter, which encloses this, will announce to
+you briefly the sad intelligence which I shall here relate more
+fully, I think it better to go regularly through the recital of
+the extraordinary events of the last two days.</p>
+
+<p>"The Bourkes kept us up so late on Friday night, that yesterday
+was pretty far advanced before we could begin our journey, and
+the day closed when we were nearly fifteen miles distant from
+this place. The roads were excessively deep, from the heavy
+rains of the last week, and we proceeded so slowly, that at
+last my mother resolved on passing the night at the house of
+Mr. Bourke's brother (who lives about a quarter of a mile off
+the road), and coming here to breakfast in the morning. The day
+had been windy and showery, and the sky looked fitful, gloomy,
+and uncertain. The moon was full, and at times shone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> clear and
+bright; at others, it was wholly concealed behind the thick,
+black, and rugged masses of clouds, that rolled rapidly along,
+and were every moment becoming larger, and collecting together,
+as if gathering strength for a coming storm. The wind, which
+blew in our faces, whistled bleakly along the low hedges of the
+narrow road, on which we proceeded with difficulty from the
+number of deep sloughs, and which afforded not the least
+shelter, no plantation being within some miles of us. My
+mother, therefore, asked Leary, who drove the jaunting-car, how
+far we were from Mr. Bourke's. ''Tis about ten spades from this
+to the cross, and we have then only to turn to the left into
+the avenue, ma'am.' 'Very well, Leary: turn up to Mr. Bourke's
+as soon as you reach the cross roads.' My mother had scarcely
+spoken these words, when a shriek that made us thrill as if our
+very hearts were pierced by it, burst from the hedge to the
+right of our way. If it resembled any thing earthly, it seemed
+the cry of a female, struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and
+giving out her life in one long deep pang of expiring agony.
+'Heaven defend us!' exclaimed my mother. 'Go you over the
+hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead,
+while we run back to the hut we just passed, and alarm the
+village near it.' 'Woman!' said Leary, beating the horse
+violently, while his voice trembled&mdash;'that's no woman: the
+sooner we get on, ma'am, the better;' and he continued his
+efforts to quicken the horse's pace. We saw nothing. The moon
+was hid. It was quite dark, and we had been for some time
+expecting a heavy fall of rain. But just as Leary had spoken,
+and had succeeded in making the horse trot briskly forward, we
+distinctly heard a loud clapping of hands, followed by a
+succession of screams, that seemed to denote the last excess of
+despair and anguish, and to issue from a person running forward
+inside the hedge, to keep pace with our progress. Still we saw
+nothing; until, when we were within about ten yards of the
+place where an avenue branched off to Mr. Bourke's to the left,
+and the road turned to Spring House on the right, the moon
+started suddenly from behind a cloud, and enabled us to see, as
+plainly as I now see this paper, the figure of a tall thin
+woman, with uncovered head, and longhair that float<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>ed round her
+shoulders, attired in something which seemed either a loose
+white cloak, or a sheet thrown hastily about her. She stood on
+the corner hedge, where the road on which we were, met that
+which leads to Spring House, with her face towards us, her left
+hand pointing to this place, and her right arm waving rapidly
+and violently, as if to draw us on in that direction. The horse
+had stopped, apparently frightened at the sudden presence of
+the figure, which stood in the manner I have described, still
+uttering the same piercing cries, for about half a minute. It
+then leaped upon the road, disappeared from our view for one
+instant, and the next was seen standing upon a high wall a
+little way up the avenue, on which we proposed going, still
+pointing towards the road to Spring House, but in an attitude
+of defiance and command, as if prepared to oppose our passage
+up the avenue. The figure was now quite silent, and its
+garments, which had before flown loosely in the wind, were
+closely wrapped around it. 'Go on, Leary, to Spring House, in
+God's name,' said my mother; 'whatever world it belongs to, we
+will provoke it no longer.' ''Tis the Banshee, ma'am,' said
+Leary; 'and I would not, for what my life is worth, go any
+where this blessed night but to Spring House. But I'm afraid
+there's something bad going forward, or <i>she</i> would not send us
+there.' So saying, he drove forward; and as we turned on the
+road to the right, the moon suddenly withdrew its light, and we
+saw the apparition no more; but we heard plainly a prolonged
+clapping of hands, gradually dying away, as if it issued from a
+person rapidly retreating. We proceeded as quickly as the
+badness of the roads and the fatigue of the poor animal that
+drew us would allow, and arrived here about eleven o'clock last
+night. The scene which awaited us you have learned from my
+mother's letter. To explain it fully, I must recount to you
+some of the transactions which took place here during the last
+week.</p>
+
+<p>"You are aware that Jane Osborne was to have been married this
+day to James Ryan, and that they and their friends have been
+here for the last week. On Tuesday last, the very day on the
+morning of which cousin Mac Carthy despatched the letter
+inviting us here, the whole of the company were walking about
+the grounds a little before dinner. It seems<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> that an
+unfortunate creature, who had been seduced by James Ryan, was
+seen prowling in the neighbourhood in a moody melancholy state
+for some days previous. He had separated from her for several
+months, and, they say, had provided for her rather handsomely;
+but she had been seduced by the promise of his marrying her;
+and the shame of her unhappy condition, uniting with
+disappointment and jealousy, had disordered her intellects.
+During the whole forenoon of this Tuesday, she had been walking
+in the plantations near Spring House, with her cloak folded
+tight around her, the hood nearly covering her face; and she
+had avoided conversing with or even meeting any of the family.</p>
+
+<p>"Charles Mac Carthy, at the time I mentioned, was walking
+between James Ryan and another, at a little distance from the
+rest, on a gravel path, skirting a shrubbery. The whole party
+were thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a
+pistol, fired from a thickly planted part of the shrubbery,
+which Charles and his companions had just passed. He fell
+instantly, and it was found that he had been wounded in the
+leg. One of the party was a medical man; his assistance was
+immediately given, and, on examining, he declared that the
+injury was very slight, that no bone was broken, that it was
+merely a flesh wound, and that it would certainly be well in a
+few days. 'We shall know more by Sunday,' said Charles, as he
+was carried to his chamber. His wound was immediately dressed,
+and so slight was the inconvenience which it gave, that several
+of his friends spent a portion of the evening in his apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"On inquiry, it was found that the unlucky shot was fired by the
+poor girl I just mentioned. It was also manifest that she had
+aimed, not at Charles, but at the destroyer of her innocence
+and happiness, who was walking beside him. After a fruitless
+search for her through the grounds, she walked into the house
+of her own accord, laughing, and dancing and singing wildly,
+and every moment exclaiming that she had at last killed Mr.
+Ryan. When she heard that it was Charles, and not Mr. Ryan, who
+was shot, she fell into a violent fit, out of which, after
+working convulsively for some time, she sprung to the door,
+escaped from the crowd that pursued her, and could never be
+taken until<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> last night, when she was brought here, perfectly
+frantic, a little before our arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"Charles's wound was thought of such little consequence, that
+the preparations went forward, as usual, for the wedding
+entertainment on Sunday. But on Friday night he grew restless
+and feverish, and on Saturday (yesterday) morning felt so ill,
+that it was deemed necessary to obtain additional medical
+advice. Two physicians and a surgeon met in consultation about
+twelve o'clock in the day, and the dreadful intelligence was
+announced, that unless a change, hardly hoped for, took place
+before night, death must happen within twenty-four hours after.
+The wound it seems, had been too tightly bandaged, and
+otherwise injudiciously treated. The physicians were right in
+their anticipations. No favourable symptom appeared, and long
+before we reached Spring House every ray of hope had vanished.
+The scene we witnessed on our arrival would have wrung the
+heart of a demon. We heard briefly at the gate that Mr. Charles
+was upon his death-bed. When we reached the house, the
+information was confirmed by the servant who opened the door.
+But just as we entered, we were horrified by the most appalling
+screams issuing from the staircase. My mother thought she heard
+the voice of poor Mrs. Mac Carthy, and sprung forward. We
+followed, and on ascending a few steps of the stairs, we found
+a young woman, in a state of frantic passion, struggling
+furiously with two men-servants, whose united strength was
+hardly sufficient to prevent her rushing up stairs over the
+body of Mrs. Mac Carthy, who was lying in strong hysterics upon
+the steps. This, I afterwards discovered, was the unhappy girl
+I before described, who was attempting to gain access to
+Charles's room, to 'get his forgiveness,' as she said, 'before
+he went away to accuse her for having killed him.' This wild
+idea was mingled with another, which seemed to dispute with the
+former possession of her mind. In one sentence she called on
+Charles to forgive her, in the next she would denounce James
+Ryan as the murderer both of Charles and her. At length she was
+torn away; and the last words I heard her scream were, 'James
+Ryan, 'twas you killed him, and not I&mdash;'twas you killed him,
+and not I.'</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Mac Carthy, on recovering, fell into the arms of my
+mother, whose presence seemed a great relief to her. She wept
+the first tears, I was told, that she had shed since the fatal
+accident. She conducted us to Charles's room, who she said, had
+desired to see us the moment of our arrival, as he found his
+end approaching, and wished to devote the last hours of his
+existence to uninterrupted prayer and meditation. We found him
+perfectly calm, resigned, and even cheerful. He spoke of the
+awful event which was at hand with courage and confidence, and
+treated it as a doom for which he had been preparing ever since
+his former remarkable illness, and which he never once doubted
+was truly foretold to him. He bade us farewell with the air of
+one who was about to travel a short and easy journey; and we
+left him with impressions which, notwithstanding all their
+anguish, will, I trust, never entirely forsake us.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mrs. Mac Carthy&mdash;&mdash;but I am just called away. There seems
+a slight stir in the family; perhaps&mdash;&mdash;"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The above letter was never finished. The enclosure to which it more
+than once alludes, told the sequel briefly, and it is all that I have
+farther learned of this branch of the Mac Carthy family. Before the
+sun had gone down upon Charles's seven-and-twentieth birthday, his
+soul had gone to render its last account to its Creator.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/099.jpg" width="238" height="168" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Banshee</span>, correctly written she-fairies or women fairies,
+credulously supposed, by the common people, to be so affected
+to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful
+lamentations about their houses at night, whenever any of the
+family labours under a sickness which is to end in death. But
+no families which are not of an ancient and noble stock are
+believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege."&mdash;<span class="smcap">O'Brien's</span>
+<i>Irish Dictionary</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For accounts of the appearance of the Irish Banshee, see
+"Personal Sketches, &amp;c. by Sir Jonah Barrington;" Miss Lefanu's
+Memoirs of her Grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824,) p.
+32; "The Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw" (quoted by Sir Walter Scott
+in a note on "the Lady of the Lake,") &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Scott terms the belief in the appearance of the
+Banshee "one of the most beautiful" of the leading
+superstitions of Europe. In his "Letters on Demonology," he
+says that "several families of the Highlands of Scotland
+anciently laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit,
+who performed the office of the Irish Banshee," and
+particularly refers to the supernatural cries and lamentations
+which foreboded the death of the gallant Mac Lean of Lochbuy.</p>
+
+<p>"The Welsh Gwr&acirc;ch y Rhibyn (or the hag of the Dribble) bears
+some resemblance to the Irish Banshee, being regarded as an
+omen of death. She is said to come after dusk and flap her
+leathern wings against the window where she warns of death, and
+in a broken, howling tone, to call on the one who is to quit
+mortality by his or her name several times, as thus,
+<i>A-a-a-n-ni-i-i-i! Anni.</i>"&mdash;<i>MS. Communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Owen
+Pughe</span>. For some farther particulars, see, in "A Relation of
+Apparitions, &amp;c. by the Rev. Edmund Jones," his account of the
+<i>Kyhirraeth</i>, "a doleful foreboding noise before death;" and
+Howell's "Cambrian Superstitions," (Tipton, 1831,) p. 31.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will probably remember the White Lady of the House
+of Brandenburgh, and the fairy Melusine, who usually
+prognosticated the recurrence of mortality in some noble family
+of Poitou. Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," records the
+appearance of a white bird performing the same office for the
+worshipful lineage of Oxenham.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Tyrol, too, they believe in a spirit which looks in at
+the window of the house in which a person is to die (<i>Deutsche
+Sagen</i>, No. 266;) the white woman with a veil over her head
+(267,) answers to the Banshee; but the tradition of the
+<i>Klage-weib</i> (mourning woman,) in the <i>L&uuml;neburger Heath</i>
+(<i>Spiels Archiv.</i> ii. 297,) resembles it still more closely. On
+stormy nights, when the moon shines faintly through the
+fleeting clouds, she stalks, of gigantic stature, with
+death-like aspect, and black hollow eyes, wrapt in
+grave-clothes which float in the wind, and stretches her
+immense arm over the solitary hut, uttering lamentable cries in
+the tempestuous darkness. Beneath the roof over which the
+<i>Klage-weib</i> has leaned, one of the inmates must die in the
+course of the month."&mdash;</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Brothers Grimm</span>, <i>and MS.
+Communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. William Grimm</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE PHOOKA.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/101.jpg" width="378" height="262" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset26"><p>
+"Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings' helpless harms,<br />
+Ne let the <i>Pouke</i>, nor other evil spright,<br />
+Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,<br />
+Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,<br />
+<span class="in3">Fray us with things that be not."</span></p>
+<p class="smcap right">Spenser.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIV">THE SPIRIT HORSE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XIV.</h3>
+
+<p>The history of Morty Sullivan ought to be a warning to all young men
+to stay at home, and to live decently and soberly if they can, and not
+to go roving about the world. Morty, when he had just turned of
+fourteen, ran away from his father and mother, who were a mighty
+respectable old couple, and many and many a tear they shed on his
+account. It is said they both died heart-broken for his loss: all they
+ever learned about him was that he went on board of a ship bound to
+America.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years after the old couple had been laid peacefully<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> in their
+graves, there came a stranger to Beerhaven inquiring after them&mdash;it
+was their son Morty; and, to speak the truth of him, his heart did
+seem full of sorrow when he heard that his parents were dead and
+gone;&mdash;but what else could he expect to hear? Repentance generally
+comes when it is too late.</p>
+
+<p>Morty Sullivan, however, as an atonement for his sins, was recommended
+to perform a pilgrimage to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate, which
+is in a wild place called Ballyvourney.</p>
+
+<p>This he readily undertook: and willing to lose no time, commenced his
+journey the same afternoon. He had not proceeded many miles before the
+evening came on: there was no moon, and the star-light was obscured by
+a thick fog, which ascended from the valleys. His way was through a
+mountainous country, with many cross-paths and by-ways, so that it was
+difficult for a stranger like Morty to travel without a guide. He was
+anxious to reach his destination, and exerted himself to do so; but
+the fog grew thicker and thicker, and at last he became doubtful if
+the track he was in led to the blessed chapel of Saint Gobnate. But
+seeing a light which he imagined not to be far off, he went towards
+it, and when he thought himself close to it, the light suddenly seemed
+at a great distance, twinkling dimly through the fog. Though Morty
+felt some surprise at this, he was not disheartened, for he thought
+that it was a light sent by the holy Saint Gobnate to guide his feet
+through the mountains to her chapel.</p>
+
+<p>And thus did he travel for many a mile, continually, as he believed,
+approaching the light, which would suddenly start off to a great
+distance. At length he came so close as to perceive that the light
+came from a fire: seated beside which he plainly saw an old
+woman;&mdash;then, indeed, his faith was a little shaken, and much did he
+wonder that both the fire and the old woman should travel before him,
+so many weary miles, and over such uneven roads.</p>
+
+<p>"In the holy names of the pious Gobnate, and of her preceptor Saint
+Abban," said Morty, "how can that burning fire move on so fast before
+me, and who can that old woman be sitting beside the moving fire?"</p>
+
+<p>These words had no sooner passed Morty's lips than he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> found himself,
+without taking another step, close to this wonderful fire, beside
+which the old woman was sitting munching her supper. With every wag of
+the old woman's jaw her eyes would roll fiercely upon Morty, as if she
+was angry at being disturbed; and he saw with more astonishment than
+ever that her eyes were neither black, nor blue, nor gray, nor hazel,
+like the human eye, but of a wild red colour, like the eye of a
+ferret. If before he wondered at the fire, much greater was his wonder
+at the old woman's appearance; and stout-hearted as he was, he could
+not but look upon her with fear&mdash;judging, and judging rightly, that it
+was for no good purpose her supping in so unfrequented a place, and at
+so late an hour, for it was near midnight. She said not one word,
+but munched and munched away, while Morty looked at her in
+silence.&mdash;"What's your name?" at last demanded the old hag, a
+sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and
+her eyes growing redder than ever, when she had finished her question.</p>
+
+<p>Plucking up all his courage, "Morty Sullivan," replied he "at your
+service;" meaning the latter words only in civility.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ubbubbo!</i>" said the old woman, "we'll soon see that;" and the red
+fire of her eyes turned into a pale green colour. Bold and fearless as
+Morty was, yet much did he tremble at hearing this dreadful
+exclamation: he would have fallen down on his knees and prayed to
+Saint Gobnate, or any other saint, for he was not particular; but he
+was so petrified with horror, that he could not move in the slightest
+way, much less go down on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Take hold of my hand, Morty," said the old woman: "I'll give you a
+horse to ride that will soon carry you to your journey's end." So
+saying, she led the way, the fire going before them;&mdash;it is beyond
+mortal knowledge to say how, but on it went, shooting out bright
+tongues of flame, and flickering fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they came to a natural cavern in the side of the mountain,
+and the old hag called aloud in a most discordant voice for her horse!
+In a moment a jet-black steed started from its gloomy stable, the
+rocky floor whereof rung with a sepulchral echo to the clanging
+hoofs.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mount, Morty, mount!" cried she, seizing him with supernatural
+strength, and forcing him upon the back of the horse. Morty finding
+human power of no avail, muttered, "O that I had spurs!" and tried to
+grasp the horse's mane; but he caught at a shadow; it nevertheless
+bore him up and bounded forward with him, now springing down a fearful
+precipice, now clearing the rugged bed of a torrent, and rushing like
+the dark midnight storm through the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning Morty Sullivan was discovered by some pilgrims
+(who came that way after taking their rounds at Gougane Barra) lying
+on the flat of his back, under a steep cliff, down which he had been
+flung by the Phooka. Morty was severely bruised by the fall, and he is
+said to have sworn on the spot, by the hand of O'Sullivan (and that is
+no small oath),<a id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> never again to take a full quart bottle of whisky
+with him on a pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/104.jpg" width="156" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XV">DANIEL O'ROURKE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XV.</h3>
+
+<p>People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke,
+but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
+and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
+walls of the Phooka's tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the
+bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you
+go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the
+story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June,
+1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
+under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
+the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
+the morning at Glengariff.</p>
+
+<p>"I am often <i>axed</i> to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
+first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
+parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
+Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
+given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and
+low, rich and poor. The <i>ould</i> gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
+all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little,
+to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
+were no losers by it in the end;&mdash;and they were so easy and civil, and
+kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;&mdash;and there was
+no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on
+the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often
+in the year;&mdash;but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir; for
+I'd better be telling you my story.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
+and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
+danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen&mdash;a lovely young couple they
+were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
+I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost; for I can't
+remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did
+leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
+I'd just step to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word
+about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
+the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up
+at the stars and blessing myself&mdash;for why? it was Lady-day&mdash;I missed
+my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I,
+'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
+away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
+but never the one of me can tell how, upon a <i>dissolute</i> island.</p>
+
+<p>"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
+wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
+bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir, (with your pardon for
+mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
+every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;&mdash;I could never
+find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure
+and certain I was that it would be my <i>berrin</i> place. So I sat down
+upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I
+began to scratch my head and sing the <i>Ullagone</i>&mdash;when all of a sudden
+the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the
+world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell
+what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the
+face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from
+the kingdom of Kerry.</p>
+
+<p>"So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,'
+says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I
+hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how an
+eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?'
+says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home
+again.' 'Is it out of the Island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis,
+sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much and
+fell into the water; how I swam to the Island; and how I got into the
+bog, and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a
+minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on
+Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and
+never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the
+fields&mdash;my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip
+me well for fear you'd fall off, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I
+am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever
+heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a
+gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite
+in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the
+bog&mdash;besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
+going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
+heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:&mdash;'I thank
+your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take
+your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and
+held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a
+lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up&mdash;up&mdash;up&mdash;I
+know not how far up he flew.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, then,' said I to him,&mdash;thinking he did not know the right road
+home&mdash;very civilly, because why?&mdash;I was in his power entirely;&mdash;'sir,'
+says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to
+your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my
+cabin, and I could put down there, and many thanks to your worship.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Arrah</i>, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the
+next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would
+be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I
+picked up off of a <i>cowld</i> stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to
+myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up
+he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down,
+and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to
+him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and
+don't be interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this
+is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>"At last, where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you
+can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a
+reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way, (drawing
+the figure thus
+<img src="images/107.jpg" height="20" width="30" alt="" />
+on the ground with the end of
+his stick.)</p>
+
+<p>"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> I had no
+notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world
+<i>axed</i> you to fly so far&mdash;was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and
+beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,'
+said he; 'I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on
+the moon until I rest myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I;
+'is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall
+off in a minute, and be <i>kilt</i> and split, and smashed all to bits: you
+are a vile deceiver,&mdash;so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he: 'you
+can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that's sticking out of the
+side of the moon, and 'twill keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I.
+'May be not,' said he, quite quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall
+just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to
+the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as
+a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a
+fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to have come along with the likes
+of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know
+what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the
+reaping hook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it
+was, I can tell you that.</p>
+
+<p>"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
+'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'I think I've nicked
+you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,' ('twas true enough for
+him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) 'and in return you are
+freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
+cockthrow.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says
+I. 'You ugly unnatural <i>baste</i>, and is this the way you serve me at
+last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hooked nose, and to all your
+breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out
+his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
+lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
+bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
+him from that day to this&mdash;sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I
+was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
+grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
+creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> month
+before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there
+walks&mdash;who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by
+his bush.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'How do you do?'
+'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.'
+'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a
+little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a
+<i>dissolute</i> island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
+thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of
+that he had flew me up to the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
+done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
+against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
+your business,' said he, 'Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must
+not stay; so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says
+I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.'
+'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may
+I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
+traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with
+strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself,
+Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Indeed,
+and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more
+you bids me, the more I won't let go;&mdash;so I will.' 'You had better,
+Dan,' says he again. 'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the
+whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two
+words to that bargain, and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.'
+'We'll see how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the
+door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed),
+that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
+again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without
+saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
+that was keeping me up, and <i>whap</i>! it came in two. 'Good morning to
+you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
+cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> 'I thank
+you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not
+time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and
+rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'Now help me,' says I,
+'but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this
+time of night; I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my
+mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of
+wild geese; all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how
+should they know <i>me</i>? The <i>ould</i> gander, who was their general,
+turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The
+same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by
+this time used to all kinds of <i>bedevilment</i>, and, besides, I knew him
+of <i>ould</i>. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke: how are
+you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you
+kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I
+hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,'
+says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all
+the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the
+drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog,
+and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man
+in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out
+your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is
+your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the
+time I thought in myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no
+help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other
+geese flew after him as fast as hops.</p>
+
+<p>"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
+ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
+up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought
+it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to land if you
+please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for awhile,
+because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I; 'that's
+surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then
+to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you
+fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent
+sort of place,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only
+there is a little more sand there.'</p>
+
+<p>"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
+before the wind: 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the
+ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he. 'We are,'
+said I. 'We are not,' said he: 'If I dropped you now you would go
+splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I: 'I know better than that,
+for it's just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.'</p>
+
+<p>"'If you must, you must,' said he. 'There, take your own way;' and he
+opened his claw, and indeed he was right&mdash;sure enough I came down
+plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
+went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to
+me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in
+the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
+splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn't
+a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying&mdash;'twas
+a voice I knew too&mdash;'Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;' and with
+that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
+was splashing all over me;&mdash;for, rest her soul! though she was a good
+wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand
+of her own.</p>
+
+<p>"'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish, would no
+place <i>sarve</i> your turn to lie down upon but under the <i>ould</i> walls of
+Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure
+enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
+and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me
+through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green
+ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd
+lie down on the same spot again; I know that."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/111.jpg" width="235" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XVI">THE CROOKENED BACK.</h2>
+
+<h3>XVI.</h3>
+
+<p>Peggy Barrett was once tall, well shaped, and comely. She was in her
+youth remarkable for two qualities, not often found together, of being
+the most thrifty housewife, and the best dancer in her native village
+of Ballyhooley. But she is now upwards of sixty years old; and during
+the last ten years of her life, she has never been able to stand
+upright. Her back is bent nearly to a level; yet she has the freest
+use of all her limbs that can be enjoyed in such a posture; her health
+is good, and her mind vigorous; and, in the family of her eldest son,
+with whom she has lived since the death of her husband, she performs
+all the domestic services which her age, and the infirmity just
+mentioned, allow. She washes the potatoes, makes the fire, sweeps the
+house (labours in which she good-humouredly says "she finds her
+crooked back mighty convenient"), plays with the children, and tells
+stories to the family and their neighbouring friends, who often
+collect round her son's fire-side to hear them during the long winter
+evenings. Her powers of conversation are highly extolled, both for
+humour and in narration; and anecdotes of droll, awkward incidents,
+connected with the posture in which she has been so long fixed, as
+well as the history of the occurrence to which she owes that
+misfortune, are favourite topics of her discourse. Among other
+matters, she is fond of relating how, on a certain day at the close of
+a bad harvest, when several tenants of the estate on which she lived
+concerted in a field a petition for an abatement of rent, they placed
+the paper on which they wrote upon her back, which was found no very
+inconvenient substitute for a table.</p>
+
+<p>Peggy, like all experienced story-tellers, suited her tales, both in
+length and subject, to the audience and the occasion. She knew that,
+in broad daylight, when the sun shines brightly, and the trees are
+budding, and the birds singing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> around us, when men and women, like
+ourselves, are moving and speaking, employed variously in business or
+amusement; she knew, in short (though certainly without knowing or
+much caring wherefore), that when we are engaged about the realities
+of life and nature, we want that spirit of credulity, without which
+tales of the deepest interest will lose their power. At such times
+Peggy was brief, very particular as to facts, and never dealt in the
+marvellous. But round the blazing hearth of a Christmas evening, when
+infidelity is banished from all companies, at least in low and simple
+life, as a quality, to say the least of it, out of season; when the
+winds of "dark December" whistled bleakly round the walls, and almost
+through the doors of the little mansion, reminding its inmates, that
+as the world is vexed by elements superior to human power, so it may
+be visited by beings of a superior nature:&mdash;at such times would Peggy
+Barrett give full scope to her memory, or her imagination, or both;
+and upon one of these occasions, she gave the following circumstantial
+account of the "crookening of her back."</p>
+
+<p>"It was, of all days in the year, the day before May-day, that I went
+out to the garden to weed the potatoes. I would not have gone out that
+day, but I was dull in myself, and sorrowful, and wanted to be alone;
+all the boys and girls were laughing and joking in the house, making
+goaling-balls and dressing out ribands for the mummers next day. I
+couldn't bear it. 'Twas only at the Easter that was then past (and
+that's ten years last Easter&mdash;I won't forget the time,) that I buried
+my poor man; and I thought how gay and joyful I was, many a long year
+before that, at the May-eve before our wedding, when with Robin by my
+side, I sat cutting and sewing the ribands for the goaling-ball I was
+to give the boys on the next day, proud to be preferred above all the
+other girls of the banks of the Blackwater, by the handsomest boy and
+the best hurler in the village; so I left the house and went to the
+garden. I staid there all the day, and didn't come home to dinner. I
+don't know how it was, but somehow I continued on, weeding, and
+thinking sorrowfully enough, and singing over some of the old songs
+that I sung many and many a time in the days that are gone, and for
+them that never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> will come back to me to hear them. The truth is, I
+hated to go and sit silent and mournful among the people in the house,
+that were merry and young, and had the best of their days before them.
+'Twas late before I thought of returning home, and I did not leave the
+garden till some time after sunset. The moon was up; but though there
+wasn't a cloud to be seen, and though a star was winking here and
+there in the sky, the day wasn't long enough gone to have it clear
+moonlight; still it shone enough to make every thing on one side of
+the heavens look pale and silvery-like; and the thin white mist was
+just beginning to creep along the fields. On the other side, near
+where the sun was set, there was more of daylight, and the sky looked
+angry, red, and fiery through the trees, like as if it was lighted up
+by a great town burning below. Every thing was as silent as a
+churchyard, only now and then one could hear far off a dog barking, or
+a cow lowing after being milked. There wasn't a creature to be seen on
+the road or in the fields. I wondered at this first, but then I
+remembered it was May-eve, and that many a thing, both good and bad,
+would be wandering about that night, and that I ought to shun danger
+as well as others. So I walked on as quick as I could, and soon came
+to the end of the demesne wall, where the trees rise high and thick at
+each side of the road, and almost meet at the top. My heart misgave me
+when I got under the shade. There was so much light let down from the
+opening above, that I could see about a stone-throw before me. All of
+a sudden I heard a rustling among the branches, on the right side of
+the road, and saw something like a small black goat, only with long
+wide horns turned out instead of being bent backwards, standing upon
+its hind legs upon the top of the wall, and looking down on me. My
+breath was stopped, and I couldn't move for near a minute. I couldn't
+help, somehow, keeping my eyes fixed on it; and it never stirred, but
+kept looking in the same fixed way down at me. At last I made a rush,
+and went on; but I didn't go ten steps, when I saw the very same
+sight, on the wall to the left of me, standing in exactly the same
+manner, but three or four times as high, and almost as tall as the
+tallest man. The horns looked frightful; it gazed upon me as before;
+my legs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> shook, and my teeth chattered, and I thought I would drop
+down dead every moment. At last I felt as if I was obliged to go
+on&mdash;and on I went; but it was without feeling how I moved, or whether
+my legs carried me. Just as I passed the spot where this frightful
+thing was standing, I heard a noise as if something sprung from the
+wall, and felt like as if a heavy animal plumped down upon me, and
+held with the fore feet clinging to my shoulder, and the hind ones
+fixed in my gown, that was folded and pinned up behind me. 'Tis the
+wonder of my life ever since how I bore the shock; but so it was, I
+neither fell, nor even staggered with the weight, but walked on as if
+I had the strength of ten men, though I felt as if I couldn't help
+moving, and couldn't stand still if I wished it. Though I gasped with
+fear, I knew as well as I do now what I was doing. I tried to cry out,
+but couldn't; I tried to run, but wasn't able; I tried to look back,
+but my head and neck were as if they were screwed in a vice. I could
+barely roll my eyes on each side, and then I could see, as clearly and
+plainly as if it was in the broad light of the blessed sun, a black
+and cloven foot planted upon each of my shoulders. I heard a low
+breathing in my ear; I felt at every step I took, my leg strike back
+against the feet of the creature that was on my back. Still I could do
+nothing but walk straight on. At last I came within sight of the
+house, and a welcome sight it was to me, for I thought I would be
+released when I reached it. I soon came close to the door, but it was
+shut; I looked at the little window, but it was shut too, for they
+were more cautious about May-eve than I was; I saw the light inside,
+through the chinks of the door; I heard 'em talking and laughing
+within; I felt myself at three yards' distance from them that would
+die to save me;&mdash;and may the Lord save me from ever again feeling what
+I did that night, when I found myself held by what couldn't be good
+nor friendly, but without the power to help myself, or to call my
+friends, or to put out my hand to knock, or even to lift my leg to
+strike the door, and let them know that I was outside it! 'Twas as if
+my hands grew to my sides, and my feet were glued to the ground, or
+had the weight of a rock fixed to them. At last I thought of blessing
+myself; and my right hand, that would do nothing else,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> did that for
+me. Still the weight remained on my back, and all was as before. I
+blessed myself again: 'twas still all the same. I then gave myself up
+for lost: but I blessed myself a third time, and my hand no sooner
+finished the sign, than all at once I felt the burden spring off of my
+back; the door flew open as if a clap of thunder burst it, and I was
+pitched forward on my forehead, in upon the middle of the floor. When
+I got up my back was crookened, and I never stood straight from that
+night to this blessed hour."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause when Peggy Barrett finished. Those who heard the
+story before had listened with a look of half-satisfied interest,
+blended, however, with an expression of that serious and solemn
+feeling, which always attends a tale of supernatural wonders, how
+often soever told. They moved upon their seats out of the posture in
+which they had remained fixed during the narrative, and sat in an
+attitude which denoted that their curiosity as to the cause of this
+strange occurrence had been long since allayed. Those to whom it was
+before unknown still retained their look and posture of strained
+attention, and anxious but solemn expectation. A grandson of Peggy's,
+about nine years old (not the child of the son with whom she lived,)
+had never before heard the story. As it grew in interest, he was
+observed to cling closer and closer to the old woman's side; and at
+the close he was gazing steadfastly at her, with his body bent back
+across her knees, and his face turned up to hers, with a look, through
+which a disposition to weep seemed contending with curiosity. After a
+moment's pause, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and
+catching her gray locks in one hand, while a tear of dread and wonder
+was just dropping from his eye-lash, he cried, "Granny, what was it?"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman smiled first at the elder part of her audience, and then
+at her grandson, and patting him on the forehead, she said, "It was
+the Phooka."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The <i>Pouke</i> or <i>Phooka</i>, as the word is pronounced, means, in
+plain terms, the Evil One. "Playing the puck," a common
+Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to "playing the devil." Much
+learning has been displayed in tracing this word through
+various languages, vide Quarterly Review [vol. xxii. &amp;c.] The
+commentators on Shakspeare derive the beautiful and frolicksome
+Puck of the Midsummer Night's Dream from the mischievous
+Pouke.&mdash;Vide Drayton's Nymphidia.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Still walking like a ragged colt," &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1587) we
+find,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"&mdash;&mdash; and the countrie where Chgm&aelig;ra, that same <i>Pooke</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Hath goatish bodie," &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Irish Phooka, in its nature, perfectly resembles the
+<i>Mahr</i>; and we have only to observe, that there is a particular
+German tradition of a spirit, which sits among reeds and alder
+bushes; and which, like the Phooka, leaps upon the back of
+those who pass by in the night, and does not leave them till
+they faint and fall to the earth.</p>
+
+<p class="smcap right">The Brothers Grimm.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/117.jpg" width="265" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">THIERNA NA OGE.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/119.jpg" width="381" height="256" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+"On Lough-Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays,<br />
+When the clear cold eve's declining,<br />
+He sees the round towers of other days<br />
+In the wave beneath him shining."</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Moore.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XVII">FIOR USGA.</h2>
+
+<h3>XVII.</h3>
+
+<p>A little way beyond the Gallows Green of Cork, and just outside the
+town, there is a great lough of water, where people in the winter go
+and skate for the sake of diversion; but the sport above the water is
+nothing to what is under it, for at the very bottom of this lough
+there are buildings and gardens, far more beautiful than any now to be
+seen, and how they came there was in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>Long before Saxon foot pressed Irish ground, there was a great king
+called Core, whose palace stood where the lough now is, in a round
+green valley, that was just a mile about. In the middle of the
+court-yard was a spring of fair water, so pure, and so clear, that it
+was the wonder of all the world. Much did the king rejoice at having
+so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> great a curiosity within his palace; but as people came in crowds
+from far and near to draw the precious water of this spring, he was
+sorely afraid that in time it might become dry; so he caused a high
+wall to be built up round it, and would allow nobody to have the
+water, which was a very great loss to the poor people living about the
+palace. Whenever he wanted any for himself, he would send his daughter
+to get it, not liking to trust his servants with the key of the
+well-door, fearing that they might give some away.</p>
+
+<p>One night the king gave a grand entertainment, and there were many
+great princes present, and lords and nobles without end; and there
+were wonderful doings throughout the palace: there were bonfires,
+whose blaze reached up to the very sky; and dancing was there, to such
+sweet music, that it ought to have waked up the dead out of their
+graves; and feasting was there in the greatest of plenty for all who
+came; nor was any one turned away from the palace gates&mdash;but "you're
+welcome&mdash;you're welcome, heartily," was the porter's salute for all.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened at this grand entertainment there was one young prince
+above all the rest mighty comely to behold, and as tall and as
+straight as ever eye would wish to look on. Right merrily did he dance
+that night with the old king's daughter, wheeling here, and wheeling
+there, as light as a feather, and footing it away to the admiration of
+every one. The musicians played the better for seeing their dancing;
+and they danced as if their lives depended upon it. After all this
+dancing came the supper; and the young prince was seated at table by
+the side of his beautiful partner, who smiled upon him as often as he
+spoke to her; and that was by no means so often as he wished, for he
+had constantly to turn to the company and thank them for the many
+compliments passed upon his fair partner and himself.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this banquet, one of the great lords said to King
+Core, "May it please your majesty, here is every thing in abundance
+that heart can wish for, both to eat and drink, except water."</p>
+
+<p>"Water!" said the king, mightily pleased at some one calling for that
+of which purposely there was a want:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> "water shall you have, my lord,
+speedily, and that of such a delicious kind, that I challenge all the
+world to equal it. Daughter," said he, "go fetch some in the golden
+vessel which I caused to be made for the purpose."</p>
+
+<p>The king's daughter, who was called Fior Usga, (which signifies, in
+English, Spring Water,) did not much like to be told to perform so
+menial a service before so many people, and though she did not venture
+to refuse the commands of her father, yet hesitated to obey him, and
+looked down upon the ground. The king, who loved his daughter very
+much, seeing this, was sorry for what he had desired her to do, but
+having said the word, he was never known to recall it; he therefore
+thought of a way to make his daughter go speedily and fetch the water,
+and it was by proposing that the young prince her partner should go
+along with her. Accordingly, with a loud voice, he said, "Daughter, I
+wonder not at your fearing to go alone so late at night; but I doubt
+not the young prince at your side will go with you." The prince was
+not displeased at hearing this; and taking the golden vessel in one
+hand, with the other led the king's daughter out of the hall so
+gracefully that all present gazed after them with delight.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the spring of water, in the court-yard of the palace,
+the fair Usga unlocked the door with the greatest care, and stooping
+down with the golden vessel to take some of the water out of the well,
+found the vessel so heavy that she lost her balance and fell in. The
+young prince tried in vain to save her, for the water rose and rose so
+fast, that the entire court-yard was speedily covered with it, and he
+hastened back almost in a state of distraction to the king.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the well being left open, the water, which had been so
+long confined, rejoiced at obtaining its liberty, rushed forth
+incessantly, every moment rising higher and higher, and was in the
+hall of the entertainment sooner than the young prince himself, so
+that when he attempted to speak to the king he was up to his neck in
+water. At length the water rose to such a height, that it filled the
+entire of the green valley in which the king's palace stood, and so
+the present lough of Cork was formed.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the king and his guests were not drowned, as would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> now happen, if
+such an awful inundation were to take place; neither was his daughter,
+the fair Usga, who returned to the banquet-hall the very next night
+after this dreadful event; and every night since the same
+entertainment and dancing goes on in the palace at the bottom of the
+lough, and will last until some one has the luck to bring up out of it
+the golden vessel which was the cause of all this mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody can doubt that it was a judgment upon the king for his shutting
+up the well in the court-yard from the poor people: and if there are
+any who do not credit my story, they may go and see the lough of Cork,
+for there it is to be seen to this day; the road to Kinsale passes at
+one side of it; and when its waters are low and clear, the tops of
+towers and stately buildings may be plainly viewed in the bottom by
+those who have good eyesight, without the help of spectacles.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/122.jpg" width="207" height="187" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XVIII">CORMAC AND MARY.</h2>
+
+<h3>XVIII.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She is not dead&mdash;she has no grave&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She lives beneath Lough Corrib's water;<a id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the murmur of each wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Methinks I catch the songs I taught her."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus many an evening on the shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><span class="i0">Still idly muttering o'er and o'er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"She lives, detain'd by spells unholy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Death claims her not, too fair for earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her spirit lives&mdash;alien of heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor will it know a second birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When sinful mortals are forgiven!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cold is this rock&mdash;the wind comes chill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And mists the gloomy waters cover;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oh! her soul is colder still&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To lose her God&mdash;to leave her lover!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lake was in profound repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet one white wave came gently curling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as it reach'd the shore, arose<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dim figures&mdash;banners gay unfurling.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Onward they move, an airy crowd:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through each thin form a moonlight ray shone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While spear and helm, in pageant proud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Appear in liquid undulation.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their trackless way with antic capers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And curtain clouds hang overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Festoon'd by rainbow-colour'd vapours.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And when a breath of air would stir<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That drapery of Heaven's own wreathing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light wings of prismy gossamer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just moved and sparkled to the breathing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor wanting was the choral song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To sound of which this subtile throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Advanced in playful grace and fleetness.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With music's strain, all came and went<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon poor Cormac's doubting vision;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now rising in wild merriment,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now softly fading in derision.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">[124]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Christ save her soul," he boldly cried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And when that blessed name was spoken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And vanished all,&mdash;the spell was broken.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now on Corrib's lonely shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Freed by his word from power of fa&euml;ry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To life, to love, restored once more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/124.jpg" width="203" height="267" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XIX">THE LEGEND OF LOUGH GUR.</h2>
+
+<h3>XIX.</h3>
+
+<p>Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,<a id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and was thriving
+in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have
+lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the
+misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had
+as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man
+would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one
+could tell how.</p>
+
+<p>One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the
+bounds were well made up, and not a stone of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>them was disturbed;
+neither could his neighbours' cattle have been guilty of the trespass,
+for they were spancelled;<a id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> but however it was done, the grass of
+the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the wide world will I do?" said Larry Cotter to his
+neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: "that
+bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing
+nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad,
+without the help of that to make them worse."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true for you, Larry," replied Welsh: "the times are bitter
+bad&mdash;no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you
+might make out all about it: sure there's Mick and Terry, my two boys,
+will watch with you; for 'tis a thousand pities any honest man like
+you should be ruined in such a scheming way."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh's two sons,
+took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full
+of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that
+was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be
+seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corncreaks
+answering one another across the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys! boys!" said Larry, "look there! look there! but for your lives
+don't make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word."</p>
+
+<p>They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white
+heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper's cow, any way, that danced all the
+flesh off her bones," whispered Mick to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Now boys!" said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven
+white heifers fairly in the meadow, "get between them and the lake if
+you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we'll just put them into
+the pound."</p>
+
+<p>But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a
+great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all
+their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got
+down to the bank <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>before them, and work enough they had to drive them
+up from the lake to Larry Cotter.</p>
+
+<p>Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the
+pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of
+no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own.
+There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until
+one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the
+seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them
+after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went.
+Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry
+Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means.
+So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink
+that killed him, they say.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/126.jpg" width="210" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XX">THE ENCHANTED LAKE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XX.</h3>
+
+<p>In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there
+still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What
+made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned
+persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at
+length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were
+told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its
+waters appeared like fire&mdash;others would speak of horrid forms which
+were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange
+sulphureous smell issued from out of it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named
+Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest
+girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where
+he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three
+of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to
+joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his
+rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his
+mistress:&mdash;but Roderick's confidence in his intended bride was too
+great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his
+pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the
+wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb,
+in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and
+rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest
+sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him
+half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so
+deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions
+laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the
+offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as
+little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales
+which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their
+memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.</p>
+
+<p>"Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?" exclaimed the
+young farmer. "Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of
+you to venture after it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy,
+half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go
+wandering up and down through the country from one place to another.
+When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name,
+spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him
+encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to
+venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he
+spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you at your word," said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his
+coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head
+foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell
+exactly; but he was going,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> going, going down through the water, until
+the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and
+the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw
+fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a
+grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had
+recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable
+under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all
+the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds
+as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down
+the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all
+manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been
+drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She is fair as Cappoquin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have you courage her to win?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And her wealth it far outshines<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cullen's bog and Silvermines.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She exceeds all heart can wish;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not brawling like the Foherish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as the brightly flowing Lee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Graceful, mild, and pure is she!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of
+them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he
+thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:&mdash;no, not the
+wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house,
+bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time
+mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young
+men were singing the song about.</p>
+
+<p>When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from
+the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on
+two legs, with teeth as big as horses' teeth, and up she made towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morrow, Paddeen," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morrow, Ma'am," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"What brought you here?" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis after Rory Keating's gold ring," said he, "I'm come."</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is for you," said Paddeen's fat friend, with a smile on her
+face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Ma'am," replied Paddeen, taking it from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> her:&mdash;"I need not
+say the Lord increase you, for you're fat enough already. Will you
+tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not come to marry me?" cried the corpulent woman in a
+desperate fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Just wait till I come back again, my darling," said Paddeen: "I'm to
+be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else
+they'll wonder what has become of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the money," said the fat woman: "if you marry me, you
+shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat
+woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she
+said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and
+looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular
+inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without
+ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all
+about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there
+was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the
+lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the
+other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had
+happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot;
+and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his
+pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine
+house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men
+to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/129.jpg" width="333" height="233" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXI">THE LEGEND OF O'DONOGHUE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXI.</h3>
+
+<p>In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain
+named O'Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic
+Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and
+justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of
+his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as
+renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a
+proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous
+because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers,
+called "O'Donoghue's Prison," in which this prince once confined his
+own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>His end&mdash;for it cannot correctly be called his death&mdash;was singular and
+mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was
+celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he
+was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen
+in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now
+fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as
+he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the
+miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose
+slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic
+tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its
+unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused
+for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends,
+and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a
+short farewell, disappeared from their view.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of the good O'Donoghue has been cherished by successive
+generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at
+sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure,
+he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general
+permitted to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good
+fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure
+token of an abundant harvest,&mdash;a blessing, the want of which during
+this prince's reign was never felt by his people.</p>
+
+<p>Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O'Donoghue. The
+April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on
+May-morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air
+was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene
+lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles,
+after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe
+that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.</p>
+
+<p>The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit
+of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became
+suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface
+lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a
+foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse,
+exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies
+mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed,
+mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from
+a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue
+scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang
+after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth,
+while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were
+dashed up at every bound.</p>
+
+<p>The warrior was O'Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and
+maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as
+the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were
+linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they
+timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O'Donoghue
+had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned
+his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of
+Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as
+the horse's neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long
+train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial
+music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between
+Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still
+partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the
+wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the
+ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and
+prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint
+repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Thierna na Oge</i>, or the Country of Youth, is the name given to<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">the foregoing section, from the belief that those who dwell in regions<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">of enchantment beneath the water are not affected by the<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">movements of time.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/132.jpg" width="226" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/133.jpg" width="366" height="257" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset22"><p>
+<span class="in5">&mdash;&mdash;"The mysterious depths</span><br />
+And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old."</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mattima's</span> <i>Conchologist</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXII">THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXII.</h3>
+
+<p>On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at
+day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be
+translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the
+lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the
+mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like
+the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the
+pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,
+which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well,
+to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "'tis mighty lonesome to be
+talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul
+to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> answer one&mdash;nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I
+know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune," said
+Dick with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this
+way with me!&mdash;and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's
+no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing
+without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line
+without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete&mdash;Is it
+not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon
+the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and
+looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.</p>
+
+<p>But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that
+rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a
+sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in
+the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.</p>
+
+<p>Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen
+one before, for he spied the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>, or little enchanted
+cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying
+upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could
+possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away
+into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the
+noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.</p>
+
+<p>When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt
+tears&mdash;doubly salt, no doubt, from her&mdash;came trickling down her
+cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of
+a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was
+crying for, determined to keep the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>, let her cry
+never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
+help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and
+her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel let
+alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a
+mighty tender heart of his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
+any bold child, only cried the more for that.</p>
+
+<p>Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> hand, by way
+of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was
+a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but
+'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her
+conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
+now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
+therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
+to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the
+world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.</p>
+
+<p>The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
+and, making an end of her whining all at once&mdash;"Man," says she,
+looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "Man, will you eat me?"</p>
+
+<p>"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
+Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself,
+my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?&mdash;Now 'twas some ugly ill-looking
+thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
+nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
+morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
+that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
+real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she
+called him man, that settled the matter entirely.</p>
+
+<p>"Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
+"fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
+blessed morning, that I'll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the
+world, and that's what I'll do."</p>
+
+<p>"Never say the word twice," says she; "I'm ready and willing to be
+yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my
+hair."</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for
+she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she
+would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her
+pocket,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the
+water that was close to the foot of the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
+towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and
+says he in the greatest wonder; "Is it speaking you are, my darling,
+to the salt water?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing else," says she quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word
+home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep
+him from being uneasy in his mind."</p>
+
+<p>"And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the
+king of the waves, to be sure!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening
+his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
+father;&mdash;to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of
+the sea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and may
+be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want."</p>
+
+<p>"To speak the truth, then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at
+home before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a
+king's daughter: so, if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to
+mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets&mdash;but what am
+I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under
+the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald&mdash;plenty of beds at your
+service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
+planting for the rearing of young ones."</p>
+
+<p>"You have?" says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
+puzzled. "'Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of&mdash;but clearly, yours is
+the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each
+other, that a person when they'd have the one, need never ask for the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> Fitzgerald determined
+to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
+went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
+where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his
+Reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd
+marry?&mdash;the Lord preserve us!&mdash;Send the scaly creature home to her own
+people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from."</p>
+
+<p>Dick had the <i>cohuleen driuth</i> in his hand, and was about to give it
+back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
+moment, and then, says he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Please your Reverence she's a king's daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I
+tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish."</p>
+
+<p>"Please your Reverence," said Dick again, in an under tone, "she is as
+mild and as beautiful as the moon."</p>
+
+<p>"If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
+put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the Priest stamping
+his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!"</p>
+
+<p>"But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,
+and I'm a made man if I marry her; and," said Dick, looking up slily,
+"I can make it worth any one's while to do the job."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the Priest; "why there's
+some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this
+before?&mdash;marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money,
+you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well
+have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the
+pains in counselling you as I have done."</p>
+
+<p>So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
+any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
+other. Every thing prospered with Dick&mdash;he was at the sunny side of
+the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together
+in the greatest contentment.</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
+how she would busy herself about the house,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> and how well she nursed
+the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young
+Fitzgeralds&mdash;two boys and a girl.</p>
+
+<p>In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the
+end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what
+he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit
+enough to do that.</p>
+
+<p>One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife,
+minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
+do without disturbing his fishing tackle.</p>
+
+<p>Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the
+house, and chancing to pull down a fishingnet, what should she find
+behind it in a hole in the wall but her own <i>cohuleen driuth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father
+the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and
+she felt a longing to go back to them.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had
+spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on
+the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart
+to lose her. "But," says she, "he won't lose me entirely, for I'll
+come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my
+father and my mother, after being so long away from them."</p>
+
+<p>She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once
+more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it
+gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her
+eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and
+turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her
+brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The
+Merrow then went down to the strand.&mdash;The sea was lying calm and
+smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she
+heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old
+ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children
+were at the instant forgotten, and placing the <i>cohuleen driuth</i> on
+her head, she plunged in.</p>
+
+<p>Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked
+Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> mother, but she
+could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned
+that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking
+thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to
+search for the <i>cohuleen driuth</i>. It was gone and the truth now
+flashed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his
+wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always
+thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and
+nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her
+below by main force; "For," says Dick, "she surely would not of
+herself give up her husband and her children."</p>
+
+<p>While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that
+to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the
+pattern for one, under the name of <span class="smcap">the Lady of Gollerus</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/139.jpg" width="192" height="147" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIII">FLORY CANTILLON'S FUNERAL.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXIII.</h3>
+
+<p>The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in
+Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the
+shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the
+encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of
+Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of
+an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear
+green sea, of a sunny afternoon.<a id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> However <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>this may be, it is well
+known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families,
+strongly attached to their ancient burial place; and this attachment
+led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse
+to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of
+the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was
+traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased
+to their family tomb.</p>
+
+<p>Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by
+marriage. "Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,"
+as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor,
+be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal
+virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double
+that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he
+did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony
+of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don't think
+I should say wrong.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to
+satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under
+the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow's death, away
+with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a
+beautiful corpse he made.</p>
+
+<p>Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was
+stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was
+all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less
+than three girls got husbands there&mdash;more luck to them. Every thing
+was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to
+Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and,
+according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh
+strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose
+of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor
+Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop
+of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and
+down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock,
+and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance
+of the ghostly undertakers.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which
+he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his
+head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand
+recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more
+pensive.</p>
+
+<p>"If 'twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I
+was," said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, "one might well believe that the
+prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the
+castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for
+never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin
+amongst them all. 'Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations
+and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,"
+continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his
+companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, "didn't I know all
+the time well enough, 'twas the dismal sounding waves working through
+the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam.
+Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower
+on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy
+thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the
+smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save
+us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man's Lake at
+midnight. Well then, any how," said Connor, after a pause, "is it not
+a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face?
+St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!"</p>
+
+<p>It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen
+around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the
+sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding
+his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to
+repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the
+black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually
+converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the
+dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth
+strange and visionary forms.</p>
+
+<p>As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught
+himself more than once in the fact of nodding,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> when suddenly giving
+his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the
+narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.</p>
+
+<p>It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when
+he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger,
+above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and
+presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes
+of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep
+murmur mingled with and supported the strain!</p>
+
+<p>The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and
+then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a
+number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures,
+emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to
+launch into the water.</p>
+
+<p>"This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth," said one of the
+figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.</p>
+
+<p>"True," replied another, with a voice still more fearful, "our king
+would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour
+the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter,
+Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the time will come," said a third, bending over the coffin,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When mortal eye&mdash;our work shall spy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mortal ear&mdash;our dirge shall hear."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Then," said a fourth, "our burial of the Cantillons is at an end for
+ever!"</p>
+
+<p>As this was spoken the coffin was borne from the beach by a retiring
+wave, and the company of sea people prepared to follow it; but at the
+moment one chanced to discover Connor Crowe, as fixed with wonder and
+as motionless with fear as the stone on which he sat.</p>
+
+<p>"The time is come," cried the unearthly being, "the time is come: a
+human eye looks on the forms of ocean, a human ear has heard their
+voices; farewell to the Cantillons; the sons of the sea are no longer
+doomed to bury the dust of the earth!"</p>
+
+<p>One after the other turned slowly round, and regarded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> Connor Crowe,
+who still remained as if bound by a spell. Again arose their funeral
+song; and on the next wave they followed the coffin. The sound of the
+lamentation died away, and at length nothing was heard but the rush of
+waters. The coffin and the train of sea people sank over the old
+church-yard, and never, since the funeral of old Flory Cantillon, have
+any of the family been carried to the strand of Ballyheigh, for
+conveyance to their rightful burial-place, beneath the waves of the
+Atlantic.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/143.jpg" width="214" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIV">THE LORD OF DUNKERRON.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXIV.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron<a id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>&mdash;O'Sullivan More,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why seeks he at midnight the sea-beaten shore?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bark lies in haven his hounds are asleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No foes are abroad on the land or the deep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet nightly the lord of Dunkerron is known<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the wild shore to watch and to wander alone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a beautiful spirit of ocean, 'tis said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When, by moonlight, the waters were hush'd to repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That beautiful spirit of ocean arose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her hair, full of lustre, just floated and fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Long, long had he loved her&mdash;long vainly essay'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lure from her dwelling the coy ocean maid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And long had he wander'd and watch'd by the tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To claim the fair spirit O'Sullivan's bride!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The maiden she gazed on the creature of earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose voice in her breast to a feeling gave birth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then smiled; and, abashed as a maiden might be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looking down, gently sank to her home in the sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though gentle that smile, as the moonlight above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'Sullivan felt 'twas the dawning of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hope came on hope, spreading over his mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the eddy of circles her wake left behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lord of Dunkerron he plunged in the waves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sought through the fierce rush of waters, their caves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gloom of whose depth studded over with spars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had the glitter of midnight when lit up by stars.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Who can tell or can fancy the treasures that sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entombed in the wonderful womb of the deep?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pearls and the gems, as if valueless, thrown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lie 'mid the sea-wrack concealed and unknown.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Down, down went the maid,&mdash;still the chieftain pursued;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who flies must be followed ere she can be wooed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Untempted by treasures, unawed by alarms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maiden at length he has clasped in his arms!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They rose from the deep by a smooth-spreading strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence beauty and verdure stretch'd over the land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas an isle of enchantment! and lightly the breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a musical murmur, just crept through the trees.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The haze-woven shroud of that newly born isle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softly faded away, from a magical pile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A palace of crystal, whose bright-beaming sheen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had the tints of the rainbow&mdash;red, yellow, and green.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And grottoes, fantastic in hue and in form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were there, as flung up&mdash;the wild sport of the storm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet all was so cloudless, so lovely, and calm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seemed but a region of sunshine and balm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here, here shall we dwell in a dream of delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the glories of earth and of ocean unite!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, loved son of earth! I must from thee away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are laws which e'en spirits are bound to obey!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Once more must I visit the chief of my race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sanction to gain ere I meet thy embrace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a moment I dive to the chambers beneath:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One cause can detain me&mdash;one only&mdash;'tis death!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They parted in sorrow, with vows true and fond;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The language of promise had nothing beyond.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His soul all on fire, with anxiety burns:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moment is gone&mdash;but no maiden returns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What sounds from the deep meet his terrified ear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What accents of rage and of grief does he hear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What sees he? what change has come over the flood&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What tinges its green with a jetty of blood?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can he doubt what the gush of warm blood would explain?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she sought the consent of her monarch in vain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For see all around him, in white foam and froth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The waves of the ocean boil up in their wroth!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The palace of crystal has melted in air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the dyes of the rainbow no longer are there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grottoes with vapour and clouds are o'ercast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sunshine is darkness&mdash;the vision has past!<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Loud, loud was the call of his serfs for their chief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They sought him with accents of wailing and grief:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard, and he struggled&mdash;a wave to the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exhausted and faint, bears O'Sullivan More!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/146.jpg" width="287" height="149" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXV">THE WONDERFUL TUNE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXV.</h3>
+
+<p>Maurice Connor was the king, and that's no small word, of all the
+pipers in Munster. He could play jig and planxty without end, and
+Ollistrum's March, and the Eagle's Whistle, and the Hen's Concert, and
+odd tunes of every sort and kind. But he knew one, far more surprising
+than the rest, which had in it the power to set every thing dead or
+alive dancing.</p>
+
+<p>In what way he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was mighty
+cautious about telling how he came by so wonderful a tune. At the very
+first note of that tune, the brogues began shaking upon the feet of
+all who heard it&mdash;old or young it mattered not&mdash;just as if their
+brogues had the ague; then the feet began going&mdash;going&mdash;going from
+under them, and at last up and away with them, dancing like
+mad!&mdash;whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a
+storm&mdash;there was no halting while the music lasted!</p>
+
+<p>Not a fair, nor a wedding, nor a patron in the seven parishes round,
+was counted worth the speaking of without "blind Maurice and his
+pipes." His mother, poor woman, used to lead him about from one place
+to another, just like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Down through Iveragh&mdash;a place that ought to be proud<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> of itself, for
+'tis Daniel O'Connell's country&mdash;Maurice Connor and his mother were
+taking their rounds. Beyond all other places Iveragh is the place for
+stormy coast and steep mountains: as proper a spot it is as any in
+Ireland to get yourself drowned, or your neck broken on the land,
+should you prefer that. But, notwithstanding, in Ballinskellig bay
+there is a neat bit of ground, well fitted for diversion, and down
+from it towards the water, is a clean smooth piece of strand&mdash;the dead
+image of a calm summer's sea on a moonlight night, with just the curl
+of the small waves upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Here it was that Maurice's music had brought from all parts a great
+gathering of the young men and the young women&mdash;<i>O the darlints!</i>&mdash;for
+'twas not every day the strand of Trafraska was stirred up by the
+voice of a bagpipe. The dance began; and as pretty a rinkafadda it was
+as ever was danced. "Brave music," said every body, "and well done,"
+when Maurice stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"More power to your elbow, Maurice, and a fair wind in the bellows,"
+cried Paddy Dorman, a hump-backed dancing-master, who was there to
+keep order. "'Tis a pity," said he, "if we'd let the piper run dry
+after such music; 'twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn't come
+on it since the week of the three Sundays." So, as well became him,
+for he was always a decent man, says he: "Did you drink, piper?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will, sir," says Maurice, answering the question on the safe side,
+for you never yet knew piper or schoolmaster who refused his drink.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you drink, Maurice?" says Paddy.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no ways particular," says Maurice; "I drink any thing, and give
+God thanks, barring <i>raw</i> water; but if 'tis all the same to you,
+mister Dorman, may be you wouldn't lend me the loan of a glass of
+whiskey."</p>
+
+<p>"I've no glass, Maurice," said Paddy; "I've only the bottle."</p>
+
+<p>"Let that be no hindrance," answered Maurice; "my mouth just holds a
+glass to the drop; often I've tried it, sure."</p>
+
+<p>So Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle&mdash;more fool was he; and, to
+his cost, he found that though Maurice's<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> mouth might not hold more
+than the glass at one time, yet, owing to the hole in his throat, it
+took many a filling.</p>
+
+<p>"That was no bad whisky neither," says Maurice, handing back the empty
+bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"By the holy frost, then!" says Paddy, "'tis but <i>cowld</i> comfort
+there's in that bottle now; and 'tis your word we must take for the
+strength of the whisky, for you've left us no sample to judge by:" and
+to be sure Maurice had not.</p>
+
+<p>Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding,
+that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one
+pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water;
+and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men
+who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these
+Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his
+own&mdash;he was fairly tipsy. Don't think I blame him for it; 'tis often a
+good man's case; but true is the word that says, "when liquor's in,
+sense is out;" and puff, at a breath, before you could say "Lord save
+us!" out he blasted his wonderful tune.</p>
+
+<p>'Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice
+himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the
+other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour
+the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as
+the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of
+all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was
+going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner
+of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more
+and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful
+tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with
+the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other
+claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight
+surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father
+Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; <i>bolg an
+dana</i>, as they used to call him&mdash;a wallet of poems. If you have not he
+was as pleasant a man as one would wish to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> drink with of a hot
+summer's day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so
+neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses;
+so here's my hand at an upset of them into English:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The big seals in motion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like waves of the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or gouty feet prancing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came heading the gay fish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Determined on dancing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sweet sounds they follow'd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gasping cod swallow'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas wonderful, really!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turbot and flounder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Mid fish that were rounder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just caper'd as gaily.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">John-dories came tripping;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dull hake, by their skipping<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To frisk it seem'd given;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright mackerel went springing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like small rainbows winging<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their flight up to heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The whiting and haddock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left salt-water paddock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This dance to be put in:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where skate with flat faces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Edged out some odd plaices;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But soles kept their footing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sprats and herrings in powers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of silvery showers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All number out-number'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And great ling so lengthy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were there in such plenty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shore was encumber'd.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The scollop and oyster<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their two shells did roister,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like castanets fitting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While limpets moved clearly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rocks very nearly<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With laughter were splitting.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; 'twas as
+if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice
+Connor's wonderful tune!</p>
+
+<p>In the height of all these doings, what should there be dancing among
+the outlandish set of fishes but a beautiful young woman&mdash;as beautiful
+as the dawn of day! She had a cocked hat upon her head; from under it
+her long green hair&mdash;just the colour of the sea&mdash;fell down behind,
+without hinderance to her dancing. Her teeth were like rows of pearl;
+her lips for all the world looked like red coral; and she had an
+elegant gown, as white as the foam of the wave, with little rows of
+purple and red sea-weeds settled out upon it; for you never yet saw a
+lady, under the water or over the water, who had not a good notion of
+dressing herself out.</p>
+
+<p>Up she danced at last to Maurice, who was flinging his feet from under
+him as fast as hops&mdash;for nothing in this world could keep still while
+that tune of his was going on&mdash;and says she to him, chaunting it out
+with a voice as sweet as honey&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'm a lady of honour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who live in the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come down, Maurice Connor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And be married to me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Silver plates and gold dishes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You shall have, and shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The king of the fishes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When you're married to me."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Drink was strong in Maurice's head, and out he chaunted in return for
+her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after
+making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore 'twas only right in
+him to give her as good as she gave herself&mdash;so says Maurice,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'm obliged to you, madam:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Off a gold dish or plate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If a king, and I had 'em,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I could dine in great state.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"With your own father's daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I'd be sure to agree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to drink the salt water<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wouldn't do so with me!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side
+to side like a great scholar, "Well," says she, "Maurice, if you're
+not a poet, where is poetry to be found?"</p>
+
+<p>In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one
+answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as
+their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the
+clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing
+to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into
+their heads to do to him if they got vexed.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with
+soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry
+her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well
+fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them
+dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any
+fish of them all.</p>
+
+<p>When Maurice's mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form
+of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down
+together so lovingly to the water's edge through the thick of the
+fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. "Oh then,"
+says she, "as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away
+from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but 'tis
+grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod&mdash;Lord help and pity me, but
+'tis a mighty unnatural thing!&mdash;and may be 'tis boiling and eating my
+own grandchild I'll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing
+it!&mdash;Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there's any love or nature left in you,
+come back to your own <i>ould</i> mother, who reared you like a decent
+Christian!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would
+do any one good to hear her.</p>
+
+<p>Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept
+playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great
+thundering wave coming in towards him<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> ready to swallow him up alive;
+but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who
+saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her
+cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as
+ever mother's heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all
+the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help
+it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.</p>
+
+<p>He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother's voice,
+fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made
+back was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whisht with you, mother&mdash;sure I'm going to be king over the fishes
+down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive
+and well, I'll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of
+burned wood to Trafraska." Maurice had not the power to say a word
+more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just
+upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a
+big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their
+heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be
+heard as far as Cape Clear.</p>
+
+<p>That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in
+Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all
+the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would
+have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had
+said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came
+ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred
+years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why
+people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to
+his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of
+them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her
+own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance&mdash;some say
+it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor
+was decently buried with her own people.</p>
+
+<p>Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still
+night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have
+had good ears, could plainly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> distinguish Maurice Connor's voice
+singing these words to his pipes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never would I have parted from thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But for the sake of my fair ladie.<a id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/153.jpg" width="187" height="177" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Irish <i>Merrow</i> answers exactly to the English Mermaid. It
+is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and
+Cornish <i>Morhuch</i>, to which it evidently bears analogy.</p>
+
+<p>The romantic historians of Ireland describe the <i>Suire</i> as
+playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage
+to that Island.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/154.jpg" width="223" height="205" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">THE DULLAHAN.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/155.jpg" width="399" height="326" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset18"><p>
+"Then wonder not at <i>headless folk</i>,<br />
+<span class="in1">Since every day you greet 'em;</span><br />
+Nor treat old stories as a joke,<br />
+<span class="in1">When fools you daily meet 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>The Legendary.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset22"><p>
+"Says the friar, 'tis strange headless horses should trot."</p>
+<p class="right"><i>Old Song.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVI">THE GOOD WOMAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXVI.</h3>
+
+<p>In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight's
+country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his
+wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they
+cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry.
+They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved
+each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had
+altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.</p>
+
+<p>Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a hard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> drinking,
+Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a
+steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much
+whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his
+walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a
+moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity,
+and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was
+generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding
+he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face,
+even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst
+censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in
+strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their
+faults,&mdash;indeed, who is without them?&mdash;and as Larry, setting aside his
+domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most
+distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in
+some degree excused, considering the inducements of "the stirrup cup,"
+and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the
+greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.</p>
+
+<p>Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his
+drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his
+character&mdash;a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He
+wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up
+collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of
+leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted
+like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a
+degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked
+along. A hat covered with oilskin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged
+at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly
+second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a
+refreshing draught of Warren's blacking of matchless lustre!&mdash;and one
+spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a
+rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a
+few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just
+purchased the said nag, with a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> fancy that he could make his own money
+again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the
+ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair
+and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a
+lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and
+wondering would horses always be so low. "If they go at this rate,"
+said he to himself, "for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer's
+notes, who would be the fool to walk?" This very thought, indeed, was
+passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing
+quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to
+reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure,
+considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common
+size&mdash;rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel
+was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no
+precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the
+female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely
+concealed every feature.</p>
+
+<p>Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange
+woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd's
+steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift
+behind him, as far as he was going her way. "Civility begets
+civility," they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that
+the lady's silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true
+gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side
+of a gap, and then says he, "<i>Ma colleen beg</i>,<a id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> just jump up behind
+me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I'll
+take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is
+before us."</p>
+
+<p>She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of
+the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up
+behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding
+on.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you're comfortable there, my dear," said Larry, in his own
+good-humoured way; but there was no answer; <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>and on they went&mdash;trot,
+trot, trot&mdash;along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that
+you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile
+off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning
+of a distant stream, that kept up a continued <i>cronane</i>,<a id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> like a
+nurse <i>hushoing</i>. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require
+so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. "'Tis
+only loose the shoe is," said he to his companion, as they were just
+entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken.
+Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches
+festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been
+formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen
+the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful
+recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious
+tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd
+chance the young woman should get <i>spilt</i> in the water, dismounted,
+thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.</p>
+
+<p>"By the piper's luck, that always found what he wanted," said Larry,
+recollecting himself, "I've a nail in my pocket: 'tis not the first
+time I've put on a shoe, and may be it won't be the last; for here is
+no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman
+just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least
+noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she
+was, without saying, "by your leave," or no matter what else. She
+seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a
+field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery
+church&mdash;and a pretty church it was.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast, if you please, young woman&mdash;not so fast," cried Larry,
+calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern
+garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he
+took. "Where's my wages?" said Larry: "<i>Thorum pog, ma colleen
+oge</i>,<a id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>&mdash;sure <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>I've earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips&mdash;and
+I'll have it too!" But she went on faster and faster, regardless of
+these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came
+to the church-yard wall, and then over with her in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she
+steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that
+before;&mdash;but I'll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or
+any ditch either," exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he
+vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the church-yard. Up
+he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary
+that morning was buried&mdash;rest his soul!&mdash;and on went Larry, stumbling
+over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves,
+pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men&mdash;the Lord save
+us!&mdash;that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones;
+floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with
+their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back
+with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved
+through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the
+church-yard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for
+people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor
+of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she
+went. "I'll just wait," said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all
+nothing but a trick to frighten him; "when she comes round again, if I
+don't take the kiss, I won't, that's all,&mdash;and here she is!" Larry
+Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them&mdash;a woman, it
+is true&mdash;but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having
+no head.</p>
+
+<p>"Murder!" cried he. "Well, that accounts for her not speaking." Having
+uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and
+astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came
+over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the
+broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had
+actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!</p>
+
+<p>When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> he
+slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon
+him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture,
+ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty
+Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly
+visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was
+fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs
+were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he
+would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his
+mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry,
+gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared
+and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the
+thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and
+outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe
+touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it
+were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at
+last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells,
+which kept up a continued ding&mdash;ding&mdash;ding&mdash;ding: marrowless bones
+rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell
+came booming on the night wind.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas a spectre rung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bell when it swung&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swing-swang!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the chain it squeaked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the pulley creaked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swing-swang!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And with every roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the deep death toll<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ding-dong!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hollow vault rang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the clapper went bang,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ding-dong!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round
+and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and
+jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons,
+whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who
+were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> not admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their
+brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport
+beyond measure.</p>
+
+<p>Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and
+losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head
+foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm done for and lost for ever," roared Larry, with his heels turned
+towards the stars, and souse down he came.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome," cried every head, bobbing up and down
+in the air. "A drink for Larry Dodd," shouted they, as with one voice,
+that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done,
+for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for
+fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word,
+under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a
+brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis capital stuff," he would have said, which surely it was, but he
+got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began
+dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry,
+however, was not the first man who lost his head through the
+temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more
+did he remember clearly,&mdash;for it seems body and head being parted is
+not very favourable to thought&mdash;but a great hurry scurry with the
+noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.</p>
+
+<p>When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to
+where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it
+still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and
+somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look
+around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of
+Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of
+which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, "upon the lap
+of earth." Could it have been an ugly dream? "Oh no," said Larry, "a
+dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my
+back, with that death's head and cross marrow bones forenenting me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> on
+the fine old tombstone there that was <i>faced</i> by Pat Kearney<a id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> of
+Kilcrea&mdash;but where is the horse?" He got up slowly, every joint aching
+with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of
+water, but no horse was there. "'Tis home I must go," said Larry, with
+a rueful countenance; "but how will I face Nancy?&mdash;what will I tell
+her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.'s that he cost me?&mdash;'Tis
+them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me&mdash;the
+horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the
+gallows!&mdash;but what's gone is gone, that's a clear case!"&mdash;so saying,
+he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon
+without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy,
+who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for
+being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he
+gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of
+grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest
+man with seven I. O. U.'s, three of which she knew to be as good as
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>"But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and
+at that time of the night, Larry?" inquired his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he
+scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so
+he knew not what to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Larry, Larry," muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his
+answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; "'tis the
+very same way with you as with any other man&mdash;you are all alike for
+that matter&mdash;I've no pity for you&mdash;but, confess the truth."</p>
+
+<p>Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break
+upon his devoted head.</p>
+
+<p>"Nancy," said he, "I do confess:&mdash;it was a young woman without any
+head that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His wife heard no more. "A woman I knew it was," cried she; "but a
+woman without a head, Larry!&mdash;well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher
+ever thought it would come to that with her!&mdash;that she would be left
+dissolute and alone here by her <i>baste</i> of a husband, for a woman
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>without a head!&mdash;O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well
+you are low to-day!&mdash;that you don't see this affliction and disgrace
+to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.</p>
+
+<p>"O Larry, you villain, you'll be the death of your lawful wife going
+after such O&mdash;O&mdash;O&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Larry, putting his hands in his coatpockets, "least said
+is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll
+Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be
+called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!"</p>
+
+<p>How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not
+inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVII">HANLON'S MILL.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXVII.</h3>
+
+<p>One fine summer's evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien's,
+the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was
+mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very
+lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till
+he came to Hanlon's mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin
+many a long year ago.</p>
+
+<p>Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old
+wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the
+bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and
+motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with
+the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.</p>
+
+<p>Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was
+not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it
+and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the
+real Irish <i>karacter</i>. He kept a school once, and could teach the
+Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I
+hear tell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> as how "the great Burke" went to school to him. Master
+Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family,
+and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Michael Noonan's walk I was about speaking of. It was
+fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not
+yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard,
+coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and
+the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were
+coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of
+the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back
+every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see,
+and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way
+till he got up to Jack Brien's door; and he was certain, too, he heard
+the clack of old Hanlon's mill going, through all the clatter. To be
+sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never
+once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out
+in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come
+out of the noise of Hanlon's mill.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and
+well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack
+Brien's before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty
+decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be
+travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between
+Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour
+of Michael Noonan's.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it home you're going with the brogues this blessed night?" said
+Darby to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where else would it be?" replied Mick: "but, by my word, 'tis not
+across the Inch back again I'm going, after all I heard coming here;
+'tis to no good that old Hanlon's mill is busy again."</p>
+
+<p>"True, for you," said Darby; "and may be you'd take<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> the horse and car
+home for me, Mick, by way of company, as 'tis along the road you go.
+I'm waiting here to see a sister's son of mine that I expect from
+Kilcoleman." "That same I'll do," answered Mick, "with a thousand
+welcomes." So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor
+beast had come off a long journey; and Mick&mdash;God reward him for
+it&mdash;was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.</p>
+
+<p>The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old;
+and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on
+her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He
+had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew
+on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light
+which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got
+between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the
+horse's head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream
+through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade.
+Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the
+plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little
+pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if
+a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see
+if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close along-side
+of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with
+long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman
+dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick
+the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman
+or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses
+raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the
+coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning
+round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the
+regular step of his gossip Darby's horse, and the squeaking of the
+gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a
+little grease.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mick's heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only
+looked on; and the black coach swept away<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> and was soon lost among
+some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any
+thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount
+Hillery&mdash;took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the
+field for the night, and got to his bed.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all
+that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was
+Mr. Wrixon's huntsman, coming on the master's best horse down the
+hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick's mind
+instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the
+very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan's bridle when he came
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Mick, dear&mdash;for the love of heaven! don't stop me," cried Dan.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the hurry?" said Mick.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the master!&mdash;he's off,&mdash;he's off&mdash;he'll never cross a horse again
+till the day of judgment!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what would ail his honour?" said Mick; "sure it is no later than
+yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty;
+and says he to me, Mick, says he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stout and hearty was he?" answered Madden; "and was he not out with
+me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn't
+he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his
+own hand, and tell me he'd ride the old General to-day; and sure,"
+said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, "who'd have
+thought that the first thing I'd see this morning was the mistress
+standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire
+for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and"&mdash;poor Dan's
+grief choked his voice&mdash;"oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run
+over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife;
+she's a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master,
+till I get the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his
+newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan's;
+but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next
+night's moon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> saw Ballygibblin&mdash;and more's the pity&mdash;a house of
+mourning.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/167.jpg" width="198" height="183" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXVIII">THE DEATH COACH.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXVIII.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis midnight!&mdash;how gloomy and dark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By Jupiter there's not a star!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis fearful!&mdash;'tis awful!&mdash;and hark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What sound is that comes from afar?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still rolling and rumbling, that sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Makes nearer and nearer approach;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do I tremble, or is it the ground?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lord save us!&mdash;what is it?&mdash;a coach!&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A coach!&mdash;but that coach has no head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the horses are headless as it:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the driver the same may be said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the passengers inside who sit.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">See the wheels! how they fly o'er the stones!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their spokes are of dead men's thigh bones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the pole is the spine of the back!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The hammer-cloth, shabby display,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is a pall rather mildew'd by damps;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And to light this strange coach on its way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the gloom of Rathcooney church-yard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They dash down the hill of Glanmire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass Lota in gallop as hard<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if horses were never to tire!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With people thus headless 'tis fun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To drive in such furious career;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since <i>headlong</i> their horses can't run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor coachman be <i>heady</i> from beer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Very steep is the Tivoli lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But up-hill to them is as down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor the charms of Woodhill can detain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">These Dullahans rushing to town.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Could they feel as I've felt&mdash;in a song&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A spell that forbade them depart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They'd a lingering visit prolong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And after their head lose their heart!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No matter!&mdash;'tis past twelve o'clock;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, taking the road to Blackrock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cork city is soon left behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Should they hurry thus reckless along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To supper instead of to bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The landlord will surely be wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If he charge it at so much a head!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet mine host may suppose them too poor<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bring to his wealth an increase;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As till now, all who drove to his door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Possess'd at least <i>one crown</i> a-piece.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up the Deadwoman's hill they are roll'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ballintemple they reach, and behold!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At its church-yard they stop and alight.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who's there?" said a voice from the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"We've no room, for the place is quite full."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"O! room must be speedily found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For we come from the parish of Skull.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Though Murphys and Crowleys appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On headstones of deep-letter'd pride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet here for the night we lie down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To-morrow we speed on the gale;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For having no heads of our own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We seek the Old Head of Kinsale."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/169.jpg" width="339" height="171" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXIX">THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXIX.</h3>
+
+<p>"God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,"
+ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley
+after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length
+had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride
+and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks
+of which he was about to journey.</p>
+
+<p>Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a
+rider as any Mallow-boy that ever <i>rattled</i> a four-year-old upon
+Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for
+the purpose of purchasing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> some ingredients required for the Christmas
+dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins
+fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare
+at the approaching St. Stephen's day hunt.</p>
+
+<p>Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not
+one of your "nasty particular sort of fellows" in any thing that
+related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments
+connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was
+connected with the old mare, "Charley," the saddlers said, "was the
+devil to <i>plase</i>." An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded
+by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full
+twelve miles nearer "Charley's farm" (which lay just three quarters
+of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with
+all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim
+Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself "Saddler to the Duhallow
+Hunt;" and no one could content him in all particulars but honest
+Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert&mdash;and who will doubt
+it&mdash;that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant,
+although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow
+Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to
+his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the "Harp of Erin." Con,
+however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good
+use of what he had to spare. "I won't bother you waiting for water,
+Charley, because I think you'll have enough of that same before you
+get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It's as good <i>parliament</i> as
+ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear 'x
+<i>waters</i>,' and carry the bead after that, may be."</p>
+
+<p>Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con,
+and success to the jolly "Harp of Erin," with its head of beauty and
+its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and
+so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle
+reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the other<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+side of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his
+journey than his gossip's at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of
+Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con
+Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the "real stuff,"
+he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend's hospitality,
+darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into
+a canter towards home.</p>
+
+<p>The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course
+of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing
+through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats
+that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain,
+which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good
+woman's currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds
+of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he
+belonged to the "Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers," always strapped
+to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military
+effect of by putting it on.&mdash;Away he went singing like a thrush&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breaking windows&mdash;(<i>hiccup</i>!)&mdash;sinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ever raking&mdash;never thinking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Live the rakes of Mallow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Spending faster than it comes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beating&mdash;(<i>hiccup, hic</i>,) and duns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duhallow's true-begotten sons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Live the rakes of Mallow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly "Harp of Erin" had a
+little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of
+the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train
+of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded
+defeat of the pride of his long-anticipated <i>turn out</i> on St.
+Stephen's day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm,
+and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against
+Mr. Jephson's bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt
+sore misgivings<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> as to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone
+he continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Living short, but merry lives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going where the devil drives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keeping&mdash;&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Keeping" he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a
+trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley's eye fell on the old
+walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent
+gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and
+pattered on the gravestones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if
+there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle
+reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was
+arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the
+evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with
+short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed
+rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could
+possibly be traced&mdash;the head advanced&mdash;Charley's old mare, too, was
+moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her
+trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley,
+pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for
+what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did
+not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by
+finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus
+so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition
+presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well
+as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at
+least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse
+full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could
+not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the
+body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his
+practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.</p>
+
+<p>After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the
+exclamation "I'm sold now for ever!" was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> over, the attention of
+Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this
+extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a
+connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually
+mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see
+whether his companion's silence proceeded from bad temper, want of
+conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that
+the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the
+rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley
+endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion's face, in order to form
+an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him
+farther than the top of the collar of the figure's coat, which was a
+scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very
+old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining
+buttons at about a yard distance behind. "I ought to see farther than
+this, too," thought Charley, "although he is mounted on his high
+horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week,
+unless 'tis Con's whiskey that has blinded me entirely." However, see
+farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable
+time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, "'By the big
+bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look again, Charley Culnane," said a hoarse voice, that seemed to
+proceed from under the right arm of the figure.</p>
+
+<p>Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly
+saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had
+proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a
+large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour
+enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay
+stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head
+of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange
+and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to
+complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which
+peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless
+blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> hitherto
+concealed from Charley's eyes, now burst upon his view in all its
+hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the
+county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by
+this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered
+his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic
+horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards
+in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the
+use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at
+a trot by Charley's side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet
+of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of
+the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under
+the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools
+became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.</p>
+
+<p>On they went&mdash;heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.&mdash;The
+deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of
+hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the
+mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a
+merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt
+tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil
+disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to
+the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed,
+plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph," growled the head from under the horseman's right arm.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis not an over civil answer," thought Charley; "but no matter, he
+was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at
+all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. I'll try him on the other track. Ahem!" said Charley, clearing
+his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second
+attempt to establish a conversation. "Ahem! that's a mighty neat coat
+of your honour's, although 'tis a little too long in the waist for the
+present cut."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Humph," growled again the head.</p>
+
+<p>This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley,
+who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would
+prove more agreeable. "'Tis a sensible head," thought Charley,
+"although an ugly one, for 'tis plain enough the man does not like
+flattery." A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make,
+and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his
+fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to
+the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside
+his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very
+knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow
+Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real
+Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third
+attempt.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure, that's a brave horse your honour rides," recommenced the
+persevering Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"You may say that, with your own ugly mouth," growled the head.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless
+chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"May be your honour wouldn't be after riding him across the country?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you try me, Charley?" said the head, with an inexpressible look
+of ghastly delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, and that's what I'd do," responded Charley, "only I'm afraid,
+the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I've every
+halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels."</p>
+
+<p>This was true enough; Charley's courage was nothing dashed at the
+headless horseman's proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor
+a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane
+was not at it, and foremost in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take my word," said the man who carried his head so snugly
+under his right arm, "for the safety of your mare?"</p>
+
+<p>"Done," said Charley; and away they started, helter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> skelter, over
+every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such
+style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his
+companion, when the hoarse voice called out, "Charley Culnane,
+Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley pulled up hard. "Ay," said he, "you may beat me by the head,
+because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was
+neck-and-neck, and that's the go between the old mare and Desdemona,
+I'd win it hollow!"</p>
+
+<p>It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in
+Charley's mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley Culnane," says he, "you have a stout soul in you, and are
+every inch of you a good rider. I've tried you, and I ought to know;
+and that's the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since
+my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and
+ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me,
+and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail
+of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall,
+and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare."</p>
+
+<p>Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger's right arm, for
+the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest,
+but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the
+horseman's scarlet hunting-coat. The horse's head had ascended
+perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising
+quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of
+Charley Culnane.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and
+perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife's pudding, the new
+snaffle&mdash;even the match against squire Jephson&mdash;all were forgotten;
+nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless
+horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it
+the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the
+hunt on St. Stephen's day: but what provoked him after all the pains
+he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one
+and all attributed the creation of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> headless horseman to his
+friend Con Buckley's "X water parliament." This, however, should be
+told, that Charley's old mare beat Mr. Jephson's bay filly, Desdemona,
+by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn't
+win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don't know any
+other reason for his doing so.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/177.jpg" width="276" height="196" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dullahan</span> or <span class="smcap">Dulachan</span> signifies a dark sullen person. The word
+<i>Durrachan</i> or <i>Dullahan</i>, by which in some places the goblin
+is known, has the same signification. It comes from <i>Dorr</i> or
+<i>Durr</i>, anger, or <i>Durrach</i>, malicious, fierce, &amp;c.&mdash;<i>MS.
+communication from the late</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Edward O'Reilly</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The correctness of this last etymology may be questioned, as
+black is evidently a component part of the word.</p>
+
+<p>The Death Coach, or Headless Coach and Horses, is called in
+Ireland "<i>Coach a bower</i>;" and its appearance is generally
+regarded as a sign of death, or an omen of some misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>The belief in the appearance of headless people and horses
+appears to be, like most popular superstitions, widely
+extended.</p>
+
+<p>In England, see the Spectator (No. 110) for mention of a spirit
+that had appeared in the shape of a black horse without a head.</p>
+
+<p>In Wales, the apparition of "<i>Fenyw heb un pen</i>," the headless
+woman, and "<i>Ceffyl heb un pen</i>," the headless horse, are
+generally accredited.&mdash;<i>MS. communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Miss Williams</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"The Irish Dullahan puts me in mind of a spectre at Drumlanrig
+Castle, of no less a person than the Duchess of
+Queensberry,&mdash;'Fair Kitty, blooming, young, and gay,'&mdash;who,
+instead of setting fire to the world in mamma's chariot, amuses
+herself with wheeling her own head in a wheel-barrow through
+the great gallery."&mdash;<i>MS. communication from</i> <span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott</span>.</p>
+
+<p>In Scotland, so recently as January, 1826, that veritable
+paper, the Glasgow Chronicle, records, upon the occasion of
+some silk-weavers being out of employment at Paisley, that
+"Visions have been seen of carts, caravans, and coaches, going
+up Gleniffer braes without horses, with horses without heads,"
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Cervantes mentions tales of the "<i>Caballo sin cabe&ccedil;a</i> among the
+<i>cuentos de viejas con que se entretienen al fuego las
+dilatadas noches del invierno</i>," &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"The people of Basse Br&eacute;tagne believe, that when the death of
+any person is at hand, a hearse drawn by skeletons (which they
+call <i>carriquet au nankon</i>,) and covered with a white sheet,
+passes by the house where the sick person lies, and the
+creaking of the wheels may be plainly heard."&mdash;<i>Journal des
+Sciences</i>, 1826, <i>communicated by</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. William Grimm</span>.</p>
+
+<p>See also <i>Thiele's Danske Folkesagn</i>, vol. iv. p. 66, &amp;c.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="h2">THE FIR DARRIG.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/179.jpg" width="394" height="312" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whene'er such wanderers I meete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As from their night-sports they trudge home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With counterfeiting voice I greete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And call them on with me to roame<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through woods, through lakes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through bogs, through brakes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or else, unseene, with them I go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All in the nicke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To play some tricke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">&mdash;<i>Old Song.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXX">DIARMID BAWN, THE PIPER</h2>
+
+<h3>XXX.</h3>
+
+<p>One stormy night Patrick Burke was seated in the chimney corner
+smoking his pipe quite contentedly after his hard day's work; his two
+little boys were roasting potatoes in the ashes, while his rosy
+daughter held a splinter<a id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>to her mother, who, seated on a
+siesteen,<a id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> was mending a rent in Patrick's old coat; and Judy, the
+maid, was singing merrily to the sound of her wheel, that kept up a
+beautiful humming noise, just like the sweet drone of a bagpipe.
+Indeed they all seemed quite contented and happy; for the storm howled
+without, and they were warm and snug within, by the side of a blazing
+turf fire. "I was just thinking," said Patrick, taking the dudeen from
+his mouth and giving it a rap on his thumb-nail to shake out the
+ashes&mdash;"I was just thinking how thankful we ought to be to have a snug
+bit of a cabin this pelting night over our heads, for in all my born
+days I never heard the like of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And that's no lie for you, Pat," said his wife; "but, whisht! what
+noise is that I <i>hard</i>?" and she dropped her work upon her knees, and
+looked fearfully towards the door. "The <i>Vargin</i> herself defend us
+all!" cried Judy, at the same time rapidly making a pious sign on her
+forehead, "if 'tis not the banshee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Patrick, "it's only the old gate
+swinging in the wind;" and he had scarcely spoken, when the door was
+assailed by a violent knocking. Molly began to mumble her prayers, and
+Judy proceeded to mutter over the muster-roll of saints; the
+youngsters scampered off to hide themselves behind the settle-bed; the
+storm howled louder and more fiercely than ever, and the rapping was
+renewed with redoubled violence.</p>
+
+<p>"Whisht, whisht!" said Patrick&mdash;"what a noise ye're all making about
+nothing at all. Judy a-roon, can't you go and see who's at the door?"
+for, notwithstanding his assumed bravery, Pat Burke preferred that the
+maid should open the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, is it me you're speaking to?" said Judy in the tone of
+astonishment; "and is it cracked mad you are, Mister Burke; or is it,
+may be, that you want me to be <i>rund</i> away with, and made a horse of,
+like my grandfather was?&mdash;the sorrow a step will I stir to open the
+door, if you were as great a man again as you are, Pat Burke."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother you, then! and hold your tongue, and I'll go myself." So
+saying, up got Patrick, and made the best of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>his way to the door.
+"Who's there?" said he, and his voice trembled mightily all the while.
+"In the name of Saint Patrick, who's there?" "'Tis I, Pat," answered a
+voice which he immediately knew to be the young squire's. In a moment
+the door was opened, and in walked a young man, with a gun in his
+hand, and a brace of dogs at his heels. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome, entirely," said Patrick; who was a very civil sort of a
+fellow, especially to his betters. "Your honour's honour is quite
+welcome; and if ye'll be so condescending as to demean yourself by
+taking off your wet jacket, Molly can give ye a bran new blanket, and
+ye can sit forenent the fire while the clothes are drying." "Thank
+you, Pat," said the squire, as he wrapt himself, like Mr. Weld, in the
+proffered blanket.<a id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>"But what made you keep me so long at the door?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why then, your honour, 'twas all along of Judy, there, being so much
+afraid of the good people; and a good right she has, after what
+happened to her grandfather&mdash;the Lord rest his soul!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what was that, Pat?" said the squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, your honour must know that Judy had a grandfather; and he
+was <i>ould</i> Diarmid Bawn, the piper, as personable a looking man as any
+in the five parishes he was; and he could play the pipes so sweetly,
+and make them <i>spake</i> to such perfection, that it did one's heart good
+to hear him. We never had any one, for that matter, in this side of
+the country like him, before or since, except James Gandsey, that is
+own piper to Lord Headley&mdash;his honour's lordship is the real good
+gentleman&mdash;and 'tis Mr. Gandsey's music that is the pride of Killarney
+lakes. Well, as I was saying, Diarmid was Judy's grandfather, and he
+rented a small mountainy farm; and he was walking about the fields one
+moonlight night, quite melancholy-like in himself for want of the
+<i>tobaccy</i>; because why, the river was flooded, and he could not get
+across to buy any, and Diarmid would rather go to bed without his
+supper than a whiff of the dudeen. Well, your honour, just as he came
+to the old fort in the far field, what should he see?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>&mdash;but a large
+army of the good people, 'coutered for all the world just like the
+dragoons! 'Are ye all ready?' said a little fellow at their head
+dressed out like a general. 'No,' said a little curmudgeon of a chap
+all dressed in red, from the crown of his cocked hat to the sole of
+his boot. 'No, general,' said he: 'if you don't get the Fir darrig a
+horse he must stay behind, and ye'll lose the battle."</p>
+
+<p>"'There's Diarmid Bawn,' said the general, pointing to Judy's
+grandfather, your honour, 'make a horse of him.'</p>
+
+<p>"So with that master Fir darrig comes up to Diarmid, who, you may be
+sure, was in a mighty great fright; but he determined, seeing there
+was no help for him, to put a bold face on the matter; and so he began
+to cross himself, and to say some blessed words, that nothing bad
+could stand before.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is that what you'd be after, you spalpeen?' said the little red imp,
+at the same time grinning a horrible grin; 'I'm not the man to care a
+straw for either your words or your crossings.' So, without more to
+do, he gives poor Diarmid a rap with the flat side of his sword, and
+in a moment he was changed into a horse, with little Fir darrig stuck
+fast on his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Away they all flew over the wide ocean, like so many wild geese,
+screaming and chattering all the time, till they came to Jamaica; and
+there they had a murdering fight with the good people of that country.
+Well, it was all very well with them, and they stuck to it manfully,
+and fought it out fairly, till one of the Jamaica men made a cut with
+his sword under Diarmid's left eye. And then, sir, you see, poor
+Diarmid lost his temper entirely, and he dashed into the very middle
+of them, with Fir darrig mounted upon his back, and he threw out his
+heels, and whisked his tail about, and wheeled and turned round and
+round at such a rate, that he soon made a fair clearance of them,
+horse, foot, and dragoons. At last Diarmid's faction got the better,
+all through his means; and then they had such feasting and rejoicing,
+and gave Diarmid, who was the finest horse amongst them all, the best
+of every thing.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let every man take a hand of <i>tobaccy</i> for Diarmid Bawn,' said the
+general; and so they did; and away they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> flew, for 'twas getting near
+morning, to the old fort back again, and there they vanished like the
+mist from the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>"When Diarmid looked about, the sun was rising, and he thought it was
+all a dream, till he saw a big rick of <i>tobaccy</i> in the old fort, and
+felt the blood running from his left eye: for sure enough he was
+wounded in the battle, and would have been <i>kilt</i> entirely, if it
+wasn't for a gospel composed by father Murphy that hung about his neck
+ever since he had the scarlet fever; and for certain, it was enough to
+have given him another scarlet fever to have had the little red man
+all night on his back, whip and spur for the bare life. However, there
+was the <i>tobaccy</i> heaped up in a great heap by his side; and he heard
+a voice, although he could see no one, telling him, 'That 'twas all
+his own, for his good behaviour in the battle; and that whenever Fir
+darrig would want a horse again he'd know where to find a clever
+beast, as he never rode a better than Diarmid Bawn.' That's what he
+said, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Pat," said the squire; "it certainly is a wonderful story,
+and I am not surprised at Judy's alarm. But now, as the storm is over,
+and the moon shining brightly, I'll make the best of my way home." So
+saying, he disrobed himself of the blanket, put on his coat, and
+whistling his dogs, set off across the mountain; while Patrick stood
+at the door, bawling after him, "May God and the blessed Virgin
+preserve your honour, and keep ye from the good people; for 'twas of a
+moonlight night like this that Diarmid Bawn was made a horse of, for
+the Fir darrig to ride."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/183.jpg" width="446" height="201" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXI">TEIGUE OF THE LEE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXI.</h3>
+
+<p>"I can't stop in the house&mdash;I won't stop in it for all the money that
+is buried in the old castle of Carrigrohan. If ever there was such a
+thing in the world!&mdash;to be abused to my face night and day, and nobody
+to the fore doing it! and then, if I'm angry, to be laughed at with a
+great roaring ho, ho, ho! I won't stay in the house after to-night, if
+there was not another place in the country to put my head under." This
+angry soliloquy was pronounced in the hall of the old manor-house of
+Carrigrohan by John Sheehan. John was a new servant: he had been only
+three days in the house, which had the character of being haunted, and
+in that short space of time he had been abused and laughed at by a
+voice which sounded as if a man spoke with his head in a cask; nor
+could he discover who was the speaker, or from whence the voice came.
+"I'll not stop here," said John; "and that ends the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho! be quiet, John Sheehan, or else worse will happen to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>John instantly ran to the hall window, as the words were evidently
+spoken by a person immediately outside, but no one was visible. He had
+scarcely placed his face at the pane of glass, when he heard another
+loud "Ho, ho, ho!" as if behind him in the hall; as quick as lightning
+he turned his head, but no living thing was to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho, John!" shouted a voice that appeared to come from the
+lawn before the house; "do you think you'll see Teigue?&mdash;oh, never! as
+long as you live! so leave alone looking after him, and mind your
+business; there's plenty of company to dinner from Cork to be here
+to-day, and 'tis time you had the cloth laid."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord bless us! there's more of it!&mdash;I'll never stay another day
+here," repeated John.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue, and stay where you are quietly,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> and play no tricks
+on Mr. Pratt, as you did on Mr. Jervois about the spoons."</p>
+
+<p>John Sheehan was confounded by this address from his invisible
+persecutor, but nevertheless he mustered courage enough to say&mdash;"Who
+are you?&mdash;come here, and let me see you, if you are a man;" but he
+received in reply only a laugh of unearthly derision, which was
+followed by a "Good-bye&mdash;I'll watch you at dinner, John!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord between us and harm! this beats all!&mdash;I'll watch you at
+dinner!&mdash;may be you will;&mdash;'tis the broad daylight, so 'tis no ghost;
+but this is a terrible place, and this is the last day I'll stay in
+it. How does he know about the spoons?&mdash;if he tells it, I'm a ruined
+man!&mdash;there was no living soul could tell it to him but Tim Barrett,
+and he's far enough off in the wilds of Botany Bay now, so how could
+he know it&mdash;I can't tell for the world! But what's that I see there at
+the corner of the wall?&mdash;'tis not a man!&mdash;oh, what a fool I am! 'tis
+only the old stump of a tree!&mdash;But this is a shocking place&mdash;I'll
+never stop in it, for I'll leave the house to-morrow; the very look of
+it is enough to frighten any one."</p>
+
+<p>The mansion had certainly an air of desolation; it was situated in a
+lawn, which had nothing to break its uniform level, safe a few tufts
+of narcissuses and a couple of old trees coeval with the building. The
+house stood at a short distance from the road; it was upwards of a
+century old, and Time was doing his work upon it; its walls were
+weather-stained in all colours, its roof showed various white patches,
+it had no look of comfort; all was dim and dingy without, and within
+there was an air of gloom, of departed and departing greatness, which
+harmonized well with the exterior. It required all the exuberance of
+youth and of gaiety to remove the impression, almost amounting to awe,
+with which you trod the huge square hall, paced along the gallery
+which surrounded the hall, or explored the long rambling passages
+below stairs. The ball-room, as the large drawing-room was called, and
+several other apartments, were in a state of decay: the walls were
+stained with damp; and I remember well the sensation of awe which I
+felt creeping over me when, boy as I was, and full of boyish life, and
+wild and ardent spirits, I descended to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> the vaults; all without and
+within me became chilled beneath their dampness and gloom&mdash;their
+extent, too, terrified me; nor could the merriment of my two
+schoolfellows, whose father, a respectable clergyman, rented the
+dwelling for a time, dispel the feelings of a romantic imagination,
+until I once again ascended to the upper regions.</p>
+
+<p>John had pretty well recovered himself as the dinner-hour approached,
+and the several guests arrived. They were all seated at table, and had
+begun to enjoy the excellent repast, when a voice was heard from the
+lawn:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Pratt, won't you give poor Teigue some dinner? ho,
+ho, a fine company you have there, and plenty of every thing that's
+good; sure you won't forget poor Teigue?"</p>
+
+<p>John dropped the glass he had in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" said Mr. Pratt's brother, an officer of the artillery.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Teigue," said Mr. Pratt, laughing, "whom you must often have
+heard me mention."</p>
+
+<p>"And pray, Mr. Pratt," inquired another gentleman, "who <i>is</i> Teigue?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," he replied, "is more than I can tell. No one has ever been
+able to catch even a glimpse of him. I have been on the watch for a
+whole evening with three of my sons, yet, although his voice sometimes
+sounded almost in my ear, I could not see him. I fancied, indeed, that
+I saw a man in a white frieze jacket pass into the door from the
+garden to the lawn, but it could be only fancy, for I found the door
+locked, while the fellow whoever he is, was laughing at our trouble.
+He visits us occasionally, and sometimes a long interval passes
+between his visits, as in the present case; it is now nearly two years
+since we heard that hollow voice outside the window. He has never done
+any injury that we know of, and once when he broke a plate, he brought
+one back exactly like it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very extraordinary," said several of the company.</p>
+
+<p>"But," remarked a gentleman to young Mr. Pratt, "your father said he
+broke a plate; how did he get it without your seeing him?"</p>
+
+<p>"When he asks for some dinner, we put it outside the window and go
+away; whilst we watch he will not take it, but no sooner have we
+withdrawn, than it is gone."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How does he know that you are watching?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's more than I can tell, but he either knows or suspects. One day
+my brothers Robert and James with myself were in our back parlour,
+which has a window into the garden, when he came outside and said,
+'Ho, ho, ho! master James, and Robert, and Henry, give poor Teigue a
+glass of whisky.' James went out of the room, filled a glass with
+whisky, vinegar, and salt, and brought it to him. 'Here Teigue,' said
+he, 'come for it now.' 'Well, put it down, then, on the step outside
+the window.' This was done, and we stood looking at it. 'There, now,
+go away,' he shouted. We retired, but still watched it. 'Ho, ho! you
+are watching Teigue; go out of the room, now, or I won't take it.' We
+went outside the door and returned; the glass was gone, and a moment
+after we heard him roaring and cursing frightfully. He took away the
+glass, but the next day the glass was on the stone step under the
+window, and there were crumbs of bread in the inside, as if he had put
+it in his pocket; from that time he was not heard till to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the colonel, "I'll get a sight of him; you are not used to
+these things; an old soldier has the best chance; and as I shall
+finish my dinner with this wing, I'll be ready for him when he speaks
+next.&mdash;Mr. Bell, will you take a glass of wine with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell," shouted Teigue. "Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you were a
+quaker long ago. Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, you're a pretty boy;&mdash;a pretty
+quaker you were; and now you're no quaker, nor any thing else:&mdash;ho,
+ho! Mr. Bell. And there's Mr. Parkes: to be sure, Mr. Parkes looks
+mighty fine to-day, with his powdered head, and his grand silk
+stockings, and his bran new rakish-red waistcoat.&mdash;And there's Mr.
+Cole,&mdash;did you ever see such a fellow? a pretty company you've brought
+together, Mr. Pratt: kiln-dried quakers, butter-buying buckeens from
+Mallow-lane, and a drinking exciseman from the Coal-quay, to meet the
+great thundering artillery-general that is come out of the Indies, and
+is the biggest dust of them all."</p>
+
+<p>"You scoundrel!" exclaimed the colonel: "I'll make you show yourself;"
+and snatching up his sword from a corner of the room, he sprang out of
+the window upon the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> lawn. In a moment a shout of laughter, so hollow,
+so unlike any human sound, made him stop, as well as Mr. Bell, who
+with a huge oak stick was close at the colonel's heels; others of the
+party followed on the lawn, and the remainder rose and went to the
+windows. "Come on, colonel," said Mr. Bell; "let us catch this
+impudent rascal."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho! Mr. Bell, here I am&mdash;here's Teigue&mdash;why don't you catch
+him?&mdash;Ho, ho! Colonel Pratt, what a pretty soldier you are to draw
+your sword upon poor Teigue, that never did any body harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us see your face, you scoundrel," said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho!&mdash;look at me&mdash;look at me: do you see the wind, colonel
+Pratt?&mdash;you'll see Teigue as soon; so go in and finish your dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"If you're upon the earth I'll find you, you villain!" said the
+colonel, whilst the same unearthly shout of derision seemed to come
+from behind an angle of the building. "He's round that corner," said
+Mr. Bell&mdash;"run, run."</p>
+
+<p>They followed the sound, which was continued at intervals along the
+garden wall, but could discover no human being; at last both stopped
+to draw breath, and in an instant, almost at their ears, sounded the
+shout.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho! colonel Pratt, do you see Teigue now?&mdash;do you hear
+him?&mdash;Ho, ho, ho! you're a fine colonel to follow the wind."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that way, Mr. Bell&mdash;not that way; come here," said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho! what a fool you are; do you think Teigue is going to show
+himself to you in the field, there? But colonel, follow me if you
+can:&mdash;you a soldier!&mdash;ho, ho, ho!" The colonel was enraged&mdash;he
+followed the voice over hedge and ditch, alternately laughed at and
+taunted by the unseen object of his pursuit&mdash;(Mr. Bell, who was heavy,
+was soon thrown out,) until at length, after being led a weary chase,
+he found himself at the top of the cliff, over that part of the river
+Lee, which from its great depth, and the blackness of its water, has
+received the name of Hell-hole. Here, on the edge of the cliff, stood
+the colonel out of breath, and mopping his forehead with his
+handkerchief, while the voice, which seemed close at his feet,
+exclaimed&mdash;"Now, colonel Pratt&mdash;now, if you're a soldier, here's a
+leap<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> for you;&mdash;now look at Teigue&mdash;why don't you look at him?&mdash;Ho,
+ho, ho! Come along: you're warm, I'm sure, colonel Pratt, so come in
+and cool yourself; Teigue is going to have a swim!" The voice seemed
+as descending amongst the trailing ivy and brushwood which clothes
+this picturesque cliff nearly from top to bottom, yet it was
+impossible that any human being could have found footing. "Now,
+colonel, have you courage to take the leap?&mdash;Ho, ho, ho! what a pretty
+soldier you are. Good-bye&mdash;I'll see you again in ten minutes above, at
+the house&mdash;look at your watch, colonel:&mdash;there's a dive for you!" and
+a heavy plunge into the water was heard. The colonel stood still, but
+no sound followed, and he walked slowly back to the house, not quite
+half a mile from the Crag.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you see Teigue?" said his brother, whilst his nephews,
+scarcely able to smother their laughter, stood by.&mdash;"Give me some
+wine," said the colonel. "I never was led such a dance in my life: the
+fellow carried me all round and round, till he brought me to the edge
+of the cliff, and then down he went into Hell-hole, telling me he'd be
+here in ten minutes: 'tis more than that now, but he's not come."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho! colonel, isn't he here?&mdash;Teigue never told a lie in his
+life: but, Mr. Pratt, give me a drink and my dinner, and then good
+night to you all, for I'm tired; and that's the colonel's doing." A
+plate of food was ordered: it was placed by John, with fear and
+trembling, on the lawn under the window. Every one kept on the watch,
+and the plate remained undisturbed for some time.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Mr. Pratt, will you starve poor Teigue? Make every one go away
+from the windows, and master Henry out of the tree, and master Richard
+off the garden-wall."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the company were turned to the tree and the garden-wall;
+the two boys' attention was occupied in getting down: the visiters
+were looking at them; and "Ho, ho, ho!&mdash;good luck to you, Mr.
+Pratt!&mdash;'tis a good dinner, and there's the plate, ladies and
+gentlemen&mdash;good-bye to you, colonel&mdash;good-bye, Mr. Bell!&mdash;good-bye to
+you all!"&mdash;brought their attention back, when they saw the empty plate
+lying on the grass; and Teigue's voice was heard no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> more for that
+evening. Many visits were afterwards paid by Teigue; but never was he
+seen, nor was any discovery ever made of his person or character.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/190.jpg" width="275" height="220" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXII">NED SHEEHY'S EXCUSE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXII.</h3>
+
+<p>Ned Sheehy was servant-man to Richard Gumbleton, Esquire, of
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, in the north of the county of Cork; and a
+better servant than Ned was not to be found in that honest county,
+from Cape Clear to the Kilworth Mountains; for nobody&mdash;no, not his
+worst enemy&mdash;could say a word against him, only that he was rather
+given to drinking, idling, lying, and loitering, especially the last;
+for send Ned of a five-minute message at nine o'clock in the morning,
+and you were a lucky man if you saw him before dinner. If there
+happened to be a public-house in the way, or even a little out of it,
+Ned was sure to mark it as dead as a pointer; and, knowing every body,
+and every body liking him, it is not to be wondered at he had so much
+to say and to hear, that the time slipped away as if the sun somehow
+or other had knocked two hours into one.</p>
+
+<p>But when he came home, he never was short of an excuse: he had, for
+that matter, five hundred ready upon the tip of his tongue; so much
+so, that I doubt if even the very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> reverend doctor Swift, for many
+years Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, could match him in that
+particular, though his reverence had a pretty way of his own of
+writing things which brought him into very decent company. In fact,
+Ned would fret a saint, but then he was so good-humoured a fellow, and
+really so handy about a house,&mdash;for, as he said himself, he was as
+good as a lady's maid,&mdash;that his master could not find it in his heart
+to part with him.</p>
+
+<p>In your grand houses&mdash;not that I am saying that Richard Gumbleton,
+esquire of Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, did not keep a good house, but a
+plain country gentleman, although he is second-cousin to the last
+high-sheriff of the county, cannot have all the army of servants that
+the lord-lieutenant has in the castle of Dublin&mdash;I say, in your grand
+houses, you can have a servant for every kind of thing, but in
+Mountbally, Gumbletonmore, Ned was expected to please master and
+mistress; or, as counsellor Curran said,&mdash;by the same token the
+counsellor was a little dark man&mdash;one day that he dined there, on his
+way to the Clonmel assizes&mdash;Ned was minister for the home and foreign
+departments.</p>
+
+<p>But to make a long story short, Ned Sheehy was a good butler, and a
+right good one too, and as for a groom, let him alone with a horse: he
+could dress it, or ride it, or shoe it, or physic it, or do any thing
+with it but make it speak&mdash;he was a second whisperer!&mdash;there was not
+his match in the barony, or the next one neither. A pack of hounds he
+could manage well, ay, and ride after them with the boldest man in the
+land. It was Ned who leaped the old bounds' ditch at the turn of the
+boreen of the lands of Reenascreena, after the English captain pulled
+up on looking at it, and cried out it was "No go." Ned rode that day
+Brian Boro, Mr. Gumbleton's famous chestnut, and people call it Ned
+Sheehy's Leap to this hour.</p>
+
+<p>So, you see, it was hard to do without him: however, many a scolding
+he got; and although his master often said of an evening, "I'll turn
+off Ned," he always forgot to do so in the morning. These threats
+mended Ned not a bit; indeed, he was mending the other way, like bad
+fish in hot weather.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One cold winter's day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
+Gumbleton said to him,</p>
+
+<p>"Ned," said he, "go take Modderaroo down to black Falvey, the
+horse-doctor, and bid him look at her knees; for Doctor Jenkinson, who
+rode her home last night, has hurt her somehow. I suppose he thought a
+parson's horse ought to go upon its knees; but, indeed, it was I was
+the fool to give her to him at all, for he sits twenty stone if he
+sits a pound, and knows no more of riding, particularly after his
+third bottle, than I do of preaching. Now mind and be back in an hour
+at farthest, for I want to have the plate cleaned up properly for
+dinner, as Sir Augustus O'Toole, you know, is to dine here
+to-day.&mdash;Don't loiter, for your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it I, sir?" says Ned. "Well, that beats any thing; as if I'd stop
+out a minute!" So, mounting Modderaroo, off he set.</p>
+
+<p>Four, five, six o'clock came, and so did Sir Augustus and lady
+O'Toole, and the four misses O'Toole, and Mr. O'Toole, and Mr. Edward
+O'Toole, and Mr. James O'Toole, which were all the young O'Tooles that
+were at home, but no Ned Sheehy appeared to clean the plate, or to lay
+the table-cloth, or even to put dinner on. It is needless to say how
+Mr. and Mrs. Dick Gumbleton fretted and fumed; but it was all to no
+use. They did their best, however, only it was a disgrace to see long
+Jem the stableboy, and Bill the gossoon that used to go of errands,
+waiting, without any body to direct them, when there was a real
+baronet and his lady at table; for Sir Augustus was none of your
+knights. But a good bottle of claret makes up for much, and it was not
+one only they had that night. However, it is not to be concealed that
+Mr. Dick Gumbleton went to bed very cross, and he awoke still crosser.</p>
+
+<p>He heard that Ned had not made his appearance for the whole night; so
+he dressed himself in a great fret, and, taking his horsewhip in his
+hand, he said,</p>
+
+<p>"There is no farther use in tolerating this scoundrel; I'll go look
+for him, and if I find him, I'll cut the soul out of his vagabond
+body! so I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say so, Dick, dear," said Mrs. Gumbleton (for she was always a
+mild woman, being daughter of fighting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> Tom Crofts, who shot a couple
+of gentlemen, friends of his, in the cool of the evening, after the
+Mallow races, one after the other,) "don't swear, Dick, dear," said
+she; "but do, my dear, oblige me by cutting the flesh off his bones,
+for he richly deserves it. I was quite ashamed of Lady O'Toole,
+yesterday, I was, 'pon honour."</p>
+
+<p>Out sallied Mr. Gumbleton; and he had not far to walk, for, not more
+than two hundred yards from the house, he found Ned lying fast asleep
+under a ditch (a hedge,) and Modderaroo standing by him, poor beast,
+shaking every limb. The loud snoring of Ned, who was lying with his
+head upon a stone as easy and as comfortable as if it had been a bed
+of down or a hop-bag, drew him to the spot, and Mr. Gumbleton at once
+perceived, from the disarray of Ned's face and person, that he had
+been engaged in some perilous adventure during the night. Ned appeared
+not to have descended in the most regular manner; for one of his shoes
+remained sticking in the stirrup, and his hat, having rolled down a
+little slope, was imbedded in green mud. Mr. Gumbleton, however, did
+not give himself much trouble to make a curious survey, but with a
+vigorous application of his thong, soon banished sleep from the eyes
+of Ned Sheehy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ned!" thundered his master in great indignation,&mdash;and on this
+occasion it was not a word and blow, for with that one word came half
+a dozen: "Get up, you scoundrel," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Ned roared lustily, and no wonder, for his master's hand was not one
+of the lightest; and he cried out, between sleeping and waking&mdash;"O,
+sir!&mdash;don't be angry, sir!&mdash;don't be angry, and I'll roast you
+easier&mdash;easy as a lamb!"</p>
+
+<p>"Roast me easier, you vagabond!" said Mr. Gumbleton; "what do you
+mean?&mdash;I'll roast you, my lad. Where were you all night?&mdash;Modderaroo
+will never get over it.&mdash;Pack out of my service, you worthless
+villain, this moment; and, indeed, you may be thankful that I don't
+get you transported."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God, master dear," said Ned, who was now perfectly
+awakened&mdash;"it's yourself, any how. There never was a gentleman in the
+whole country ever did so good a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> turn to a poor man as your honour
+has been after doing to me: the Lord reward you for that same. Oh! but
+strike me again, and let me feel that it is yourself, master
+dear;&mdash;may whisky be my poison&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be your poison, you good-for-nothing scoundrel," said Mr.
+Gumbleton.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, <i>may</i> whiskey be my poison," said Ned, "if 'twas not I
+was&mdash;in the blackest of misfortunes, and they were before me,
+whichever way I turned 'twas no matter. Your honour sent me last
+night, sure enough, with Modderaroo to mister Falvey's&mdash;I don't deny
+it&mdash;why should I? for reason enough I have to remember what happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Ned, my man," said Mr. Gumbleton, "I'll listen to none of your
+excuses: just take the mare into the stable and yourself off, for I
+vow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Begging your honour's pardon," said Ned, earnestly, "for interrupting
+your honour; but, master, master! make no vows&mdash;they are bad things: I
+never made but one in all my life, which was, to drink nothing at all
+for a year and a day, and 'tis myself rep<i>i</i>nted of it for the clean
+twelvemonth after. But if your honour would only listen to reason:
+I'll just take in the poor baste, and if your honour don't pardon me
+this one time may I never see another day's luck or grace."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you, Ned," said Mr. Gumbleton. "Whatever your luck has been,
+you never had any grace to lose: but I don't intend discussing the
+matter with you. Take in the mare, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ned obeyed, and his master saw him to the stables. Here he reiterated
+his commands to quit, and Ned Sheehy's excuse for himself began. That
+it was heard uninterruptedly is more than I can affirm; but as
+interruptions, like explanations, spoil a story, we must let Ned tell
+it his own way.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder your honour," said he, "should be a bit angry&mdash;grand
+company coming to the house and all, and no regular serving-man to
+wait, only long Jem; so I don't blame your honour the least for being
+fretted like; but when all's heard, you will see that no poor man is
+more to be pitied for last night than myself. Fin Mac Coul<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> never went
+through more in his born days than I did, though he was a great
+<i>joint</i> (giant,) and I only a man.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not rode half a mile from the house, when it came on, as your
+honour must have perceived clearly, mighty dark all of a sudden, for
+all the world as if the sun had tumbled down plump out of the fine
+clear blue sky. It was not so late, being only four o'clock at the
+most, but it was as black as your honour's hat. Well, I didn't care
+much, seeing I knew the road as well as I knew the way to my mouth,
+whether I saw it or not, and I put the mare into a smart canter; but
+just as I turned down by the corner of Terence Leahy's field&mdash;sure
+your honour ought to know the place well&mdash;just at the very spot the
+fox was killed when your honour came in first out of a whole field of
+a hundred and fifty gentlemen, and may be more, all of them brave
+riders."</p>
+
+<p>(Mr. Gumbleton smiled.)</p>
+
+<p>"Just then, there, I heard the low cry of the good people wafting upon
+the wind. 'How early you are at your work, my little fellows!' says I
+to myself; and, dark as it was, having no wish for such company, I
+thought it best to get out of their way; so I turned the horse a
+little up to the left, thinking to get down by the boreen, that is
+that way, and so round to Falvey's; but there I heard the voice
+plainer and plainer close behind, and I could hear these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Ned! Ned!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By my cap so red!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You're as good, Ned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a man that is dead.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>'A clean pair of spurs is all that's for it now,' said I; so off I
+set, as hard as I could lick, and in my hurry knew no more where I was
+going than I do the road to the hill of Tarah. Away I galloped on for
+some time, until I came to the noise of a stream, roaring away by
+itself in the darkness. 'What river is this?' said I to myself&mdash;for
+there was nobody else to ask&mdash;'I thought,' says I, 'I knew every inch
+of ground, and of water too, within twenty miles, and never the river
+surely is there in this direction.' So I stopped to look about; but I
+might have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> spared myself that trouble, for I could not see as much as
+my hand. I didn't know what to do; but I thought in myself, it's a
+queer river, surely, if somebody does not live near it; and I shouted
+out as loud as I could, Murder! murder!&mdash;fire!&mdash;robbery!&mdash;any thing
+that would be natural in such a place&mdash;but not a sound did I hear
+except my own voice echoed back to me, like a hundred packs of hounds
+in full cry above and below, right and left. This didn't do at all; so
+I dismounted, and guided myself along the stream, directed by the
+noise of the water, as cautious as if I was treading upon eggs,
+holding poor Modderaroo by the bridle, who shook, the poor brute, all
+over in a tremble, like my old grandmother, rest her soul any how! in
+the ague. Well, sir, the heart was sinking in me, and I was giving
+myself up, when, as good luck would have it, I saw a light. 'May be,'
+said I, 'my good fellow, you are only a jacky lantern, and want to bog
+me and Modderaroo.' But I looked at the light hard, and I thought it
+was too <i>study</i> (steady) for a jacky lantern. 'I'll try you,' says
+I&mdash;'so here goes; and, walking as quick as a thief, I came towards it,
+being very near plumping into the river once or twice, and being stuck
+up to my middle, as your honour may perceive cleanly the marks of, two
+or three times in the <i>slob</i>.<a id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> At last I made the light out, and it
+coming from a bit of a house by the road-side; so I went to the door
+and gave three kicks at it, as strong as I could.</p>
+
+<p>"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' said a voice inside. Now, besides
+that I could not, for the life of me, make out how any one inside
+should know me before I spoke a word at all, I did not like the sound
+of that voice, 'twas so hoarse and so hollow, just like a dead
+man's!&mdash;so I said nothing immediately. The same voice spoke again, and
+said, 'Why don't you open the door to Ned Sheehy?' 'How pat my name is
+to you,' said I, without speaking out, 'on tip of your tongue, like
+butter;' and I was between two minds about staying or going, when what
+should the door do but open, and out came a man holding a candle in
+his hand, and he had upon him a face as white as a sheet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p><p>"'Why, then, Ned Sheehy,' says he, 'how grand you're grown, that you
+won't come in and see a friend, as you're passing by?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Pray, sir,' says I, looking at him&mdash;though that face of his was
+enough to dumbfounder any honest man like myself&mdash;'Pray, sir,' says I,
+'may I make so bold as to ask if you are not Jack Myers that was
+drowned seven years ago, next Martinmas, in the ford of
+Ah-na-fourish?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Suppose I was,' says he: 'has not a man a right to be drowned in the
+ford facing his own cabin-door any day of the week that he likes, from
+Sunday morning to Saturday night?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm not denying that same, Mr. Myers, sir,' says I, 'if 'tis
+yourself is to the fore speaking to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' says he, 'no more words about that matter now: sure you and
+I, Ned, were friends of old; come in, and take a glass; and here's a
+good fire before you, and nobody shall hurt or harm you, and I to the
+fore, and myself able to do it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now, your honour, though 'twas much to drink with a man that was
+drowned seven years before, in the ford of Ah-na-fourish, facing his
+own door, yet the glass was hard to be withstood&mdash;to say nothing of
+the fire that was blazing within&mdash;for the night was mortal cold. So
+tying Modderaroo to the hasp of the door&mdash;if I don't love the creature
+as I love my own life&mdash;I went in with Jack Myers.</p>
+
+<p>"Civil enough he was&mdash;I'll never say otherwise to my dying hour&mdash;for
+he handed me a stool by the fire, and bid me sit down and make myself
+comfortable. But his face, as I said before, was as white as the snow
+on the hills, and his two eyes fell dead on me, like the eyes of a cod
+without any life in them. Just as I was going to put the glass to my
+lips, a voice&mdash;'twas the same that I heard bidding the door be
+opened&mdash;spoke out of a cupboard that was convenient to the left-hand
+side of the chimney, and said, 'Have you any news for me, Ned Sheehy?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The never a word, sir,' says I, making answer before I tasted the
+whisky, all out of civility; and, to speak the truth, never the least
+could I remember at that moment of what had happened to me, or how I
+got there; for I was quite bothered with the fright.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Have you no news,' says the voice, 'Ned, to tell me, from Mountbally
+Gumbletonmore; or from the Mill; or about Moll Trantum that was
+married last week to Bryan Oge, and you at the wedding?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, sir,' says I, 'never the word.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What brought you in here, Ned, then?' says the voice. I could say
+nothing; for, whatever other people might do, I never could frame an
+excuse; and I was loath to say it was on account of the glass and the
+fire, for that would be to speak the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"'Turn the scoundrel out,' says the voice; and at the sound of it, who
+would I see but Jack Myers making over to me with a lump of a stick in
+his hand, and it clenched on the stick so wicked. For certain, I did
+not stop to feel the weight of the blow; so, dropping the glass, and
+it full of the stuff too, I bolted out of the door, and never rested
+from running away, for as good, I believe, as twenty miles, till I
+found myself in a big wood.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Lord preserve me! what will become of me now!' says I. 'Oh, Ned
+Sheehy!' says I, speaking to myself, 'my man, you're in a pretty
+hobble; and to leave poor Modderaroo after you!' But the words were
+not well out of my mouth, when I heard the dismallest ullagoane in the
+world, enough to break any one's heart that was not broke before, with
+the grief entirely; and it was not long till I could plainly see four
+men coming towards me, with a great black coffin on their shoulders.
+'I'd better get up in a tree,' says I, 'for they say 'tis not lucky to
+meet a corpse: I'm in the way of misfortune to-night, if ever man
+was.'</p>
+
+<p>"I could not help wondering how a <i>berrin</i> (funeral) should come there
+in the lone wood at that time of night, seeing it could not be far
+from the dead hour. But it was little good for me thinking, for they
+soon came under the very tree I was roosting in, and down they put the
+coffin, and began to make a fine fire under me. I'll be smothered
+alive now, thinks I, and that will be the end of me; but I was afraid
+to stir for the life, or to speak out to bid them just make their fire
+under some other tree, if it would be all the same thing to them.
+Presently they opened the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> coffin, and out they dragged as
+fine-looking a man as you'd meet with in a day's walk.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where's the spit?' says one.</p>
+
+<p>"'Here 'tis,' says another, handing it over; and for certain they
+spitted him, and began to turn him before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"If they are not going to eat him, thinks I, like the <i>Hannibals</i>
+father Quinlan told us about in his <i>sarmint</i> last Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>"'Who'll turn the spit while we go for the other ingredients?' says
+one of them that brought the coffin, and a big ugly-looking blackguard
+he was.</p>
+
+<p>"'Who'd turn the spit but Ned Sheehy?' says another.</p>
+
+<p>"Burn you! thinks I, how should you know that I was here so handy to
+you up in the tree?</p>
+
+<p>"'Come down, Ned Sheehy, and turn the spit,' says he.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm not here at all, sir,' says I, putting my hand over my face that
+he might not see me.</p>
+
+<p>"'That won't do for you, my man,' says he; 'you'd better come down, or
+may be I'd make you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm coming, sir,' says I; for 'tis always right to make a virtue of
+necessity. So down I came, and there they left me turning the spit in
+the middle of the wide wood.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't scorch me, Ned Sheehy, you vagabond,' says the man on the
+spit.</p>
+
+<p>"'And my lord, sir, and ar'n't you dead, sir,' says I, 'and your
+honour taken out of the coffin and all?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I ar'n't,' says he.</p>
+
+<p>"'But surely you are, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis to no use now for me
+denying that I saw your honour, and I up in the tree.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I ar'n't,' says he again, speaking quite short and snappish.</p>
+
+<p>"So I said no more, until presently he called out to me to turn him
+easy, or that may be 'twould be the worse turn for myself.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will that do, sir?' says I, turning him as easy as I could.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's too easy,' says he: so I turned him faster.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's too fast,' says he; so finding that, turn him which way I
+would, I could not please him, I got into a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> bit of a fret at last,
+and desired him to turn himself, for a grumbling spalpeen as he was,
+if he liked it better.</p>
+
+<p>"Away I ran, and away he came hopping, spit and all, after me, and he
+but half-roasted. 'Murder!' says I, shouting out; 'I'm done for at
+long last&mdash;now or never!'&mdash;when all of a sudden, and 'twas really
+wonderful, not knowing where I was rightly, I found myself at the door
+of the very little cabin by the road-side that I had bolted out of
+from Jack Myers; and there was Modderaroo standing hard by.</p>
+
+<p>"'Open the door for Ned Sheehy,' says the voice,&mdash;for 'twas shut
+against me,&mdash;and the door flew open in an instant. In I ran without
+stop or stay, thinking it better to be beat by Jack Myers, he being an
+old friend of mine, than to be spitted like a Michaelmas goose by a
+man that I knew nothing about, either of him or his family, one or the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you any news for me?' says the voice, putting just the same
+question to me that it did before.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'and plenty.' So I mentioned all that had
+happened to me in the big wood, and how I got up in the tree, and how
+I was made come down again, and put to turning the spit, roasting the
+gentleman, and how I could not please him, turn him fast or easy,
+although I tried my best, and how he ran after me at last, spit and
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"'If you had told me this before, you would not have been turned out
+in the cold,' said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"'And how could I tell it to you, sir,' says I, 'before it happened?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No matter,' says he, 'you may sleep now till morning on that bundle
+of hay in the corner there, and only I was your friend, you'd have
+been <i>kilt</i> entirely.' So down I lay, but I was dreaming, dreaming all
+the rest of the night; and when you, master dear, woke me with that
+blessed blow, I thought 'twas the man on the spit had hold of me, and
+could hardly believe my eyes, when I found myself in your honour's
+presence, and poor Modderaroo safe and sound by my side; but how I
+came there is more than I can say, if 'twas not Jack Myers, although
+he did make the offer to strike me, or some one among the good people
+that befriended me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is all a drunken dream, you scoundrel," said Mr. Gumbleton; "have
+I not had fifty such excuses from you?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But never one, your honour, that really happened before," said Ned,
+with unblushing front. "Howsomever, since your honour fancies 'tis
+drinking I was, I'd rather never drink again to the world's end, than
+lose so good a master as yourself, and if I'm forgiven this once, and
+get another trial&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mr. Gumbleton, "you may, for this once, go into
+Mountbally Gumbletonmore again; let me see that you keep your promise
+as to not drinking, or mind the consequences; and, above all, let me
+hear no more of the good people, for I don't believe a single word
+about them, whatever I may do of bad ones."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Mr. Gumbleton turned on his heel, and Ned's countenance
+relaxed into its usual expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I would not be after saying about the good people what the master
+said last," exclaimed Peggy, the maid, who was within hearing, and
+who, by the way, had an eye after Ned: "I would not be after saying
+such a thing; the good people, may be, will make him feel the <i>differ</i>
+(difference) to his cost."</p>
+
+<p>Nor was Peggy wrong; for whether Ned Sheehy dreamt of the Fir Darrig
+or not, within a fortnight after, two of Mr. Gumbleton's cows, the
+best milkers in the parish, ran dry, and before the week was out,
+Modderaroo was lying dead in the stone quarry.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXIII">THE LUCKY GUEST.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXIII.</h3>
+
+<p>The kitchen of some country houses in Ireland presents in no ways a
+bad modern translation of the ancient feudal hall. Traces of clanship
+still linger round its hearth in the numerous dependants on "the
+master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and other hangers-on, are
+there as matter of right, while the strolling piper, full of mirth and
+music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are received
+with a hearty welcome, and each contributes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> planxty, song, or
+superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.</p>
+
+<p>An assembly, such as has been described, had collected round the
+kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the Galtee mountains,
+when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth another;
+and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was received
+with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
+with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of <i>Coum an
+'ir morriv</i> (the dead man's hollow,) were listened to in breathless
+silence. A pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on
+the narrator, an old nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next
+the fire-side. She was seated in that peculiar position which the
+Irish name "<i>currigguib</i>," a position generally assumed by a veteran
+and determined story-teller. Her haunches resting upon the ground, and
+her feet bundled under the body; her arms folded across and supported
+by her knees, and the outstretched chin of her hooded head pressing on
+the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly reduced the whole
+figure into a perfect triangle.</p>
+
+<p>Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle made no change of attitude,
+while she gravely asserted the truth of the marvellous tale concerning
+the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked countenance at the time
+receiving what painters term a fine chiaro-obscuro effect from the
+fire-light.</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you," she said, "what happened to my own people, the
+Butlers and the Doyles, in the old times; but here is little Ellen
+Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to what happened under her
+own father and mother's roof."</p>
+
+<p>Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about sixteen, was employed in the
+dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of health and rustic beauty;
+and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush mantled over her
+countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public speaking," she,
+without farther hesitation or excuse, proceeded as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It was one May eve, about thirteen years ago, and that is, as every
+body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve months. It is the day
+above all other days," said Ellen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> with her large dark eyes cast down
+on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the young boys and the
+young girls go looking after the <i>Drutheen</i>, to learn from it rightly
+the name of their sweethearts.</p>
+
+<p>"My father, and my mother, and my two brothers, with two or three of
+the neighbours, were sitting round the turf fire, and were talking of
+one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my little sister,
+striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth at the time,
+and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which was
+threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to
+rain, and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was
+pouring through a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain
+stopped for a bit there was a wind which kept up such a whistling and
+racket, that you would have thought the sky and the earth were coming
+together. It blew and it blew, as if it had a mind to blow the roof
+off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard for it to do, as
+the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the rain began
+again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as it
+came down through the big <i>chimbley</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"'God bless us,' says my mother, 'but 'tis a dreadful night to be at
+sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that we have a roof, bad as it is,
+to shelter us.'</p>
+
+<p>"I don't, to be sure, recollect all this, mistress Doyle, but only as
+my brothers told it to me, and other people, and often have I heard
+it; for I was so little then, that they say I could just go under the
+table without tipping my head. Any way, it was in the very height of
+the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
+door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at
+that time. We waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a
+sound like an old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble
+and weak. Tim bounced up, without a word, to ask us whether we'd like
+to let the old man, or whoever he was, in&mdash;having always a heart as
+soft as a mealy potato before the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled
+back the bolt that did the door, in marched a little bit of a
+shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet and a half high.</p>
+
+<p>"We were all watching to see who'd come in, for there<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> was a wall
+between us and the door; but when the sound of the undoing of the bolt
+stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and instantly he
+bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either, when
+the little gentleman shuffled in after him, without a God save all
+here, or by your leave, or any other sort of thing that any decent
+body might say. We all, of one accord, scrambled over to the farthest
+end of the room, where we were, old and young, every one trying who'd
+get nearest the wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body
+were stuck upon him, but he didn't mind us no more than that
+frying-pan there does now. He walked over to the fire, and squatting
+himself down like a frog, took the pipe that my father dropped from
+his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and then began to smoke
+so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.</p>
+
+<p>"We had plenty of time to observe him, and my brothers say that he
+wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he had a face as
+yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
+together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a
+washerwoman's hand, little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his
+hair was quite gray and lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing
+over the cape of a long scarlet coat, which almost trailed the ground
+behind him, and the ends of which he took up and planked on his knees
+to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had smart corduroy breeches, and
+woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as to hide the
+kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate, if he
+hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
+spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape
+from the room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last;
+so we huddled ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My
+little gentleman never minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly
+stirred himself, sitting quite at his ease before the fire. The
+neighbours, the very instant minute they got to the door, although it
+still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver Cromwell himself
+was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, any how. It was my
+father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
+hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> see what would
+come out of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the
+<i>labbig</i>,<a id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> scarcely daring to throw an eye at him as we passed the
+door. Never the wink of sleep could they sleep that live-long night,
+though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not knowing better, while they
+were talking and thinking of the little man.</p>
+
+<p>"When they got up in the morning, every thing was as quiet and as tidy
+about the place as if nothing had happened, for all that the chairs
+and stools were tumbled here there, and every where, when we saw the
+lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
+but any way, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I
+know for certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly
+every night, and used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 'twas
+plain he did not like to be observed. This sign was always made about
+eleven o'clock; and then, if we'd look towards the door, there was a
+little hairy arm thrust in through the keyhole, which would not have
+been big enough, only there was a fresh hole made near the first one,
+and the bit of stick between them had been broken away, and so 'twas
+just fitting for the little arm.</p>
+
+<p>"The Fir Darrig continued his visits, never missing a night, as long
+as we attended to the signal; smoking always out of the pipe he made
+his own of, and warming himself till day dawned before the fire, and
+then going no one living knows where: but there was not the least mark
+of him to be found in the morning; and 'tis as true, nurse Doyle, and
+honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the side
+of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
+rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this,
+we used always look for the very moment to see when the arm would
+come, and then we'd instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But
+before we found the luck, we used sometimes sit still and not mind the
+arm, especially when a neighbour would be with my father, or that two
+or three or four of them would have a drop among them, and then they
+did not care for all the arms, hairy or not, that ever were seen. No
+one, however, dared to speak to it or of <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>it insolently, except,
+indeed, one night that Davy Kennane&mdash;but he was drunk&mdash;walked over and
+hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched off like
+lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
+this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of
+such tricks are ticklish things to do.</p>
+
+<p>"As sure as the red man would put in his arm for a sign through the
+hole in the door, and that we did not go and open it to him, so sure,
+some mishap befell the cattle: the cows were elf-stoned, or
+overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One night my
+brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
+cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the
+house, a stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force,
+into two halves. Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this
+hour as dead as my great great grandfather. It came whack slap against
+the spade he had in his hand, and split at once in two pieces. He took
+them up and fitted them together, and they made a perfect heart. Some
+way or the other he lost it since, but he still has the one which was
+shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little man came near us.
+Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of the ace
+of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark red colour, and polished
+up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within. When this did
+not kill the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put
+the elf-stone under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last
+stroking, and then made her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she
+would thrive with you ever after.</p>
+
+<p>"But, as I said, we were getting on well enough as long as we minded
+the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we did sharp enough when
+we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as glad to see
+the little red gentleman, and as ready to open the door to him, as we
+used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at
+long last we throve so well that the landlord&mdash;God forgive him&mdash;took
+notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the
+penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that
+was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was
+no making it. When my father&mdash;and small blame to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> him for
+that&mdash;refused to lease the ground, he turned us off the bit of land we
+had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide and wicked
+world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was not up to
+the roguery and trickery that was practised upon him. He was taken
+this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that
+were working his downfall. And he used to take bite and sup with them,
+and they with him, free enough as long as the money lasted; but when
+that was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his
+own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died
+not long after; and he now knows whether he acted right or wrong in
+taking the house from over our heads.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another
+cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to
+us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the
+door just the <i>moral</i> (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock!&mdash;twelve
+o'clock!&mdash;no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all
+would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up
+the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the
+poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very
+door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we
+thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not
+come, and we never saw him again.</p>
+
+<p>"My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my
+two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are
+both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of
+Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."</p>
+
+<p>Here young Ellen's voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into
+tears, she hid her face in her apron.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/207.jpg" width="265" height="207" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Fir Darrig</span> means the red man, and is a member of the fairy
+community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the
+Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin
+his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit
+is doubtless the same as the Scottih <i>Red Cap</i>; which a writer
+in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national
+analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon
+spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little
+hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish
+Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in
+common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly
+the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton's
+"Lubber Fiend") and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says
+of the Folletos, "Verba utique humano more audiunter et
+effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in
+vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii
+reperisse."&mdash;<i>Otia Imperialia.</i></p>
+
+<p>The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the
+Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter,
+according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the
+waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the
+warbling of birds, &amp;c.; and the usual address to this fairy is,
+Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is
+invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies
+generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings,
+and red shoes.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/208.jpg" width="219" height="189" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">TREASURE LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/209.jpg" width="366" height="275" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+"Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back<br />
+When gold and silver becks me to come on."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>King John.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+"This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so."</p>
+<p class="right"><i>Winter's Tale.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXIV">DREAMING TIM JARVIS.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXIV.</h3>
+
+<p>Timothy Jarvis was a decent, honest, quiet, hard-working man, as every
+body knows that knows Balledehob.</p>
+
+<p>Now Balledehob is a small place, about forty miles west of Cork. It is
+situated on the summit of a hill, and yet it is in a deep valley; for
+on all sides there are lofty mountains that rise one above another in
+barren grandeur, and seem to look down with scorn upon the little busy
+village which they surround with their idle and unproductive
+magnificence. Man and beast have alike deserted them to the dominion
+of the eagle, who soars majestically over them. On the highest of
+those mountains there is a small, and as is commonly believed,
+unfathomable lake, the only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> inhabitant of which is a huge serpent,
+who has been sometimes seen to stretch its enormous head above the
+waters, and frequently is heard to utter a noise which shakes the very
+rocks to their foundation.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I was saying, every body knew Tim Jarvis to be a decent,
+honest, quiet, hard-working man, who was thriving enough to be able to
+give his daughter Nelly a fortune of ten pounds; and Tim himself would
+have been snug enough besides, but that he loved the drop sometimes.
+However, he was seldom backward on rent-day. His ground was never
+distrained but twice, and both times through a small bit of a mistake;
+and his landlord had never but once to say to him&mdash;"Tim Jarvis, you're
+all behind, Tim, like the cow's tail." Now it so happened that, being
+heavy in himself, through the drink, Tim took to sleeping, and the
+sleep set Tim dreaming, and he dreamed all night, and night after
+night, about crocks full of gold and other precious stones; so much
+so, that Norah Jarvis his wife could get no good of him by day, and
+have little comfort with him by night. The gray dawn of the morning
+would see Tim digging away in a bog-hole, may be, or rooting under
+some old stone walls like a pig. At last he dreamt that he found a
+mighty great crock of gold and silver&mdash;and where do you think? Every
+step of the way upon London-bridge, itself! Twice Tim dreamt it, and
+three times Tim dreamt the same thing; and at last he made up his mind
+to transport himself, and go over to London, in Pat Mahoney's
+coaster&mdash;and so he did!</p>
+
+<p>Well, he got there, and found the bridge without much difficulty.
+Every day he walked up and down looking for the crock of gold, but
+never the find did he find it. One day, however, as he was looking
+over the bridge into the water, a man, or something like a man, with
+great black whiskers, like a Hessian, and a black cloak that reached
+down to the ground, taps him on the shoulder, and says he&mdash;"Tim
+Jarvis, do you see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely I do, sir," said Tim; wondering that any body should know him
+in that strange place.</p>
+
+<p>"Tim," says he, "what is it brings you here in foreign parts, so far
+away from your own cabin by the mine of gray copper at Balledehob?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please your honour," says Tim, "I'm come to seek my fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a fool for your pains, Tim, if that's all," remarked the
+stranger in the black cloak; "this is a big place to seek one's
+fortune in, to be sure, but it's not so easy to find it."</p>
+
+<p>Now Tim, after debating a long time with himself, and considering, in
+the first place, that it might be the stranger who was to find the
+crock of gold for him; and in the next, that the stranger might direct
+him where to find it, came to the resolution of telling him all.</p>
+
+<p>"There's many a one like me comes here seeking their fortunes," said
+Tim.</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"But," continued Tim, looking up, "the body and bones of the cause for
+myself leaving the woman, and Nelly, and the boys, and travelling so
+far, is to look for a crock of gold that I'm told is lying somewhere
+hereabouts."</p>
+
+<p>"And who told you that, Tim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why then, sir, that's what I can't tell myself rightly&mdash;only I dreamt
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho! is that all, Tim!" said the stranger, laughing; "I had a
+dream myself; and I dreamed that I found a crock of gold, in the Fort
+field, on Jerry Driscoll's ground at Balledehob; and by the same
+token, the pit where it lay was close to a large furze bush, all full
+of yellow blossom."</p>
+
+<p>Tim knew Jerry Driscoll's ground well; and, moreover, he knew the Fort
+field as well as he knew his own potato garden; he was certain, too,
+of the very furze bush at the north end of it&mdash;so, swearing a bitter
+big oath, says he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By all the crosses in a yard of check, I always thought there was
+money in that same field!"</p>
+
+<p>The moment he rapped out the oath, the stranger disappeared, and Tim
+Jarvis, wondering at all that had happened to him, made the best of
+his way back to Ireland. Norah, as may well be supposed, had no very
+warm welcome for her runaway husband&mdash;the dreaming blackguard, as she
+called him&mdash;and so soon as she set eyes upon him, all the blood of her
+body in one minute was into her knuckles to be at him; but Tim, after
+his long journey, looked so cheerful and so happy-like, that she could
+not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> find it in her heart to give him the first blow! He managed to
+pacify his wife by two or three broad hints about a new cloak and a
+pair of shoes, that, to speak honestly, were much wanting for her to
+go to chapel in; and decent clothes for Nelly to go to the patron with
+her sweetheart, and brogues for the boys, and some corduroy for
+himself. "It wasn't for nothing," says Tim, "I went to foreign parts
+all the ways; and you'll see what'll come out of it&mdash;mind my words."</p>
+
+<p>A few days afterwards Tim sold his cabin and his garden, and bought
+the Fort field of Jerry Driscoll, that had nothing in it, but was full
+of thistles, and old stones, and blackberry bushes; and all the
+neighbours&mdash;as well they might&mdash;thought he was cracked!</p>
+
+<p>The first night that Tim could summon courage to begin his work, he
+walked off to the field with his spade upon his shoulder; and away he
+dug all night by the side of the furze bush, till he came to a big
+stone. He struck his spade against it, and he heard a hollow sound;
+but as the morning had begun to dawn, and the neighbours would be
+going out to their work, Tim, not wishing to have the thing talked
+about, went home to the little hovel, where Norah and the children
+were huddled together under a heap of straw; for he had sold every
+thing he had in the world to purchase Driscoll's field, though it was
+said to be "the back-bone of the world, picked by the devil."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe the epithets and reproaches bestowed by
+the poor woman on her unlucky husband for bringing her into such a
+way. Epithets and reproaches, which Tim had but one mode of answering,
+as thus:&mdash;"Norah, did you see e'er a cow you'd like?"&mdash;or, "Norah,
+dear, hasn't Poll Deasy a feather-bed to sell?"&mdash;or, "Norah honey,
+wouldn't you like your silver buckles as big as Mrs. Doyle's?"</p>
+
+<p>As soon as night came Tim stood beside the furze-bush, spade in hand.
+The moment he jumped down into the pit he heard a strange rumbling
+noise under him, and so, putting his ear against the great stone, he
+listened, and overheard a discourse that made the hair on his head
+stand up like bulrushes, and every limb tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"How shall we bother Tim?" said one voice.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Take him to the mountain, to be sure, and make him a toothful for the
+<i>ould sarpint</i>; 'tis long since he has had a good meal," said another
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>Tim shook like a potato-blossom in a storm.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said a third voice; "plunge him in the bog, neck and heels."</p>
+
+<p>Tim was a dead man, barring the breath.<a id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" said a fourth; but Tim heard no more, for Tim was dead
+entirely. In about an hour, however, the life came back into him, and
+he crept home to Norah.</p>
+
+<p>When the next night arrived, the hopes of the crock of gold got the
+better of his fears, and taking care to arm himself with a bottle of
+potheen, away he went to the field. Jumping into the pit, he took a
+little sup from the bottle to keep his heart up&mdash;he then took a big
+one&mdash;and then, with desperate wrench, he wrenched up the stone. All at
+once, up rushed a blast of wind, wild and fierce, and down fell
+Tim&mdash;down, down and down he went&mdash;until he thumped upon what seemed to
+be, for all the world, like a floor of sharp pins, which made him
+bellow out in earnest. Then he heard a whisk and a hurra, and
+instantly voices beyond number cried out&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Welcome, Tim Jarvis, dear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Welcome, down here!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Though Tim's teeth chattered like magpies with the fright, he
+continued to make answer&mdash;"I'm he-he-har-ti-ly ob-ob-liged to-to you
+all, gen-gen-tlemen, fo-for your civility to-to a poor stranger like
+myself." But though he had heard all the voices about him, he could
+see nothing, the place was so dark and so lonesome in itself for want
+of the light. Then something pulled Tim by the hair of his head, and
+dragged him, he did not know how far, but he knew he was going faster
+than the wind, for he heard it behind him, trying to keep up with him
+and it could not. On, on, on, he went, till all at once, and suddenly,
+he was stopped, and somebody came up to him, and said, "Well, Tim
+Jarvis, and how do you like your ride?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p><p>"Mighty well! I thank your honour," said Tim; "and 'twas a good beast
+I rode, surely!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a great laugh at Tim's answer; and then there was a
+whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a
+pretty little bit of a voice said, "Shut your eyes, and you'll see,
+Tim."</p>
+
+<p>"By my word, then," said Tim, "that is the queer way of seeing; but
+I'm not the man to gainsay you, so I'll do as you bid me, any how."
+Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an
+ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of
+thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue,
+that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white
+thirteens<a id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>, as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and
+the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, "Tim Jarvis,
+because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man," says
+he, "and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we've altered
+our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do
+just as well to give to the old serpent."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, long life to you, sir!" said Tim, "and there's no doubt of
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"But what will you say, Tim," inquired the little fellow, "if we fill
+your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what
+will you do with them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your honour's honour, and your honour's glory," answered Tim, "I'll
+not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you&mdash;and
+indeed I've enough to do with them. I'd make a grand lady, you see, at
+once of Norah&mdash;she has been a good wife to me. We'll have a nice bit
+of pork for dinner; and, may be, I'd have a glass, or may be two
+glasses; or sometimes, if 'twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or
+gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I'd build a new cabin;
+and I'd have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and
+I'd snap my fingers at the 'squire, and beat his hounds, if they'd
+come coursing through my fields; and I'd have a new plough; and Norah,
+your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and
+stockings as well as Biddy <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>Leary's brats&mdash;that's my sister that
+was&mdash;and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour,
+I'd have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a
+beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be
+two. I'd have every thing," said Tim, "in life, good or bad, that is
+to be got for love or money&mdash;hurra-whoop!&mdash;and that's what I'd do."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, Tim," said the little fellow, "your money would not go
+faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop."</p>
+
+<p>But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he
+filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat
+and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever,
+moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues.
+When the little people perceived this, they cried out&mdash;"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, gentlemen," said he, "we won't part for good and all; but may
+be ye'll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square
+account of what I've done with your money."</p>
+
+<p>To this there was no answer, only another shout&mdash;"Go home, Tim
+Jarvis&mdash;go home&mdash;fair play is a jewel; but shut your eyes, or ye'll
+never see the light of day again."</p>
+
+<p>Tim shut his eyes, knowing now that was the way to see clearly; and
+away he was whisked as before&mdash;away, away he went till he again
+stopped all of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>He rubbed his eyes with his two thumbs&mdash;and where was he? Where, but
+in the very pit in the field that was Jer Driscoll's, and his wife
+Norah above with a big stick ready to beat "her dreaming blackguard."
+Tim roared out to the woman to leave the life in him, and put his
+hands in his pockets to show her the gold; but he pulled out nothing
+only a handful of small stones mixed with yellow furze blossoms. The
+bush was under him, and the great flag-stone that he had wrenched up,
+as he thought, was lying, as if it was never stirred, by his side: the
+whisky bottle was drained to the last drop; and the pit was just as
+his spade had made it.</p>
+
+<p>Tim Jarvis, vexed, disappointed, and almost heart-broken, followed his
+wife home: and, strange to say, from that night he left off drinking,
+and dreaming, and delving<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> in bog holes, and rooting in old caves. He
+took again to his hard-working habits, and was soon able to buy back
+his little cabin and former potato-garden, and to get all the
+enjoyment he anticipated from the fairy gold.</p>
+
+<p>Give Tim one, or at most two glasses of whisky punch (and neither
+friend, acquaintance, nor gossip can make him take more,) and he will
+relate the story to you much better than you have it here. Indeed, it
+is worth going to Balledehob to hear him tell it. He always pledges
+himself to the truth of every word with his fore-fingers crossed; and
+when he comes to speak of the loss of his guineas, he never fails to
+console himself by adding&mdash;"If they stayed with me I wouldn't have
+luck with them, sir; and father O'Shea told me 'twas as well for me
+they were changed, for if they hadn't, they'd have burned holes in my
+pocket, and got out that way."</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget his solemn countenance, and the deep tones of his
+warning voice, when he concluded his tale, by telling me, that the
+next day after his ride with the fairies, Mick Dowling was missing,
+and he believed him to be given to the <i>sarpint</i> in his place, as he
+had never been heard of since. "The blessing of the saints be between
+all good men and harm," was the concluding sentence of Tim Jarvis's
+narrative, as he flung the remaining drops from his glass upon the
+green sward.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/216.jpg" width="290" height="215" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXV">RENT-DAY.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXV.</h3>
+
+<p>"Oh ullagone, ullagone! this is a wide world, but what will we do in
+it, or where will we go?" muttered Bill Doody, as he sat on a rock by
+the Lake of Killarney. "What will we do? to-morrow's rent-day, and Tim
+the Driver swears if we don't pay up our rent, he'll cant every
+<i>ha'perth</i> we have; and then, sure enough, there's Judy and myself,
+and the poor little <i>grawls</i>,<a id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> will be turned out to starve on the
+high road, for the never a halfpenny of rent have I!&mdash;Oh hone, that
+ever I should live to see this day!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus did Bill Doody bemoan his hard fate, pouring his sorrows to the
+reckless waves of the most beautiful of lakes, which seemed to mock
+his misery as they rejoiced beneath the cloudless sky of a May
+morning. That lake, glittering in sunshine, sprinkled with fairy isles
+of rock and verdure, and bounded by giant hills of ever-varying hues,
+might, with its magic beauty, charm all sadness but despair; for alas,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"How ill the scene that offers rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heart that cannot rest, agree!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yet Bill Doody was not so desolate as he supposed; there was one
+listening to him he little thought of, and help was at hand from a
+quarter he could not have expected.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you, my poor man?" said a tall portly-looking
+gentleman, at the same time stepping out of a furze-brake. Now Bill
+was seated on a rock that commanded the view of a large field. Nothing
+in the field could be concealed from him, except this furze-brake,
+which grew in a hollow near the margin of the lake. He was, therefore,
+not a little surprised at the gentleman's sudden <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>appearance, and
+began to question whether the personage before him belonged to this
+world or not. He, however, soon mustered courage sufficient to tell
+him how his crops had failed, how some bad member had charmed away his
+butter, and how Tim the Driver threatened to turn him out of the farm
+if he didn't pay up every penny of the rent by twelve o'clock next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>"A sad story indeed," said the stranger; "but surely, if you
+represented the case to your landlord's agent, he won't have the heart
+to turn you out."</p>
+
+<p>"Heart, your honour! where would an agent get a heart!" exclaimed
+Bill. "I see your honour does not know him: besides, he has an eye on
+the farm this long time for a fosterer of his own; so I expect no
+mercy at all at all, only to be turned out."</p>
+
+<p>"Take this, my poor fellow, take this," said the stranger, pouring a
+purse-full of gold into Bill's old hat, which in his grief he had
+flung on the ground. "Pay the fellow your rent, but I'll take care it
+shall do him no good. I remember the time when things went otherwise
+in this country, when I would have hung up such a fellow in the
+twinkling of an eye!"</p>
+
+<p>These words were lost upon Bill, who was insensible to every thing but
+the sight of the gold, and before he could unfix his gaze, and lift up
+his head to pour out his hundred thousand blessings, the stranger was
+gone. The bewildered peasant looked around in search of his
+benefactor, and at last he thought he saw him riding on a white horse
+a long way off on the lake.</p>
+
+<p>"O'Donoghue, O'Donoghue!" shouted Bill; "the good, the blessed
+O'Donoghue!" and he ran capering like a madman to show Judy the gold,
+and to rejoice her heart with the prospect of wealth and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Bill proceeded to the agent's; not sneakingly, with his
+hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending
+under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his
+independence.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you take off your hat, fellow; don't you know you are
+speaking to a magistrate?" said the agent.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I'm not speaking to the king, sir," said Bill;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> "and I never
+takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees
+all knows I've no right either to respect or love an agent!"</p>
+
+<p>"You scoundrel!" retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage
+at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, "I'll teach you how to
+be insolent again&mdash;I have the power, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"To the cost of the country, I know you have," said Bill, who still
+remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord
+Kingsale himself.</p>
+
+<p>"But come," said the magistrate; "have you got the money for me?&mdash;this
+is rent-day. If there's one penny of it wanting, or the running gale
+that's due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain
+another hour in possession."</p>
+
+<p>"There is your rent," said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone
+and countenance; "you'd better count it, and give me a receipt in full
+for the running gale and all."</p>
+
+<p>The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold&mdash;real
+guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit
+to light one's pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to
+ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and
+handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat
+of her whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding
+a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited
+there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become
+gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king's head,
+and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in
+saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for
+his pains.</p>
+
+<p>From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered;
+and he often blesses the day that he met with O'Donoghue, the great
+prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.</p>
+
+<p>Like the butterfly, the spirit of O'Donoghue closely hovers over the
+perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of
+a star in the waters of a pure lake, to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> those who look not above,
+that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/220.jpg" width="218" height="173" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXVI">LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXVI.</h3>
+
+<p>Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to
+see the Giant's Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg;
+to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a
+dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth
+province?&mdash;who ever thinks of going&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"westward, where Dick Martin <i>ruled</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Ulster-man's ancient denunciation "to hell or to Connaught," has
+possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place
+above ground&mdash;a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium&mdash;in short, that
+Connaught is little better than hell, or hell little worse than
+Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the
+natives say, "I'll warrant he'll soon see the differ, and learn to
+understand that it is mighty like the rest o' green Erin, only
+something poorer;" and yet it might be thought that in this particular
+"worse would be needless;" but so it is.</p>
+
+<p>"My gracious me," said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, "I wonder a
+gentleman of your <i>teeste</i> and <i>curosity</i> would think of leaving
+Ireland without making a <i>tower</i> (tour) of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> Connaught, if it was
+nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on
+to the <i>ould</i> abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair."</p>
+
+<p>Polly M'Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have
+been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn
+of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface
+of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water,
+covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and
+bounded by towering mountains, noble plantations, grassy slopes, and
+precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity
+to its shores, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its
+principal tributary. The "old abbey" is chiefly remarkable for having
+been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other
+ecclesiastical edifice of the same class. Full within view of it, and
+at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of
+Breffni's princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an
+antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt
+myself on classic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of
+Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and
+venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I
+found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But
+the exterior of "O'Rourke's old hall," gray, frowning, and
+ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round
+which a noble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very
+steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least
+seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse
+follows the course of the river.</p>
+
+<p>The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I
+unfortunate in my cicerone, for he assured me there were plenty of old
+stories about strange things that used to be in the place; "but,"
+continued he, "for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor
+myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour's after, the story
+about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about
+this place that's worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that
+great big black hole in the river yonder below?" He pointed my
+attention to a part of the river<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> about fifty yards from the old hall,
+where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water
+at one side running shallow, and at the other assuming every
+appearance of unfathomable depth. The spacious pool, dark and still,
+wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled
+trout would shun its murky precincts&mdash;as if even the daring pike would
+shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. "That's Linn-na-Payshtha,
+sir," resumed my guide, "and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very
+<i>moral</i> of it, only that it's round, and not in a river, but standing
+out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile
+from this. Well, 'tis as good as fourscore years&mdash;I often <i>hard</i> my
+father, God be merciful to him! tell the story&mdash;since Manus O'Rourke,
+a great buckeen, a cockfighting, drinking blackguard that was long
+ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.
+This Manus, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought
+to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though
+he was not one of the real stock of the O'Rourkes. Well, this fellow
+had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o'clock of
+a Hollow-eve night, he'd find more gold than would make a man of him
+and his wife, while grass grew or water ran. The next night he had the
+same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to
+him the third in the same form. Manus, well becomes him, never told
+mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were
+ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big
+hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to
+keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was
+buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as
+good an O'Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his
+grandmother's father was a cow-boy to the earl O'Donnel. At long last
+Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Manus creeps to bed early,
+and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to
+the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank
+M'Clure's&mdash;the old Frank that was then at that time&mdash;and got a bottle
+of whisky, and took it with him, and 'tis unknown how much of it he
+drank. He walked across to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> the island, and down he went gallantly to
+the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him,
+lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a
+bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The
+Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if
+he'd eat him, says he, in good English,</p>
+
+<p>"'Arrah, then, Manus,' says he, 'what brought you here? It would have
+been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a
+pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down
+here for me to deal with you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, plase your honour,' says Manus, 'I beg my life:' and there he
+stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, as you have some blood of the O'Rourkes in you, I forgive you
+this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one
+belonging to you, coming about this place again, I'll hang a quarter
+of you on every tree in the wood.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Go home,' says the Payshtha&mdash;'go home, Manus,' says he; 'and if you
+can't make better use of your time, get drunk; but don't come here,
+bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to
+come, I'll show you something that you'll remember till you go to your
+grave, and ever after, while you live.'</p>
+
+<p>"With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river,
+and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Manus sees a long
+dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in,
+and shuts the door. It wasn't long before the baste began to get
+smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a
+taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man,
+about four feet high.</p>
+
+<p>"'Plase your honour,' says Manus, 'if I might make so bold, may be you
+are one of the good people?'</p>
+
+<p>"'May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to
+understand is this, that I'm bound to look after the Thiernas<a id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> of
+Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my
+present business is to watch <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>this cave, and what's in it, till the
+old stock is reigning over this country once more.'</p>
+
+<p>"'May be you are a sort of a banshee?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not, you fool,' said the little man. 'The banshee is a woman.
+My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this
+spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Manus rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind;
+and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the
+dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the
+tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his
+wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There
+was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a
+grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of
+their outer ruination. He then brought Manus on with him to where
+there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds,
+and the golden helmet of the O'Rourke; and he showed him the staff
+made out of an elephant's tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that
+the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving
+justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in
+the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the
+arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, title-deeds,
+wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.</p>
+
+<p>"'And now, Manus,' says the little man, 'ye seen the whole o' this,
+and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any
+one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of
+Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.' The little
+man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Manus's face, and says to
+him in a great passion, 'Arrah! bad luck to ye, Manus, why don't ye go
+about your business?'</p>
+
+<p>"'How can I?&mdash;sure you must show me the way out,' says Manus, making
+answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.</p>
+
+<p>"'Can't we go out the way we came?' says Manus.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, you must go out at the other end&mdash;that's the rule o' this
+place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> you must go out at
+Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one
+hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.' With
+that the little man gave him one <i>hoise</i>, and all that Manus remembers
+was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found
+the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle
+beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it
+was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My
+father, God be merciful to him! heard Manus swear to every word of the
+story."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>As there are few things which excite human desire throughout
+all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the
+concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be
+expected, widely extended; yet in all the circumstances, which
+admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where
+exists a striking similarity.</p>
+
+<p>Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded
+by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l'Antiquite,
+traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its
+discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so
+numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet
+they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide
+Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele's Danske Folkesagn, i.
+112, ii. 24. Kirke's Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or
+supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is
+seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old
+rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar,
+Holgar, and Gr&#339;n Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon
+the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire,
+sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the
+receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what
+appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.</p>
+
+<p>In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by
+soliloquizing&mdash;"Money is the devil, they say; and God is good
+that He keeps it from us."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/225.jpg" width="212" height="188" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">ROCKS AND STONES.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/226.jpg" width="365" height="290" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="inset24"><p>
+"Forms in silence frown'd,<br />
+Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye<br />
+Sometimes they rolled off cloudily,<br />
+Wedding themselves with gloom&mdash;or grew<br />
+Gigantic to my troubled view,<br />
+And seem'd to gather round me."</p>
+<p class="smcap right">Banim's <i>Celt's Paradise</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XXXVII">THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXVII.</h3>
+
+<p>From the town of Fermoy, famous for the excellence of its bottled ale,
+you may plainly see the mountain of Cairn Thierna. It is crowned with
+a great heap of stones, which, as the country people remark, never
+came there without "a crooked thought and a cross job." Strange it is,
+that any work of the good old times should be considered one of
+labour; for round towers then sprung up like mushrooms in one night,
+and people played marbles with pieces of rock, that can now no more be
+moved than the hills themselves.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This great pile on the top of Cairn Thierna was caused by the words of
+an old woman, whose bed still remains&mdash;<i>Labacally</i>, the hag's bed&mdash;not
+far from the village of Glanworth. She was certainly far wiser than
+any woman, either old or young, of my immediate acquaintance. Jove
+defend me, however, from making an envious comparison between ladies;
+but facts are stubborn things, and the legend will prove my assertion.</p>
+
+<p>O'Keefe was lord of Fermoy before the Roches came into that part of
+the country; and he had an only son&mdash;never was there seen a finer
+child; his young face filled with innocent joy was enough to make any
+heart glad, yet his father looked on his smiles with sorrow, for an
+old hag had foretold that this boy should be drowned before he grew up
+to manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Now, although the prophecies of Pastorini were a failure, it is no
+reason why prophecies should altogether be despised. The art in modern
+times may be lost, as well as that of making beer out of the mountain
+heath, which the Danes did to great perfection. But I take it, the
+malt of Tom Walker is no bad substitute for the one; and if evil
+prophecies were to come to pass, like the old woman's, in my opinion
+we are far more comfortable without such knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Infant heir of proud Fermoy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fear not fields of slaughter;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Storm and fire fear not, my boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But shun the fatal water."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These were the warning words which caused the chief of Fermoy so much
+unhappiness. His infant son was carefully prevented all approach to
+the river, and anxious watch was kept over every playful movement. The
+child grew up in strength and in beauty, and every day became more
+dear to his father, who, hoping to avert the doom, which, however, was
+inevitable, prepared to build a castle far removed from the dreaded
+element.</p>
+
+<p>The top of Cairn Thierna was the place chosen; and the lord's vassals
+were assembled, and employed in collecting materials for the purpose.
+Hither came the fated boy; with delight he viewed the laborious work
+of raising<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> mighty stones from the base to the summit of the mountain,
+until the vast heap which now forms its rugged crest was accumulated.
+The workmen were about to commence the building, and the boy, who was
+considered in safety when on the mountain, was allowed to rove about
+at will. In his case how true are the words of the great dramatist:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;"Put but a little water in a spoon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it shall be, as all the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enough to stifle such a <i>being</i> up."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A vessel which contained a small supply of water, brought there for
+the use of the workmen, attracted the attention of the child. He saw,
+with wonder, the glitter of the sunbeams within it; he approached more
+near to gaze, when a form resembling his own arose before him. He gave
+a cry of joy and astonishment and drew back; the image drew back also,
+and vanished. Again he approached; again the form appeared, expressing
+in every feature delight corresponding with his own. Eager to welcome
+the young stranger, he bent over the vessel to press his lips; and,
+losing his balance, the fatal prophecy was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>The father in despair abandoned the commenced building; and the
+materials remain a proof of the folly of attempting to avert the
+course of fate.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/228.jpg" width="236" height="192" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXVIII">THE ROCK OF THE CANDLE.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXVIII.</h3>
+
+<p>A few miles west of Limerick stands the once formidable castle of
+Carrigogunnel. Its riven tower and broken archway remain in mournful
+evidence of the sieges sustained by that city. Time, however, the
+great soother of all things, has destroyed the painful effect which
+the view of recent violence produces on the mind. The ivy creeps
+around the riven tower, concealing its injuries, and upholding it by a
+tough swathing of stalks. The archway is again united by the
+long-armed brier which grows across the rent, and the shattered
+buttresses are decorated with wild flowers, which gaily spring from
+their crevices and broken places.</p>
+
+<p>Boldly situated on a rock, the ruined walls of Carrigogunnel now form
+only a romantic feature in the peaceful landscape. Beneath them, on
+one side, lies the flat marshy ground called Corcass land, which
+borders the noble river Shannon; on the other side is seen the neat
+parish church of Kilkeedy, with its glebe-house and surrounding
+improvements; and at a short distance appear the irregular mud cabins
+of the little village of Ballybrown, with the venerable trees of
+Tervoo.</p>
+
+<p>On the rock of Carrigogunnel, before the castle was built, or Brien
+Boro born to build it, dwelt a hag named Grana, who made desolate the
+surrounding country. She was gigantic in size, and frightful in
+appearance. Her eyebrows grew into each other with a grim curve, and
+beneath their matted bristles, deeply sunk in her head, two small gray
+eyes darted forth baneful looks of evil. From her deeply-wrinkled
+forehead issued forth a hooked beak, dividing two shrivelled cheeks.
+Her skinny lips curled with a cruel and malignant expression, and her
+prominent chin was studded with bunches of grisly hair.</p>
+
+<p>Death was her sport. Like the angler with his rod, the hag Grana would
+toil, and watch, nor think it labour, so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> that the death of a victim
+rewarded her vigils. Every evening did she light an enchanted candle
+upon the rock, and whoever looked upon it died before the next
+morning's sun arose. Numberless were the victims over whom Grana
+rejoiced; one after the other had seen the light, and their death was
+the consequence. Hence came the country round to be desolate, and
+Carrigogunnel, the Rock of the Candle, by its dreaded name.</p>
+
+<p>These were fearful times to live in. But the Finnii of Erin were the
+avengers of the oppressed. Their fame had gone forth to distant
+shores, and their deeds were sung by a hundred bards. To them the name
+of danger was an invitation to a rich banquet. The web of enchantment
+stopped their course as little as the swords of an enemy. Many a
+mother of a son&mdash;many a wife of a husband&mdash;many a sister of a brother,
+had the valour of the Finnian heroes bereft. Dismembered limbs
+quivered, and heads bounded on the ground before their progress in
+battle. They rushed forward with the strength of the furious wind,
+tearing up the trees of the forest by their roots. Loud was their
+warcry as the thunder, raging was their impetuosity above that of
+common men, and fierce was their anger as the stormy waves of the
+ocean!</p>
+
+<p>It was the mighty Finn himself who lifted up his voice, and commanded
+the fatal candle of the hag Grana to be extinguished. "Thine, Regan,
+be the task," he said, and to him he gave a cap thrice charmed by the
+magician Luno of Lochlin.</p>
+
+<p>With the star of the same evening the candle of death burned on the
+rock, and Regan stood beneath it. Had he beheld the slightest glimmer
+of its blaze, he, too, would have perished, and the hag Grana, with
+the morning's dawn, rejoiced over his corse. When Regan looked towards
+the light, the charmed cap fell over his eyes and prevented his
+seeing. The rock was steep, but he climbed up its craggy side with
+such caution and dexterity, that, before the hag was aware, the
+warrior, with averted head, had seized the candle, and flung it with
+prodigious force into the river Shannon; the hissing waters of which
+quenched its light for ever!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then flew the charmed cap from the eyes of Regan, and he beheld the
+enraged hag, with outstretched arms, prepared to seize and whirl him
+after her candle. Regan instantly bounded westward from the rock just
+two miles, with a wild and wondrous spring. Grana looked for a moment
+at the leap, and then tearing up a huge fragment of the rock, flung it
+after Regan with such tremendous force, that her crooked hands
+trembled and her broad chest heaved with heavy puffs, like a smith's
+labouring bellows, from the exertion.</p>
+
+<p>The ponderous stone fell harmless to the ground, for the leap of Regan
+far exceeded the strength of the furious hag. In triumph he returned
+to Fin;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The hero valiant, renowned, and learned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White-tooth'd, graceful, magnanimous, and active."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The hag Grana was never heard of more; but the stone remains, and
+deeply imprinted in it, is still to be seen the mark of the hag's
+fingers. That stone is far taller than the tallest man, and the power
+of forty men would fail to move it from the spot where it fell.</p>
+
+<p>The grass may wither around it, the spade and plough destroy dull
+heaps of earth, the walls of castles fall and perish, but the fame of
+the Finnii of Erin endures with the rocks themselves, and
+<i>Clough-a-Regaun</i> is a monument fitting to preserve the memory of the
+deed!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/231.jpg" width="293" height="54" alt="" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 id="XXXIX">CLOUGH NA CUDDY.</h2>
+
+<h3>XXXIX.</h3>
+
+<p>Above all the islands in the lakes of Killarney give me
+Innisfallen&mdash;"sweet Innisfallen," as the melodious Moore calls it. It
+is, in truth, a fairy isle, although I have no fairy story to tell you
+about it; and if I had, these are such unbelieving times, and people
+of late have grown so skeptical, that they only smile at my stories,
+and doubt them.</p>
+
+<p>However, none will doubt that a monastery once stood upon Innisfallen
+island, for its ruins may still be seen; neither, that within its
+walls dwelt certain pious and learned persons called Monks. A very
+pleasant set of fellows they were, I make not the smallest doubt; and
+I am sure of this, that they had a very pleasant spot to enjoy
+themselves in after dinner&mdash;the proper time, believe me, and I am no
+bad judge of such matters, for the enjoyment of a fine prospect.</p>
+
+<p>Out of all the monks you could not pick a better fellow nor a merrier
+soul than Father Cuddy; he sung a good song, he told a good story, and
+had a jolly, comfortable-looking paunch of his own, that was a credit
+to any refectory table. He was distinguished above all the rest by the
+name of "the fat father." Now there are many that will take huff at a
+name; but Father Cuddy had no nonsense of that kind about him; he
+laughed at it&mdash;and well able he was to laugh, for his mouth nearly
+reached from one ear to the other: his might, in truth, be called an
+open countenance. As his paunch was no disgrace to his food, neither
+was his nose to his drink. 'Tis a doubt to me if there were not more
+carbuncles upon it than ever were seen at the bottom of the lake,
+which is said to be full of them. His eyes had a right merry twinkle
+in them, like moonshine dancing on the water; and his cheeks had the
+roundness and crimson glow of ripe arbutus berries.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept.&mdash;What then?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ate, and drank, and prayed, and slept again!"<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Such was the tenor of his simple life: but when he prayed a certain
+drowsiness would come upon him, which, it must be confessed, never
+occurred when a well-filled "blackjack" stood before him. Hence his
+prayers were short and his draughts were long. The world loved him,
+and he saw no good reason why he should not in return love its venison
+and usquebaugh. But, as times went, he must have been a pious man, or
+else what befell him never would have happened.</p>
+
+<p>Spiritual affairs&mdash;for it was respecting the importation of a tun of
+wine into the island monastery&mdash;demanded the presence of one of the
+brotherhood of Innisfallen at the abbey of Irelagh, now called
+Mucruss. The superintendence of this important matter was committed to
+Father Cuddy, who felt too deeply interested in the future welfare of
+any community of which he was a member, to neglect or delay such
+mission. With the morning's light he was seen guiding his shallop
+across the crimson waters of the lake towards the peninsula of
+Mucruss; and having moored his little bark in safety beneath the
+shelter of a wave-worn rock, he advanced with becoming dignity towards
+the abbey.</p>
+
+<p>The stillness of the bright and balmy hour was broken by the heavy
+footsteps of the zealous father. At the sound the startled deer,
+shaking the dew from their sides, sprung up from their lair, and as
+they bounded off&mdash;"Hah!" exclaimed Cuddy, "what a noble haunch goes
+there!&mdash;how delicious it would look smoking upon a goodly platter!"</p>
+
+<p>As he proceeded, the mountain-bee hummed his tune of gladness around
+the holy man, save when he buried in the foxglove bell, or revelling
+upon a fragrant bunch of thyme; and even then the little voice
+murmured out happiness in low and broken tones of voluptuous delight.
+Father Cuddy derived no small comfort from the sound, for it presaged
+a good metheglin season, and metheglin he regarded, if well
+manufactured, to be no bad liquor, particularly when there was no
+stint of usquebaugh in the brewing.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived within the abbey garth, he was received with due respect by
+the brethren of Irelagh, and arrangements for the embarkation of the
+wine were completed to his entire<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> satisfaction. "Welcome, Father
+Cuddy," said the prior: "grace be on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Grace before meat, then," said Cuddy, "for a long walk always makes
+me hungry, and I am certain I have not walked less than half a mile
+this morning, to say nothing of crossing the water."</p>
+
+<p>A pasty of choice flavour felt the truth of this assertion, as
+regarded Father Cuddy's appetite. After such consoling repast, it
+would have been a reflection on monastic hospitality to depart without
+partaking of the grace-cup; moreover, Father Cuddy had a particular
+respect for the antiquity of that custom. He liked the taste of the
+grace-cup well:&mdash;he tried another,&mdash;it was no less excellent; and when
+he had swallowed the third he found his heart expand, and put forth
+its fibres, willing to embrace all mankind. Surely, then, there is
+Christian love and charity in wine!</p>
+
+<p>I said he sung a good song. Now though psalms are good songs, and in
+accordance with his vocation, I did not mean to imply that he was a
+mere psalm-singer. It was well known to the brethren, that wherever
+Father Cuddy was, mirth and melody were with him; mirth in his eye and
+melody on his tongue; and these, from experience, are equally well
+known to be thirsty commodities; but he took good care never to let
+them run dry. To please the brotherhood, whose excellent wine pleased
+him, he sung, and as "<i>in vino veritas</i>" his song will well become
+this veritable history.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">CANTAT MONACHUS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">I.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Hoc erat in votis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Et bene sufficerit totis<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Si dum porto sacculum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bonum esset ubique jentaculum!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Et si parvis<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">In arvis<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Nullam<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Invenero pullam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ovum gentiliter pre&aelig;bebit recens<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Puella decens.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Manu nec dabis invit&acirc;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Flos vallium harum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Decus puellarum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Candida Marguerita!<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">THE FRIAR'S SONG.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">My vows I can never fulfil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Until<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I have breakfasted, one way or other;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">And I freely protest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">That I never can rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">'Till I borrow or beg<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">An egg,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless I can come at the ould hen, its mother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">But Maggy, my dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">While you're here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">I don't fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To want eggs that have just been laid newly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">For och! you're a pearl<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Of a girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And you're called so in <i>Latin</i> most truly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">II.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Me hora jucunda c&#339;n&aelig;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Dilectat bene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Et rerum sine dubio grandium<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Maxima est prandium:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sed mihi crede,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In h&acirc;c &aelig;de,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Multo magis gaudeo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cum gallicantum audio,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In sinu tuo<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Videns ova duo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh semper me tractes ita!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Panibus de hordeo factis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Et copi&acirc; lactis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Candida Margarita!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">III.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is most to my mind something that is still upper<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Than supper,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though it must be admitted I feel no way thinner<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">After dinner:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But soon as I hear the cock crow<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">In the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That eggs you are bringing full surely I know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">By that warning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While your buttermilk helps me to float<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Down my throat<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Those sweet cakes made of oat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I don't envy an earl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Sweet girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Och, 'tis you are a beautiful pearl.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Such was his song. Father Cuddy smacked his lips at the recollection
+of Margery's delicious fried eggs, which always imparted a peculiar
+relish to his liquor. The very idea provoked Cuddy to raise the cup to
+his mouth, and with one hearty pull thereat he finished its contents.</p>
+
+<p>This is, and ever was a censorious world, often construing what is
+only a fair allowance into an excess: but I scorn to reckon up any
+man's drink, like an unrelenting host; therefore, I cannot tell how
+many brimming draughts of wine, bedecked with <i>the venerable Bead</i>,
+Father Cuddy emptied into his "soul-case," so he figuratively termed
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>His respect for the goodly company of the monks of Irelagh detained
+him until their adjournment to vespers, when he set forward on his
+return to Innisfallen. Whether his mind was occupied in philosophic
+contemplation or wrapped in pious musings, I cannot declare, but the
+honest father wandered on in a different direction from that in which
+his shallop lay. Far be it from me to insinuate that the good liquor,
+which he had so commended caused him to forget his road, or that his
+track was irregular and unsteady. Oh no!&mdash;he carried his drink
+bravely, as became a decent man and a good Christian; yet somehow, he
+thought he could distinguish two moons. "Bless my eyes," said Father
+Cuddy, "every thing is changing now-a-days!&mdash;the very stars are not in
+the same places they used to be; I think <i>Camceachta</i> (the Plough) is
+driving on at a rate I never saw it before to-night; but I suppose the
+driver is drunk, for there are blackguards every where."</p>
+
+<p>Cuddy had scarcely uttered these words, when he saw, or fancied he
+saw, the form of a young woman, who, holding up a bottle, beckoned him
+towards her. The night was extremely beautiful, and the white dress of
+the girl floated gracefully in the moonlight, as with gay step she
+tripped on before the worthy father, archly looking back upon him over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Margery, merry Margery!" cried Cuddy, "you tempting little rogue!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Flos vallium harum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Decus puellarum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Candida Margarita.'<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>"I see you, I see you and the bottle! let me but catch you, Candida
+Margarita!" and on he followed, panting and smiling, after this
+alluring apparition.</p>
+
+<p>At length his feet grew weary, and his breath failed, which obliged
+him to give up the chase; yet such was his piety, that unwilling to
+rest in any attitude but that of prayer, down dropped Father Cuddy on
+his knees. Sleep, as usual, stole upon his devotions; and the morning
+was far advanced, when he awoke from dreams, in which tables groaned
+beneath their load of viands, and wine poured itself free and
+sparkling as the mountain spring.</p>
+
+<p>Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, and the more he looked the more
+he wondered at the alteration which appeared in the face of the
+country. "Bless my soul and body!" said the good father, "I saw the
+stars changing last night, but here is a change!" Doubting his senses,
+he looked again. The hills bore the same majestic outline as on the
+preceding day, and the lake spread itself beneath his view in the same
+tranquil beauty, and studded with the same number of islands; but
+every smaller feature in the landscape was strangely altered. What had
+been naked rocks were now clothed with holly and arbutus. Whole woods
+had disappeared, and waste places had become cultivated fields; and,
+to complete the work of enchantment, the very season itself seemed
+changed. In the rosy dawn of a summer's morning he had left the
+monastery of Innisfallen, and he now felt in every sight and sound the
+dreariness of winter. The hard ground was covered with withered
+leaves; icicles depended from leafless branches; he heard the sweet
+low note of the robin, who familiarly approached him; and he felt his
+fingers numbed from the nipping frost. Father Cuddy found it rather
+difficult to account for such sudden transformations, and to convince
+himself it was not the illusion of a dream, he was about to rise, when
+lo! he discovered that both his knees were buried at least six inches
+in the solid stone; for, notwithstanding all these changes, he had
+never altered his devout position.</p>
+
+<p>Cuddy was now wide awake, and felt, when he got up, his joints sadly
+cramped, which it was only natural they should be, considering the
+hard texture of the stone, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> the depth his knees had sunk into it.
+But the great difficulty was to explain how, in one night, summer had
+become winter, whole woods had been cut down, and well-grown trees had
+sprouted up. The miracle, nothing else could he conclude it to be,
+urged him to hasten his return to Innisfallen, where he might learn
+some explanation of these marvellous events.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing a boat moored within reach of the shore, he delayed not, in the
+midst of such wonders, to seek his own bark, but, seizing the oars,
+pulled stoutly towards the island; and here new wonders awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>Father Cuddy waddled, as fast as cramped limbs could carry his rotund
+corporation, to the gate of the monastery, where he loudly demanded
+admittance.</p>
+
+<p>"Holloa! whence come you, master monk, and what's your business?"
+demanded a stranger who occupied the porter's place.</p>
+
+<p>"Business!&mdash;my business!" repeated the confounded Cuddy,&mdash;"why, do you
+not know me? Has the wine arrived safely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hence, fellow!" said the porter's representative, in a surly tone;
+"nor think to impose on me with your monkish tales."</p>
+
+<p>"Fellow!" exclaimed the father: "mercy upon us, that I should be so
+spoken to at the gate of my own house!&mdash;Scoundrel!" cried Cuddy,
+raising his voice, "do you not see my garb&mdash;my holy garb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, fellow," replied he of the keys&mdash;"the garb of laziness and filthy
+debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you
+not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and
+that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to
+Master Robert Collam, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of
+England, and paragon of all beauty&mdash;whom God preserve!"</p>
+
+<p>"Queen of England!" said Cuddy; "there never was a sovereign queen of
+England&mdash;this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going
+with the stars last night&mdash;the world's turned upside down. But surely
+this is Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+morning went over to the abbey of Irelagh, respecting the tun of wine.
+Do you not know me now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know you!&mdash;how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey.
+"Yet, true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother
+remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of
+Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fresh
+eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the
+word of God; and who, being drunk, it is said, tumbled into the lake
+one night, and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, ay,
+more than a hundred years since."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas I who composed that song in praise of Margery's fresh eggs,
+which is no profane and godless ballad&mdash;no other Father Cuddy than
+myself ever belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy
+man. "A hundred years!&mdash;what was your great-grandmother's name?"</p>
+
+<p>"She was a Mahony of Dunlow&mdash;Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What! merry Margery of Dunlow your great-grandmother!" shouted Cuddy.
+"St. Brandon help me!&mdash;the wicked wench, with that tempting
+bottle!&mdash;why, 'twas only last night&mdash;a hundred years!&mdash;your
+great-grandmother, said you?&mdash;There has, indeed, been a strange torpor
+over me; I must have slept all this time!"</p>
+
+<p>That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the
+changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious
+one it was for him, had taken place. Pretty Margery's fresh eggs were
+no longer to be had in Innisfallen; and with a heart as heavy as his
+footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he
+embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine
+of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its
+monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the
+remainder of his days.</p>
+
+<p>The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees may be seen
+to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request
+them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy&mdash;so is the stone
+called&mdash;remains in Lord Kenmare's park, an indisputable evidence of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> fact. Spillane, the bugle-man, will be able to point it out to
+them, as he did so to me; and here is my sketch by which they may
+identify it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/240.jpg" width="263" height="165" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="XL">THE GIANT'S STAIRS.</h2>
+
+<h3>XL.</h3>
+
+<p>On the road between Passage and Cork there is an old mansion called
+Ronayne's Court. It may be easily known from the stack of chimneys and
+the gable ends, which are to be seen, look at it which way you will.
+Here it was that Maurice Ronayne and his wife Margaret Gould kept
+house, as may be learned to this day from the great old chimney-piece,
+on which is carved their arms. They were a mighty worthy couple, and
+had but one son, who was called Philip, after no less a person than
+the king of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately on his smelling the cold air of this world the child
+sneezed; and it was naturally taken to be a good sign of having a
+clear head; but the subsequent rapidity of his learning was truly
+amazing; for on the very first day a primer was put into his hand, he
+tore out the A, B, C page and destroyed it, as a thing quite beneath
+his notice. No wonder then that both father and mother were proud of
+their heir, who gave such indisputable proofs of genius, or, as they
+call it in that part of the world, "<i>genus</i>."</p>
+
+<p>One morning, however, Master Phil, who was then just seven years old,
+was missing, and no one could tell what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> had become of him: servants
+were sent in all directions to seek him, on horseback and on foot; but
+they returned without any tidings of the boy, whose disappearance
+altogether was most unaccountable. A large reward was offered, but it
+produced them no intelligence, and years rolled away without Mr. and
+Mrs. Ronayne having obtained any satisfactory account of the fate of
+their lost child.</p>
+
+<p>There lived, at this time, near Carigaline, one Robert Kelly, a
+blacksmith by trade. He was what is termed a handy man, and his
+abilities were held in much estimation by the lads and the lasses of
+the neighbourhood: for, independent of shoeing horses which he did to
+great perfection, and making plough-irons, he interpreted dreams for
+the young women, sung Arthur O'Bradley at their weddings, and was so
+good-natured a fellow at a christening, that he was gossip to half the
+country round.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that Robin had a dream himself, and young Philip
+Ronayne appeared to him in it at the dead hour of the night. Robin
+thought he saw the boy mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and that
+he told him how he was made a page to the giant Mahon Mac Mahon, who
+had carried him off, and who held his court in the hard heart of the
+rock. "The seven years&mdash;my time of service,&mdash;are clean out, Robin,"
+said he, "and if you release me this night, I will be the making of
+you for ever after."</p>
+
+<p>"And how will I know," said Robin&mdash;cunning enough, even in his
+sleep&mdash;"but this is all a dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take that," said the boy, "for a token"&mdash;and at the word the white
+horse struck out with one of his hind legs, and gave poor Robin such a
+kick in the forehead, that thinking he was a dead man, he roared as
+loud as he could after his brains, and woke up calling a thousand
+murders. He found himself in bed, but he had the mark of the blow, the
+regular print of a horse-shoe upon his forehead as red as blood; and
+Robin Kelly, who never before found himself puzzled at the dream of
+any other person, did not know what to think of his own.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was well acquainted with the Giant's Stairs, as, indeed, who is
+not that knows the harbour? They consist of great masses of rock,
+which, piled one above another, rise like a flight of steps, from very
+deep water, against the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> bold cliff of Carrigmahon. Nor are they badly
+suited for stairs to those who have legs of sufficient length to
+stride over a moderate-sized house, or to enable them to clear the
+space of a mile in a hop, step, and jump. Both these feats the giant
+Mac Mahon was said to have performed in the days of Finnian glory; and
+the common tradition of the country placed his dwelling within the
+cliff up whose side the stairs led.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the impression which the dream made on Robin, that he
+determined to put its truth to the test. It occurred to him, however,
+before setting out on this adventure, that a plough-iron may be no bad
+companion, as, from experience, he knew it was an excellent knock-down
+argument, having, on more occasions than one, settled a little
+disagreement very quietly: so, putting one on his shoulder, off he
+marched in the cool of the evening through Glaun a Thowk (the Hawk's
+Glen) to Monkstown. Here an old gossip of his (Tom Clancey by name)
+lived, who, on hearing Robin's dream, promised him the use of his
+skiff, and moreover offered to assist in rowing it to the Giant's
+Stairs.</p>
+
+<p>After a supper which was of the best, they embarked. It was a
+beautiful still night, and the little boat glided swiftly along. The
+regular dip of the oars, the distant song of the sailor, and sometimes
+the voice of a belated traveller at the ferry of Carrigaloe, alone
+broke the quietness of the land and sea and sky. The tide was in their
+favour, and in a few minutes Robin and his gossip rested on their oars
+in the dark shadow of the Giant's Stairs. Robin looked anxiously for
+the entrance to the Giant's Palace, which, it was said, may be found
+by any one seeking it at midnight; but no such entrance could he see.
+His impatience had hurried him there before that time, and after
+waiting a considerable space in a state of suspense not to be
+described, Robin, with pure vexation, could not help exclaiming to his
+companion, "'Tis a pair of fools we are, Tom Clancey, for coming here
+at all on the strength of a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"And whose doing is it," said Tom, "but your own?"</p>
+
+<p>At the moment he spoke they perceived a faint glimmering light to
+proceed from the cliff, which gradually increased until a porch big
+enough for a king's palace unfolded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> itself almost on a level with the
+water. They pulled the skiff directly towards the opening, and Robin
+Kelly, seizing his plough-iron, boldly entered with a strong hand and
+a stout heart. Wild and strange was that entrance; the whole of which
+appeared formed of grim and grotesque faces, blending so strangely
+each with the other that it was impossible to define any: the chin of
+one formed the nose of another: what appeared to be a fixed and stern
+eye, if dwelt upon, changed to a gaping mouth; and the lines of the
+lofty forehead grew into a majestic and flowing beard. The more Robin
+allowed himself to contemplate the forms around him, the more terrific
+they became; and the stony expression of this crowd of faces assumed a
+savage ferocity as his imagination converted feature after feature
+into a different shape and character. Losing the twilight in which
+these indefinite forms were visible, he advanced through a dark and
+devious passage, whilst a deep and rumbling noise sounded as if the
+rock was about to close upon him and swallow him up alive for ever.
+Now, indeed, poor Robin felt afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"Robin, Robin," said he, "if you were a fool for coming here, what in
+the name of fortune are you now?" But, as before, he had scarcely
+spoken, when he saw a small light twinkling through the darkness of
+the distance, like a star in the midnight sky. To retreat was out of
+the question; for so many turnings and windings were in the passage,
+that he considered he had but little chance of making his way back. He
+therefore proceeded towards the bit of light, and came at last into a
+spacious chamber, from the roof of which hung the solitary lamp that
+had guided him. Emerging from such profound gloom, the single lamp
+afforded Robin abundant light to discover several gigantic figures
+seated round a massive stone table as if in serious deliberation, but
+no word disturbed the breathless silence which prevailed. At the head
+of this table sat Mahon Mac Mahon himself, whose majestic beard had
+taken root, and in the course of ages grown into the stone slab. He
+was the first who perceived Robin; and instantly starting up, drew his
+long beard from out the huge lump of rock in such haste and with so
+sudden a jerk, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What seek you?" he demanded in a voice of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"I come," answered Robin, with as much boldness as he could put
+on&mdash;for his heart was almost fainting within him&mdash;"I come," said he,
+"to claim Philip Ronayne, whose time of service is out this night."</p>
+
+<p>"And who sent you here?" said the giant.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas of my own accord I came," said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must single him out from among my pages," said the giant;
+"and if you fix on the wrong one your life is the forfeit. Follow me."
+He led Robin into a hall of vast extent and filled with lights; along
+either side of which were rows of beautiful children all apparently
+seven years old, and none beyond that age, dressed in green, and every
+one exactly dressed alike.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said Mahon, "you are free to take Philip Ronayne, if you will;
+but, remember, I give but one choice."</p>
+
+<p>Robin was sadly perplexed; for there were hundreds upon hundreds of
+children; and he had no very clear recollection of the boy he sought.
+But he walked along the hall, by the side of Mahon, as if nothing was
+the matter, although his great iron dress clanked fearfully at every
+step, sounding louder than Robin's own sledge battering on his anvil.</p>
+
+<p>They had nearly reached the end of the hall without speaking, when
+Robin, seeing that the only means he had was to make friends with the
+giant, determined to try what effect a few soft words might have upon
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a fine wholesome appearance the poor children carry," remarked
+Robin, "although they have been here so long shut out from the fresh
+air and the blessed light of heaven. 'Tis tenderly your honour must
+have reared them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said the giant, "that is true for you; so give me your hand; for
+you are, I believe, a very honest fellow for a blacksmith."</p>
+
+<p>Robin at the first look did not much like the huge size of the hand,
+and therefore presented his plough-iron, which the giant seizing,
+twisted in his grasp round and round again as if it had been a
+potato-stalk; on seeing this all the children set up a shout of
+laughter. In the midst of their mirth Robin thought he heard his name
+called; and,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> all ear and eye, he put his hand on the boy who he
+fancied had spoken, crying out at the same time, "Let me live or die
+for it, but this is young Phil Ronayne."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Philip Ronayne&mdash;happy Philip Ronayne," said his young
+companions; and in an instant the hall became dark. Crashing noises
+were heard, and all was in strange confusion: but Robin held fast his
+prize, and found himself lying in the gray dawn of the morning at the
+head of the Giant's Stairs, with the boy clasped in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Robin had plenty of gossips to spread the story of his wonderful
+adventure&mdash;Passage, Monkstown, Ringaskiddy, Seamount, Carrigaline&mdash;the
+whole barony of Kerricurrihy rung with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite sure, Robin, it is young Phil Ronayne, you have brought
+back with you?" was the regular question; for although the boy had
+been seven years away, his appearance now was just the same as on the
+day he was missed. He had neither grown taller nor older in look, and
+he spoke of things which had happened before he was carried off as one
+awakened from sleep, or as if they had occurred yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I sure? Well, that's a queer question," was Robin's reply; "seeing
+the boy has the blue eyes of the mother, with the foxy hair of the
+father, to say nothing of the <i>purly</i> wart on the right side of his
+little nose."</p>
+
+<p>However Robin Kelly may have been questioned, the worthy couple of
+Ronayne's court doubted not that he was the deliverer of their child
+from the power of the giant Mac Mahon; and the reward they bestowed
+upon him equalled their gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Ronayne lived to be an old man; and he was remarkable to the
+day of his death for his skill in working brass and iron, which it was
+believed he had learned during his seven years' apprenticeship to the
+giant Mahon Mac Mahon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/245.jpg" width="128" height="60" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/246a.jpg" width="203" height="197" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">And now, farewell! the fairy dream is o'er;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The tales my infancy had loved to hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like blissful visions fade and disappear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such tales Momonia's peasant tells no more!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vanish'd are <span class="smcap">MERMAIDS</span> from the sea beat shore;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Check'd is the <span class="smcap">Headless Horseman's</span> strange career;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Fir Darrig's</span> voice no longer mocks the ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor <span class="smcap">ROCKS</span> bear wondrous imprints as of yore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such is "the march of mind." But did the fays<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">(Creatures of whim&mdash;the gossamers of will)<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Ireland work such sorrow and such ill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As stormier spirits of our modern days?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh land beloved! no angry voice I raise:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My constant prayer&mdash;"may peace be with thee still!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/246b.jpg" width="215" height="192" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/249.jpg" width="299" height="72" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE IRISH FAIRY LEGENDS.</p>
+
+<p>Sir,</p>
+
+<p>I have been obliged by the courtesy which sent me your very
+interesting work on Irish superstitions, and no less by the amusement
+which it has afforded me, both from the interest of the stories, and
+the lively manner in which they are told. You are to consider this,
+Sir, as a high compliment from one, who holds him on the subject of
+elves, ghosts, visions, &amp;c. nearly as strong as William Churne of
+Staffordshire&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who every year can mend your cheer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With tales both old and new."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The extreme similarity of your fictions to ours in Scotland, is very
+striking. The Cluricaune (which is an admirable subject for a
+pantomime) is not known here. I suppose the Scottish cheer was not
+sufficient to tempt to the hearth either him, or that singular demon
+called by Heywood the Buttery Spirit, which diminished the profits of
+an unjust landlord by eating up all that he cribbed for his guests.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful superstition of the banshee seems in a great measure
+peculiar to Ireland, though in some Highland families there is such a
+spectre, particularly in that of Mac Lean of Lochbuy; but I think I
+could match all your other tales with something similar.</p>
+
+<p>I can assure you, however, that the progress of philosophy has not
+even yet entirely "pulled the old woman out of our hearts," as Addison
+expresses it. Witches are still held in reasonable detestation,
+although we no longer burn or even <i>score above the breath</i>. As for
+the water bull, they live who will take their oaths to having seen him
+emerge from a small lake on the boundary of my property here, scarce
+large enough to have held him, I should think. Some<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> traits in his
+description seem to answer the hippopotamus, and these are always
+mentioned both in highland and lowland story: strange if we could
+conceive there existed, under a tradition so universal, some shadowy
+reference to those fossil bones of animals which are so often found in
+the lakes and bogs.</p>
+
+<p>But to leave antediluvian stories for the freshest news from fairy
+land, I cannot resist the temptation to send you an account of King
+Oberon's court, which was verified before me as a magistrate, with all
+the solemnities of a court of justice, within this fortnight past. A
+young shepherd, a lad of about eighteen years of age, well brought up,
+and of good capacity, and, that I may be perfectly accurate, in the
+service of a friend, a most respectable farmer, at Oakwood, on the
+estate of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden, made oath and said, that going
+to look after some sheep which his master had directed to be put upon
+turnips, and passing in the gray of the morning a small copse-wood
+adjacent to the river Etterick, he was surprised at the sight of four
+or five little personages, about two feet or thirty inches in height,
+who were seated under the trees, apparently in deep conversation. At
+this singular appearance he paused till he had refreshed his noble
+courage with a prayer and a few recollections of last Sunday's sermon,
+and then advanced to the little party. But observing that, instead of
+disappearing, they seemed to become yet more magnificently distinct
+than before, and now doubting nothing, from their foreign dresses and
+splendid decorations, that they were the choice ornaments of the fairy
+court, he fairly turned tail and went "to raise the water," as if the
+South'ron had made a raid. Others came to the rescue, and yet the
+fairy <i>cortege</i> awaited their arrival in still and silent dignity. I
+wish I could stop here, for the devil take all explanations, they stop
+duels and destroy the credit of apparitions, neither allow ghosts to
+be made in an honourable way, or to be believed in (poor souls!) when
+they revisit the glimpses of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>I must however explain, like other honourable gentlemen, elsewhere.
+You must know, that, like our neighbours, we have a school of arts for
+our mechanics at G&mdash;&mdash;, a small manufacturing town in this country,
+and that the tree of knowledge there as elsewhere produces its usual
+crop of good and evil. The day before this avatar of Oberon was a
+fair-day at Selkirk, and amongst other popular divertisements, was one
+which, in former days, I would have called a puppet-show, and its
+master a puppet-showman. He has put me right, however, by informing
+me, that he writes himself <i>artist from Vauxhall</i>, and that he
+exhibits <i>fantoccini</i>; call them what you will, it seems they gave
+great delight to the unwashed artificers of G&mdash;&mdash;. Formerly they would
+have been contented to wonder and applaud, but not so were they
+satisfied in our modern days of investigation, for they broke into
+Punch's sanctuary forcibly, after he had been laid aside for the
+evening, made violent seizure of his person, and carried off him, his
+spouse, and heaven knows what captives besides, in their plaid nooks,
+to be examined at leisure. All<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> this they literally did (forcing a
+door to accomplish their purpose) in the spirit of science alone, or
+but slightly stimulated by that of malt whisky, with which last we
+have been of late deluged. Cool reflection came as they retreated by
+the banks of the Etterick; they made the discovery that they could no
+more make Punch move than Lord &mdash;&mdash; could make him speak; and
+recollecting, I believe, that there was such a person as the Sheriff
+in the world, they abandoned their prisoners, in hopes, as they
+pretended, that they would be found and restored in safety to their
+proper owner.</p>
+
+<p>It is only necessary to add that the artist had his losses made good
+by a subscription, and the scientific inquirers escaped with a small
+fine, as a warning not to indulge such an irregular spirit of research
+in future.</p>
+
+<p>As this somewhat tedious story contains the very last news from fairy
+land, I hope you will give it acceptance, and beg you to believe me
+very much</p>
+
+<p class="right2">Your obliged and thankful servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right1"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span></p>
+
+<p>27th April, 1825.<br />
+<span class="smcap in2">Abbotsford, Melrose.</span></p>
+
+<p class="h3">THE END.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="h3">Footnotes</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Knocksheogowna signifies "<i>The Hill of the Fairy Calf.</i>"</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "Called by the people of the country '<i>Knock Dhoinn
+Firinne</i>,' the mountain of Donn of Truth. This mountain is very high,
+and may be seen for several miles round; and when people are desirous
+to know whether or not any day will rain, they look at the top of
+Knock Firinne, and if they see a vapour or mist there, they
+immediately conclude that rain will soon follow, believing that Donn
+(the lord or chief) of that mountain and his a&euml;rial assistants are
+collecting the clouds, and that he holds them there for some short
+time, to warn the people of the approaching rain. As the appearance of
+mist on that mountain in the morning is considered an infallible sign
+that that day will be rainy, Donn is called '<i>Donn Firinne</i>,' Donn of
+Truth."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mr. Edward O'Reilly.</span></p></div><div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Literally, the great herb&mdash;<i>Digitalis purpurea</i>.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Correctly written, <i>Dia Luain</i>, <i>Dia Mairt</i>, <i>agus Dia
+Ceadaoine</i>, i. e. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> And Wednesday and Thursday.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Act ii. sc. 1.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Book i. canto 10.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The term "fairy struck" is applied to paralytic
+affections, which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the
+invisible hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates
+fairy doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
+to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has also
+a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently made to
+bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a sacrifice to
+Bacchus.</p>
+<p>The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
+peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of consideration
+and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be buried with his or
+her "own people."</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie
+man of Scotland.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Inch&mdash;low meadow ground near a river.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> A ford of the river Funcheon (the Fanchin of Spenser,)
+on the road leading from Fermoy to Araglin.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>i. e.</i> "In the time of a crack of a whip," he took off
+his shoes and stockings.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> About two hundred yards off the Dublin mail-coach road,
+nearly mid-way between Kilworth and Fermoy.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> "Kilmallock seemed to me like the court of the Queen of
+Silence."&mdash;<i>O'Keefe's Recollections.</i></p></div>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nulla manus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tam liberalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Atque generalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Atque universalis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quam Sullivanis."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> In the county of Galway.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> In the county of Limerick.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Spancelled&mdash;fettered.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> "The neighbouring inhabitants," says Dr. Smith, in his
+History of Kerry, speaking of Ballyheigh, "show some rocks visible in
+this bay only at low tides, which, they say, are the remains of an
+island, that was formerly the burial-place of the family of Cantillon,
+the ancient proprietors of Ballyheigh." p. 210.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The remains of Dunkerron Caslle are distant about a mile
+from the village of Kenmare, in the county of Kerry. It is recorded to
+have been built in 1596, by Owen O'Sullivan More.&mdash;[<i>More</i>, is merely
+an epithet signifying <i>the Great</i>.]</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This is almost a literal translation of a Rann in the
+well-known song of Deardra.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> My little girl.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A monotonous song; a drowsy humming noise.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Give me a kiss, my young girl.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Faced</i>, so written by the Chantrey of Kilcrea, for
+"<i>fecit</i>."</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> A splinter, or slip of bog-deal, which, being dipped in
+tallow, is used as a candle.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Siesteen is a low block-like seat, made of straw bands
+firmly sewed or bound together.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See Weld's Killarney, 8vo ed. p. 228.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Or <i>slaib</i>; mire on the sea strand or river's
+bank.&mdash;<span class="smcap">O'Brien.</span></p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Labbig</i>&mdash;bed, from <i>Leaba</i>.&mdash;Vide <span class="smcap">O'Brien</span> and
+<span class="smcap">O'Reilly</span>.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'non mori, e non rimasi vivo:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pensa oramai per te, s'hai fior d'ingegno<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qual io divenni d'uno e d'altro privo."<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, canto 34.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> An English shilling was thirteen pence, Irish currency.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Children.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Tighearna</i>&mdash;a lord. Vide <span class="smcap">O'Brien</span>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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