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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.
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+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #54712 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54712)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30,
-January 23, 1841, by Various
-
-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'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30, January 23, 1841
-
-Author: Various
-
-Release Date: May 12, 2017 [EBook #54712]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, JAN 23, 1841 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-images generously made available by JSTOR www.jstor.org)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
-
- NUMBER 30. SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1841. VOLUME I.
-
-[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF MONEA, COUNTY OF FERMANAGH.]
-
-The Castle of Monea or Castletown-Monea--properly _Magh an fhiaidh_, i.e.
-the plain of the deer--is situated in the parish of Devinish, county
-of Fermanagh, and about five miles north-west of Enniskillen. Like the
-Castle of Tully, in the same county, of which we gave a view in a recent
-number, this castle affords a good example of the class of castellated
-residences erected on the great plantation of Ulster by the British and
-Scottish undertakers, in obedience to the fourth article concerning the
-English and Scottish undertakers, who “are to plant their portions with
-English and inland-Scottish tenants,” which was imposed upon them by
-“the orders and conditions to be observed by the undertakers upon the
-distribution and plantation of the escheated lands in Ulster,” in 1608.
-By this article it was provided that “every undertaker of the _greatest
-proportion_ of two thousand acres shall, within two years after the date
-of his letters patent, build thereupon a castle, with a strong court or
-bawn about it; and every undertaker of the second or _middle proportion_
-of fifteen hundred acres shall within the same time build a stone or
-brick house thereupon, with a strong court or bawn about it. And every
-undertaker of the _least proportion_ of one thousand acres shall within
-the same time make thereupon a strong court or bawn at least; and all the
-said undertakers shall cause their tenants to build houses for themselves
-and their families, near the principal castle, house, or bawn, for their
-mutual defence or strength,” &c.
-
-Such was the origin of most of the castles and villages now existing in
-the six escheated counties of Ulster--historical memorials of a vast
-political movement--and among the rest this of Monea, which was the
-castle of the _middle proportion_ of Dirrinefogher, of which Sir Robert
-Hamilton was the first patentee.
-
-From Pynnar’s Survey of Ulster, made in 1618-19, it appears that this
-proportion had at that time passed into the possession of Malcolm
-Hamilton (who was afterwards archbishop of Cashel), by whom the castle
-was erected, though the bawn, as prescribed by the conditions, was not
-added till some years later. He says,
-
- “Upon this proportion there is a strong castle of lime and
- stone, being fifty-four feet long and twenty feet broad, but
- hath no bawn unto it, nor any other defence for the succouring
- or relieving of his tenants.”
-
-From an inquisition taken at Monea in 1630, we find, however, that this
-want was soon after supplied, and that the castle, which was fifty feet
-in height, was surrounded by a wall nine feet in height and three hundred
-in circuit.
-
-The Malcolm Hamilton noticed by Pynnar as possessor of “the middle
-proportion of Dirrinefogher,” subsequently held the rectory of Devenish,
-which he retained _in commendam_ with his archbishopric till his death
-in 1629. The proportion of Dirrinefogher, however, with its castle,
-was escheated to the crown in 1630; and shortly after, the old chapel
-of Monea was converted into a parish church, the original church being
-inconveniently situated on an island of Lough Erne.
-
-Monea Castle served as a chief place of refuge to the English and
-Scottish settlers of the vicinity during the rebellion of 1641, and,
-like the Castle of Tully, it has its tales of horror recorded in story;
-but we shall not uselessly drag them to light. The village of Monea is
-an inconsiderable one, but there are several gentlemen’s seats in its
-neighbourhood, and the scenery around it is of great richness and beauty.
-
- P.
-
-
-
-
-ON THE SUBJUGATION OF ANIMALS BY MEANS OF CHARMS, INCANTATIONS, OR DRUGS.
-
-FIRST ARTICLE.
-
-ON SERPENT-CHARMING, AS PRACTISED BY THE JUGGLERS OF ASIA.
-
-
-Many of my readers will doubtless recollect that in a paper on “Animal
-Taming,” which appeared some weeks back in the pages of this Journal, I
-alluded slightly to the _charming_ of animals, or _taming_ them by spells
-or drugs. It is now my purpose to enter more fully upon this subject,
-and present my readers with a brief notice of what I have been able to
-glean respecting it, as well from the published accounts of remarkable
-travellers, as from oral descriptions received from personal friends
-of my own, who had opportunities of being eye witnesses to many of the
-practices to which I refer.
-
-The most remarkable, and also the most ancient description of
-animal-charming with which we are acquainted, is that which consists in
-calling the venomous serpents from their holes, quelling their fury, and
-allaying their irritation, by means of certain charms, amongst which
-music stands forth in the most prominent position, though, whether it
-really is worthy of the first place as an actual agent, or is only thus
-put forward to cover that on which the true secret depends, is by no
-means perfectly clear.
-
-Even in scripture we find the practice of serpent-charming noticed,
-and by no means as a novelty; in the 58th Psalm we are told that the
-wicked are like the “deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which hearkeneth
-not unto the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely!” And in
-the book of Jeremiah, chap. viii, the disobedient people are thus
-threatened--“Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which
-will not be _charmed_.” These are two very remarkable passages, and I
-think we may, without going too far, set down as snake-charmers the
-Egyptian magi who contended against Moses and Aaron before the court of
-the proud and vacillating Pharaoh, striving to imitate by their juggling
-tricks the wondrous miracles which Moses wrought by the immediate aid
-of God himself. The feat of changing their sticks into serpents, for
-instance, is one of every-day performance in India, which a friend of
-mine has assured me he many times saw himself, and which has not been
-satisfactorily explained by any one.
-
-The serpent has long been an object of extreme veneration to the natives
-of Hindostan, and has indeed, from the very earliest ages, been selected
-by many nations as an object of worship; why, I cannot explain, unless
-it originated in a superstitious perversion of the elevation of the
-brazen serpent in the wilderness by Moses. In India the serpent is not,
-however, altogether regarded as a deity--merely as a _demon_ or genius:
-and the office usually supposed to be peculiar to these creatures is that
-of _guardians_. This is perhaps one of the most widely spread notions
-respecting the serpent that we are acquainted with. Herodotus mentions
-the sacred serpents which guarded the citadel of Athens, and which he
-states to have been fed monthly with cakes of honey; and adds, that
-these serpents being sacred, were harmless, and would not hurt men. A
-dragon was said to have guarded the golden fleece (or, as some think, a
-_scaly serpent_), and protected the gardens of the Hesperides--a singular
-coincidence, as it is of _gardens_ principally that the Indians conceive
-the serpent to be the guardian.
-
-Medea _charmed_ the dragon by the melody of her voice. Herodotus
-mentions snakes being soothed by harmony; and Virgil, in the Æneid, says
-(translated by Dryden),
-
- “His wand and holy words the viper’s rage
- And venom’d wound of serpents could assuage.”
-
-Even our own island, although serpents do not exist in it--a blessing
-for which, if we are to put faith in legendary lore, we have to thank St
-Patrick--has numberless legends and tales of crocks of treasure at the
-bottom of deep, deep lakes, or in dark and gloomy caves, in inaccessible
-and rocky mountains, guarded by a fierce and wakeful snake, a sleepless
-serpent, whose eyes are never closed, and who never for a second abated
-of his watchful care of the treasure-crock, of which he had originally
-been appointed guardian;[1] and, further, we are told how the daring and
-inventive genius of the son of Erin has often found out a mode of putting
-a “_comether_” on the “big sarpint, the villain,” and haply closing his
-eyes in slumber, while he succeeded in possessing himself of the hoard
-which by his cunning and bravery he had so fairly won; in other words,
-_charming_ the snake and possessing himself of the spoil.
-
-Having thus glanced at the antiquity and wide spread of serpent-charming,
-I shall proceed to lay before you a short description of the mode in
-which the spell is cast over the animals by the modern jugglers of Arabia
-and India.
-
-Of all the Indian serpents, next to the Cobra Minelle, the Cobra Capella,
-or hooded snake (_Coluber Naja_), called in India the “Naig,” and also
-“spectacle snake,” is the most venomous. It derives its names of _hooded_
-and _spectacle_ snake from a fold of skin resembling a hood near the
-head, which it possesses a power of enlarging or contracting at pleasure;
-and in the centre of this hood are seen, when it is distended, black and
-white markings, bearing no distant or fanciful likeness to a pair of
-spectacles. The mode of charming, or, at all events, all that is to be
-seen or understood by the spectators, consists in the juggler playing
-upon a flute or fife near the hole which a snake has been seen to enter,
-or which his employers have otherwise reason to suppose the reptile
-inhabits. The serpent will presently put forth his head, a portion of his
-body will shortly follow, and in a few minutes he will creep forth from
-his retreat, and, approaching the musician, rear himself on his tail,
-and by moving his head and neck up and down or from side to side, keep
-tolerably accurate time to the tune with which his ears are ravished.
-
-After having played for a short period, and apparently soothed the
-reptile into a state of dreamy unconsciousness of all that is passing,
-save only the harmony which delights him, the juggler will gradually
-bring himself within grasp of the snake, and by a sudden snatch seize
-him by the tail, and hold him out at arms’ length. On the cessation of
-the music, and on finding himself thus roughly assailed, the reptile
-becomes fearfully enraged, and exerts all his energies to turn upwards,
-and bite the arm of his aggressor. His efforts are however fruitless;
-while held in that position, he is utterly incapable of doing any injury;
-and is, after having been held thus for a few minutes before the gaze
-of the admiring crowd, dropped into a basket ready to receive him, and
-laid aside until the juggler has leisure and privacy to complete the
-subjugation which his wonder-working melody had begun.
-
-When charmed serpents are exhibited dancing to the sound of music, the
-spectators should not crowd too closely around the seat of the juggler,
-for, no matter how well trained they may be, there is great danger
-attending the cessation of the sweet sounds; and if from any cause the
-flute or fife suddenly stops or is checked, it not unfrequently happens
-that the snake will spring upon some one of the company, and bite him.
-I think that it will not be amiss if I quote the description of Indian
-snake-charming, furnished by a gentleman in the Honourable Company’s
-civil service at Madras, to the writer, who vouches for its veracity:--
-
-“One morning,” says he, “as I sat at breakfast, I heard a loud noise and
-shouting among my palankeen bearers. On inquiry I learned that they had
-seen a large hooded snake (or Cobra Capella), and were trying to kill
-it. I immediately went out, and saw the snake climbing up a very high
-green mound, whence it escaped into a hole in an old wall of an ancient
-fortification. The men were armed with their sticks, which they always
-carry in their hands, and had attempted in vain to kill the reptile,
-which had eluded their pursuit, and in his hole he had coiled himself
-up secure, while we could see his bright eyes shining. I had often
-desired to ascertain the truth of the report as to the effect of music
-upon snakes: I therefore inquired for a snake catcher. I was told there
-was no person of the kind in the village, but, after a little inquiry I
-heard there was one in a village distant three miles. I accordingly sent
-for him, keeping a strict watch over the snake, which never attempted
-to escape whilst we his enemies were in sight. About an hour elapsed,
-when my messenger returned, bringing the snake catcher. This man wore no
-covering on his head, nor any on his person, excepting a small piece of
-cloth round his loins: he had in his hands two baskets, one containing
-tame snakes, one empty: these and his musical pipe were the only things
-he had with him. I made the snake catcher leave his two baskets on the
-ground at some distance, while he ascended the mound with his pipe alone.
-He began to play: at the sound of the music the snake came gradually and
-slowly out of his hole. When he was entirely within reach, the snake
-catcher seized him dexterously by the tail, and held him thus at arms’
-length, whilst the enraged snake darted his head in all directions, but
-in vain: thus suspended, he has not the power to round himself so as to
-seize hold of his tormentor. He exhausted himself in vain exertions, when
-the snake catcher descended the bank, dropped him into the empty basket,
-and closed the lid: he then began to play, and after a short time raised
-the lid of the basket, when the snake darted about wildly, and attempted
-to escape; the lid was shut down again quickly, the music always playing.
-This was repeated two or three times; and in a very short interval, the
-lid being raised, the snake sat on his tail, opened his hood, and danced
-quite as quietly as the tame snakes in the other basket, nor did he again
-attempt to escape. This, having witnessed it with my own eyes, I can
-assert as a fact.”
-
-I particularly request the attention of my readers to the foregoing
-account, as, from the circumstance of its having been furnished by an
-eye-witness, and a man whose public station and known character were
-sufficient to command belief in his veracity, it will prove serviceable
-to me by and bye, when I shall endeavour to disprove the ridiculous
-assertions of Abbé Dubois[2] and others, who hold that serpent-charming
-is a mere imposition, and assert, certainly without a shade of warranty
-for so doing, that the serpents are in these cases always previously
-tamed, and deprived of their poison bags and fangs, when they are let
-loose in certain situations for the purpose of being artfully caught
-again, and represented as _wild_ snakes, subdued by the charms of their
-pipe. I shall, however, say no more at present of Dubois, Denon, or
-others who are sceptical on this subject, but shall leave the refutation
-of their fanciful opinions to another opportunity--my present purpose
-being the establishment of _facts_, ere I venture to advance a theory.
-
-I shall therefore conclude my present paper, and in my next, besides
-adducing many other important facts relative to serpent-charming, shall
-endeavour to throw some light upon the real mode by which it is effected.
-
- H. D. R.
-
-[1] See numerous legends of the “Peiste.”
-
-[2] Description of the People of India, p. 469.
-
-
-
-
-GRUMBLING.
-
-
-If it be no part of the English constitution, it is certainly part of
-the constitution of Englishmen to grumble. They cannot help it, even if
-they tried; not that they ever do try, quite the reverse, but they could
-not help grumbling if they tried ever so much. A true-born Englishman is
-born grumbling. He grumbles at the light, because it dazzles his eyes,
-and he grumbles at the darkness, because it takes away the light. He
-grumbles when he is hungry, because he wants to eat; he grumbles when he
-is full, because he can eat no more. He grumbles at the winter, because
-it is cold; he grumbles at the summer, because it is hot; and he grumbles
-at spring and autumn, because they are neither hot nor cold. He grumbles
-at the past, because it is gone; he grumbles at the future, because it
-is not come; and he grumbles at the present, because it is neither the
-past nor the future. He grumbles at law, because it restrains him; and
-he grumbles at liberty, because it does not restrain others. He grumbles
-at all the elements--fire, water, earth, and air. He grumbles at fire,
-because it is so dear; at water, because it is so foul; at the earth, in
-all its combinations of mud, dust, bricks, and sand; and at the air, in
-all its conditions of hot or cold, wet or dry. All the world seems as if
-it were made for nothing else than to plague Englishmen, and set them
-a-grumbling. The Englishman must grumble at nature for its rudeness, and
-at art for its innovation; at what is old, because he is tired of it; and
-at what is new, because he is not used to it. He grumbles at everything
-that is to be grumbled at; and when there is nothing to grumble at, he
-grumbles at that. Grumbling cleaves to him in all the departments of
-life; when he is well, he grumbles at the cook; and when he is ill, he
-grumbles at the doctor and nurse. He grumbles in his amusements, and he
-grumbles in his devotion; at the theatres he grumbles at the players,
-and at church he grumbles at the parson. He cannot for the life of him
-enjoy a day’s pleasure without grumbling. He grumbles at his enemies, and
-he grumbles at his friends. He grumbles at all the animal creation, at
-horses when he rides on them, at dogs when he shoots with them, at birds
-when he misses them, at pigs when they squeak, at asses when they bray,
-at geese when they cackle, and at peacocks when they scream. He is always
-on the look-out for something to grumble at; he reads the newspapers,
-that he may grumble at public affairs; his eyes are always open to look
-for abominations; he is always pricking up his ears to detect discords,
-and snuffing up the air to find stinks. Can you insult an Englishman
-more than by telling him he has nothing to grumble at? Can you by any
-possibility inflict a greater injury upon him than by convincing him he
-has no occasion to grumble? Break his head, and he will forget it; pick
-his pocket, and he will forgive it, but deprive him of his privilege of
-grumbling, you more than kill him--you expatriate him. But the beauty of
-it is, you cannot inflict this injury on him; you cannot by all the logic
-ever invented, or by all the arguments that ever were uttered, convince
-an Englishman that he has nothing to grumble at; for if you were to do
-so, he would grumble at you so long as he lived for disturbing his old
-associations. Grumbling is a pleasure which we all enjoy more or less,
-but none, or but few, enjoy it in all the perfection and completeness of
-which it is capable. If we were to take a little more pains, we should
-find, that having no occasion to grumble, we should have cause to grumble
-at everything. But we grow insensible to a great many annoyances, and
-accustomed to a great many evils, and think nothing of them. What a
-tremendous noise there is in the city, of carts, coaches, drays, waggons,
-barrel-organs, fish-women, and all manner of abominations, of which
-they in the city take scarcely any notice at all! How badly are all
-matters in government and administration conducted! What very bad bread
-do the bakers make! What very bad meat do the butchers kill! In a word,
-what is there in the whole compass of existence that is good? What is
-there in human character that is as it should be? Are we not justified
-in grumbling at everything that is in heaven above, or in the earth
-beneath, or in the waters under the earth? In fact, gentle reader, is the
-world formed or governed half so well as you or I could form or govern
-it?--_From a newspaper._
-
-
-
-
-VULGARITY.
-
-
-The very essence of vulgarity, after all, consists merely in one
-error--in taking manners, actions, words, opinions, on trust from
-others, without examining one’s own feelings, or weighing the merits of
-the case. It is coarseness or shallowness of taste, arising from want
-of individual refinement, together with the confidence and presumption
-inspired by example and numbers. It may be defined to be a prostitution
-of the mind or body to ape the more or less obvious defects of others,
-because by so doing we shall secure the suffrages of those we associate
-with. To affect a gesture, an opinion, a phrase, because it is the rage
-with a large number of persons, or to hold it in abhorrence because
-another set of persons very little, if at all, better informed, cry
-it down to distinguish themselves from the former, is in either case
-equal vulgarity and absurdity. A thing is not vulgar merely because it
-is common. It is common to breathe, to see, to feel, to live. Nothing
-is vulgar that is natural, spontaneous, unavoidable. Grossness is not
-vulgarity, ignorance is not vulgarity, awkwardness is not vulgarity;
-but all these become vulgar when they are affected and shown off on the
-authority of others, or to fall in with the fashion or the company we
-keep. Caliban is coarse enough, but surely he is not vulgar. We might as
-well spurn the clod under our feet, and call it vulgar. Cobbett is coarse
-enough, but he is not vulgar. He does not belong to the herd. Nothing
-real, nothing original, can be vulgar; but I should think an imitator of
-Cobbett a vulgar man. Simplicity is not vulgarity; but the looking to
-imitation or affectation of any sort for distinction is. A Cockney is a
-vulgar character, whose imagination cannot wander beyond the suburbs of
-the metropolis. An aristocrat, also, who is always thinking of the High
-Street, Edinburgh, is vulgar. We want a name for this last character. An
-opinion is often vulgar that is stewed in the rank breath of the rabble;
-but it is not a bit purer or more refined for having passed through the
-well-cleansed teeth of a whole court. The inherent vulgarity lies in the
-having no other feeling on any subject than the crude, blind, headlong,
-gregarious notion acquired by sympathy with the mixed multitude, or with
-a fastidious minority, who are just as insensible to the real truth,
-and as indifferent to every thing but their own frivolous pretensions.
-The upper are not wiser than the lower orders, because they resolve to
-differ from them. The fashionable have the advantage of the unfashionable
-in nothing but the fashion. The true vulgar are the persons who have
-a horrible dread of daring to differ from their clique--the herd of
-pretenders to what they do not feel, and to do what is not natural to
-them, whether in high or low life. To belong to any class, to move in
-any rank or sphere of life, is not a very exclusive distinction or test
-of refinement. Refinement will in all classes be the exception, not the
-rule; and the exception may occur in one class as well as another. A
-king is but a man with a hereditary title. A nobleman is only one of the
-House of Peers. To be a knight or alderman--above all, to desire being
-either, is confessedly a vulgar thing. The king made Walter Scott a
-baronet, but not all the power of the Three Estates could make another
-“Author of Waverley.” Princes, heroes, are often commonplace people, and
-sometimes the reverse; Hamlet was not a vulgar character, neither was Don
-Quixote. To be an author, to be a painter, one of the many, is nothing.
-It is a trick, it is a trade. Nay, to be a member of the Royal Academy,
-or a Fellow of the Royal Society, is but a vulgar distinction. But to
-be a Virgil, a Milton, a Raphael, a Claude, is what falls to the lot of
-humanity but once. I do not think those were vulgar people, though, for
-any thing I know to the contrary, the First Lord of the Bedchamber may
-be a very vulgar man. Such are pretty much my notions with regard to
-vulgarity.--_Hazlitt’s Table-Talk._
-
-
-
-
-WINTER COMES.
-
-
- Winter comes with screech and wail,
- Piercing blast and thundering gale;
- Far from frozen climes he brings
- Sleet and snow, and blanching things.
- He has trod the North Pole round,
- Long in icy fetters bound;
- Swept by Greenland’s frigid shore,
- Where the western billows roar--
- Roamed o’er Lapland’s ice-bound plains,
- Where chaotic darkness reigns;
- Rested on that land of woe
- Where the Russian captives go;
- Land where men of royal race,
- Exiled by some tyrant base,
- Pined in suffering, died in grief,
- No fond hand to bring relief--
- No bright eyes to shed one tear
- O’er their cold and lonely bier;
- Dying far from wife and child
- In Siberia’s stormy wild.
-
- Winter comes--his footsteps tread
- O’er the ocean’s rugged bed;
- As a ruthless conqueror he
- Sends his storms from sea to sea;
- Pity ne’er hath seized his breast,
- Sighs do ne’er disturb his rest--
- Shrieks that boom along the wave,
- And mark the seaman’s wat’ry grave,
- Fail to touch his icy soul,
- Fail to stop the billow’s roll.
- When enthroned as ocean’s king,
- Spirits of his triumphs sing,
- Drinking to his sovereign power
- In the fearful midnight hour,
- From those remnants of the dead
- That round ocean’s depths are spread.
-
- Winter comes, with giant stride
- O’er the hills and forests wide;
- From his aged brow he sheds
- Hoary locks around their heads--
- Mantles in his polar garb
- Tree and flower and tender herb.
- Not a leaf appears to show
- Where the summer cowslips grow;
- Not a bud or blossom fair
- Scents with sweets the chilly air;
- Not a bluebell decks the heath,
- All are hid beneath the wreath
- Spread by his unfriendly hand
- O’er the dark dismantled land.
- Gardens once so bright and gay,
- ’Neath the summer’s solar ray,
- Once so rich in lovely gems,
- Hanging on their pendent stems,
- Seem as some lone desert wild
- Where fair beauty never smiled--
- Where the light of summer’s sun
- Never touched or lit upon;
- Nature lies all lone and dead,
- ’Neath old Winter’s frosty tread.
-
- Winter comes, and some rejoice,
- Glad to hear his sullen voice
- Booming o’er the crested waves,
- Sounding through old grots and caves--
- Sighing ’mid the forest trees,
- Not in songs of summer’s breeze,
- But like mournings for the dead,
- That as fairy flowers have fled;
- Mounting o’er the mountain’s brow,
- Where the oak-tree’s trembling bough,
- Rushing through the wooded glen,
- Swooping o’er the frightsome fen.
- This is joy to hearts that know
- Nothing of the drifting snow,
- But beside the glowing hearth
- Spend the hours in joy and mirth,
- Laughing at the well-told tale,
- While without the rising gale
- Sweeps in furious mood along,
- Heedless of their boisterous song.
-
- Winter comes--and sorrow brings
- On his dark foreboding wings,
- To the poor lone helpless child
- On whom fortune never smiled,
- To the wretched cots and cells
- Where want’s abject sufferer dwells.
- Round them he does cast his reins,
- O’er them brings his woes and pains.
- O! ye lordlings of the earth,
- Freed from pinching want by birth,
- Let your bosoms heave one sigh
- For the poor whose piercing cry
- Calls for sympathy from all,
- Loud as human woes can call,
- Plead with you on every mind
- To be moved with mercy kind;
- Supplicates for help to save
- Suffering equals from the grave.
- Hear, O hear their melting cries
- Rising upward to the skies;
- Hear, and let the good which heaven
- Kindly to your hands hath given,
- Aid in promptly helping those
- Steept in poverty and woes;
- Then when earthly days are fled,
- And the joys (now dark and dead)
- Cease for ever from your eyes,
- May you live beyond the skies;
- May you hear your Saviour say,
- Come, my servants, come away;
- Enter in and seize your crown,
- Be partakers of my throne;
- For on earth you loved your lord;
- Hearken’d to his every word--
- Heard his suffering children cry,
- Wiped the tear-drops from their eye--
- Inasmuch as thus your love,
- Round their troubled souls did move,
- So to me that love was given
- Enter in with me to heaven.
-
- Coleraine, December 1840. S. A.
-
-
-
-
-TALES OF MY CHILDHOOD, BY JOHN KEEGAN.
-
-No. I.--THE BOCCOUGH RUADH.
-
-A TRADITION OF POOR-MAN’S BRIDGE.
-
- “When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,
- Their pebbled beds permitted leave,
- And goblins haunt, from fire or fen,
- Or mine or flood, the walks of men.”----COLLINS.
-
-
-One evening last winter--a holiday evening too--when the western wind was
-sweeping on wild pinions from the grey hills of Tipperary, athwart the
-rich and level plains of the Queen’s County, when the blast roared down
-in the chimney, and the huge rain-drops pattered saucily against the four
-tiny panes which constituted the little kitchen window, I was sitting in
-the cottage of a neighbouring peasant, amid a small but happy group of
-village rustics, and enjoying with them that enlivening mirth and sinless
-delight which I have never found any where but at the fireside of an
-Irish peasant. The earthen floor was well scrubbed over; the “brullaws
-ov furnithure” were arranged with more than usual tidiness, and even the
-crockery on the well-scoured dresser reflected the ruddy glare of the red
-fire with redoubled brilliancy, and glittered and glistened as merrily as
-if they felt conscious of the calm and tranquillity of that happy scene.
-And happy indeed was that scene, and happy was that time, and happier
-still the hearts of the laughing rustics by whom I was on that occasion
-surrounded, and amongst whom I have spent the lightest and happiest hours
-of my existence.
-
-It was, as I said, a wild night, but even the violence of the weather
-abroad gave an additional relish to the enjoyments within. The blast
-whistled fiercely in the bawn and in the haggard, but the huge fire
-blazed brightly on the hearth-stone. The rain fell in torrents; but, as
-one of the company chucklingly remarked, “the wrong side ov the house was
-out,” and I myself mentally exclaimed with Tam o’ Shanter,
-
- “The storm without may roar and rustle,
- _We_ do not mind the storm a whustle.”
-
-Whilst, to wind up the climax of our happiness, a gossoon who had been
-dispatched for a grey-beard full of “the native,” now returned, and
-in a few minutes a huge jug of half and half smoked on the table, and
-was circulated around the smiling and expectant ring, with an impetus
-of which the peasantry of Ireland will in a short time, from certain
-existing causes, have not even the remotest idea.
-
-Well! such an evening as we had, I shall never forget; it would be vain
-to attempt a description. Those who have witnessed similar scenes require
-none, and to those who have not, any attempt at one would be useless.
-All therefore I shall say, is, that such a scene of fun and frolic and
-harmless waggery could not be found any where outside that ring which
-encircles the Emerald Isle, and even within that bright zone, nowhere but
-in the cabin of an Irish “scullogue.”
-
-The songs of our sires, chanted with all that melancholy softness and
-pathetic sweetness for which the voices of our wild Irish girls are
-remarkable, the wild legend recited with that rich brogue and waggish
-humour peculiar alone to the Irish peasant, and the romantic and absurd
-fairy tale, told with all the reverential awe and caution which the
-solemnity of the subject required, long amused and excited the captivated
-auditors; but at length, more’s the pity, the vocalist could sing no
-more, having “a mighty great could intirely.” The story-teller was “as
-dry as a chip wid all he talked,” and even the sides of most of the
-company “war ready to split wid the rale dint of laughin’;” whilst, as if
-to afford us another illustration of the truth of the old proverb, “one
-trouble never comes alone,” even the old crone who had astonished us with
-the richness and extent of her fairy lore, was also knocked up, or rather
-knocked _down_, for the quantity of earthly _spirits_ she had put _in_,
-entirely put _out_ all memory of _un_-earthly _spirits_, and sent her
-disordered fancy, all confused as it was, wool-gathering to the classic
-regions of _Their-na-noge_.[3]
-
-Well, what was to be done? It was still young in the night, and, better
-than that, a good “slug” still remained in the grey-beard, and as we all
-had contributed to procure the stock, so all declared that none should
-depart until the very last drop was drained. But how was the interval to
-be employed? The singer was hushed, the story-teller was exhausted, and
-vollies of wit and waggery had exploded until every one was tired; yet to
-remain silent was considered by all as the highest degree of discomfort.
-In this dilemma the man of the house scratched his pericranium, and, as
-acting by some sudden impulse, started up and handed me an old sooty
-book, “hoping that I would read a wollume for the edication of the
-company, until it would be time to retire.”
-
-I agreed without hesitation, and on opening the dusty and smoke-begrimed
-volume found that it was “Sir Charles Coote’s Statistical Survey of
-the Queen’s County,” printed in Dublin by Graisberry and Campbell, and
-published by direction of the Dublin Society in the year 1801. Although
-well aware that the dry details of a work professedly and almost
-exclusively statistical, were little calculated to amuse or interest
-_such_ an audience, yet, as the library of an Irish peasant is always
-unfortunately scanty, and in this instance, with the exception of a few
-trifling works on religious subjects, limited to the book in question, I
-determined to make the best I could of it, and for that purpose opened
-it at Sir Charles’s description of the immediate district in which we
-were situated, namely, the barony of Maryborough West, and town-land of
-Killeany. I read on thus:--“On Sir Allen Johnson’s estate stand the ruins
-of Killeany Castle; the walls are injudiciously built of very bad stones,
-though excellent quarry is contiguous. … Poor-man’s Bridge over the Nore
-was lately widened, and is very safe, but I cannot learn the tradition
-why it was so called.”
-
-“Read that again, sir,” said a fine grey-headed, patriarchal old man who
-was present; “read that again,” said he emphatically. I did so.
-
-“_He_ cannot learn the tradition of Poor-man’s Bridge, _inagh_!” said the
-old man with a sneer; “faith, I believe not; I’d take his word for more
-nor that. But had he come to me when he was travelling the country making
-up his statisticks, I could open his eyes on that subject, and many
-others too.”
-
-Some of those present laughed outright at the old man’s gravity of manner
-as he made this confident boast.
-
-“You need not laugh--you may shut your potato-traps,” said the old man
-indignantly. “Grand as he was, with his gold and silver, his coach and
-horses, and servants with gold and scarlet livery, I could enlighten him
-more on the ancient history and traditions of our country than all the
-_boddaghs_ of squireens whom he visited on his tour through the Queen’s
-County.”
-
-These assertions served only to increase the storm of ridicule which was
-gathering around the old man’s head; and to put a stop to any bad blood
-which the occasion might call forth, I requested of him to tell us the
-tradition of “the Boccough Ruadh.”
-
-After some wheedling and flattery he complied, and told a curious story,
-of which the following is the substance.
-
-The river Nore flows through a district of the Queen’s County celebrated
-for fertility and romantic beauty. From its source amongst the blue hills
-of Slievebloom to its termination at New Ross, where its bright ripples
-commingle with the briny billows of the Irish sea, many excellent and
-even some beautiful bridges span its stream. Until the commencement of
-the last century, however, except in the vicinity of towns, there were
-but few permanent bridges across this river, and in the country districts
-access was gained over it chiefly by means of causeways, or, as they are
-termed, “foords,” constructed of stones and huge blocks of timber fixed
-firmly in the bed of the river, and extending in irregular succession
-from bank to bank. Over this pathway foot passengers crossed easily
-enough, but cattle and wheeled carriages were obliged to struggle through
-the water as well as they could; but in time of floods, and in the winter
-season when the waters were swollen, all communication was cut off except
-to pedestrians alone.
-
-One of those “foords,” in former times, crossed the Nore at Shanahoe, a
-very pretty neighbourhood, about three miles northwards of the beautiful
-and rising town of Abbeyleix, in the Queen’s County. The river here winds
-its course through a silent glen, and now several snug cottages and
-farm-houses arise above its banks at either side. The country in this
-neighbourhood is remarkably beautiful. Several gentlemen’s seats are
-scattered along the banks of the river in this vicinity, all elegant and
-of modern erection, whilst swelling hills, sloping dales, gloomy groves,
-and ruins of church and tower and “castle grey,” ornament and diversify
-the scene.
-
-On a gentle eminence on the eastern bank of the river, stood, about a
-hundred years ago, the cabin of a man named Neale O’Shea. At that period
-there was not another dwelling within a long distance of the “foord,”
-and many a time was Neale summoned from his midnight repose to guide the
-traveller in his passage over the lonely and dangerous river pathway.
-
-One wild stormy December night, when the huge limestone rocks that formed
-the stepping-stones of the ford were lashed and chafed by the angry foam
-of the agitated river, Neale O’Shea’s wife fancied she heard, amid the
-fitful pausings of the wind, the cry of some mortal in distress. She
-immediately aroused her husband, who was stretched asleep on a large
-oak stool in the chimney corner, and told him to look out. Neale, ever
-willing to relieve a fellow-creature, arose, and, flinging his grey
-“trusty” over his expansive shoulders, and seizing a long iron-shod pole
-or wattle, the constant companion of his nightly excursions, hastened
-down to the river’s brink. He stood a moment at the verge of the ford,
-and tried to penetrate through the intense gloom, to see if he could
-discover a human form, but he could see nothing.
-
-“Is there any one there?” he shouted in a stentorian voice, which rose
-high above the whistling of the blast, and the brawling of the angry and
-swift-rushing river.
-
-A voice sounded at the other extremity of the ford, and the stout-hearted
-peasant, with steady step, crossed over the slippery stepping-stones.
-
-“Who the devil are you?” roughly exclaimed Neale to a man who lay
-extended on the brink of the river, convenient to the entrance of the
-ford.
-
-“Whoever I am,” faintly replied the stranger, “you are my good angel,
-and it was surely Providence who sent you this night to rescue me from a
-watery grave.”
-
-“Whoever you are,” again said Neale, “come along with me, and Kathleen
-and the childre will make you welcome in my cabin until morning.”
-So saying, he seized the bending form of the wayworn stranger, and
-flinging him on his back with herculean strength, trudged over the
-stepping-stones, chuckling with delight, and gaily whistling as he went.
-
-The dangerous pass was soon crossed, and arriving at the door, Neale
-pushed it before him, and with a smile deposited his trembling burthen
-on the warm hearth. A fine fire blazed merrily, and its flickering
-beams fell brightly on the face of the stranger. He was a tall, portly
-figure, stooped as if from extreme suffering more than age, and had a
-wooden leg. His features, which had evidently been handsome in his youth,
-were worn, pale, and attenuated, and he might be about fifty years of
-age. His clothes were faded and ragged; he was entirely without shoes
-or stockings; and his head was covered by a broad-brimmed leathern hat,
-under which he wore an enormous red nightcap of coarse woollen cloth.
-
-The good Kathleen now set about preparing supper, and while thus
-employed, the stranger gave them a brief account of his bygone life.
-He told them that he was a native of the north of Ireland, and that
-he had spent several years of his youth at sea; that being wounded
-in a fray with smugglers on the coast of France, and losing his leg,
-he was discharged from his employment, and sent adrift on the world,
-without having one friend on earth, or a penny in his pocket. In this
-exigence he had no alternative but to apply to the commiseration of his
-fellow-creatures, and had thus for the last twenty years wandered up and
-down, entirely dependent on the bounty and charity of the public.
-
-Supper was now ready, and having partaken of a comfortable meal, the
-wanderer went to rest in a comfortable “shake-down,” which the good woman
-had prepared for him in the chimney corner. The storm died away during
-the night, and next morning the watery beams of the winter’s sun shone
-faintly yet gaily on the smooth surface of the silvery Nore.
-
-The stranger was up at sunrise, and was preparing to depart, but his kind
-host and hostess would not permit him to go. They told him to stop a few
-days to rest himself, and in the interim, that he could not do better
-than take his stand at the ford, and ask alms of those who passed the
-way, as a great many frequented that pass; and as nothing was ever craved
-from them there, they would cheerfully extend their charity to an object
-worthy of relief.
-
-Acting on their suggestions, the old sailor was soon sitting on a stone
-at the western extremity of the ford. With his old caubeen in his hand,
-and his head enveloped in the gigantic red nightcap, he craved alms,
-in the name of God and the Virgin, from all who passed the way; and
-before the sickly beams of the December sun had sunk behind the conical
-“Gizebo,” he could show more money than ever he did before, since his
-limb was swept off by the shot of the smuggling Frenchman.
-
-The next morning, and every morning after, found the sailor at his post
-at the ford: he soon became well known to all the villagers, and from the
-circumstance of his always appearing with no other head-gear than the red
-nightcap, they nicknamed him the “Boccough Ruadh,”[4] a name by which he
-went ever after till his death.
-
-Time passed on as usual, and the one-legged sailor still plied his
-lucrative vocation at the river pass. Neale O’Shea’s cabin still
-continued to afford him shelter every night, and all his days, from the
-crow of the cock to the vesper song of the wood-thrush, were passed at
-the ford, seated on that remarkable block of limestone called to this day
-the “Clough-na-Boccough.”[5] His hand was stretched to every stranger
-for alms, “for the good of their souls,” and very few passed without
-giving more or less to the Boccough Ruadh. Thus he acquired considerable
-sums of money, but constantly denied having a “keenogue;” but when
-bantered by any of the neighbouring urchins on the length of his purse,
-he would get into a great rage, and swear, by the cross of his crutch,
-that between buying the shough of tobacco and paying for other things he
-wanted, he hadn’t as much as would jingle on a tomb-stone, or what would
-buy a farthing candle to show light to his poor corpse at the last day.
-His food was of the very worst description, and unless supplied by the
-kind-hearted Kathleen O’Shea, he would sooner go to bed supperless than
-lay out one penny to buy bread. He suffered his clothes to go to rags,
-unless when any person in the neighbourhood would give him old clothes
-for charity, and he would not pay for soap to wash his shirt once in the
-twelvemonth. Yet no one could find out what he did with his money; he did
-not spend two-and-sixpence in the year, and it was people’s opinion that
-he was hoarding it up to give for the benefit of his soul at his dying
-day.
-
-Years rolled away, and Neale O’Shea having now waxed old, died, and
-was gathered to his fathers in the adjacent green churchyard of
-Shannikill,[6] on the banks of the winding Nore. The Boccough followed
-the remains of his kind benefactor to his last earthly resting-place,
-and poured his sorrows over his grave in loud and long-continued
-lamentations. But though Neale was gone, Kathleen remained, and she
-promised that while she lived, neither son nor daughter should ever turn
-out the Boccough Ruadh.
-
-It was now forty years since the Boccough first crossed the waters of
-the Nore, and still he was constantly to be found from morning till
-night on his favourite stone at the river side. In the mean time, all
-O’Shea’s children were married, and separated through various parts of
-the country, with the exception of Terry, the youngest, a fine stout
-fellow, now about thirty-five years of age, who still remained in a state
-of single blessedness, and said he would continue so, “until he would
-be after laying the last sod on his poor ould mother.” With gigantic
-strength, he inherited all his father’s kindness of heart and undaunted
-bravery, and he was particularly attentive to the Boccough, whom he
-regarded with the same affection as a child would a parent.
-
-One morning in summer, the Boccough was observed to remain in bed longer
-than was his custom, and thinking that he might be unwell, Terry went to
-his bedside, and demanded why he was not up as usual.
-
-“Ah, Terry, _alanna_,” said the old man sorrowfully, “I will never get up
-again until I do upon the bearer.[7] My days are spent, and I know it,
-for there is something over me that I cannot describe, and I won’t be
-alive in twenty-four hours;” and as he said these words, he heaved a deep
-groan, whilst Terry, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, wept
-bitterly.
-
-“Will I go for the priest?” demanded Terry, sobbing as if his heart would
-break.
-
-“No,” replied the old man sorrowfully, “I do not want him. It is long
-since I complied with my religious duties, and now I feel it is useless.”
-
-“There is mercy still,” replied Terry; “you know the ould sayin’,
-
- ‘Mercy craved and mercy found
- Between the saddle and the ground.’”
-
-The old man replied not, but shook his head, indicating his determination
-to die without the consolations of religion, whilst Terry trembled for
-his hopeless situation.
-
-“Well, since you won’t have the priest, will you give me some money till
-I bring you the doctor?” said Terry.
-
-The old man’s eyes literally flashed fire, his form heaved with rage, and
-his countenance displayed demoniac indignation.
-
-“What’s that you say?” he demanded in a ferocious tone.
-
-Terry repeated the question.
-
-“Send for a doctor!--give you money!” echoed the old man. “Where the
-devil would I get money to pay a doctor?”
-
-“You have it, and ten times as much,” said Terry, “and you cannot deny
-it.”
-
-“If I have as much money as would buy me a coffin,” said the Boccough,
-“may my soul never rest quiet in the grave.”
-
-Terry crossed his brow with terror. He knew the unhappy wretch was dying
-with a lie on his tongue, but he resolved not to press the matter further.
-
-“You are dying as fast as you can,” remarked Terry; “have you any thing
-to say before you go?”
-
-“Nothing,” replied he faintly. “But let me be buried with my red nightcap
-on me.”
-
-“Your wish must be granted,” said Terry, and he went to awake his old
-mother, who still lay asleep. When he returned, he found the old man
-breathing his last. He uttered a convulsive groan, and expired.
-
-He was washed and stretched, and waked, with all the honours, rites,
-and ceremonies belonging to a genuine Irish wake; and on the third day
-following, being the Sabbath, he was followed to the grave by crowds of
-the village peasantry, who remained in the churchyard until they saw his
-remains deposited, as they thought for ever, in the rank soil of the
-“City of the Dead.”
-
-Many rumours were now current respecting the Boccough’s money. Every one
-but Terry believed that the “lob” fell with Terry himself. But Terry, who
-knew better, believed and affirmed that “what was got under the devil’s
-belly, always goes over his back,” and that the “old boy” had taken the
-spoil, and that it lay concealed in some crevice in the bank of the river.
-
-The night following the burial of the old sailor was passed in a very
-disturbed and agitated manner by Terry O’Shea: he could not sleep a wink;
-and when he fell into a slumber, he started and moaned, and appeared
-frightened and annoyed.
-
-“What ails you?” affectionately demanded his old mother, who slept in the
-same room, and who was kept awake by her son’s restless and disturbed
-manner.
-
-“I don’t know, mother,” said Terry; “I am so frightened and tormented
-with dreaming of the Boccough Ruadh, that I am almost out of my natural
-senses. Even at this moment I think I see him walking the room before me.”
-
-“Holy Mary, protect us!” ejaculated the old woman. “And it is no wonder
-that his misforthunate soul would be star-gazing about--and to die
-without the priest, and a curse and a lie in his mouth!”
-
-Terry groaned agitatedly.
-
-“And how does he appear in your dreams?” asked the old woman.
-
-“As he always was,” replied Terry. “But I think I see him pointing to his
-red nightcap, and endeavouring to pull it off with his old withered hand.”
-
-“Umph!” said the old woman, in a knowing tone. “Ha! ha! I have it now.
-Are you sure that the strings of his nightcap were unloosed before he was
-nailed up in the coffin?”
-
-“I don’t know,” was the reply.
-
-“I’ll go bail they weren’t,” said the old woman; “and you know, or at any
-rate you ought to know, that a corpse can never rest in the grave when
-there is a knot or a tie upon any thing belonging to its grave-dress.”
-
-Terry emitted another deep groan.
-
-“Well, _acushla_,” said the old mother, “go to-morrow, and take a
-neighbour with you, and open the grave, and see if any thing be asthray.
-If you find the nightcap or any thing else not as it should be, set it to
-rights, and close the grave again decently, and he will trouble you no
-more.”
-
-“God send,” was Terry’s brief but emphatic response.
-
-Early next morning Terry was at the Boccough’s grave, accompanied by a
-man of the neighbourhood. The coffin was opened, the corpse examined,
-and, according to the mother’s prediction, the red nightcap was found
-knotted tightly under the dead man’s chin. Terry proceeded to unloosen
-it, and in the act of doing so, a corner of the nightcap gave way, and
-out peeped a shining golden guinea.
-
-“Ah ha!” mentally exclaimed Terry, “that’s no blind nut any how; there’s
-more where that was, but I had better keep a hard cheek!” So, without
-seeming to appear any way affected, he opened the knot, closed the
-coffin, shut up the grave, and departed homewards, without acquainting
-his comrade with what he had seen.
-
-The moment Terry entered his own door, he told his mother about the
-guinea, and expressed his determination to go that very night, and fetch
-the red nightcap home with him, “body and bones and all,” “for,” added
-he, “that guinea has its comrade; and I’ll hold you a halfpenny there’s
-where the old dog has the ‘lob’ concealed, and that’s what made him order
-me to have the red cap buried with him.”
-
-“_Asthore machree_,” said the mother doubtingly, “won’t you be afraid?”
-
-“Afraid!” echoed Terry, “devil a bit--afraid indeed! and my fortune
-perhaps in the red nightcap.”
-
-The mother consented, but enjoined him to tell nobody about the matter
-for fear of disappointment. Terry vowed implicit obedience, and retired
-to his usual avocations in the garden.
-
-Well, at last the night came, and Terry set about preparing for his
-strange undertaking. All the arts and prayers and charms of old Kathleen
-were put in requisition to preserve him from danger; and about the
-witching hour of twelve, with his spade on his shoulder, and his dhudeen
-in his mouth, the bold-hearted Terry set forward all alone to the
-grave-yard, shaping his course by the winding banks of the glassy river,
-and whistling as he went--not “for want of thought,” however, for never
-was man’s mind more busily occupied than was Terry’s, in predisposing of
-the money which he expected to find in the Boccough Ruadh’s nightcap.
-
-After a short walk, Terry arrived at the precincts of the churchyard.
-It was a lovely summer’s night, the full moon shining gloriously, and
-myriads of pretty stars blinking and twinkling in the blue expanse, but
-all their native lustre was drowned in the borrowed splendour of the
-Queen of Heaven. Terry stood a moment to reconnoitre, and, resting on his
-spade, looked around with an anxious gaze. He could discover nothing; all
-was silent as the departed beneath his feet, except the murmuring of the
-river’s surges in the rear, or the barking of some village cur-dog in the
-hazy distance. He advanced to the grave of the Boccough, and in a few
-minutes the ghastly moonbeams shone full on the pale grim features of the
-dead. He snatched the nightcap quickly from the bald head of the corpse,
-put it in his pocket, and, notwithstanding the awe and superhuman terror
-under which he laboured, he chuckled with delight as he remarked the
-“_dead_ weight” of the Boccough’s head-gear. He then closed the coffin,
-and as he proceeded to cover it, the clay and stones fell on it with an
-appalling and unearthly sound. The grave now covered up, the intrepid
-fellow again shouldered his spade, and sought the river’s margin, and as
-he strode hurriedly along its banks in the direction of his home, the
-splash of the otter and the diving of the water-hen more than once broke
-the thread of his lonely musings.
-
-Terry was soon at his mother’s side, who since his departure had been on
-her knees, praying for his safe return. The nightcap was ripped up, and
-lo! three hundred golden guineas were the reward of Terry’s churchyard
-adventure! Stitched carefully in every part of the huge nightcap, the
-gold lay secure, so as not to attract the notice of any one, or cause the
-least suspicion of its proximity to the old man’s pericranium.
-
-Terry and his mother were in ecstacies. Farms were already purchased
-in ideality, cattle bought, houses built, and even Terry began in his
-mind to make preparations for his wedding with Onny Kinshellagh, a rich
-farmer’s daughter of the neighbourhood, for whom he had breathed many a
-hopeless sigh, and who, in addition to her beauty, was possessed of fifty
-pounds in hard gold, a couple of good yearlings, and a feather-bed as
-broad as the “nine acres.”
-
-The mother and son retired to bed, as happy as the certain possession
-of wealth, and the almost as certain expectations of honour and
-distinction, could make them. After a long time spent in constructing and
-condemning schemes for the future, Terry fell asleep. He had not slept
-long, however, when he started up with a loud scream, crying out, “the
-Boccough! the Boccough!” “Och, weary’s on him for a Boccough!” exclaimed
-the mother; “is he coming for the nightcap and the goold?”
-
-“Oh, no,” said Terry, calmly; “but I was again dreaming of him, and I was
-frightened.”
-
-“What did you dream to-night?” asked the old woman.
-
-“I was dreaming that I was going over the foord by moonlight, and that I
-saw the Boccough walking on the water towards me; that he stopped at a
-certain big stone, and began to examine under with his hands; that I came
-up, and asked him what he was searching for, when he looked up with a
-frightful phiz, and cried out in a horrible voice, ‘For my red nightcap!’”
-
-“God Almighty never opened one door but he opened two,” exclaimed old
-Kathleen. “Examine under that stone to-morrow, and by all the cottoners
-in Cork, you’ll find another ‘lob’ of money in it.”
-
-“Faix, maybe so,” replied Terry; “it’s no harm to say ‘Godsend,’ and that
-God may make a thief of you before a _liar_.”
-
-“Amen, _achiernah_,” replied Kathleen.
-
-Next morning at daybreak, Terry got up, and proceeded to the identical
-stone where he fancied that he had seen the spirit of the Boccough. He
-examined it closely, and after a strict search, discovered in the sand
-beneath the rock a leathern pouch full of money. He seized it joyfully,
-and on counting its contents, found it amounted to upwards of a hundred
-pounds, all in silver and copper coins.
-
-“What a lucky born man you are, Terry O’Shea!” cried the overjoyed
-gold-finder, “and what a bright day it was for your family that the
-Boccough Ruadh crossed over the waters of the Nore.”
-
-“It was not a bright day at all, but a wild, gloomy, stormy night,”
-said the old woman, who, unperceived, had followed her son to watch the
-success of his expedition.
-
-“No matter for that,” said Terry; “there never was so bright a day in
-your seven generations as that dark night; I am now the richest man of my
-name, and I would not, this mortal minute, call Lord De Vesci my uncle.”
-
-It is easier for the reader to imagine than for the writer to describe
-the manner in which this joyful day was passed by the happy mother and
-son. Now counting and examining the gold, and again proposing plans, and
-considering the best purposes to which it could be applied, they passed
-the hours until the summer sun had long sunk behind the crimson west.
-
-Terry was again in bed, when he started with a wild shriek. “Mother of
-mercy!” he frantically vociferated, “here is the Boccough Ruadh; I hear
-the tramp of his wooden leg on the floor.”
-
-“Lord save us!” said the old woman in a trembling voice, “what can ail
-him now? Maybe it’s more money he has hid somewhere else.”
-
-“Oh, do you hear how he rattles about! Devil a _kippeen_ in the cabin but
-he will destroy,” exclaimed poor Terry. “It’s the black day to us that
-ever we seen himself or his dirty thrash of money; and if God saves me
-till morning, I’ll go back and lave every rap ov id where I got it.”
-
-“That would be a murdher to lave so much fine money moulding in the clay,
-and so many in want of it; you shall do no such thing,” said the mother.
-
-“I don’t care a straw for that,” said Terry. “I would not have the ould
-sinner, God rest his sowl, stravagin’ every other night about my honest
-decent cabin for all the goold in the Queen’s County.”
-
-“Well, then,” says the old woman, “go to the priest in the morning, and
-leave him the money, and let him dispose of it as he likes for the good
-of the ould vagabond’s misforthunate soul.”
-
-This plan was agreed to, and the conversation dropt. The ghost of the
-Boccough still rattled and clanked about the house. He never ceased
-stumping about, from the kitchen to the room, and from the room to the
-kitchen. Pots and pans, plates and pitchers, were tossed here and there;
-the dog was kicked, the cat was mauled, and even the raked-up fire was
-lashed out of the “gree-sough.” In fact, Terry declared that if the
-devil or Captain Rock was about the place, there couldn’t be more noise
-than there was that night with the Boccough’s ghost, and this continued
-without intermission until the bell of Abbeyleix castle clock was tolling
-the midnight hour.
-
-Terry was up next morning at sunrise, and having packed up the money
-which was the cause of all his trouble in his mother’s check apron,
-proceeded with a heavy heart to the residence of the priest, about two
-miles from the present Poor-man’s Bridge. The priest was not up when
-Terry arrived, but being well known to the domestics, he was admitted to
-his bed-chamber.
-
-“You have started early,” said the priest; “what troubles you now, Terry?”
-
-Terry gave a full and true account of his troubles, and concluded by
-telling him that he brought him the money to dispose of it as he thought
-best.
-
-“I won’t have any thing to do with it,” said the Father. “It is not mine,
-so you may take it back again the same road.”
-
-“Not a rap of it will ever go my road again,” said Terry. “Can’t you give
-it for his unfortunate ould sowl?”
-
-“I’ll have no hand in it,” said the priest.
-
-“Nor I either,” said Terry. “I wouldn’t have the ould miser
-_polthogueing_ about my quiet floor another night for the king’s ransom.”
-
-“Well, take it to your landlord; he is a magistrate, and he will have it
-put to some public works connected with the county,” said the priest.
-
-“Bad luck to the lord or lady I’ll ever take it to,” said Terry, making a
-spring, and bounding down the stairs, leaving the money, apron and all,
-on the floor at the priest’s bedside.
-
-“Come back, come back!” shouted the Father in a towering passion.
-
-“Good morning to your ravirince,” said Terry, as he flew with the
-swiftness of a mountain deer over the common before the priest’s door.
-“Ay, go back, indeed; catch ould birds with chaff. You have the money
-now, and you may make a bog or a dog of it, whichever you plaise.”
-
-In an hour after, the priest’s servant man was on the road to
-Maryborough, mounted on the priest’s own black gelding, with a sealed
-parcel containing the Boccough’s money strapped in a portmanteau behind
-him, and a letter to the treasurer of the Queen’s County grand jury,
-detailing the curious circumstances by which it came into his possession,
-and recommending him to convert it to whatever purpose the gentlemen of
-the county should deem most expedient.
-
-The summer assizes came on in a few days, and the matter was brought
-before the grand jury, who agreed to expend the money in constructing a
-stone bridge over the ford where it was collected.
-
-Before that day twelvemonth, the ford had disappeared, and a noble bridge
-of seven arches spanned the sparkling waters of the Nore, which is here
-pretty broad and of considerable depth. From that day to this it is
-called the “Poor-man’s Bridge,” and I never cross it without thinking of
-the strange circumstances which led to its erection.
-
-The spirit of the Boccough Ruadh never troubled Terry O’Shea after, but
-often, as people say, amid the gloom of a winter’s night, or the grey
-haze of a summer’s evening, may the figure of a wan and decrepid old
-man with his head enveloped in a red nightcap, be seen wandering about
-Poor-man’s Bridge, or walking quite “natural” over the glassy waters of
-the transparent Nore.
-
-[3] That imaginary region under ground, supposed by the peasantry to be
-the residence of spirits and fairies.
-
-[4] The red beggarman.
-
-[5] Anglice, the Stone of the Cripple, or the stone of the beggarman.
-This stone lay for many years in the position it occupied in the days of
-the “Boccough,” but is now incorporated in the stonework of the parapet
-of the bridge. It was believed to be enchanted, and the peasantry of the
-neighbourhood used to affirm that it descended to the river to drink,
-every night at the hour of twelve o’clock. This belief is now almost
-exploded, but however it is affirmed to be the identical stone on which
-the Boccough collected his wealth.
-
-[6] This is a very ancient churchyard, situated on a gentle eminence
-overhanging the western bank of the river Nore, and about half a mile
-from Poor-man’s Bridge. The ruins of a church or monastic establishment
-still remain in the centre of the grave-yard. It is said to have been
-erected by St Comgall, from whom it took the name of Cell-Comgall, though
-_now_ called Shankill, or Shannakill. St Comgall was born in Ulster in
-516, and was educated under St Fintan, in the monastery of Clonenagh,
-near Mountrath, in the Queen’s County. He died on the 10th of May 601.
-
-[7] The bier or hand-carriage on which the dead are borne to the grave.
-
- * * * * *
-
-AN EXCUSE.--Miravaux was one day accosted by a sturdy beggar, who asked
-alms of him. “How is this,” inquired Miravaux, “that a lusty fellow like
-you is unemployed?” “Ah!” replied the beggar, looking very piteously at
-him, “if you did but know how lazy I am!” The reply was so ludicrous and
-unexpected, that Miravaux gave the varlet a piece of silver.
-
- * * * * *
-
-AN INCIDENT.--At the time Commodore Elliot commanded the navy at Norfolk
-(I think it was), happening to be conducting a number of ladies and
-gentlemen who were visiting the yard, he chanced to see a little boy who
-had a basket full of chips, which he had gathered in the yard; probably
-to show his importance he saluted him, and asked where he got the chips.
-“In the yard,” replied the boy. “Then drop them,” said the brave man. The
-little boy dropped the chips as he was ordered, and after gaining a safe
-distance, turning round with his thumb to his nose, said, “That is the
-first prize you ever took, any how!”
-
- * * * * *
-
-Solon enacted, that children who did not maintain their parents in old
-age, when in want, should be branded with infamy, and lose the privilege
-of citizens; he, however, excepted from the rule those children whom
-their parents had taught no trade, nor provided with other means of
-procuring a livelihood. It was a proverb of the Jews, that he who did not
-bring up his son to a trade, brought him up as a thief.
-
- * * * * *
-
-If there be a lot on earth worthy of envy, it is that of a man, good
-and tender-hearted, who beholds his own creation in the happiness
-of all those who surround him. Let him who would be happy strive to
-encircle himself with happy beings. Let the happiness of his family be
-the incessant object of his thoughts. Let him divine the sorrows and
-anticipate the wishes of his friends.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A cheerful heart paints the world as it finds it, like a sunny landscape;
-the morbid mind depicts it like a sterile wilderness, palled with thick
-vapours, and dark as “the shadow of death.” It is the mirror, in short,
-on which it is caught, which lends to the face of nature the aspect of
-its own turbulence or tranquillity.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently see the
-active and the bold pass by them in the course. They must bring down
-their pretensions to the level of their talents. Those who have not
-energy to work must learn to be humble.--_Sharp’s Essays._
-
- * * * * *
-
- Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
- the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane,
- College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
- Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street,
- Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; J. DRAKE,
- Birmingham; SLOCOMBE & SIMMS, Leeds; FRASER and CRAWFORD,
- George Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate,
- Glasgow.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No.
-30, January 23, 1841, by Various
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, JAN 23, 1841 ***
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30,
-January 23, 1841, by Various
-
-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
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-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30, January 23, 1841
-
-Author: Various
-
-Release Date: May 12, 2017 [EBook #54712]
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-Language: English
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, JAN 23, 1841 ***
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-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
-
-<h1>THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.</h1>
-
-<table summary="Headline layout">
- <tr>
- <td class="smcap">Number 30.</td>
- <td class="center">SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1841.</td>
- <td class="right smcap">Volume I.</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class="figcenter gap4" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/monea_castle.jpg" width="500" height="370" alt="Monea Castle" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>THE CASTLE OF MONEA, COUNTY OF FERMANAGH.</h2>
-
-<p>The Castle of Monea or Castletown-Monea&mdash;properly <i lang="ga">Magh
-an fhiaidh</i>, i.e. the plain of the deer&mdash;is situated in the parish
-of Devinish, county of Fermanagh, and about five miles north-west
-of Enniskillen. Like the Castle of Tully, in the same
-county, of which we gave a view in a recent number, this
-castle affords a good example of the class of castellated residences
-erected on the great plantation of Ulster by the British
-and Scottish undertakers, in obedience to the fourth article
-concerning the English and Scottish undertakers, who “are to
-plant their portions with English and inland-Scottish tenants,”
-which was imposed upon them by “the orders and conditions to
-be observed by the undertakers upon the distribution and plantation
-of the escheated lands in Ulster,” in 1608. By this article
-it was provided that “every undertaker of the <em>greatest
-proportion</em> of two thousand acres shall, within two years after
-the date of his letters patent, build thereupon a castle, with a
-strong court or bawn about it; and every undertaker of the
-second or <em>middle proportion</em> of fifteen hundred acres shall
-within the same time build a stone or brick house thereupon,
-with a strong court or bawn about it. And every undertaker
-of the <em>least proportion</em> of one thousand acres shall within the
-same time make thereupon a strong court or bawn at least;
-and all the said undertakers shall cause their tenants to build
-houses for themselves and their families, near the principal
-castle, house, or bawn, for their mutual defence or
-strength,” &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the origin of most of the castles and villages now
-existing in the six escheated counties of Ulster&mdash;historical
-memorials of a vast political movement&mdash;and among the rest
-this of Monea, which was the castle of the <em>middle proportion</em>
-of Dirrinefogher, of which Sir Robert Hamilton was the
-first patentee.</p>
-
-<p>From Pynnar’s Survey of Ulster, made in 1618-19, it appears
-that this proportion had at that time passed into the
-possession of Malcolm Hamilton (who was afterwards archbishop
-of Cashel), by whom the castle was erected, though
-the bawn, as prescribed by the conditions, was not added till
-some years later. He says,</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“Upon this proportion there is a strong castle of lime and
-stone, being fifty-four feet long and twenty feet broad, but
-hath no bawn unto it, nor any other defence for the succouring
-or relieving of his tenants.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>From an inquisition taken at Monea in 1630, we find, however,
-that this want was soon after supplied, and that the
-castle, which was fifty feet in height, was surrounded by a wall
-nine feet in height and three hundred in circuit.</p>
-
-<p>The Malcolm Hamilton noticed by Pynnar as possessor of
-“the middle proportion of Dirrinefogher,” subsequently held
-the rectory of Devenish, which he retained <i lang="la">in commendam</i> with
-his archbishopric till his death in 1629. The proportion of Dirrinefogher,
-however, with its castle, was escheated to the crown
-in 1630; and shortly after, the old chapel of Monea was converted
-into a parish church, the original church being inconveniently
-situated on an island of Lough Erne.</p>
-
-<p>Monea Castle served as a chief place of refuge to the
-English and Scottish settlers of the vicinity during the rebellion
-of 1641, and, like the Castle of Tully, it has its tales of
-horror recorded in story; but we shall not uselessly drag
-them to light. The village of Monea is an inconsiderable
-one, but there are several gentlemen’s seats in its neighbourhood,
-and the scenery around it is of great richness and beauty.</p>
-
-<p class="right">P.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 class="gap4">ON THE SUBJUGATION OF ANIMALS BY MEANS
-OF CHARMS, INCANTATIONS, OR DRUGS.</h2>
-
-<h3><span class="smcap">First Article.</span><br />
-<span class="smaller">ON SERPENT-CHARMING, AS PRACTISED BY THE
-JUGGLERS OF ASIA.</span></h3>
-
-<p>Many of my readers will doubtless recollect that in a paper
-on “Animal Taming,” which appeared some weeks back in
-the pages of this Journal, I alluded slightly to the <em>charming</em>
-of animals, or <em>taming</em> them by spells or drugs. It is now my
-purpose to enter more fully upon this subject, and present my
-readers with a brief notice of what I have been able to glean
-respecting it, as well from the published accounts of remarkable
-travellers, as from oral descriptions received from personal
-friends of my own, who had opportunities of being eye
-witnesses to many of the practices to which I refer.</p>
-
-<p>The most remarkable, and also the most ancient description
-of animal-charming with which we are acquainted, is that
-which consists in calling the venomous serpents from their
-holes, quelling their fury, and allaying their irritation, by
-means of certain charms, amongst which music stands forth in
-the most prominent position, though, whether it really is worthy
-of the first place as an actual agent, or is only thus put forward
-to cover that on which the true secret depends, is by
-no means perfectly clear.</p>
-
-<p>Even in scripture we find the practice of serpent-charming
-noticed, and by no means as a novelty; in the 58th Psalm we
-are told that the wicked are like the “deaf adder that stoppeth
-her ear, which hearkeneth not unto the voice of the
-charmer, charm he never so wisely!” And in the book of
-Jeremiah, chap. viii, the disobedient people are thus threatened&mdash;“Behold,
-I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,
-which will not be <em>charmed</em>.” These are two very remarkable
-passages, and I think we may, without going too far, set
-down as snake-charmers the Egyptian magi who contended
-against Moses and Aaron before the court of the proud and
-vacillating Pharaoh, striving to imitate by their juggling
-tricks the wondrous miracles which Moses wrought by the
-immediate aid of God himself. The feat of changing their
-sticks into serpents, for instance, is one of every-day performance
-in India, which a friend of mine has assured me he many
-times saw himself, and which has not been satisfactorily explained
-by any one.</p>
-
-<p>The serpent has long been an object of extreme veneration
-to the natives of Hindostan, and has indeed, from the
-very earliest ages, been selected by many nations as an object
-of worship; why, I cannot explain, unless it originated in a
-superstitious perversion of the elevation of the brazen serpent
-in the wilderness by Moses. In India the serpent is not,
-however, altogether regarded as a deity&mdash;merely as a <em>demon</em>
-or genius: and the office usually supposed to be peculiar to
-these creatures is that of <em>guardians</em>. This is perhaps one of
-the most widely spread notions respecting the serpent that we
-are acquainted with. Herodotus mentions the sacred serpents
-which guarded the citadel of Athens, and which he
-states to have been fed monthly with cakes of honey; and
-adds, that these serpents being sacred, were harmless, and
-would not hurt men. A dragon was said to have guarded
-the golden fleece (or, as some think, a <em>scaly serpent</em>), and
-protected the gardens of the Hesperides&mdash;a singular coincidence,
-as it is of <em>gardens</em> principally that the Indians conceive
-the serpent to be the guardian.</p>
-
-<p>Medea <em>charmed</em> the dragon by the melody of her voice.
-Herodotus mentions snakes being soothed by harmony; and
-Virgil, in the Æneid, says (translated by Dryden),</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“His wand and holy words the viper’s rage</div>
-<div class="verse">And venom’d wound of serpents could assuage.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Even our own island, although serpents do not exist in it&mdash;a
-blessing for which, if we are to put faith in legendary lore,
-we have to thank St Patrick&mdash;has numberless legends and
-tales of crocks of treasure at the bottom of deep, deep lakes,
-or in dark and gloomy caves, in inaccessible and rocky mountains,
-guarded by a fierce and wakeful snake, a sleepless serpent,
-whose eyes are never closed, and who never for a second
-abated of his watchful care of the treasure-crock, of which
-he had originally been appointed guardian;<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and, further, we
-are told how the daring and inventive genius of the son of
-Erin has often found out a mode of putting a “<i lang="ga">comether</i>” on
-the “big sarpint, the villain,” and haply closing his eyes in
-slumber, while he succeeded in possessing himself of the
-hoard which by his cunning and bravery he had so fairly won;
-in other words, <em>charming</em> the snake and possessing himself of
-the spoil.</p>
-
-<p>Having thus glanced at the antiquity and wide spread of
-serpent-charming, I shall proceed to lay before you a short
-description of the mode in which the spell is cast over the
-animals by the modern jugglers of Arabia and India.</p>
-
-<p>Of all the Indian serpents, next to the Cobra Minelle, the
-Cobra Capella, or hooded snake (<i>Coluber Naja</i>), called in
-India the “Naig,” and also “spectacle snake,” is the most venomous.
-It derives its names of <em>hooded</em> and <em>spectacle</em> snake
-from a fold of skin resembling a hood near the head, which it
-possesses a power of enlarging or contracting at pleasure;
-and in the centre of this hood are seen, when it is distended,
-black and white markings, bearing no distant or fanciful likeness
-to a pair of spectacles. The mode of charming, or, at all
-events, all that is to be seen or understood by the spectators,
-consists in the juggler playing upon a flute or fife near the
-hole which a snake has been seen to enter, or which his employers
-have otherwise reason to suppose the reptile inhabits.
-The serpent will presently put forth his head, a portion of his
-body will shortly follow, and in a few minutes he will creep
-forth from his retreat, and, approaching the musician, rear
-himself on his tail, and by moving his head and neck up and
-down or from side to side, keep tolerably accurate time to the
-tune with which his ears are ravished.</p>
-
-<p>After having played for a short period, and apparently
-soothed the reptile into a state of dreamy unconsciousness
-of all that is passing, save only the harmony which delights
-him, the juggler will gradually bring himself within grasp of
-the snake, and by a sudden snatch seize him by the tail, and
-hold him out at arms’ length. On the cessation of the music,
-and on finding himself thus roughly assailed, the reptile becomes
-fearfully enraged, and exerts all his energies to turn
-upwards, and bite the arm of his aggressor. His efforts are
-however fruitless; while held in that position, he is utterly
-incapable of doing any injury; and is, after having been held
-thus for a few minutes before the gaze of the admiring crowd,
-dropped into a basket ready to receive him, and laid aside
-until the juggler has leisure and privacy to complete the subjugation
-which his wonder-working melody had begun.</p>
-
-<p>When charmed serpents are exhibited dancing to the
-sound of music, the spectators should not crowd too closely
-around the seat of the juggler, for, no matter how well trained
-they may be, there is great danger attending the cessation of
-the sweet sounds; and if from any cause the flute or fife suddenly
-stops or is checked, it not unfrequently happens that the
-snake will spring upon some one of the company, and bite him.
-I think that it will not be amiss if I quote the description of
-Indian snake-charming, furnished by a gentleman in the Honourable
-Company’s civil service at Madras, to the writer,
-who vouches for its veracity:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“One morning,” says he, “as I sat at breakfast, I heard a
-loud noise and shouting among my palankeen bearers. On
-inquiry I learned that they had seen a large hooded snake (or
-Cobra Capella), and were trying to kill it. I immediately
-went out, and saw the snake climbing up a very high green
-mound, whence it escaped into a hole in an old wall of an
-ancient fortification. The men were armed with their sticks,
-which they always carry in their hands, and had attempted in
-vain to kill the reptile, which had eluded their pursuit, and in
-his hole he had coiled himself up secure, while we could see
-his bright eyes shining. I had often desired to ascertain the
-truth of the report as to the effect of music upon snakes:
-I therefore inquired for a snake catcher. I was told there was
-no person of the kind in the village, but, after a little inquiry
-I heard there was one in a village distant three miles. I
-accordingly sent for him, keeping a strict watch over the
-snake, which never attempted to escape whilst we his enemies
-were in sight. About an hour elapsed, when my messenger
-returned, bringing the snake catcher. This man wore no
-covering on his head, nor any on his person, excepting a
-small piece of cloth round his loins: he had in his hands two
-baskets, one containing tame snakes, one empty: these and
-his musical pipe were the only things he had with him. I
-made the snake catcher leave his two baskets on the ground at
-some distance, while he ascended the mound with his pipe
-alone. He began to play: at the sound of the music the
-snake came gradually and slowly out of his hole. When he
-was entirely within reach, the snake catcher seized him dexterously
-by the tail, and held him thus at arms’ length,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
-whilst the enraged snake darted his head in all directions,
-but in vain: thus suspended, he has not the power to round
-himself so as to seize hold of his tormentor. He exhausted
-himself in vain exertions, when the snake catcher descended
-the bank, dropped him into the empty basket, and closed the
-lid: he then began to play, and after a short time raised the
-lid of the basket, when the snake darted about wildly, and
-attempted to escape; the lid was shut down again quickly, the
-music always playing. This was repeated two or three times;
-and in a very short interval, the lid being raised, the snake sat
-on his tail, opened his hood, and danced quite as quietly as the
-tame snakes in the other basket, nor did he again attempt to
-escape. This, having witnessed it with my own eyes, I can
-assert as a fact.”</p>
-
-<p>I particularly request the attention of my readers to the
-foregoing account, as, from the circumstance of its having
-been furnished by an eye-witness, and a man whose public
-station and known character were sufficient to command belief
-in his veracity, it will prove serviceable to me by and bye,
-when I shall endeavour to disprove the ridiculous assertions
-of Abbé Dubois<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and others, who hold that serpent-charming
-is a mere imposition, and assert, certainly without a shade of
-warranty for so doing, that the serpents are in these cases
-always previously tamed, and deprived of their poison bags and
-fangs, when they are let loose in certain situations for the
-purpose of being artfully caught again, and represented as
-<em>wild</em> snakes, subdued by the charms of their pipe. I shall,
-however, say no more at present of Dubois, Denon, or others
-who are sceptical on this subject, but shall leave the refutation
-of their fanciful opinions to another opportunity&mdash;my
-present purpose being the establishment of <em>facts</em>, ere I venture
-to advance a theory.</p>
-
-<p>I shall therefore conclude my present paper, and in my
-next, besides adducing many other important facts relative to
-serpent-charming, shall endeavour to throw some light upon
-the real mode by which it is effected.</p>
-
-<p class="right">H. D. R.</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See numerous legends of the “Peiste.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Description of the People of India, p. 469.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<h2 class="gap4">GRUMBLING.</h2>
-
-<p>If it be no part of the English constitution, it is certainly part
-of the constitution of Englishmen to grumble. They cannot
-help it, even if they tried; not that they ever do try, quite
-the reverse, but they could not help grumbling if they tried
-ever so much. A true-born Englishman is born grumbling.
-He grumbles at the light, because it dazzles his eyes, and he
-grumbles at the darkness, because it takes away the light.
-He grumbles when he is hungry, because he wants to eat; he
-grumbles when he is full, because he can eat no more. He
-grumbles at the winter, because it is cold; he grumbles at
-the summer, because it is hot; and he grumbles at spring and
-autumn, because they are neither hot nor cold. He grumbles
-at the past, because it is gone; he grumbles at the future,
-because it is not come; and he grumbles at the present, because
-it is neither the past nor the future. He grumbles at
-law, because it restrains him; and he grumbles at liberty,
-because it does not restrain others. He grumbles at all the
-elements&mdash;fire, water, earth, and air. He grumbles at fire,
-because it is so dear; at water, because it is so foul; at the
-earth, in all its combinations of mud, dust, bricks, and sand;
-and at the air, in all its conditions of hot or cold, wet or dry.
-All the world seems as if it were made for nothing else than
-to plague Englishmen, and set them a-grumbling. The Englishman
-must grumble at nature for its rudeness, and at art
-for its innovation; at what is old, because he is tired of it;
-and at what is new, because he is not used to it. He grumbles
-at everything that is to be grumbled at; and when there is
-nothing to grumble at, he grumbles at that. Grumbling
-cleaves to him in all the departments of life; when he is well,
-he grumbles at the cook; and when he is ill, he grumbles at
-the doctor and nurse. He grumbles in his amusements, and
-he grumbles in his devotion; at the theatres he grumbles at
-the players, and at church he grumbles at the parson. He
-cannot for the life of him enjoy a day’s pleasure without
-grumbling. He grumbles at his enemies, and he grumbles at
-his friends. He grumbles at all the animal creation, at
-horses when he rides on them, at dogs when he shoots with
-them, at birds when he misses them, at pigs when they squeak,
-at asses when they bray, at geese when they cackle, and at
-peacocks when they scream. He is always on the look-out for
-something to grumble at; he reads the newspapers, that he
-may grumble at public affairs; his eyes are always open to
-look for abominations; he is always pricking up his ears to
-detect discords, and snuffing up the air to find stinks. Can
-you insult an Englishman more than by telling him he has
-nothing to grumble at? Can you by any possibility inflict a
-greater injury upon him than by convincing him he has no
-occasion to grumble? Break his head, and he will forget it;
-pick his pocket, and he will forgive it, but deprive him of his
-privilege of grumbling, you more than kill him&mdash;you expatriate
-him. But the beauty of it is, you cannot inflict this
-injury on him; you cannot by all the logic ever invented, or
-by all the arguments that ever were uttered, convince an
-Englishman that he has nothing to grumble at; for if you
-were to do so, he would grumble at you so long as he lived
-for disturbing his old associations. Grumbling is a pleasure
-which we all enjoy more or less, but none, or but few, enjoy
-it in all the perfection and completeness of which it is capable.
-If we were to take a little more pains, we should find, that
-having no occasion to grumble, we should have cause to
-grumble at everything. But we grow insensible to a great
-many annoyances, and accustomed to a great many evils, and
-think nothing of them. What a tremendous noise there is in
-the city, of carts, coaches, drays, waggons, barrel-organs,
-fish-women, and all manner of abominations, of which they in
-the city take scarcely any notice at all! How badly are all
-matters in government and administration conducted! What
-very bad bread do the bakers make! What very bad meat
-do the butchers kill! In a word, what is there in the whole
-compass of existence that is good? What is there in human
-character that is as it should be? Are we not justified in
-grumbling at everything that is in heaven above, or in the
-earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth? In fact,
-gentle reader, is the world formed or governed half so well as
-you or I could form or govern it?&mdash;<cite>From a newspaper.</cite></p>
-
-<h2 class="gap4">VULGARITY.</h2>
-
-<p>The very essence of vulgarity, after all, consists merely
-in one error&mdash;in taking manners, actions, words, opinions,
-on trust from others, without examining one’s own feelings,
-or weighing the merits of the case. It is coarseness
-or shallowness of taste, arising from want of individual refinement,
-together with the confidence and presumption inspired
-by example and numbers. It may be defined to be a prostitution
-of the mind or body to ape the more or less obvious defects
-of others, because by so doing we shall secure the suffrages
-of those we associate with. To affect a gesture, an
-opinion, a phrase, because it is the rage with a large number
-of persons, or to hold it in abhorrence because another set of
-persons very little, if at all, better informed, cry it down to
-distinguish themselves from the former, is in either case equal
-vulgarity and absurdity. A thing is not vulgar merely because
-it is common. It is common to breathe, to see, to feel,
-to live. Nothing is vulgar that is natural, spontaneous, unavoidable.
-Grossness is not vulgarity, ignorance is not vulgarity,
-awkwardness is not vulgarity; but all these become
-vulgar when they are affected and shown off on the authority
-of others, or to fall in with the fashion or the company we
-keep. Caliban is coarse enough, but surely he is not vulgar.
-We might as well spurn the clod under our feet, and call it
-vulgar. Cobbett is coarse enough, but he is not vulgar. He
-does not belong to the herd. Nothing real, nothing original,
-can be vulgar; but I should think an imitator of Cobbett a
-vulgar man. Simplicity is not vulgarity; but the looking to
-imitation or affectation of any sort for distinction is. A Cockney
-is a vulgar character, whose imagination cannot wander
-beyond the suburbs of the metropolis. An aristocrat, also,
-who is always thinking of the High Street, Edinburgh, is vulgar.
-We want a name for this last character. An opinion
-is often vulgar that is stewed in the rank breath of the rabble;
-but it is not a bit purer or more refined for having passed
-through the well-cleansed teeth of a whole court. The inherent
-vulgarity lies in the having no other feeling on any subject
-than the crude, blind, headlong, gregarious notion
-acquired by sympathy with the mixed multitude, or with
-a fastidious minority, who are just as insensible to the real
-truth, and as indifferent to every thing but their own frivolous
-pretensions. The upper are not wiser than the lower
-orders, because they resolve to differ from them. The
-fashionable have the advantage of the unfashionable in nothing
-but the fashion. The true vulgar are the persons
-who have a horrible dread of daring to differ from their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
-clique&mdash;the herd of pretenders to what they do not feel, and
-to do what is not natural to them, whether in high or low life.
-To belong to any class, to move in any rank or sphere of life,
-is not a very exclusive distinction or test of refinement.
-Refinement will in all classes be the exception, not the rule;
-and the exception may occur in one class as well as another.
-A king is but a man with a hereditary title. A nobleman
-is only one of the House of Peers. To be a knight or alderman&mdash;above
-all, to desire being either, is confessedly a
-vulgar thing. The king made Walter Scott a baronet, but
-not all the power of the Three Estates could make another
-“Author of Waverley.” Princes, heroes, are often commonplace
-people, and sometimes the reverse; Hamlet was not a
-vulgar character, neither was Don Quixote. To be an author,
-to be a painter, one of the many, is nothing. It is a trick, it
-is a trade. Nay, to be a member of the Royal Academy, or
-a Fellow of the Royal Society, is but a vulgar distinction.
-But to be a Virgil, a Milton, a Raphael, a Claude, is what
-falls to the lot of humanity but once. I do not think those
-were vulgar people, though, for any thing I know to the contrary,
-the First Lord of the Bedchamber may be a very vulgar
-man. Such are pretty much my notions with regard to vulgarity.&mdash;<cite>Hazlitt’s
-Table-Talk.</cite></p>
-
-<h2 class="gap4">WINTER COMES.</h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Winter comes with screech and wail,</div>
-<div class="verse">Piercing blast and thundering gale;</div>
-<div class="verse">Far from frozen climes he brings</div>
-<div class="verse">Sleet and snow, and blanching things.</div>
-<div class="verse">He has trod the North Pole round,</div>
-<div class="verse">Long in icy fetters bound;</div>
-<div class="verse">Swept by Greenland’s frigid shore,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where the western billows roar&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Roamed o’er Lapland’s ice-bound plains,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where chaotic darkness reigns;</div>
-<div class="verse">Rested on that land of woe</div>
-<div class="verse">Where the Russian captives go;</div>
-<div class="verse">Land where men of royal race,</div>
-<div class="verse">Exiled by some tyrant base,</div>
-<div class="verse">Pined in suffering, died in grief,</div>
-<div class="verse">No fond hand to bring relief&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">No bright eyes to shed one tear</div>
-<div class="verse">O’er their cold and lonely bier;</div>
-<div class="verse">Dying far from wife and child</div>
-<div class="verse">In Siberia’s stormy wild.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Winter comes&mdash;his footsteps tread</div>
-<div class="verse">O’er the ocean’s rugged bed;</div>
-<div class="verse">As a ruthless conqueror he</div>
-<div class="verse">Sends his storms from sea to sea;</div>
-<div class="verse">Pity ne’er hath seized his breast,</div>
-<div class="verse">Sighs do ne’er disturb his rest&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Shrieks that boom along the wave,</div>
-<div class="verse">And mark the seaman’s wat’ry grave,</div>
-<div class="verse">Fail to touch his icy soul,</div>
-<div class="verse">Fail to stop the billow’s roll.</div>
-<div class="verse">When enthroned as ocean’s king,</div>
-<div class="verse">Spirits of his triumphs sing,</div>
-<div class="verse">Drinking to his sovereign power</div>
-<div class="verse">In the fearful midnight hour,</div>
-<div class="verse">From those remnants of the dead</div>
-<div class="verse">That round ocean’s depths are spread.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Winter comes, with giant stride</div>
-<div class="verse">O’er the hills and forests wide;</div>
-<div class="verse">From his aged brow he sheds</div>
-<div class="verse">Hoary locks around their heads&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Mantles in his polar garb</div>
-<div class="verse">Tree and flower and tender herb.</div>
-<div class="verse">Not a leaf appears to show</div>
-<div class="verse">Where the summer cowslips grow;</div>
-<div class="verse">Not a bud or blossom fair</div>
-<div class="verse">Scents with sweets the chilly air;</div>
-<div class="verse">Not a bluebell decks the heath,</div>
-<div class="verse">All are hid beneath the wreath</div>
-<div class="verse">Spread by his unfriendly hand</div>
-<div class="verse">O’er the dark dismantled land.</div>
-<div class="verse">Gardens once so bright and gay,</div>
-<div class="verse">’Neath the summer’s solar ray,</div>
-<div class="verse">Once so rich in lovely gems,</div>
-<div class="verse">Hanging on their pendent stems,</div>
-<div class="verse">Seem as some lone desert wild</div>
-<div class="verse">Where fair beauty never smiled&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Where the light of summer’s sun</div>
-<div class="verse">Never touched or lit upon;</div>
-<div class="verse">Nature lies all lone and dead,</div>
-<div class="verse">’Neath old Winter’s frosty tread.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Winter comes, and some rejoice,</div>
-<div class="verse">Glad to hear his sullen voice</div>
-<div class="verse">Booming o’er the crested waves,</div>
-<div class="verse">Sounding through old grots and caves&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Sighing ’mid the forest trees,</div>
-<div class="verse">Not in songs of summer’s breeze,</div>
-<div class="verse">But like mournings for the dead,</div>
-<div class="verse">That as fairy flowers have fled;</div>
-<div class="verse">Mounting o’er the mountain’s brow,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where the oak-tree’s trembling bough,</div>
-<div class="verse">Rushing through the wooded glen,</div>
-<div class="verse">Swooping o’er the frightsome fen.</div>
-<div class="verse">This is joy to hearts that know</div>
-<div class="verse">Nothing of the drifting snow,</div>
-<div class="verse">But beside the glowing hearth</div>
-<div class="verse">Spend the hours in joy and mirth,</div>
-<div class="verse">Laughing at the well-told tale,</div>
-<div class="verse">While without the rising gale</div>
-<div class="verse">Sweeps in furious mood along,</div>
-<div class="verse">Heedless of their boisterous song.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Winter comes&mdash;and sorrow brings</div>
-<div class="verse">On his dark foreboding wings,</div>
-<div class="verse">To the poor lone helpless child</div>
-<div class="verse">On whom fortune never smiled,</div>
-<div class="verse">To the wretched cots and cells</div>
-<div class="verse">Where want’s abject sufferer dwells.</div>
-<div class="verse">Round them he does cast his reins,</div>
-<div class="verse">O’er them brings his woes and pains.</div>
-<div class="verse">O! ye lordlings of the earth,</div>
-<div class="verse">Freed from pinching want by birth,</div>
-<div class="verse">Let your bosoms heave one sigh</div>
-<div class="verse">For the poor whose piercing cry</div>
-<div class="verse">Calls for sympathy from all,</div>
-<div class="verse">Loud as human woes can call,</div>
-<div class="verse">Plead with you on every mind</div>
-<div class="verse">To be moved with mercy kind;</div>
-<div class="verse">Supplicates for help to save</div>
-<div class="verse">Suffering equals from the grave.</div>
-<div class="verse">Hear, O hear their melting cries</div>
-<div class="verse">Rising upward to the skies;</div>
-<div class="verse">Hear, and let the good which heaven</div>
-<div class="verse">Kindly to your hands hath given,</div>
-<div class="verse">Aid in promptly helping those</div>
-<div class="verse">Steept in poverty and woes;</div>
-<div class="verse">Then when earthly days are fled,</div>
-<div class="verse">And the joys (now dark and dead)</div>
-<div class="verse">Cease for ever from your eyes,</div>
-<div class="verse">May you live beyond the skies;</div>
-<div class="verse">May you hear your Saviour say,</div>
-<div class="verse">Come, my servants, come away;</div>
-<div class="verse">Enter in and seize your crown,</div>
-<div class="verse">Be partakers of my throne;</div>
-<div class="verse">For on earth you loved your lord;</div>
-<div class="verse">Hearken’d to his every word&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Heard his suffering children cry,</div>
-<div class="verse">Wiped the tear-drops from their eye&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Inasmuch as thus your love,</div>
-<div class="verse">Round their troubled souls did move,</div>
-<div class="verse">So to me that love was given</div>
-<div class="verse">Enter in with me to heaven.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse right">Coleraine, December 1840. S. A.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<h2 class="gap4">TALES OF MY CHILDHOOD,<br />
-<span class="smaller">BY JOHN KEEGAN.</span></h2>
-
-<h3>No. I.&mdash;THE BOCCOUGH RUADH.<br />
-<span class="smaller">A TRADITION OF POOR-MAN’S BRIDGE.</span></h3>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,</div>
-<div class="verse">Their pebbled beds permitted leave,</div>
-<div class="verse">And goblins haunt, from fire or fen,</div>
-<div class="verse">Or mine or flood, the walks of men.”&mdash;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Collins.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>One evening last winter&mdash;a holiday evening too&mdash;when the
-western wind was sweeping on wild pinions from the grey
-hills of Tipperary, athwart the rich and level plains of the
-Queen’s County, when the blast roared down in the chimney,
-and the huge rain-drops pattered saucily against the four
-tiny panes which constituted the little kitchen window, I
-was sitting in the cottage of a neighbouring peasant, amid a
-small but happy group of village rustics, and enjoying with
-them that enlivening mirth and sinless delight which I have
-never found any where but at the fireside of an Irish peasant.
-The earthen floor was well scrubbed over; the “brullaws ov
-furnithure” were arranged with more than usual tidiness, and
-even the crockery on the well-scoured dresser reflected the
-ruddy glare of the red fire with redoubled brilliancy, and glittered
-and glistened as merrily as if they felt conscious of the
-calm and tranquillity of that happy scene. And happy indeed
-was that scene, and happy was that time, and happier still the
-hearts of the laughing rustics by whom I was on that occasion
-surrounded, and amongst whom I have spent the lightest
-and happiest hours of my existence.</p>
-
-<p>It was, as I said, a wild night, but even the violence of the
-weather abroad gave an additional relish to the enjoyments
-within. The blast whistled fiercely in the bawn and in the
-haggard, but the huge fire blazed brightly on the hearth-stone.
-The rain fell in torrents; but, as one of the company chucklingly
-remarked, “the wrong side ov the house was out,”
-and I myself mentally exclaimed with Tam o’ Shanter,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“The storm without may roar and rustle,</div>
-<div class="verse"><em>We</em> do not mind the storm a whustle.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Whilst, to wind up the climax of our happiness, a gossoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
-who had been dispatched for a grey-beard full of “the native,”
-now returned, and in a few minutes a huge jug of half and
-half smoked on the table, and was circulated around the smiling
-and expectant ring, with an impetus of which the peasantry
-of Ireland will in a short time, from certain existing causes,
-have not even the remotest idea.</p>
-
-<p>Well! such an evening as we had, I shall never forget; it
-would be vain to attempt a description. Those who have
-witnessed similar scenes require none, and to those who have
-not, any attempt at one would be useless. All therefore I
-shall say, is, that such a scene of fun and frolic and harmless
-waggery could not be found any where outside that ring which
-encircles the Emerald Isle, and even within that bright zone,
-nowhere but in the cabin of an Irish “scullogue.”</p>
-
-<p>The songs of our sires, chanted with all that melancholy
-softness and pathetic sweetness for which the voices of our wild
-Irish girls are remarkable, the wild legend recited with that
-rich brogue and waggish humour peculiar alone to the Irish
-peasant, and the romantic and absurd fairy tale, told with all
-the reverential awe and caution which the solemnity of the
-subject required, long amused and excited the captivated
-auditors; but at length, more’s the pity, the vocalist could
-sing no more, having “a mighty great could intirely.” The
-story-teller was “as dry as a chip wid all he talked,” and
-even the sides of most of the company “war ready to split
-wid the rale dint of laughin’;” whilst, as if to afford us another
-illustration of the truth of the old proverb, “one trouble never
-comes alone,” even the old crone who had astonished us with
-the richness and extent of her fairy lore, was also knocked up,
-or rather knocked <em>down</em>, for the quantity of earthly <em>spirits</em>
-she had put <em>in</em>, entirely put <em>out</em> all memory of <em>un</em>-earthly
-<em>spirits</em>, and sent her disordered fancy, all confused as it was,
-wool-gathering to the classic regions of <i lang="ga">Their-na-noge</i>.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
-
-<p>Well, what was to be done? It was still young in the night,
-and, better than that, a good “slug” still remained in the
-grey-beard, and as we all had contributed to procure the
-stock, so all declared that none should depart until the very
-last drop was drained. But how was the interval to be employed?
-The singer was hushed, the story-teller was exhausted,
-and vollies of wit and waggery had exploded until every one
-was tired; yet to remain silent was considered by all as the
-highest degree of discomfort. In this dilemma the man of the
-house scratched his pericranium, and, as acting by some sudden
-impulse, started up and handed me an old sooty book,
-“hoping that I would read a wollume for the edication of the
-company, until it would be time to retire.”</p>
-
-<p>I agreed without hesitation, and on opening the dusty and
-smoke-begrimed volume found that it was “Sir Charles
-Coote’s Statistical Survey of the Queen’s County,” printed
-in Dublin by Graisberry and Campbell, and published by
-direction of the Dublin Society in the year 1801. Although
-well aware that the dry details of a work professedly and almost
-exclusively statistical, were little calculated to amuse or
-interest <em>such</em> an audience, yet, as the library of an Irish
-peasant is always unfortunately scanty, and in this instance,
-with the exception of a few trifling works on religious subjects,
-limited to the book in question, I determined to make
-the best I could of it, and for that purpose opened it at Sir
-Charles’s description of the immediate district in which we
-were situated, namely, the barony of Maryborough West,
-and town-land of Killeany. I read on thus:&mdash;“On Sir Allen
-Johnson’s estate stand the ruins of Killeany Castle; the
-walls are injudiciously built of very bad stones, though
-excellent quarry is contiguous. … Poor-man’s Bridge
-over the Nore was lately widened, and is very safe, but I
-cannot learn the tradition why it was so called.”</p>
-
-<p>“Read that again, sir,” said a fine grey-headed, patriarchal
-old man who was present; “read that again,” said he
-emphatically. I did so.</p>
-
-<p>“<em>He</em> cannot learn the tradition of Poor-man’s Bridge,
-<i lang="ga">inagh</i>!” said the old man with a sneer; “faith, I believe not;
-I’d take his word for more nor that. But had he come to me
-when he was travelling the country making up his statisticks,
-I could open his eyes on that subject, and many others too.”</p>
-
-<p>Some of those present laughed outright at the old man’s
-gravity of manner as he made this confident boast.</p>
-
-<p>“You need not laugh&mdash;you may shut your potato-traps,”
-said the old man indignantly. “Grand as he was, with his
-gold and silver, his coach and horses, and servants with gold
-and scarlet livery, I could enlighten him more on the ancient
-history and traditions of our country than all the <i lang="ga">boddaghs</i> of
-squireens whom he visited on his tour through the Queen’s
-County.”</p>
-
-<p>These assertions served only to increase the storm of ridicule
-which was gathering around the old man’s head; and to
-put a stop to any bad blood which the occasion might call
-forth, I requested of him to tell us the tradition of “the
-Boccough Ruadh.”</p>
-
-<p>After some wheedling and flattery he complied, and told a
-curious story, of which the following is the substance.</p>
-
-<p>The river Nore flows through a district of the Queen’s
-County celebrated for fertility and romantic beauty. From its
-source amongst the blue hills of Slievebloom to its termination
-at New Ross, where its bright ripples commingle with the
-briny billows of the Irish sea, many excellent and even some
-beautiful bridges span its stream. Until the commencement
-of the last century, however, except in the vicinity of towns,
-there were but few permanent bridges across this river, and
-in the country districts access was gained over it chiefly by
-means of causeways, or, as they are termed, “foords,” constructed
-of stones and huge blocks of timber fixed firmly in
-the bed of the river, and extending in irregular succession
-from bank to bank. Over this pathway foot passengers
-crossed easily enough, but cattle and wheeled carriages were
-obliged to struggle through the water as well as they could;
-but in time of floods, and in the winter season when the
-waters were swollen, all communication was cut off except
-to pedestrians alone.</p>
-
-<p>One of those “foords,” in former times, crossed the Nore
-at Shanahoe, a very pretty neighbourhood, about three miles
-northwards of the beautiful and rising town of Abbeyleix, in
-the Queen’s County. The river here winds its course through
-a silent glen, and now several snug cottages and farm-houses
-arise above its banks at either side. The country in this
-neighbourhood is remarkably beautiful. Several gentlemen’s
-seats are scattered along the banks of the river in this vicinity,
-all elegant and of modern erection, whilst swelling hills,
-sloping dales, gloomy groves, and ruins of church and tower
-and “castle grey,” ornament and diversify the scene.</p>
-
-<p>On a gentle eminence on the eastern bank of the river,
-stood, about a hundred years ago, the cabin of a man named
-Neale O’Shea. At that period there was not another dwelling
-within a long distance of the “foord,” and many a time
-was Neale summoned from his midnight repose to guide the
-traveller in his passage over the lonely and dangerous river
-pathway.</p>
-
-<p>One wild stormy December night, when the huge limestone
-rocks that formed the stepping-stones of the ford were lashed
-and chafed by the angry foam of the agitated river, Neale
-O’Shea’s wife fancied she heard, amid the fitful pausings of
-the wind, the cry of some mortal in distress. She immediately
-aroused her husband, who was stretched asleep on a large
-oak stool in the chimney corner, and told him to look out.
-Neale, ever willing to relieve a fellow-creature, arose, and,
-flinging his grey “trusty” over his expansive shoulders, and
-seizing a long iron-shod pole or wattle, the constant companion
-of his nightly excursions, hastened down to the river’s brink.
-He stood a moment at the verge of the ford, and tried to
-penetrate through the intense gloom, to see if he could discover
-a human form, but he could see nothing.</p>
-
-<p>“Is there any one there?” he shouted in a stentorian voice,
-which rose high above the whistling of the blast, and the
-brawling of the angry and swift-rushing river.</p>
-
-<p>A voice sounded at the other extremity of the ford, and
-the stout-hearted peasant, with steady step, crossed over the
-slippery stepping-stones.</p>
-
-<p>“Who the devil are you?” roughly exclaimed Neale to a
-man who lay extended on the brink of the river, convenient
-to the entrance of the ford.</p>
-
-<p>“Whoever I am,” faintly replied the stranger, “you are
-my good angel, and it was surely Providence who sent you
-this night to rescue me from a watery grave.”</p>
-
-<p>“Whoever you are,” again said Neale, “come along with
-me, and Kathleen and the childre will make you welcome in
-my cabin until morning.” So saying, he seized the bending
-form of the wayworn stranger, and flinging him on his back
-with herculean strength, trudged over the stepping-stones,
-chuckling with delight, and gaily whistling as he went.</p>
-
-<p>The dangerous pass was soon crossed, and arriving at the
-door, Neale pushed it before him, and with a smile deposited
-his trembling burthen on the warm hearth. A fine fire blazed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
-merrily, and its flickering beams fell brightly on the face of
-the stranger. He was a tall, portly figure, stooped as if from
-extreme suffering more than age, and had a wooden leg.
-His features, which had evidently been handsome in his youth,
-were worn, pale, and attenuated, and he might be about fifty
-years of age. His clothes were faded and ragged; he was
-entirely without shoes or stockings; and his head was covered
-by a broad-brimmed leathern hat, under which he wore an
-enormous red nightcap of coarse woollen cloth.</p>
-
-<p>The good Kathleen now set about preparing supper, and
-while thus employed, the stranger gave them a brief account
-of his bygone life. He told them that he was a native of the
-north of Ireland, and that he had spent several years of his
-youth at sea; that being wounded in a fray with smugglers
-on the coast of France, and losing his leg, he was discharged
-from his employment, and sent adrift on the world, without
-having one friend on earth, or a penny in his pocket. In this
-exigence he had no alternative but to apply to the commiseration
-of his fellow-creatures, and had thus for the last twenty
-years wandered up and down, entirely dependent on the
-bounty and charity of the public.</p>
-
-<p>Supper was now ready, and having partaken of a comfortable
-meal, the wanderer went to rest in a comfortable “shake-down,”
-which the good woman had prepared for him in the
-chimney corner. The storm died away during the night, and
-next morning the watery beams of the winter’s sun shone
-faintly yet gaily on the smooth surface of the silvery Nore.</p>
-
-<p>The stranger was up at sunrise, and was preparing to depart,
-but his kind host and hostess would not permit him to
-go. They told him to stop a few days to rest himself, and in
-the interim, that he could not do better than take his stand at
-the ford, and ask alms of those who passed the way, as a great
-many frequented that pass; and as nothing was ever craved
-from them there, they would cheerfully extend their charity
-to an object worthy of relief.</p>
-
-<p>Acting on their suggestions, the old sailor was soon sitting
-on a stone at the western extremity of the ford. With his
-old caubeen in his hand, and his head enveloped in the gigantic
-red nightcap, he craved alms, in the name of God and the
-Virgin, from all who passed the way; and before the sickly
-beams of the December sun had sunk behind the conical
-“Gizebo,” he could show more money than ever he did before,
-since his limb was swept off by the shot of the smuggling
-Frenchman.</p>
-
-<p>The next morning, and every morning after, found the
-sailor at his post at the ford: he soon became well known to
-all the villagers, and from the circumstance of his always
-appearing with no other head-gear than the red nightcap, they
-nicknamed him the “Boccough Ruadh,”<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> a name by which he
-went ever after till his death.</p>
-
-<p>Time passed on as usual, and the one-legged sailor still
-plied his lucrative vocation at the river pass. Neale O’Shea’s
-cabin still continued to afford him shelter every night, and all
-his days, from the crow of the cock to the vesper song of the
-wood-thrush, were passed at the ford, seated on that remarkable
-block of limestone called to this day the “Clough-na-Boccough.”<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
-His hand was stretched to every stranger for
-alms, “for the good of their souls,” and very few passed without
-giving more or less to the Boccough Ruadh. Thus he
-acquired considerable sums of money, but constantly denied
-having a “keenogue;” but when bantered by any of the
-neighbouring urchins on the length of his purse, he would get
-into a great rage, and swear, by the cross of his crutch, that
-between buying the shough of tobacco and paying for other
-things he wanted, he hadn’t as much as would jingle on a
-tomb-stone, or what would buy a farthing candle to show
-light to his poor corpse at the last day. His food was of the
-very worst description, and unless supplied by the kind-hearted
-Kathleen O’Shea, he would sooner go to bed supperless than
-lay out one penny to buy bread. He suffered his clothes to
-go to rags, unless when any person in the neighbourhood
-would give him old clothes for charity, and he would not pay
-for soap to wash his shirt once in the twelvemonth. Yet
-no one could find out what he did with his money; he did not
-spend two-and-sixpence in the year, and it was people’s
-opinion that he was hoarding it up to give for the benefit of
-his soul at his dying day.</p>
-
-<p>Years rolled away, and Neale O’Shea having now waxed
-old, died, and was gathered to his fathers in the adjacent
-green churchyard of Shannikill,<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> on the banks of the winding
-Nore. The Boccough followed the remains of his kind benefactor
-to his last earthly resting-place, and poured his sorrows
-over his grave in loud and long-continued lamentations.
-But though Neale was gone, Kathleen remained, and she
-promised that while she lived, neither son nor daughter should
-ever turn out the Boccough Ruadh.</p>
-
-<p>It was now forty years since the Boccough first crossed the
-waters of the Nore, and still he was constantly to be found
-from morning till night on his favourite stone at the river side.
-In the mean time, all O’Shea’s children were married, and
-separated through various parts of the country, with the exception
-of Terry, the youngest, a fine stout fellow, now about
-thirty-five years of age, who still remained in a state of single
-blessedness, and said he would continue so, “until he would
-be after laying the last sod on his poor ould mother.” With
-gigantic strength, he inherited all his father’s kindness of
-heart and undaunted bravery, and he was particularly attentive
-to the Boccough, whom he regarded with the same affection
-as a child would a parent.</p>
-
-<p>One morning in summer, the Boccough was observed to
-remain in bed longer than was his custom, and thinking that
-he might be unwell, Terry went to his bedside, and demanded
-why he was not up as usual.</p>
-
-<p>“Ah, Terry, <i lang="ga">alanna</i>,” said the old man sorrowfully, “I will
-never get up again until I do upon the bearer.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> My days are
-spent, and I know it, for there is something over me that I
-cannot describe, and I won’t be alive in twenty-four hours;”
-and as he said these words, he heaved a deep groan, whilst
-Terry, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, wept
-bitterly.</p>
-
-<p>“Will I go for the priest?” demanded Terry, sobbing as
-if his heart would break.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” replied the old man sorrowfully, “I do not want him.
-It is long since I complied with my religious duties, and now
-I feel it is useless.”</p>
-
-<p>“There is mercy still,” replied Terry; “you know the
-ould sayin’,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">‘Mercy craved and mercy found</div>
-<div class="verse">Between the saddle and the ground.’”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The old man replied not, but shook his head, indicating his
-determination to die without the consolations of religion,
-whilst Terry trembled for his hopeless situation.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, since you won’t have the priest, will you give me
-some money till I bring you the doctor?” said Terry.</p>
-
-<p>The old man’s eyes literally flashed fire, his form heaved
-with rage, and his countenance displayed demoniac indignation.</p>
-
-<p>“What’s that you say?” he demanded in a ferocious tone.</p>
-
-<p>Terry repeated the question.</p>
-
-<p>“Send for a doctor!&mdash;give you money!” echoed the old
-man. “Where the devil would I get money to pay a doctor?”</p>
-
-<p>“You have it, and ten times as much,” said Terry, “and
-you cannot deny it.”</p>
-
-<p>“If I have as much money as would buy me a coffin,” said
-the Boccough, “may my soul never rest quiet in the grave.”</p>
-
-<p>Terry crossed his brow with terror. He knew the unhappy
-wretch was dying with a lie on his tongue, but he resolved
-not to press the matter further.</p>
-
-<p>“You are dying as fast as you can,” remarked Terry;
-“have you any thing to say before you go?”</p>
-
-<p>“Nothing,” replied he faintly. “But let me be buried
-with my red nightcap on me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Your wish must be granted,” said Terry, and he went to
-awake his old mother, who still lay asleep. When he returned,
-he found the old man breathing his last. He uttered a convulsive
-groan, and expired.</p>
-
-<p>He was washed and stretched, and waked, with all the
-honours, rites, and ceremonies belonging to a genuine Irish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
-wake; and on the third day following, being the Sabbath, he
-was followed to the grave by crowds of the village peasantry,
-who remained in the churchyard until they saw his remains
-deposited, as they thought for ever, in the rank soil of the
-“City of the Dead.”</p>
-
-<p>Many rumours were now current respecting the Boccough’s
-money. Every one but Terry believed that the “lob” fell
-with Terry himself. But Terry, who knew better, believed
-and affirmed that “what was got under the devil’s belly, always
-goes over his back,” and that the “old boy” had taken
-the spoil, and that it lay concealed in some crevice in the bank
-of the river.</p>
-
-<p>The night following the burial of the old sailor was passed
-in a very disturbed and agitated manner by Terry O’Shea:
-he could not sleep a wink; and when he fell into a slumber,
-he started and moaned, and appeared frightened and annoyed.</p>
-
-<p>“What ails you?” affectionately demanded his old mother,
-who slept in the same room, and who was kept awake by her
-son’s restless and disturbed manner.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know, mother,” said Terry; “I am so frightened
-and tormented with dreaming of the Boccough Ruadh, that I
-am almost out of my natural senses. Even at this moment I
-think I see him walking the room before me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Holy Mary, protect us!” ejaculated the old woman.
-“And it is no wonder that his misforthunate soul would be
-star-gazing about&mdash;and to die without the priest, and a curse
-and a lie in his mouth!”</p>
-
-<p>Terry groaned agitatedly.</p>
-
-<p>“And how does he appear in your dreams?” asked the old
-woman.</p>
-
-<p>“As he always was,” replied Terry. “But I think I see
-him pointing to his red nightcap, and endeavouring to pull it
-off with his old withered hand.”</p>
-
-<p>“Umph!” said the old woman, in a knowing tone. “Ha!
-ha! I have it now. Are you sure that the strings of his
-nightcap were unloosed before he was nailed up in the coffin?”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know,” was the reply.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll go bail they weren’t,” said the old woman; “and you
-know, or at any rate you ought to know, that a corpse can
-never rest in the grave when there is a knot or a tie upon
-any thing belonging to its grave-dress.”</p>
-
-<p>Terry emitted another deep groan.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, <i lang="ga">acushla</i>,” said the old mother, “go to-morrow, and
-take a neighbour with you, and open the grave, and see if any
-thing be asthray. If you find the nightcap or any thing else
-not as it should be, set it to rights, and close the grave again
-decently, and he will trouble you no more.”</p>
-
-<p>“God send,” was Terry’s brief but emphatic response.</p>
-
-<p>Early next morning Terry was at the Boccough’s grave,
-accompanied by a man of the neighbourhood. The coffin was
-opened, the corpse examined, and, according to the mother’s
-prediction, the red nightcap was found knotted tightly under
-the dead man’s chin. Terry proceeded to unloosen it, and in
-the act of doing so, a corner of the nightcap gave way, and
-out peeped a shining golden guinea.</p>
-
-<p>“Ah ha!” mentally exclaimed Terry, “that’s no blind nut
-any how; there’s more where that was, but I had better keep
-a hard cheek!” So, without seeming to appear any way affected,
-he opened the knot, closed the coffin, shut up the grave,
-and departed homewards, without acquainting his comrade
-with what he had seen.</p>
-
-<p>The moment Terry entered his own door, he told his mother
-about the guinea, and expressed his determination to go that
-very night, and fetch the red nightcap home with him, “body
-and bones and all,” “for,” added he, “that guinea has its
-comrade; and I’ll hold you a halfpenny there’s where the old
-dog has the ‘lob’ concealed, and that’s what made him order
-me to have the red cap buried with him.”</p>
-
-<p>“<i lang="ga">Asthore machree</i>,” said the mother doubtingly, “won’t you
-be afraid?”</p>
-
-<p>“Afraid!” echoed Terry, “devil a bit&mdash;afraid indeed! and
-my fortune perhaps in the red nightcap.”</p>
-
-<p>The mother consented, but enjoined him to tell nobody
-about the matter for fear of disappointment. Terry vowed
-implicit obedience, and retired to his usual avocations in the
-garden.</p>
-
-<p>Well, at last the night came, and Terry set about preparing
-for his strange undertaking. All the arts and prayers
-and charms of old Kathleen were put in requisition to preserve
-him from danger; and about the witching hour of twelve,
-with his spade on his shoulder, and his dhudeen in his mouth,
-the bold-hearted Terry set forward all alone to the grave-yard,
-shaping his course by the winding banks of the glassy
-river, and whistling as he went&mdash;not “for want of thought,”
-however, for never was man’s mind more busily occupied than
-was Terry’s, in predisposing of the money which he expected
-to find in the Boccough Ruadh’s nightcap.</p>
-
-<p>After a short walk, Terry arrived at the precincts of the
-churchyard. It was a lovely summer’s night, the full moon
-shining gloriously, and myriads of pretty stars blinking and
-twinkling in the blue expanse, but all their native lustre was
-drowned in the borrowed splendour of the Queen of Heaven.
-Terry stood a moment to reconnoitre, and, resting on his
-spade, looked around with an anxious gaze. He could discover
-nothing; all was silent as the departed beneath his feet,
-except the murmuring of the river’s surges in the rear, or
-the barking of some village cur-dog in the hazy distance. He
-advanced to the grave of the Boccough, and in a few minutes
-the ghastly moonbeams shone full on the pale grim features
-of the dead. He snatched the nightcap quickly from the bald
-head of the corpse, put it in his pocket, and, notwithstanding
-the awe and superhuman terror under which he laboured, he
-chuckled with delight as he remarked the “<em>dead</em> weight” of
-the Boccough’s head-gear. He then closed the coffin, and as
-he proceeded to cover it, the clay and stones fell on it with an
-appalling and unearthly sound. The grave now covered up,
-the intrepid fellow again shouldered his spade, and sought the
-river’s margin, and as he strode hurriedly along its banks in
-the direction of his home, the splash of the otter and the diving
-of the water-hen more than once broke the thread of his
-lonely musings.</p>
-
-<p>Terry was soon at his mother’s side, who since his departure
-had been on her knees, praying for his safe return. The
-nightcap was ripped up, and lo! three hundred golden guineas
-were the reward of Terry’s churchyard adventure!
-Stitched carefully in every part of the huge nightcap, the
-gold lay secure, so as not to attract the notice of any one, or
-cause the least suspicion of its proximity to the old man’s
-pericranium.</p>
-
-<p>Terry and his mother were in ecstacies. Farms were
-already purchased in ideality, cattle bought, houses built, and
-even Terry began in his mind to make preparations for his
-wedding with Onny Kinshellagh, a rich farmer’s daughter of
-the neighbourhood, for whom he had breathed many a hopeless
-sigh, and who, in addition to her beauty, was possessed of
-fifty pounds in hard gold, a couple of good yearlings, and a
-feather-bed as broad as the “nine acres.”</p>
-
-<p>The mother and son retired to bed, as happy as the certain
-possession of wealth, and the almost as certain expectations
-of honour and distinction, could make them. After a long
-time spent in constructing and condemning schemes for the
-future, Terry fell asleep. He had not slept long, however,
-when he started up with a loud scream, crying out, “the Boccough!
-the Boccough!” “Och, weary’s on him for a Boccough!”
-exclaimed the mother; “is he coming for the nightcap
-and the goold?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, no,” said Terry, calmly; “but I was again dreaming
-of him, and I was frightened.”</p>
-
-<p>“What did you dream to-night?” asked the old woman.</p>
-
-<p>“I was dreaming that I was going over the foord by moonlight,
-and that I saw the Boccough walking on the water
-towards me; that he stopped at a certain big stone, and
-began to examine under with his hands; that I came up, and
-asked him what he was searching for, when he looked up with
-a frightful phiz, and cried out in a horrible voice, ‘For my
-red nightcap!’”</p>
-
-<p>“God Almighty never opened one door but he opened two,”
-exclaimed old Kathleen. “Examine under that stone to-morrow,
-and by all the cottoners in Cork, you’ll find another
-‘lob’ of money in it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Faix, maybe so,” replied Terry; “it’s no harm to say
-‘Godsend,’ and that God may make a thief of you before a
-<em>liar</em>.”</p>
-
-<p>“Amen, <i lang="ga">achiernah</i>,” replied Kathleen.</p>
-
-<p>Next morning at daybreak, Terry got up, and proceeded
-to the identical stone where he fancied that he had seen the
-spirit of the Boccough. He examined it closely, and after a
-strict search, discovered in the sand beneath the rock a leathern
-pouch full of money. He seized it joyfully, and on counting
-its contents, found it amounted to upwards of a hundred
-pounds, all in silver and copper coins.</p>
-
-<p>“What a lucky born man you are, Terry O’Shea!” cried
-the overjoyed gold-finder, “and what a bright day it was for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
-your family that the Boccough Ruadh crossed over the
-waters of the Nore.”</p>
-
-<p>“It was not a bright day at all, but a wild, gloomy, stormy
-night,” said the old woman, who, unperceived, had followed
-her son to watch the success of his expedition.</p>
-
-<p>“No matter for that,” said Terry; “there never was so
-bright a day in your seven generations as that dark night; I
-am now the richest man of my name, and I would not, this
-mortal minute, call Lord De Vesci my uncle.”</p>
-
-<p>It is easier for the reader to imagine than for the writer to
-describe the manner in which this joyful day was passed by
-the happy mother and son. Now counting and examining the
-gold, and again proposing plans, and considering the best
-purposes to which it could be applied, they passed the hours
-until the summer sun had long sunk behind the crimson
-west.</p>
-
-<p>Terry was again in bed, when he started with a wild shriek.
-“Mother of mercy!” he frantically vociferated, “here is the
-Boccough Ruadh; I hear the tramp of his wooden leg on the
-floor.”</p>
-
-<p>“Lord save us!” said the old woman in a trembling voice,
-“what can ail him now? Maybe it’s more money he has hid
-somewhere else.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, do you hear how he rattles about! Devil a <i lang="ga">kippeen</i>
-in the cabin but he will destroy,” exclaimed poor Terry.
-“It’s the black day to us that ever we seen himself or
-his dirty thrash of money; and if God saves me till morning,
-I’ll go back and lave every rap ov id where I got it.”</p>
-
-<p>“That would be a murdher to lave so much fine money
-moulding in the clay, and so many in want of it; you shall do
-no such thing,” said the mother.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t care a straw for that,” said Terry. “I would
-not have the ould sinner, God rest his sowl, stravagin’ every
-other night about my honest decent cabin for all the goold
-in the Queen’s County.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, then,” says the old woman, “go to the priest in the
-morning, and leave him the money, and let him dispose of it
-as he likes for the good of the ould vagabond’s misforthunate
-soul.”</p>
-
-<p>This plan was agreed to, and the conversation dropt. The
-ghost of the Boccough still rattled and clanked about the
-house. He never ceased stumping about, from the kitchen to
-the room, and from the room to the kitchen. Pots and pans,
-plates and pitchers, were tossed here and there; the dog was
-kicked, the cat was mauled, and even the raked-up fire was
-lashed out of the “gree-sough.” In fact, Terry declared
-that if the devil or Captain Rock was about the place, there
-couldn’t be more noise than there was that night with the
-Boccough’s ghost, and this continued without intermission
-until the bell of Abbeyleix castle clock was tolling the midnight
-hour.</p>
-
-<p>Terry was up next morning at sunrise, and having packed
-up the money which was the cause of all his trouble in his
-mother’s check apron, proceeded with a heavy heart to the
-residence of the priest, about two miles from the present
-Poor-man’s Bridge. The priest was not up when Terry arrived,
-but being well known to the domestics, he was admitted
-to his bed-chamber.</p>
-
-<p>“You have started early,” said the priest; “what troubles
-you now, Terry?”</p>
-
-<p>Terry gave a full and true account of his troubles, and
-concluded by telling him that he brought him the money to
-dispose of it as he thought best.</p>
-
-<p>“I won’t have any thing to do with it,” said the Father.
-“It is not mine, so you may take it back again the same
-road.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not a rap of it will ever go my road again,” said Terry.
-“Can’t you give it for his unfortunate ould sowl?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll have no hand in it,” said the priest.</p>
-
-<p>“Nor I either,” said Terry. “I wouldn’t have the ould
-miser <i lang="ga">polthogueing</i> about my quiet floor another night for the
-king’s ransom.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, take it to your landlord; he is a magistrate, and
-he will have it put to some public works connected with the
-county,” said the priest.</p>
-
-<p>“Bad luck to the lord or lady I’ll ever take it to,” said
-Terry, making a spring, and bounding down the stairs, leaving
-the money, apron and all, on the floor at the priest’s bedside.</p>
-
-<p>“Come back, come back!” shouted the Father in a towering
-passion.</p>
-
-<p>“Good morning to your ravirince,” said Terry, as he flew
-with the swiftness of a mountain deer over the common before
-the priest’s door. “Ay, go back, indeed; catch ould birds
-with chaff. You have the money now, and you may make a
-bog or a dog of it, whichever you plaise.”</p>
-
-<p>In an hour after, the priest’s servant man was on the road
-to Maryborough, mounted on the priest’s own black gelding,
-with a sealed parcel containing the Boccough’s money strapped
-in a portmanteau behind him, and a letter to the treasurer
-of the Queen’s County grand jury, detailing the curious circumstances
-by which it came into his possession, and recommending
-him to convert it to whatever purpose the gentlemen
-of the county should deem most expedient.</p>
-
-<p>The summer assizes came on in a few days, and the matter
-was brought before the grand jury, who agreed to expend
-the money in constructing a stone bridge over the ford where
-it was collected.</p>
-
-<p>Before that day twelvemonth, the ford had disappeared,
-and a noble bridge of seven arches spanned the sparkling
-waters of the Nore, which is here pretty broad and of considerable
-depth. From that day to this it is called the “Poor-man’s
-Bridge,” and I never cross it without thinking of the
-strange circumstances which led to its erection.</p>
-
-<p>The spirit of the Boccough Ruadh never troubled Terry
-O’Shea after, but often, as people say, amid the gloom of a
-winter’s night, or the grey haze of a summer’s evening, may
-the figure of a wan and decrepid old man with his head enveloped
-in a red nightcap, be seen wandering about Poor-man’s
-Bridge, or walking quite “natural” over the glassy
-waters of the transparent Nore.</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> That imaginary region under ground, supposed by the peasantry to be
-the residence of spirits and fairies.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The red beggarman.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Anglice, the Stone of the Cripple, or the stone of the beggarman.
-This stone lay for many years in the position it occupied in the days of the
-“Boccough,” but is now incorporated in the stonework of the parapet of
-the bridge. It was believed to be enchanted, and the peasantry of the
-neighbourhood used to affirm that it descended to the river to drink, every
-night at the hour of twelve o’clock. This belief is now almost exploded,
-but however it is affirmed to be the identical stone on which the Boccough
-collected his wealth.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This is a very ancient churchyard, situated on a gentle eminence overhanging
-the western bank of the river Nore, and about half a mile from
-Poor-man’s Bridge. The ruins of a church or monastic establishment still
-remain in the centre of the grave-yard. It is said to have been erected by
-St Comgall, from whom it took the name of Cell-Comgall, though <em>now</em>
-called Shankill, or Shannakill. St Comgall was born in Ulster in 516, and
-was educated under St Fintan, in the monastery of Clonenagh, near Mountrath,
-in the Queen’s County. He died on the 10th of May 601.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The bier or hand-carriage on which the dead are borne to the grave.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class="gap4"><span class="smcap">An Excuse.</span>&mdash;Miravaux was one day accosted by a sturdy
-beggar, who asked alms of him. “How is this,” inquired
-Miravaux, “that a lusty fellow like you is unemployed?”
-“Ah!” replied the beggar, looking very piteously at him, “if
-you did but know how lazy I am!” The reply was so ludicrous
-and unexpected, that Miravaux gave the varlet a piece of
-silver.</p>
-
-<p class="gap4"><span class="smcap">An Incident.</span>&mdash;At the time Commodore Elliot commanded
-the navy at Norfolk (I think it was), happening to be conducting
-a number of ladies and gentlemen who were visiting
-the yard, he chanced to see a little boy who had a basket full
-of chips, which he had gathered in the yard; probably to
-show his importance he saluted him, and asked where he got
-the chips. “In the yard,” replied the boy. “Then drop
-them,” said the brave man. The little boy dropped the chips
-as he was ordered, and after gaining a safe distance, turning
-round with his thumb to his nose, said, “That is the first
-prize you ever took, any how!”</p>
-
-<p class="gap4">Solon enacted, that children who did not maintain their
-parents in old age, when in want, should be branded with infamy,
-and lose the privilege of citizens; he, however, excepted
-from the rule those children whom their parents had taught
-no trade, nor provided with other means of procuring a livelihood.
-It was a proverb of the Jews, that he who did not
-bring up his son to a trade, brought him up as a thief.</p>
-
-<p class="gap4">If there be a lot on earth worthy of envy, it is that of a
-man, good and tender-hearted, who beholds his own creation
-in the happiness of all those who surround him. Let
-him who would be happy strive to encircle himself with
-happy beings. Let the happiness of his family be the incessant
-object of his thoughts. Let him divine the sorrows
-and anticipate the wishes of his friends.</p>
-
-<p class="gap4">A cheerful heart paints the world as it finds it, like a
-sunny landscape; the morbid mind depicts it like a sterile
-wilderness, palled with thick vapours, and dark as “the
-shadow of death.” It is the mirror, in short, on which it is
-caught, which lends to the face of nature the aspect of its
-own turbulence or tranquillity.</p>
-
-<p class="gap4">The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently
-see the active and the bold pass by them in the course. They
-must bring down their pretensions to the level of their talents.
-Those who have not energy to work must learn to be humble.&mdash;<cite>Sharp’s
-Essays.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>Printed and published every Saturday by <span class="smcap">Gunn</span> and <span class="smcap">Cameron</span>, at the Office
-of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.&mdash;Agents:&mdash;<span class="smcap">R.
-Groombridge</span>, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London;
-<span class="smcap">Simms</span> and <span class="smcap">Dinham</span>, Exchange Street, Manchester; <span class="smcap">C. Davies</span>, North
-John Street, Liverpool; <span class="smcap">J. Drake</span>, Birmingham; <span class="smcap">Slocombe &amp; Simms</span>,
-Leeds; <span class="smcap">Fraser</span> and <span class="smcap">Crawford</span>, George Street, Edinburgh; and
-<span class="smcap">David Robertson</span>, Trongate, Glasgow.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No.
-30, January 23, 1841, by Various
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