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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:26:46 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:26:46 -0700 |
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diff --git a/6040-h/6040-h.htm b/6040-h/6040-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c18a22f --- /dev/null +++ b/6040-h/6040-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4665 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stories By English Authors. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +.blockquot {margin:2% 10%;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + + h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both; +font-weight:normal;} + + h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:100%;font-weight:normal;} + + hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; +padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} + + img {border:none;} + +.lftspc {margin-left:.25em;} + +.letra {font-size:250%;float:left;margin-top:-1%;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} + +.rt {text-align:right;} + +small {font-size: 70%;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} + +table {margin:2% auto;border:none; +page-break-before:always;page-break-after:always;} + +div.poetry {text-align:center;} +div.poem {font-size:100%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; +display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} +.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: .45em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + +</style> + </head> +<body> +<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stories by English Authors: Ireland, by George H. Jessop</p> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> + +<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Stories by English Authors: Ireland</p> +<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Authors: George H. Jessop</p> +<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em;'>Jane Barlow</p> +<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em;'>John Banim</p> +<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em;'>Anonymous</p> +<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July, 2004 [eBook #6040]<br /> +[Last updated: April 19, 2022</p> +<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> + <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Nicole Apostola and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.</p> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: IRELAND ***</div> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<div class="c"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="" /> +</div> +<h1>STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS<br /><br /> +IRELAND</h1> + +<table cellpadding="0"> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#THE_GRIDIRON">The Gridiron</a></td><td>By Samuel Lover</td></tr> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#THE_EMERGENCY_MEN">The Emergency Men</a>    </td><td>By George H. Jessop</td></tr> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#A_LOST_RECRUIT">A Lost Recruit</a></td><td>By Jane Barlow</td></tr> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#THE_RIVAL_DREAMERS">The Rival Dreamers</a>    </td><td>By John Banim</td></tr> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#NEAL_MALONE">Neal Malone</a></td><td>By William Carleton</td></tr> +<tr><td class="smcap"><a href="#THE_BANSHEE">The Banshee</a></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="THE_GRIDIRON" id="THE_GRIDIRON"></a>THE GRIDIRON<br /><br /> +BY SAMUEL LOVER</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> CERTAIN old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the +ridiculous quite equalled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was +wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his +friends by <i>drawing out</i> one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what +he termed, his “thravels,” and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer +stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services had +established a right of loquacity. He was one of those few trusty and +privileged domestics who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing +in a fit of passion, would venture to set him right. If the squire said, +“I’ll turn that rascal off,” my friend Pat would say, “Throth you won’t, +sir;” and Pat was always right, for if any altercation arose upon the +“subject-matter in hand,” he was sure to throw in some good reason, +either from former services—general good conduct—or the delinquent’s +“wife and children,” that always turned the scale.</p> + +<p>But I am digressing. On such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the +master, after making certain “approaches,” as a military man would say, +as the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his +servant, might, perchance, assail Pat thus: “By the by, Sir John” +(addressing a distinguished guest), “Pat has a very curious story, which +something you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember, Pat” (turning +to the man, evidently pleased at the notice thus paid to himself)—“you +remember that queer adventure you had in France?”</p> + +<p>“Throth I do, sir,” grins forth Pat.</p> + +<p>“What!” exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise, “was Pat ever in +France?”</p> + +<p>“Indeed he was,” cries mine host; and Pat adds, “Ay, and farther, plase +your honour.”</p> + +<p>“I assure you, Sir John,” continues mine host, “Pat told me a story once +that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” rejoined the baronet; “really, I always supposed the French to +be a most accomplished people.”</p> + +<p>“Throth, then, they’re not, sir,” interrupts Pat.</p> + +<p>“Oh, by no means,” adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.</p> + +<p>“I believe, Pat, ’twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?” says the +master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the “full +and true account” (for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for +“a raison he had,” in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” says Pat, “the broad Atlantic”—a favourite phrase of his, +which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the Atlantic itself.</p> + +<p>“It was the time I was lost in crassin’ the broad Atlantic, a-comin’ +home,” began Pat, decoyed into the recital; “whin the winds began to +blow, and the saw to rowl, that you’d think the Colleen Dhas (that was +her name) would not have a mast left but what would rowl out of her.</p> + +<p>“Well, sure enough, the masts went by the hoard, at last, and the pumps +were choked (divil choke them for that same), and av coorse the wather +gained an us; and, throth, to be filled with wather is neither good for +man or baste; and she was sinkin’ fast, settlin’ down, as the sailors +call it; and, faith, I never was good at settlin’ down in my life, and I +liked it then less nor ever. Accordingly we prepared for the worst, and +put out the boot, and got a sack o’ bishkits and a cask o’ pork and a +kag o’ wather and a thrifle o’ rum aboord, and any other little matthers +we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in—and, faith, there was +no time to be lost, for, my darlint, the Colleen Dhas went down like a +lump o’ lead afore we wor many sthrokes o’ the oar away from her.</p> + +<p>“Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin’ we put up a +blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed +illegant; for we darn’t show a stitch o’ canvas the night before, bekase +it was blowin’ like bloody murther, savin’ your presence, and sure it’s +the wondher of the worid we worn’t swally’d alive by the ragin’ sae.</p> + +<p>“Well, away we wint, for more nor a week, and nothin’ before our two +good-lookin’ eyes but the canophy iv heaven and the wide ocean—the +broad Atlantic; not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and +though the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth, +they’re no great things when you’ve nothin’ else to look at for a week +together; and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be +more welkim. And then, soon enough, throth, our provisions began to run +low, the bishkits and the wather and the rum—throth, <i>that</i> was gone +first of all—God help uz!—and oh! it was thin that starvation began to +stare us in the face. ‘O murther, murther, Captain darlint,’ says I, ‘I +wish we could land anywhere,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,’ says he, ‘for sitch a good +wish, and, throth, it’s myself wishes the same.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Och,’ says I, ‘that it may plase you, sweet queen iv heaven, supposing +it was only a <i>dissolute</i> island,’ says I, ‘inhabited wid Turks, sure +they wouldn’t be such bad Chrishthans as to refuse us a bit and a sup.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Whisht, whisht, Paddy,’ says the captain, ‘don’t be talking bad of any +one,’ says he; ‘you don’t know how soon you may want a good word put in +for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th’ other world +all of a suddint,” says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Thrue for you, Captain darlint,’ says I—I called him darlint, and +made free with him, you see, bekase disthress makes us all equal—’thrue +for you, Captain jewel—God betune uz and harm, I own no man any +spite’—and, throth, that was only thruth. Well, the last bishkit was +sarved out, and, by gor, the <i>wather itself</i> was all gone at last, and +we passed the night mighty cowld. Well, at the brake o’ day the sun riz +most beautifully out o’ the waves, that was as bright as silver and as +clear as chrystal. But it was only the more cruel upon us, for we wor +beginnin’ to feel <i>terrible</i> hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied +the land. By gor, I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minit, +and ‘Thunder an’ turf, Captain,’ says I, ‘look to leeward,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>What for?’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I think I see the land,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“So hes ups with his bring-’em-near (that’s what the sailors call a +spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and, sure enough, it was.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Hurrah!’ says he, ‘we’re all right now; pull away, my boys,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Take care you’re not mistaken,’ says I; ‘maybe it’s only a fog-bank, +Captain darlint,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh no,’ says he; ‘it’s the land in airnest.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, then, whereaboats in the wide world are we, Captain?’ says I; +‘maybe it id be in <i>Roosia</i>, or <i>Proosia</i>, the Garmant Oceant,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Tut, you fool,’ says he, for he had that consaited way wid him, +thinkin’ himself cleverer nor any one else—‘tut, you fool,’ says he, +‘that’s <i>France</i>,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Tare an ouns,’ says I, ‘do you tell me so? and how do you know it’s +France it is, Captain dear?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Bekase this is the Bay o’ Bishky we’re in now,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Throth, I was thinkin’ so myself,’ says I, ‘by the rowl it has; for I +often heerd av it in regard of that same; and, throth, the likes av it I +never seen before nor since, and, with the help of God, never will.’</p> + +<p>“Well, with that, my heart began to grow light; and when I seen my life +was safe, I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever; so says I, ‘Captain +jewel, I wish we had a gridiron.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Why, then,’ says he, ‘thunder an’ turf,’ says he, ‘what puts a +gridiron into your head?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Bekase I’m starvin’ with the hunger,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>And, sure, bad luck to you,’ says he, ‘you couldn’t eat a gridiron,’ +says he, ‘barrin’ you were a <i>pelican</i> O’ <i>the wildherness</i>,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Ate a gridiron!’ says I. ‘Och, in throth, I’m not such a gommoch all +out as that, anyhow. But, sure, if we had a gridiron we could dress a +beefstake,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Arrah! but where’s the beefstake?’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Sure, couldn’t we cut a slice aff the pork?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>By gor, I never thought o’ that,’ says the captain. ‘You’re a clever +fellow, Paddy,’ says he, laughin’.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, there’s many a true word said in joke,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Thrue for you, Paddy,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Well, then,’ says I, ‘if you put me ashore there beyant (for we were +nearin’ the land all the time), ‘and, sure, I can ax them for to lind me +the loan of a gridiron,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, by gor, the butther’s comin’ out o’ the stirabout in airnest now,’ +says he; ‘you gommoch,’ says he, ‘sure I told you before that’s +France—and, sure, they’re all furriners there,’ says the captain.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Well, says I, ‘and how do you know but I’m as good a furriner myself +as any o’ thim?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>What do you mane?’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I mane,’ says I, ‘what I towld you, that I’m as good a furriner myself +as any o thim.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Make me sinsible,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>By dad, maybe that’s more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,’ says +I; and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I would pay him off +for his bit o’ consait about the Garmant Oceant.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Lave off your humbuggin’,’ says he, ‘I bid you, and tell me what it is +you mane at all at all.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Parly voo frongsay?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, your humble sarvant,’ says he; ‘why, by gor, you’re a scholar, +Paddy.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Thruth, you may say that,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Why, you’re a clever fellow, Paddy,’ says the captain, jeerin’ like.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>You’re not the first that said that,’ says I, ‘whether you joke or +no.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, but I’m in airnest,’ says the captain; ‘and do you tell me, +Paddy,’ says he, ‘that you spake Frinch?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Parly voo frongsay?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs +the divil. I never met the likes o’ you, Paddy,’ says he. ‘Pull away, +boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we won’t get a good bellyful +before long.’</p> + +<p>“So, with that, it wos no sooner said nor done. They pulled away, and +got close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a +little creek; and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white +sthrand—an illegant place for ladies to bathe in the summer; and out I +got; and it’s stiff enough in the limbs I was, afther bein’ cramped up +in the boat, and perished with the cowld and hunger; but I conthrived to +scramble on, one way or t’ other, tow’rd a little bit iv a wood that was +close to the shore, and the smoke curlin’ out iv it, quite timptin’ +like.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>By the powdhers o’ war, I’m all right,’ says I; ‘there’s a house +there.’ And, sure enough, there was, and a parcel of men, women, and +childher, ating their dinner round a table, quite convanient. And so I +wint up to the door, and I thought I’d be very civil to them, as I heerd +the Frinch was always mighty p’lite intirely, and I thought I’d show +them I knew what good manners was.</p> + +<p>“So I took aff my hat, and, making a low bow, says I, ‘God save all +here,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“Well, to be sure, they all stapt ating at wanst, and began to stare at +me, and, faith, they almost looked me out of countenance; and I thought +to myself, it was not good manners at all, more betoken from furriners +which they call so mighty p’lite. But I never minded that, in regard o’ +wantin’ the gridiron; and so says I, ‘I beg your pardon,’ says I, ‘for +the liberty I take, but it’s only bein’ in disthress in regard of +ating,’ says I, ‘that I made bowld to throuble yez, and if you could +lind me the loan of a gridiron,’ says I, ‘I’d be intirely obleeged to +ye.’</p> + +<p>“By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before, and with that, +says I (knowing what was in their minds), ‘Indeed, it’s thrue for you,’ +says I. ‘I’m tatthered to pieces, and God knows I look quare enough; but +it’s by raison of the storm,’ says I, ‘which dhruv us ashore here below, +and we’re all starvin’,’ says I.</p> + +<p>“So then they began to look at each other again; and myself seeing at +once dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor +beggar coming to crave charity, with that says I, ‘Oh, not at all,’ says +I, ‘by no manes—we have plenty of mate ourselves there below, and we’ll +dhress it,’ says I, ‘if you would be plased to lind us the loan of a +gridiron,’ says I, makin’ a low bow.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever, +and, faith, I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that +it was not France at all at all; and so says I, ‘I beg pardon, sir,’ +says I to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver; +‘maybe I’m under a mistake,’ says I, ‘but I thought I was in France, +sir; aren’t you furriners?’ says I. ‘Parly voo frongsay?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We, munseer,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,’ says I, ‘if you +plase?’</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had seven heads; and, +faith, myself began to feel flushed like and onaisy; and so says I, +makin’ a bow and scrape ag’in, ‘I know it’s a liberty I take, sir,’ says +I, ‘but it’s only in the regard of bein’ cast away; and if you plase, +sir,’ says I, ‘<i>parly voo frongsay</i>?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We, munseer,’ says he, mighty sharp.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron?’ says I, ‘and you’ll +obleege me.’</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, the ould chap began to munseer me; but the divil a bit of a +gridiron he’d gi’ me; and so I began to think they wor all neygars, for +all their fine manners; and, throth, my blood begun to rise, and says I, +‘By my sowl, if it was you was in disthress,’ says I, ‘and if it was to +ould Ireland you kem, it’s not only the gridiron they’d give you, if you +axed it, but something to put an it, too, and the drop o’ dhrink into +the bargain, and cead mile failte.’</p> + +<p>“Well, the word cead mile failte seemed to sthreck his heart, and the +ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I’d give him another offer, +and make him sinsible at last; and so says I, wanst more, quite slow, +that he might understand, ‘Parly—voo—frongsay, munseer?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We, munseer,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,’ says I, ‘and bad scram to you.’</p> + +<p>“Well, bad win to the bit of it he’d gi’ me, and the ould chap begins +bowin’ and scrapin’, and said something or other about a long tongs. +<a name="FNanchor__1" id="FNanchor__1"></a> +<a href="#Footnote__1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote__1" id="Footnote__1"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor__1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +Some mystification of Paddy’s touching the French n’tends.</p></div> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Phoo!—the divil swape yourself and your tongs,’ says I; ‘I don’t want +a tongs at all at all; but can’t you listen to raison?’ says I. ‘<i>Parly +voo frongsay</i>?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We, munseer.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,’ says I, ‘and howld your prate.’</p> + +<p>“Well, what would you think, but he shook his old noddle as much as to +say he wouldn’t; and so says I, ‘Bad cess to the likes o’ that I ever +seen! Throth, if you wor in my counthry, it’s not that away they’d use +you. The curse o’ the crows an you, you ould sinner,’ says I; ‘the divil +a longer i’ll darken your door.’</p> + +<p>“So he seen I was vexed; and I thought, as I was turnin’ away, I seen +him begin to relint, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I, +turnin’ back, ‘Well, I’ll give you one chance more, you ould thief. Are +you a Chrishthan at all? Are you a furriner,’ says I,’ that all the +world calls so p’lite? Bad luck to you, do you understand your own +language? Parly voo frongsay?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We, munseer,’ says he.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Then, thunder an’ turf,’ says I, ‘will you lind me the loan of a +gridiron?’</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, the divil resa’ve the bit of it he’d gi’ me; and so, with +that, ‘The curse o’ the hungry an you, you ould neygarly villain,’ says +I; ‘the back o’ my hand and the sowl o’ my foot to you, that you may +want a gridiron yourself yit,’ says I. And with that I left them there, +sir, and kem away; and, in throth, it’s often sense that I thought that +it was remarkable.”</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_EMERGENCY_MEN" id="THE_EMERGENCY_MEN"></a>THE EMERGENCY MEN<br /><br /> +BY GEORGE H. JESSOP</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE fourth morning after his arrival in Dublin, Mr. Harold Hayes, of New +York, entered the breakfast-room of the Shelbourne Hotel in a very bad +humour. He was sick of the city, of the people, and of his own company. +Before leaving London he had written to his friend, Jack Connolly, that +he was coming to Ireland, and he had expected to find a reply at the +Shelbourne. For three days he had waited in vain, and it was partly, at +least, on Jack’s account that Mr. Hayes was in Ireland at all. When Jack +sailed from New York he had bound Harold by a solemn promise to spend a +few weeks at Lisnahoe on his next visit to Europe. Miss Connelly, who +had accompanied her brother on his American tour, had echoed and +indorsed the invitation.</p> + +<p>Harold had naturally expected to find at the hotel a letter urging him +to take the first train for the south. He had seen a great deal of the +Connellys during their stay in the United States, and Jack and he had +become firm friends. He had crossed at this unusual season mainly on +Jack’s account—on Jack’s account and his sister’s; so it was little +wonder if the young man considered himself ill used. He felt that he had +been lured across the Irish Channel—across the Atlantic Ocean +itself—on false pretences.</p> + +<p>But in a moment the cloud lifted from his brow, a quick smile stirred +under his yellow moustache, and his eyes brightened, for a waiter handed +him a letter. It lay, address uppermost, on the salver, and bore the +Ballydoon postmark, and the handwriting was the disjointed scrawl which +he had often ridiculed, but now welcomed as Jack Connolly’s.</p> + +<p>This is what Hayes read as he sipped his coffee:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><i>Lisnahoe</i>, December 23d.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Harold</span>: Home I come from Ballinasloe yesterday, and find +your letter, the best part of a week old, kicking about among the +bills and notices of meets that make the biggest end of my +correspondence. You must be destroyed entirely, my poor fellow, if +you’ve been three days in dear dirty Dublin, and you not knowing a +soul in it. Come down at once, and you’ll find a hearty welcome +here if you won’t find much else. I don’t see why you couldn’t have +come anyhow, without waiting to write; but you were always so +confoundedly ceremonious. We’re rather at sixes and sevens, for the +governor’s got “in howlts” with his tenants and we’re boycotted. +It’s not bad fun when you’re used to it, but a trifle inconvenient +in certain small ways. Let me know what train you take and I’ll +meet you at the station. You must be here for Christmas Day anyhow. +Polly sends her regards, and says she knew the letter was from you, +and she came near opening it. I’m sure I wish she had, and answered +it, for I’m a poor fist at a letter.</p> + +<p class="rt">Yours truly,</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Jack Connolly.</span></p></div> + +<p>The first available train carried Harold southward. On the way he read +the letter again. The notion of entering a boycotted household amused +and pleased him. He had never been in Ireland before, and he was quite +willing that his first visit should be well spiced with the national +flavour. Of course he had his views on the Irish question. Every +American newspaper reader is cheerfully satisfied with the conviction +that the Celtic race on its native sod has no real faults. A +constitutional antipathy to rent may exist, but that is a national +foible which, owing doubtless to some peculiarity of the climate, is +almost praiseworthy in Ireland, though elsewhere regarded as hardly +respectable. At any rate, with the consciousness that he was about to +come face to face with the much-talked-of boycott, Harold’s spirits +rose, and as he read Polly Connolly’s message they rose still higher. He +was a lively young fellow, and fond of excitement. And at one time, as +he recalled with a smile and a sigh, he had been almost fond of Polly +Connolly.</p> + +<p>When he alighted at the station—a small place in Tipperary—the dusk of +the early winter evening was closing in, and Harold recollected that his +prompt departure from Dublin had prevented him from apprising Jack of +his movements. Of course there would be no trap from Lisnahoe to meet +this train, but that mattered little. Half a dozen hack-drivers were +already extolling the merits of their various conveyances, and imploring +his patronage.</p> + +<p>Selecting the best-looking car, he swung himself into his seat, while +the “jarvey” hoisted his portmanteau on the other side.</p> + +<p>“Where to, yer honour?” inquired the latter, climbing to his place.</p> + +<p>“To Lisnahoe House,” answered Hayes.</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>This question was asked with a vehemence that startled the young +American.</p> + +<p>“Lisnahoe. Don’t you know the way?” he replied.</p> + +<p>“In troth an’ I do. Is it Connolly’s?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Harold. “Drive on, my good fellow; it’s growing late.”</p> + +<p>The man’s only answer was to spring from his seat and seize Harold’s +portmanteau, which he deposited on the road with no gentle hand.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” cried the young man, indignantly.</p> + +<p>“I mane that ye’d betther come down out o’ that afore I make ye.”</p> + +<p>Harold was on the ground in a moment and approached the man with +clinched fists and flashing eyes.</p> + +<p>“How dare you, you scoundrel! Will you drive me to Lisnahoe or will you +not?”</p> + +<p>“The divil a fut,” answered the fellow, sullenly.</p> + +<p>Hayes controlled his anger by an effort. There was nothing to be gained +by a row with the man. He turned to another driver.</p> + +<p>“Pick up that portmanteau. Drive me out to Mr. Connolly’s. I’ll pay +double fare.”</p> + +<p>But they all with one consent, like the guests in the parable, began to +make excuse. One man’s horse was lame, another’s car was broken down; +the services of a third had been “bespoke.” Few were as frank as the man +first engaged, but all were prompt with the obvious lies, scarcely less +aggravating than actual rudeness. The station-master appeared, and +attempted to use his influence in the traveller’s behalf, but he +effected nothing.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to walk, sir,” said the official, civilly. “I’ll keep your +portmanteau here till Mr. Connolly sends for it.” And he carried the +luggage back into the station.</p> + +<p>“How far is it to Mr. Connolly’s?” Harold inquired of a ragged urchin +who had strolled up with several companions.</p> + +<p>“Fish an’ find out,” answered the youngster, with a grin.</p> + +<p>“We’ll tache them to be sendin’ Emergency men down here,” said another.</p> + +<p>The New-Yorker was fast losing patience.</p> + +<p>“This is Irish hospitality and native courtesy,” he remarked, bitterly. +“Will any one tell me the road I am to follow?”</p> + +<p>“Folly yer nose,” a voice shouted; and there was a general laugh, in the +midst of which the station-master reappeared.</p> + +<p>He pointed out the way, and Harold trudged off to accomplish, as best he +might, five Irish miles over miry highways and byways through the +darkness of the December evening.</p> + +<p>This was the young American’s first practical experience of boycotting.</p> + +<p>It was nearly seven o’clock when, tired and mud-bespattered, he reached +Lisnahoe; but the warmth of his reception there went far to banish all +recollection of the discomforts of his solitary tramp. A hearty +hand-clasp from Jack, a frank and smiling greeting from Polly (she +looked handsomer than ever, Harold thought, with her lustrous black hair +and soft, dark-gray eyes), put him at his ease at once. Then came +introductions to the rest of the family. Mr. Connolly, stout and +white-haired, bade him welcome in a voice which owned more than a touch +of Tipperary brogue. Mrs. Connolly, florid and good-humoured, was very +solicitous for his comfort. The children confused him at first. There +were so many of them, of all sizes, that Hayes abandoned for the present +any attempt to distinguish them by name. There was a tall lad of twenty +or thereabouts,—a faithful copy of his elder brother Jack,—who was +addressed as Dick, and a pretty, fair-haired girl of seventeen, whom, as +Polly’s sister, Harold was prepared to like at once. She was Agnes. +After these came a long array,—no less than nine more,—ending with a +sturdy little chap of three, whom Polly presently picked up and carried +off to bed. Mr. Connolly, of Lisnahoe, could boast of a full quiver.</p> + +<p>There was a general chorus of laughter as Harold related his experience +at the railway-station. The Connollys had rested for several days under +the ban of the most rigid boycott, and had become used to small +discomforts. They faced the situation bravely, and turned all such petty +troubles into jest; but the American was sorely disquieted to learn that +there was only one servant in the house—an old man who for many years +had blacked boots and cleaned knives for the family, and who had refused +to crouch to heel under the lash of the boycott.</p> + +<p>Harold stammered an apology for his unseasonable visit, but Jack cut him +short.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, man; the more the merrier. We’re glad to have you, and if you +can rough it a bit you won’t find it half bad fun.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t mind, I’m sure,” said Harold; “only I’m afraid you’d rather +have your house to yourselves at such a time as this.”</p> + +<p>“Not we. Why, we expect some Emergency men down here in a few days. +We’ll treat you as the advance guard; we’ll set you to work and give you +your grub the same as an Emergency man.”</p> + +<p>“What is an Emergency man?” inquired Harold. “Those Chesterfieldian +drivers at the station seemed to think it was the worst name they could +call me.”</p> + +<p>A hearty laugh went round the circle.</p> + +<p>“If they took ye for an Emergency man, it’s small wonder they were none +too swate on ye,” observed Mr. Connolly.</p> + +<p>“But what does it mean?” asked the New-Yorker.</p> + +<p>“Well,” began the old gentleman, “there’s good and bad in this world of +ours. When tenants kick and labourers clare out, an’ a boycott’s put on +a man, they’d lave yer cattle to die an’ yer crops to rot for all they +care. It’s what they want. Well, there happens to be a few dacent people +left in Ireland yet, and they have got up an organization they call the +Emergency men; they go to any part of the country and help out people +that have been boycotted through no fault of their own—plough their +fields or reap their oats or dig their potatoes, an’ generally knock the +legs out from under the boycott. It stands to reason that the +blackguards in these parts hate an Emergency man as the divil hates holy +water; but ye may take it as a compliment that ye were mistook for one, +for all that.”</p> + +<p>Here Dick thrust his head into the door of the large library, in which +the party was assembled.</p> + +<p>“Dinner is served, my lords and ladies,” he cried; and there was a +general movement toward the dining-room.</p> + +<p>“No ceremony here, my boy,” laughed Jack, as he led Harold across the +hall. “I’ll be your cavalier and show you the way. The girls are in the +kitchen, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>But Miss Connolly and Agnes were already in the dining-room, and the +party gathered round the well-spread board and proceeded to do full +justice to the good things thereon. The meal was more like a picnic than +a set dinner. Old Peter Dwyer, the last remaining retainer, had never +attended at table, so he confined himself to kitchen duties, while the +young Connollys waited on themselves and on each other. A certain little +maid, whom Harold by this time had identified as Bella, devoted herself +to the stranger, and took care that neither his glass nor his plate +should be empty. A glance of approval, which he intercepted on its way +from Miss Connolly to her little sister, told Harold that Bella had been +given a charge concerning him, and he appreciated the attention none the +less on that account, while he ate his dinner with the agreeable +confidence that it had been prepared by Miss Polly’s own fair hands.</p> + +<p>Everything at table was abundant and good of its kind, and conversation +was alert and merry, as it is apt to be in a large family party. So far, +the boycott seemed to have anything but a depressing effect, though +Harold could not help smiling as he realised how it would have crushed +to powder more than one estimable family of his acquaintance.</p> + +<p>After dinner Jack rose, saying that he must go round to the stables and +bed down the horses for the night. Harold accompanied him, and acquitted +himself very well with a pitchfork, considering that he had little +experience with such an implement. he had gone with a couple of the +younger boys to chop turnips for certain cattle which were being +fattened for the market.</p> + +<p>“How did you come to be boycotted?” inquired Harold, with some +curiosity, as soon as he found himself alone with Jack.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it doesn’t take much talent to accomplish that nowadays,” answered +the young Irishman, with a laugh. “In the first place, the governor has +a habit of asking for his rent, which is an unpopular proceeding at the +best of times. In the second place, I bought half a dozen bullocks from +a boycotted farmer out Limerick way.”</p> + +<p>“And is that all?” asked Harold, in astonishment. Notwithstanding his +regard for his friend, he had never doubted that there must have been +some appalling piece of persecution to justify this determined +ostracism.</p> + +<p>“All!” echoed Jack, laughing. “You don’t know much of Ireland, my boy, +or you wouldn’t ask that question. We bought cattle that had been raised +by a farmer on land from which a defaulting tenant had been evicted. Men +have been shot in these parts for less than that.”</p> + +<p>“Pleasant state of affairs,” remarked the New-Yorker.</p> + +<p>“I don’t much care,” Jack went on, lightly. “We’re promised a couple of +Emergency men from Ulster in a few days, and that will take the weight +of the work off our hands. It isn’t as if it were a busy time. No crops +to be saved in winter, you see, and no farm work except stall-feeding +the cattle. That can’t wait.”</p> + +<p>“But your sisters—all the work of that big house—” began Harold, who +was thinking of Polly.</p> + +<p>“We expect two Protestant girls down from Belfast to-morrow. That’ll be +all right. We get all our grub from Dublin,—they won’t sell us anything +in Ballydoon,—and we mean to keep on doing so, boycott or no boycott. +We have been about the best customers to the shopkeepers round here, and +it’ll come near ruining the town—and serve them right,” the young man +added, with the first touch of bitterness he had displayed in speaking +of the persecution of his family.</p> + +<p>By next day the situation had improved. A couple of servant-girls +arrived from the north. They were expected, and accordingly Dick was on +hand with the jaunting-car to meet them and drive them from the station. +The Emergency men had not yet appeared, so Jack and such of his brothers +as were old enough to be of use were kept pretty busy round the place. +Harold had wished to return to England and postpone his visit till a +more convenient time, but to this no one would listen. He made no +trouble; he was not a bit in the way; in fact, he was a great help. So +said they all, and the young New-Yorker was quite willing to believe +them.</p> + +<p>He did occasionally offer assistance in stable or farm-yard, but he much +preferred to spend his time rambling over the old place, admiring the +lawns, the woods, the gardens, all strangely silent and deserted now. +Miss Connolly was often his companion. The importation from Belfast +relieved her of some of the pressure of household cares, and since her +brothers were fully occupied, it devolved upon her to play host as well +as hostess, and point out to the stranger the various charms of +Lisnahoe.</p> + +<p>This suited Harold exactly. He usually carried a gun and sometimes shot +a rabbit or a wood-pigeon, but generally he was content to listen to +Polly’s lively conversation, and gaze into the depths of her eyes, +wondering why they looked darker and softer here under the shadow of her +native woods than they had ever seemed in the glare and dazzle of a New +York ball-room. Harold Hayes was falling in love—falling consciously, +yet without a struggle. He was beginning to realise that life could have +nothing better in store for him than this tall, graceful girl, in her +becoming sealskin cap and jacket, whose little feet, so stoutly and +serviceably shod, kept pace with his own over so many miles of pleasant +rambles.</p> + +<p>One day—it was the last of the old year—Miss Connolly and Harold were +strolling along a path on which the wintry sunshine was tracing +fantastic patterns as it streamed through the naked branches of the +giant beech-trees. The young man had a gun on his shoulder, but he was +paying little attention to the nimble rabbits that now and then frisked +across the road. He was thinking, and thinking deeply.</p> + +<p>He could not hope for many more such quiet walks with his fair +companion. She would soon have more efficient chaperons than the +children, who often made a pretence of accompanying them, but invariably +dashed off, disdainful of the sober pace of their elders. Before +long—next day probably—he would be handed over to the tender mercies +of Jack, who had constantly lamented the occupations that prevented his +paying proper attention to his guest. The heir of Lisnahoe had promised +to show the young stranger some “real good sport” as soon as other +duties would permit. That time was close at hand now. The Emergency men +had been at work for several days; they were thoroughly at home in their +duties; besides, the fat cattle would be finished very shortly and sent +off to be sold in Dublin. Jack had announced his intention of stealing a +holiday on the morrow, and taking Hayes to a certain famous “snipe +bottom,” when the game was, to use Dick’s expression, “as thick as plums +in one of Polly’s puddings.”</p> + +<p>It was hard to guess then they might have such another rumble, and +Harold had much to say to the girl at his side; and yet, for the life of +him, he could not utter the words that were trembling on his lips.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe you care much for shooting, Mr. Hayes.”</p> + +<p>A rabbit loped slowly across die road not twenty yards from the gun, but +Harold had not noticed it. He roused himself with a start, however, at +the sound of his companion’s voice.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I do, sometimes,” he answered, glancing alertly to both sides +of the road; but no game was in sight for the moment.</p> + +<p>“If this frost should break up, you may have some hunting,” pursued Miss +Connolly. “I’m afraid you’re having an awfully stupid time.”</p> + +<p>Harold interposed an eager denial.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, you must be,” insisted the young lady; “but Jack will find more +time now, and if we have a thaw you will have a day with the hounds. Are +you fond of hunting?”</p> + +<p>“I am very fond of riding, but I have never hunted,” answered the +New-Yorker.</p> + +<p>“Just like me. I am never so happy as when I am on horseback, but mamma +won’t let me ride to hounds. She says she does not approve of ladies on +the field. It is traditional, I suppose, that every mistress of Lisnahoe +should oppose hunting.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, why so?” inquired Harold.</p> + +<p>“Why, don’t you know?” asked the girl. “Has nobody told you our family +ghost-story?”</p> + +<p>“No one as yet,” answered Hayes.</p> + +<p>“Then mine be the pleasing task; and there is a peculiar fitness in your +hearing it just now, for to-morrow will be New-Year’s Day.”</p> + +<p>Harold failed to see the applicability of the date, but he made no +observation, and Miss Connolly went on.</p> + +<p>“Ever so many years ago this place belonged to an ancestor of mine who +was devoted to field-sports of all kinds. He lived for nothing else, +people thought, but suddenly he surprised all the world by getting +married.”</p> + +<p>Harold thought that if her remote grandmother had chanced to resemble +the fair young girl at his side, there was a good excuse for the +sportsman; but he held his tongue.</p> + +<p>“The bride was exacting—or perhaps she was only timid. At any rate, she +used her influence to wean her husband from his outdoor +pursuits—especially hunting. He must have been very much in love with +her, for she succeeded, and he promised to give it all up—after one day +more. It seems that he could not get out of this last run. The meet was +on the lawn; the hunt breakfast was to be at Lisnahoe House. In short, +it was an affair that could neither be altered nor postponed.</p> + +<p>“This meet,” continued Polly, “was on New-Year’s Day. There was a great +gathering, and after breakfast the gentlemen came out and mounted at the +door; the hounds were grouped on the lawn; it must have been a beautiful +sight.”</p> + +<p>“It must, indeed,” assented Harold.</p> + +<p>“Well, this old Mr. Connolly—but you must understand that he was not +old at all, only all this happened so long ago—he mounted his horse, +and his wife came out on the step to bid him good-bye, and to remind him +of his promise that this should be his last hunt. And so it was, poor +fellow; for while she was standing talking to him, a gust of wind came +and blew part of her dress right into the horse’s face. Mr. Connolly was +riding a very spirited animal. It reared up and fell back on him, +killing him on the spot.”</p> + +<p>“How horrible!” exclaimed Harold.</p> + +<p>“Wait! The shock to the young wife was so great that she died the next +day.”</p> + +<p>“The poor girl!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t waste your sympathy. It was all very long ago, and perhaps it +never happened at all. However, the curious part of the story is to +come. Every one that had been present at that meet—men, dogs, +horses—everything died within the year.”</p> + +<p>“To the ruin of the local insurance companies?” remarked Harold, with a +smile.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t laugh. They did. And next New-Year’s night, between twelve +and one o’clock, the whole hunt passed through the place, and they have +kept on doing it every New-Year’s night since.”</p> + +<p>“A most interesting and elaborate ghost-story,” said Harold. “Pray, Miss +Connolly, may I ask if you yourself have seen the phantom hunt?”</p> + +<p>“No one has ever done that,” replied Polly, “but when there is moonlight +they say the shadows can be seen passing over the grass, and any +New-Year’s night you may hear the huntsman’s horn.”</p> + +<p>“I should like amazingly to hear it,” replied the young man. “Have you +ever heard this horn?”</p> + +<p>“I have heard A horn,” the girl answered, with some reluctance.</p> + +<p>“On New-Year’s night between twelve and one?” he pursued.</p> + +<p>“Of course—but I can’t swear it was blown by a ghost. My brothers or +some one may have been playing tricks. You can sit up to-night and +listen for yourself if you want.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing I should like better,” exclaimed Harold. “Will you sit up too?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes. We always wait to see the Old Year out and the New Year in. +Come, Mr. Hayes, it’s almost luncheon-time,” she added, glancing at her +watch; and they turned back toward the house, which was just visible +through the leafless trees.</p> + +<p>Harold walked at her side in silence. He had heard a ghost-story, but +the words he had hoped to speak that day were still unuttered.</p> + +<p>Loud were the pleadings, when the little ones’ bedtime came, that they +might be allowed to sit up to see the Old Year die; but Mrs. Connolly +was inexorable. The very young ones were sent off to bed at their usual +hour.</p> + +<p>Cards and music passed the time pleasantly till the clock was almost on +the stroke of twelve. Then wine was brought in, and healths were drunk, +and warm, cheerful wishes were uttered, invoking all the blessings that +the New Year might have in store. Hands were clasped and kisses were +exchanged. Harold would willingly have been included in this last +ceremony, but that might not be. However, he could and did press Polly’s +hand very warmly, and the earnestness of the wishes he breathed in her +ear called a bright colour to her cheek. Then came good-night, and the +young American’s heart grew strangely soft when he found himself +included in Mrs. Connolly’s motherly blessing. He thought he had never +seen a happier, a more united family.</p> + +<p>The party was breaking up; some had retired; others were standing, +bedroom candlesticks in their hands, exchanging a last word, when +suddenly, out of the silence of the night, the melodious notes of a +huntsman’s horn echoed through the room. Harold recalled the legend, and +paused at the door, mute and wondering.</p> + +<p>Jack and his father exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>“Now which of you’s tryin’ to humbug us this year?” asked the old man, +laughing, while Jack looked round and proceeded, as he said, to “count +noses.”</p> + +<p>This was a useless attempt, for half the party that had sat up to wait +for the New Year had already disappeared.</p> + +<p>Dick sprang to the window and threw it open, but the night was cloudy +and dark.</p> + +<p>Again came the notes of the horn, floating in through the open window, +and almost at the same moment there was a sound of hoofs crunching the +gravel of the drive as a dozen or more animals swept past at wild +gallop.</p> + +<p>“This is past a joke,” cried Jack. “I never heard of the old hunt +materializing in any such way as this.”</p> + +<p>They rushed to the front door—Jack, Mr. Connolly, all of them. Harold +reached it first. Wrenching it open, he stood on the step, while the +others crowded about him and peered out into the night. Only darkness, +rendered mirker by the lights in the hall; and from the distance, +fainter now, came the measured beat of the galloping hoofs.</p> + +<p>No other sound? Yes, a long-drawn, quivering, piteous sigh; and as their +eyes grew more accustomed to the night, out of the darkness something +white shaped itself—something prone and helpless, lying on the gravel +beneath the lowest step. They did not stop to speculate as to what it +might be. With a single impulse, Jack and Harold sprang down, and +between them they carried back into the hall the inanimate body of Polly +Connolly.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were closed and her face was as white as the muslin dress she +wore. Clutched in her right hand was a hunting-horn belonging to Dick. +It was evident that the girl had stolen out unobserved to +reproduce—perhaps for the visitor’s benefit—the legendary notes of the +phantom huntsman. This was a favorite joke among the young Connollys, +and scarcely a New-Year’s night passed that it was not practised by one +or other of the large family; but what had occurred to-night? Whence +came those galloping hoofs, and what was the explanation of Polly’s +condition?</p> + +<p>The swoon quickly yielded to the usual remedies, but even when she +revived it was some time before the girl could speak intelligibly. Her +voice was broken by hysterical sobs; she trembled in every limb. It was +evident that her nerves had received a severe shock.</p> + +<p>While the others were occupied with Polly, Dick had stepped out on the +gravel sweep, where he was endeavouring, by close examination, to +discover some clue to the puzzle. Suddenly he ran back into the house.</p> + +<p>“Something’s on fire!” he cried. “I believe it’s the yard.”</p> + +<p>They all pressed to the open door—all except Mrs. Connolly, who still +busied herself with her daughter, and Harold, whose sole interest was +centred in the girl he loved.</p> + +<p>Above a fringe of shrubbery which masked the farm-yard, a red glow lit +up the sky. It was evident the buildings were on fire. And even while +they looked a man, half dressed, panting, smoke-stained, dashed up the +steps. It was Tom Neil, one of the Emergency men.</p> + +<p>These men slept in the yard, in the quarters vacated by the deserting +coachman. In a few breathless words the big, raw-boned Ulsterman told +the story of the last half-hour.</p> + +<p>He and his comrade Fergus had been awakened by suspicious sounds in the +yard. Descending, they had found the cattle-shed in flames. Neil had +forced his way in and had liberated and driven out the terrified +bullocks. The poor animals, wild with terror, had burst from the yard +and galloped off in the direction of the house. This accounted for the +trampling hoofs that had swept across the lawn, but scarcely for Polly’s +terrified condition. A country-bred girl like Miss Connolly would not +lose her wits over the spectacle of a dozen fat oxen broken loose from +their stalls. Had the barn purposely burned, and had the girl fallen in +with the retreating incendiaries?</p> + +<p>It seemed likely. No one there doubted the origin of the fire, and Mr. +Connolly expressed the general feeling as he shook his head and +murmered:</p> + +<p>“I mistrusted that they wouldn’t let us get them cattle out o’ the +country without some trouble.”</p> + +<p>“But where is Fergus?” demanded Jack, suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he here?” asked the Ulsterman. “When we seen the fire he started +up to the big house to give the alarm, while I turned to to save the +bullocks.”</p> + +<p>“No, he never came to the house,” answered Jack, and there was an added +gravity in his manner as he turned to his brother.</p> + +<p>“Get a lantern, Dick. This thing must be looked into at once.”</p> + +<p>While the boy went in search of a light, Mr. Connolly attempted to +obtain from his daughter a connected statement of what had happened and +how much she had seen; but she was in no condition to answer questions. +The poor girl could only sob and moan and cover her face with her hands, +while convulsive tremblings shook her slight figure.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t ask me, papa; don’t speak to me about it. It was +dreadful—dreadful. I saw it all.”</p> + +<p>This was all they could gain from her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t thrubble the poor young lady,” interposed old Peter, +compassionately. “Sure, the heart’s put acrass in her wid the fright. +Lave her be till mornin’.”</p> + +<p>There seemed nothing else to be done, so Polly was left in charge of her +mother and sister, while the men, headed by Dick, who carried a lantern, +set out to examine the grounds.</p> + +<p>There was no trace of Fergus between the house and the farm-yard. The +lawn was much cut up by the cattle, for the frost had turned to rain +early in the evening, and a rapid thaw was in progress. The ground was +quite soft on the surface, and it was carefully scrutinised for traces +of footsteps, but nothing could be distinguished among the hoof-prints +of the bullocks.</p> + +<p>In the yard all was quiet. The fire had died down; the roof of the +cattle-shed had fallen in and smothered the last embers. The barn was a +ruin, but no other damage had been done, and there were no signs of the +missing man.</p> + +<p>They turned back, this time making a wider circle. Almost under the +kitchen window grew a dense thicket of laurel and other evergreen +shrubs. Dick stooped and let the light of the lantern penetrate beneath +the overhanging branches.</p> + +<p>There, within three steps of the house, lay Fergus, pale and +blood-stained, with a sickening dent in his temple—a murdered man.</p> + +<p>Old Peter Dwyer was the first to break the silence: “The Lord be good to +him! They’ve done for him this time, an’ no mistake.”</p> + +<p>The lifeless body was lifted gently and borne toward the house. Harold +hastened in advance to make sure that none of the ladies were astir to +be shocked by the grisly sight. The hall was deserted. Doubtless Polly’s +condition demanded all their attention.</p> + +<p>“The girl saw him murdered,” muttered Mr. Connolly. “I thought it must +have been something out of the common to upset her so.”</p> + +<p>“D’ ye think did she, sir?” asked old Peter, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I havnen’t a doubt of it,” replied the old gentlemen shortly. “Thank +goodness, her evidence will hang the villain, whoever he may be.” “Ah, +the poor thing, the poor thing!” murmured the servant, and then the sad +procession entered the house.</p> + +<p>The body was laid on a table. It would have been useless to send for a +surgeon. There was not one to be found within several miles, and it was +but too evident that life was extinct. The top of the man’s head was +beaten to a pulp. He had been clubbed to death.</p> + +<p>“If it costs me every shilling I have in the world, and my life to the +boot of it,” said Mr. Connolly, “I’ll see the ruffians that did the deed +swing for their night’s work.”</p> + +<p>“Amin,” assented Peter, solemnly; and Jack’s handsome face darkened as +he mentally recorded an oath of vengeance.</p> + +<p>“There’ll be little sleep for this house to-night,” resumed the old +gentleman after a pause. “I’m goin’ to look round and see if the doors +are locked, an’ then take a look at Polly. An’, Peter.”</p> + +<p>“Sir!”</p> + +<p>“The first light in the mornin’—it’s only a few hours off,” he added, +with a glance at his watch—“you run over to the police station, and +give notice of what’s happened.”</p> + +<p>“I will, yer honour.”</p> + +<p>“Come upstairs with me, boys. I want to talk with you. Good-night, Mr. +Hayes. This has been a blackguard business, but there’s no reason you +should lose your rest for it.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Connolly left the room, resting his arms on the shoulders of his two +sons. Harold glanced at the motionless figure of the murdered man, and +followed. He did not seek his bedroom, however; he knew it would be idle +to think of sleep. He entered the smoking-room, lit a cigar, and threw +himself into a chair to wait for morning.</p> + +<p>All his ideas as to the Irish question had been changing insensibly +during his visit to Lisnahoe. This night’s work had revolutionised them. +He saw the agrarian feud—not as he had been wont to read of it, glozed +over by the New York papers. He saw it as it was—in all its naked, +brutal horror.</p> + +<p>He had observed that there had been no attempt on the Connollys to +appeal to neighbours for sympathy in this time of trouble, and he had +asked Jack the reason. Jack’s answer had been brief and pregnant.</p> + +<p>“Where’s the good? We’re boycotted.”</p> + +<p>And that dead man lying on the table outside was only an example of +boycotting carried to its logical conclusion.</p> + +<p>The sound of a door closing softly aroused Harold from his reverie. A +little postern leading from the servants’ quarters opened close to the +smoking-room window. Harold looked out, and, as the night had grown +clearer, he distinctly saw old Pete Dwyer making his way with elaborate +caution down the shrubery path.</p> + +<p>“Going to the police station, I suppose,” mused Hayes. “Well, he has +started betimes.”</p> + +<p>Then he resumed his seat and thought of Polly.</p> + +<p>What a shock for her, poor girl, to leave a happy home with her heart +full of innocent mirth, only to encounter murder lurking red-handed at +the very threshold!</p> + +<p>“I wish I had spoken to her to-day,” he muttered. “Goodness alone knows +when I shall find a chance now. I wonder how she is?”</p> + +<p>He realised that he could see nothing of her till breakfast time at any +rate—if, indeed, she would be strong enough to appear at that meal. He +had been sitting in the dark; he now threw aside his cigar, and, drawing +his chair closer to the window, set himself resolutely to watch for the +dawn and solace his vigil with dreams of Polly.</p> + +<p>A raw, chill air blew into the room. He noticed that a pane of glass was +broken. One of the children had thrown a ball through it a few days +before, and in the present situation of the Connolly household a glazier +was an unattainable luxury.</p> + +<p>Harold rose with the intention of moving his chair out of the draught, +but as he did so the sound of whispered words, seemingly at his very +ear, made him pause. The voices came from the shrubbery below the +window, and in one of them he recognised the unmistakable brogue of old +Peter Dwyer.</p> + +<p>Had the man been to the police station and returned with the constables +so quickly? This was Harold’s first thought, but he dismissed it as soon +as formed. Peter had been barely half an hour absent, and the station +was several miles off. Where had he been, then, and with whom was he +conversing? Harold bent his head close to the broken pane and listened.</p> + +<p>“Are ye sure sartin that the young woman seen us?” inquired a rough +voice—not Peter’s—“because this is goin’ to be an ugly job, an’ +there’s no call for us to tackle it widout needcessity?”</p> + +<p>“Sartin as stalks,” whispered the old servant. “She was all of a +thrimble, as if she’d met a sperrit an’ all the words she had was ‘I +seen it—I seen it all,’ an’ she yowlin’ like a banshee.”</p> + +<p>“It’s quare we didn’t take notice to her, for she must ha’ been powerful +close to see us such a night. I thought I heerd the horn, too, an’ I +lavin’ the yard.”</p> + +<p>She wint out to blow it,” whispered Peter. “Most like it was stuck in +the shrubbery she was.”</p> + +<p>“Come on thin,” growled the other; “it’s got to be done, an’ the byes is +all here. Ye left the little dure beyant on the latch?”</p> + +<p>“I did that,” responded old Peter; and then a low, soft whistle sounded +in the darkness. It was a signal.</p> + +<p>Rapidly but cautiously Harold Hayes left the window and stole across the +room. He understood it all. Polly had seen the murder and had recognised +the assassins. Old Dwyer was a traitor. He had slipped out and warned +the ruffians of the peril in which they stood, and now they were here to +seal their own safety by another crime—by the sacrifice of a life far +dearer to Harold than his own.</p> + +<p>Swiftly, silently, he sped down the gloomy passage. The lives of all +beneath that roof were hanging on his speed. Breathless he reached the +little door, and flung himself against it with all his weight while his +trembling fingers groped in the darkness for bolt or bar.</p> + +<p>A heavy hand was laid on the latch, and the door was tried from without.</p> + +<p>“How’s this, Peter?” inquired the rough voice. “I thought ye said it +wasn’t locked.”</p> + +<p>“No more it is; it’s only stiff it is, bad cess to it. Push hard, yer +sowl ye.”</p> + +<p>But at this moment Harold’s hand encountered the bolt. With a sigh of +relief he shot it into the socket, and then, searching farther, he +supplemented the defences with a massive bar, which, he knew, ought +always to be in place at night.</p> + +<p>Then he sped back along the passage, while muttered curses reached his +ears from without, and the door was shaken furiously.</p> + +<p>“Jack, Jack,” he panted, as he flung open the door of the room in which +the young men slept—“Jack, come down and—”</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly. Mr. Connolly was kneeling at the bedside, and his +two sons knelt to the right and left of him.</p> + +<p>There were no family prayers at Lisnahoe; only the ladies were regular +church-goers; but that it was a religious household no one could have +doubted who knew the events of the night and saw the old man on his +knees between his boys.</p> + +<p>They rose at the noise of Harold’s entrance, and the American, who felt +that there were no moments to be wasted on apologies, announced his +errand.</p> + +<p>“Old Peter Dwyer is a traitor! He has gone out and brought the murderers +to finish the work they have commenced.”</p> + +<p>And then, in eager, breathless words, he told them how he had heard the +conversation in the shrubbery, and how the men, apprehensive that Miss +Connolly could identify them, had returned to stifle her testimony.</p> + +<p>“They were right there,” said the old man. “She saw the first blow, and +it was struck by Red Mike Driscoll.”</p> + +<p>“Then she is better?” asked Harold, eagerly.</p> + +<p>The boys were at the other end of the room, slipping cartridges loaded +with small shot into the fowling-pieces they had snatched from the +walls.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” replied Mr. Connolly; “she is all right now.”</p> + +<p>A sound of heavy blows echoed through the house. The men below had +convinced themselves that the door was firmly fastened, and, desperate +from the conviction that they were identified, and relying on the +loneliness of the place, they were attacking the barrier with a pickaxe.</p> + +<p>“I’ll soon put a stop to that,” cried Jack; and cocking his gun, he left +the room.</p> + +<p>Dick was about to follow, but his father stopped him.</p> + +<p>There’s no one in front of the house yet,” said the old gentleman. “Slip +out quietly, my boy, and make a dash for it to the police station. +You’ve taken the cup for the two-mile race at Trinity. Let’s see how +quick you can be when you are running for all our lives.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go down and fasten the door after him,” volunteered Hayes, and the +old man nodded. Outside, on the landing, they could hear the blows of +the pickaxe more distinctly. Suddenly, above the clangour, rang out +close and sharp the two reports of Jack’s double-barrel. He had selected +a window commanding the attack, and had fired point-blank down into the +group of men.</p> + +<p>Shrieks and groans and curses testified to the accuracy of the young +man’s aim, and the sound of blows ceased. Harold and Dick ran rapidly +downstairs. The latter unbarred the front door.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you run a fearful risk if you are seen?” inquired the American.</p> + +<p>“Of course I do,” returned the brave lad, without a tremor in his voice; +“but somebody’s got to take the chance; we can’t defend the house +forever; and I wouldn’t miss this opportunity of nabbing the whole gang +for a thousand pounds.”</p> + +<p>He opened the door and sped out into the night. He was out of sight in a +moment, and, as far as Harold could judge, he had not been observed. +Again the blows of the pickaxe rang out from the rear of the house.</p> + +<p>Hayes closed the door and replaced the heavy bar. Then he turned to +remount the stairs, and met Polly, who was standing near the top with a +candle in her hand.</p> + +<p>She was quite composed now, but very pale. He tried to ask if she had +recovered, but she cut him short impatiently.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing the matter with me. What is the meaning of all this +uproar and—and the firing?”</p> + +<p>For at this moment the twin reports of Jack’s breech-loader again echoed +through the house, this time it was answered by a fusilade from below.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be gained by concealment, and Harold told her the +whole story in a few words.</p> + +<p>“How prompt and clever of you!” she said; “You have saved all our +lives.”</p> + +<p>Her praise was very sweet to him, but there was no time to enjoy it now.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” she asked, as he turned again to spring up the +stairs.</p> + +<p>I am going to my room for my revolver,” he answered. “I may have use for +it before this is over.”</p> + +<p>“Do,” she replied. “I will wait for you here.” Haves hurried on.</p> + +<p>Jack was in the guest’s room. The young Irishman had selected that +window, as it commanded the little door against which the brunt of the +attack had hitherto been directed. Every pane was shattered, and walls +and ceiling showed the effect of the volley that had been directed +against him, but the young fellow stood his ground uninjured. “Don’t +mind me,” he said, in answer to Harold’s inquiry. “I’m all right, and +can hold this fort til morning if they don’t get ladders. I fancy I’ve +sickened them of trying that door below.”</p> + +<p>Harold hastily grasped his revolver and went His idea was to stand in +the passage near the smoking-room, and defend the place should the door +give way; for he did not believe that timber had ever been grown to +withstand such blows.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Connolly put her head out of the nursery door as he passed. Her +husband had told her of the position of affairs.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Mr. Hayes?” she whispered. “Is Jack hurt?”</p> + +<p>“Jack is quite safe,” answered the young American. “Are the children +very much frightened?”</p> + +<p>“Not as long as I am with them,” the old lady answered. “And Dick—what +of him?”</p> + +<p>“Dick is all right too,” replied Harold. He could not tell the poor +woman that her boy was out in the open country without a wall between +him and the ruffians.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Connolly drew back into the nursery to take the post assigned +her—assuredly not the easiest on that terrible night—to listen to the +doubtful sounds from without, and to support, by her own constancy, the +courage of her children.</p> + +<p>Harold found Miss Connolly in the hall where he had left her.</p> + +<p>“What do you intend to do?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I was going to stand inside the door they have been hammering at,” he +answered, “in case they should break it in.”</p> + +<p>“Papa is there,” said the girl; “perhaps you had better wait here. They +will try the front door next”</p> + +<p>“Very good,” he assented; and then added, with a sudden apprehension, +“but the windows. There are so many of them. How can we watch them all?”</p> + +<p>“There are bars to all the lower windows,” she replied, “and I do not +think they know where to find ladders. No; their next attempt will be at +the hall door, and it will be harder to repel than anywhere else, for +the portico will protect them from shots from the windows.”</p> + +<p>“And now, Miss Connolly,” urged Harold, “you can do no good here. Had +not you better go upstairs out of the way?”</p> + +<p>“No, no; I would rather wait here,” she answered. “Don’t be afraid. I +sha’n’t give way again as I did to-night. I don’t know what came over +me, but it was all so horrible—so unexpected—” She broke off with a +little shuddering sigh.</p> + +<p>“You saw them attack him?” asked Harold.</p> + +<p>She nodded. “I was under that big cedar outside the parlor window. I had +hidden there to blow the horn. Suddenly I saw Fergus with a lantern in +his hand coming full speed toward the house. Just as he got within a few +paces of me, half a dozen men burst out from the laurels. Oh, how +savagely they struck at him! He was down in a moment. It was all so +close to me: I recognised Red Mike by the light of poor Fergus’s +lantern.”</p> + +<p>“And then?” asked Hayes.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I remember any more. I must have staggered on to the +house, for they tell me I was found at the foot of the steps, but I +don’t know how I got there. I was terribly frightened, but I sha’n’t do +it again—not if they blow the roof off,” she said, trying to smile.</p> + +<p>“I should think they would be afraid to persevere now that they are +discovered,” observed Harold. “This firing must alarm the +neighbourhood.”</p> + +<p>“In a lonely place like this!” said the girl. “No, no, Mr. Hayes; there +are not many to hear these shots, and none that would not sooner fight +against us than on our side. We must depend on ourselves. But oh,” she +wailed, her woman’s heart betraying itself through the mechanical calm +she had maintained so long, “oh, I am sorry that your friendship for us +should have brought you into such peril—to think that your visit here +may cost you your life,” and she broke off and covered her streaming +eyes with her hands.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, indeed,” said Harold, earnestly, “I think any danger I may run +a small price to pay for the privilege of knowing you, and, and—of +loving you.”</p> + +<p>It was out at last; the words that had been so difficult to say came +trippingly from his tongue now, and she did not repulse nor attempt to +licence him.</p> + +<p>There, in the dimly lighted, lofty hall, he poured out all that had been +in his heart since he had known her, and won from her in return a +whisper that emboldened him to draw the yielding form toward him and +press his lips to hers.</p> + +<p>With a pealing crash the pickaxe bit into the stout oaken door, and the +young lovers sprang apart, terrified at this rude interruption of +dreams. Blow followed blow, and the massive woodwork shivered and +splintered and swayed under the savage impulse from without.</p> + +<p>The assailants had abandoned their attempt on the postern; they had +ignored the kitchen door, within which stout Tom Neil with Dick’s +double-barrel stood on guard; they had turned their attention to the +main entrance, where a projecting portico partially sheltered them from +the galling discharges of Jack’s favourite “Rigby.”</p> + +<p>They were only partially sheltered, however. The heir of Lisnahoe had +quickly shifted his ground when the attack on the postern was abandoned, +and he now stood in another room, ready, with the quickness of a +practised snipe-shot, to fire on any arm or hand or foot which showed +even for an instant outside the shadow of the portico.</p> + +<p>Crash, crash, crash! Again and again the steel fangs of the pick ate +their way through the solid timber. The lock yielded quickly, but, +heavily barred at top and bottom, the good door resisted staunchly. +Polly had glided away from Harold’s side. He fancied that she had sought +a place of safety, and rejoiced thereat; but in a moment she reappeared. +She carried a shot-gun in her hands, and when she reached his side she +rested the butt on the ground and leaned on the weapon.</p> + +<p>“I have often fired at things,” she said, simply. “Why shouldn’t I now?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Connolly and Jack joined them in the hall, and Neil had come up from +the kitchen door. The main entrance was evidently the weak point, and +the whole garrison must be on hand to defend it. The assailants had +waxed cautious of late, and for some time had allowed the sharp-shooter +no chance. He thought that he would be of more service below; but, as it +proved, when he abandoned his post he committed a fatal error.</p> + +<p>Apparently the enemy had discovered that the galling fire from above had +ceased. Perhaps some of their number had ventured out and returned +scatheless. They speedily took advantage of this immunity. While the +attacks with the pickaxe were not relaxed for a moment, a score of men +had brought the trunk of a young larch from the saw-pit at the back of +the house. Poised by forty strong arms, this improvised battering-ram +was hurled against the front door, carrying it clear off its hinges. In +the naked entry a crowd of rough men jostled one another, as they sprang +forward with hoarse imprecations on their prey. The garrison was +vanquished at last.</p> + +<p>Not yet. Four shots rang out as one, instantly repeated as the defenders +discharged their second barrels into the very teeth of the advancing +mob. Then Mr. Connolly, Neil, and Jack clubbed the guns they had no time +to reload, and prepared to sell their lives dearly in a hand-to-hand +struggle. Polly, as soon as she had fired, dropped her weapon, and in an +instant Harold had swept her behind him, and stood, revolver in hand, +his breast her bulwark, confronting the mob.</p> + +<p>But the mob, withered by the volley, hesitated a moment. The vestibule +was streaming with blood, and shrieking, writhing victims strove in vain +to rise. It was a sickening sight, but there was the electricity of +anger in the air and no one faltered long. On they came again with +undiminished fury.</p> + +<p>But again the rush was checked. Sharp and vengeful rang out the close +reports of the American revolver, and at each echo a man fell. Less +noisy, less terrific, but far more deadly, the six-shooter took up the +work where the breech-loaders had left it; and Harold, covering with his +body the girl he loved, fired as steadily as if practising in a pistol +gallery, and made every shot tell.</p> + +<p>He had not used his weapon in the first rush; somewhere or other, young +Hayes had heard of the advantages of platoon firing.</p> + +<p>The lights had been extinguished and day was just breaking. Firing from +the obscurity into the growing light, the garrison had the best of the +position; but there were firearms among the assailants too, and the +balls whistled through the long hall and buried themselves in the +panelling.</p> + +<p>But this could not last. Much as they had suffered in the assault, the +assailants were too numerous to be longer held at bay. With a feeling of +despair, Harold recognised the futile click that followed his pressure +on the trigger and told him that he had fired his last cartridge.</p> + +<p>With a wild yell the assailants rushed forward. Not a shot met them; +nothing stood between them and their vengeance but four pale, determined +men, weaponless but unflinching.</p> + +<p>A quick trampling as of a body of horse was heard on the gravel without. +A sharp, stern order reached the ears even of those in the house.</p> + +<p>“Unsling carbines! Make ready! Present!”</p> + +<p>Clubs and blunderbusses dropped from nerveless hands as the advancing +mob paused, faltered, and then surged backward through the doorway. The +lust of vengeance gave way to the instinct of self-preservation, and the +rioters scattered in flight.</p> + +<p>Dick’s gallant race against time had not been fruitless. A squadron of +constabulary had reached the ground at the critical moment, and Lisnahoe +was saved.</p> + +<p>Few of the assailants escaped—every avenue was guarded by mounted +policemen; and the gang which had long terrorised the +neighbourhood—whose teachings and example had done so much to convert +the sullen discontent of the peasantry into overt violence—was +effectually broken up. From that night the boycott on the Connolly +household was raised.</p> + +<p>Red Mike Driscoll expiated on the gallows the murder of the Emergency +man Fergus, and nearly a score of others were sentenced to various terms +of imprisonment for assault and housebreaking.</p> + +<p>The attacking party had lost three men killed, besides many wounded, +more or less severely, by the shot-guns. The judicial inquiry into the +casualties brought out details of the defence which struck terror to the +hearts of the country people. It was not likely that Lisnahoe would be +molested again.</p> + +<p>Harold Hayes and Polly Connolly were married shortly after Easter. They +are living in New York now, in a pleasant flat overlooking Central Park. +They entertain a good deal, and Irish affairs are sometimes discussed at +Mr. Hayes’s table; but so far he has failed to convince any of his +American friends that there may be more than one side to the agrarian +question in Ireland.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” remarked one gentleman, who professed to be deeply read in +the subject; “they are an oppressed and suffering people. Let them have +their land.”</p> + +<p>“And what is to become of the landlords?” inquired Polly, with a wistful +remembrance of her girlhood’s beautiful home.</p> + +<p>But to this question there has been no reply, and none has been offered +yet.</p> + +<h2><a name="A_LOST_RECRUIT" id="A_LOST_RECRUIT"></a>A LOST RECRUIT<br /><br /> +BY JANE BARLOW</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN Mick Doherty heard that there was to be route-marching next day in +the neighbourhood of Kilmacrone, he determined upon going off for a long +“stravade” coastward over the bog, where there were no roads worth +mentioning, and no risks of an encounter with the military. In this he +acted differently from all his neighbours, most of whom, upon learning +the news, began to speculate and plan how they might see and hear as +much as possible of their unwonted visitors. Opinions were chiefly +divided as to whether the Murghadeen cross-roads would be the best +station to take up, or the fork of the lane at Berrisbawn House. People +who, for one reason or another, could not go so far afield, consoled +themselves by reflecting that the band, at any rate, would be likely to +come through the village, and would no doubt strike up a tune while +passing, as it had done a couple of years ago, the last time the +redcoats had appeared in Kilmacrone. And, och, but that was the grand +playin’ intirely! It done your heart good just to be hearin’ the sound +of it, bedad it did so. Old Mrs. Geoghegan said it was liker the sort of +thunder-storms they might be apt to have in heaven above than aught else +she could think of, might goodness forgive her for sayin’ such a thing; +and Molly Joyce said she’d as lief as not have sat down and cried when’t +was passed beyond her listenin’, it went that delightful thumpety-thump, +wid the tune flyin’ up over it.</p> + +<p>The military authorities at Fortbrack were not ignorant of this popular +sentiment, and had considered it in the order of that day. For +experience had shown that a progress of troops through the surrounding +country districts generally conduced to the appearance before the +recruiting officer of sundry long-limbed, loose-jointed Pats, Micks, and +Joes; and a recent scarcity of this raw material made it seem expedient +to bring such an influence to bear upon the new ground of remote +Kilmacrone. Certain brigades and squadrons were accordingly directed to +move thitherward, under the general idea that an invading force from the +southeast had occupied Ballybeg Allan, while in pursuance of another +general idea, really more to the purpose, though not officially +announced, the accompanying band received instructions to be liberal and +lively in its performances by the way.</p> + +<p>All along their route through the wide brown land the soldiers might be +sure of drawing as much sympathetic attention as that lonesome west +country could concentrate on any given line. Probably there would be no +one disposed, like Mick Doherty, to get out of the way, unless some very +small child roared and ran, if of a size to have acquired the latter +accomplishment, at the sound of the booming drums. To the great majority +of these onlookers the spectacle would be a rare and gorgeous pageant, a +memory resplendent across twilight-hued time-tracts as a vision of +scarlet and golden gleams, and proudly pacing horses, and music that +made you feel you had never known how much life there was in you all the +while. Some toll, it is true, had to be paid for this enjoyment. When it +had passed by things suddenly grew very flat and colourless, and there +was a tendency to feel more or less vaguely aggrieved because you could +not go a-soldiering yourself. In cases, however, where circumstances +rendered that obviously impossible, as when people were too old or +infirm, or were women or girls, this thrill of discontent, seldom very +acute, soon subsided, by virtue of the self-preserving instinct which +forbids us to persist in knocking our heads hard against our stone +walls. But it was different where the beholder was so situated that he +could imagine himself riding or striding after the rapturous march-music +to fields of peril and valour and glory, without diminishing the +vividness of the picture by simultaneously supposing himself some quite +other person. The gleam in young Felix M’Guinness’s eyes, as he watched +the red files dwindle and twinkle out of sight, was to the brightening +up beneath his grandfather’s shaggy brows as the forked flash is to the +shimmering sheet-lightnings, that are but a harmless reflection from +far-off storms. And there, indeed, pleasure paid a ruinous duty. If +those who were liable to it did not imitate Mick Doherty’s prudence and +hold aloof, the reason may have been that they had not fortitude enough +to turn away from excitement offered on any terms, or that their +position was less desperately tantalising than his; and the latter +explanation is the more probable one, since few lads in and about +Kilmacrone can have had their martial aspirations baulked by an +impediment so flimsy and yet so effectual.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in the world to hinder Mick from enlisting except just +the unreasonableness of his mother, and that was an unreasonableness so +unreasonable as to verge upon hat her neighbours would hare called +“quare ould conthrariness.” For, though a widow woman, and therefore +entitled to occupy a pathetic position, its privileges were defined by +the opinion that “she was not so badly off intirely as she might ha’ +been.” Mick’s departure need not have left her desolate, since she had +another son and daughter at home, besides Essie married in the village, +and Brian settled down at Murghadeen, here he was doing well, and times +and again asking her to come and live with him. Then Mick would have +been able to help her out of his pay much more efficaciously than he +could do by his earnings at Kilmacrone, where work was slack and its +wage low, so that the result of a lad’s daily labour sometimes seemed +mainly the putting of a fine edge on a superfluous appetite. All these +points were most clearly seen by Mick in the light of a fiercely burning +desire; but that availed him nothing unless he could set them as plainly +before some one else who was not thus illuminated. And not far from two +years back he had resolved that he would attempt to do so no more.</p> + +<p>The soldiers had been about in the district on the day before, scattered +like poppy beds over the bog, and signalling and firing till the misty +October air tingled with excitement. When you have lived your life among +wide-bounded solitudes, where the silence is oftenest broken by the +plover’s pipe or the croak of some heavily flapping bird, you will know +the meaning of a bugle-call. Mick and his contemporaries had acted as +camp-followers from early till late with ever intensifying ardour; one +outcome whereof was that he heard his especial crony, Paddy Joyce, +definitely decide to go and enlist at Fortbrack next Monday, which gave +a turn more to the pinching screw of his own banned wish. It was with a +concerted scheme for ascertaining whether there were any chance of +bringing his mother round to a rational view of the matter that he and +his friend dropped into her cabin next morning on the way to carry up a +load of turf. Mrs. Doherty was washing her couple of blue-checked aprons +in an old brown butter-crock, and Mick thought he had introduced the +subject rather happily when he told her “she had a right to be takin’ +her hands out of the suds, and dippin’ the finest curtsey she could +conthrive, and she wid the Commander-in-Gineral of the Army Forces +steppin’ in to pay her a visit.” Of course this statement required, as +it was intended to require, elucidation, so Mick proceeded to announce: +“It’s himself’s off to Fortbrack a-Monday, ‘listin’ he’ll be in the +Edenderry Light Infantry; so the next time we set eyes on him it’s +blazin’ along the street we’ll see him, like the boys we had here +yisterday.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! sure now, that’ll be grand,” said Mrs. Doherty, unwarily +complaisant; “we’ll all be proud to behold him that way. ’T is a fine +thing far any young man who’s got a fancy to take up wid it.”</p> + +<p>“Och, then, bedad it is so!” said Mick, with emphasis, promptly making +for the opening given to him.</p> + +<p>“Bedad it is,” said Paddy.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothin’ like it,” said Mick.</p> + +<p>“Ah, nothin’ at all,” said Paddy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Doherty made no remark as she twisted a dripping apron into a +sausage-shaped roll to wring the water out.</p> + +<p>“How much was it you were sayin’ you’d have in the week, Paddy, just to +put in your pocket for your divarsion like?” inquired Mick, with a +convenient lapse of memory.</p> + +<p>“Och, seven or eight shillin’s anyway,” said Paddy, in the tone of one +to whom shillings had already become trivial coins; “and that, mind you, +after you’ve ped for the best of aitin’ and dhrinkin’, and your kit +free, and no call to be spendin’ another penny unless you plase. Sure, +Long Murphy was tellin’ me he was up in the town awhile ago, on a day +when they were just after gettin’ their pay, and he said the Post-Office +was that thick wid the soldier lads sendin’ home the money to their +friends, he couldn’t get speech of a clerk to buy his stamp be no manner +of manes, not if he’d wrecked the place. ’T was the Sidmouth Fusileers +was in at that time; they’re off to Limerick now.”</p> + +<p>“But that’s a grand regulation they have,” said Mick, “wid the short +service nowadays. Where’s the hardship in it when a man can quit at the +ind of three year, if he’s so plased? Three year’s no time to speak of.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, not at all; you’d scarce notice it passin’ by. Like Barney +Bralligan’s song that finished before it begun—isn’t that the way of +it, ma’am?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a goodish len’th of a while,” said Mrs. Doherty.</p> + +<p>“But thin there’s the lave; don’t be forgettin’ the lave, Paddy man. +Supposin’ we—”</p> + +<p>“Tub be sure, there’s the lave. Why, it’s skytin’ home on lave they do +be most continial. And the Edenderrys is movin’ no farther than just to +Athlone; that’s as handy a place as you could get.”</p> + +<p>“You’d not thravel from this to Athlone in the inside of a week, if it +was iver so handy,” said Mrs. Doherty.</p> + +<p>“Is it a week? Och! blathershins, Mrs. Doherty, ma’am, you’re mistook +intirely. Sure, onst you’ve stepped into the town yonder, the train’ll +take you there in a flash. And the trains do be oncommon convenient.”</p> + +<p>“Free passes!” prompted Mick.</p> + +<p>“Ay, bedad, and free passes they’ll give to any souldier takin’ his +furlough; so sorra the expense ’t would be supposin’ Mick here had a +notion to slip home of an odd day and see you.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Mick</i>!” said Mrs. Doherty.</p> + +<p>“Och well, I was just supposin’. But I’m tould”—the many remarkable +facts which Paddy had been tould lost nothing in repetition—“that +they’ll sometimes have out a special train for a man in the army, if he +wants to go anywhere partic’lar in a hurry; there’s iligance for you. +And as for promotion, it’s that plinty you’ll scarce git time to +remimber your rank from one day to the next, whether it’s a full private +you are, or a lance-corporal, or maybe somethin’ greater. Troth, there’s +nothin’ a man mayn’t rise to. And then, Mrs. Doherty, it’s the proud +woman you’d be—<i>anybody’d</i> be—that they hadn’t stood in the way of it. +And pensions—he might be pensioned off wid as much as a couple of +shillin’s a day.”</p> + +<p>“Not this long while yet, plase the pigs,” broke out Mick, squaring his +shoulders, as if Time were a visible antagonist, and momentarily +forgetting the matter immediately in hand. “But there’s chances in +it—splendid—och, it’s somethin’ you may call livin’.”</p> + +<p>“And,” said his friend, “the rations, I’m tould, is surprisin’ these +times. The top of everythin’ that’s to be got, uncooked, widout bone.”</p> + +<p>Paddy and Mick discoursed for a good while in this strain about the +dignities and amenities of a military life, and Mrs. Doherty had not +much to say on the subject. During the conversation, however, she +continued to rinse one of her aprons, and wring it dry very carefully, +and drop it back into the water, like a machine slightly out of gear, +which goes on repeating some process ineffectually. The two friends read +in her silence an omen of acquiescent conviction, and congratulated each +other upon it with furtive nods and winks. Mick went off to the bog in +high feather, believing that the interview had been a great success, and +that his mother was, as Paddy put it, “comin’ round to the notion +gradual, like an ould goat grazin’ round its tetherin’ stump.” His +hopes, indeed, were so completely in the ascendant that he summed up his +most serious uneasiness when he said to himself: “She’ll do right +enough, no fear, or I’d niver think of it, if Thady was just somethin’ +steadier. But sure he might happen to git a thrifle more wit yet; he’s +no great age to spake of.”</p> + +<p>But when he came home about sunsetting, his mother was feeding her few +hens outside their cabin, the end one of a mossy-roofed row, with its +door turned at right angles to the others, looking out across the purple +brown of the bog-land to the far-off hills, faint, like a blue mist with +a waved pattern in it, against the horizon. Mick, brought up short by +the group, woke out of his walking dream, in which he had been +performing acts of valour to the tune of the “Soldier’s Chorus” in +Gounod’s Faust, the last thing the band had played yesterday; and he +noticed a diminution in the select circle of fowls, who crooned and +crawked and pecked round the broken dish of scraps.</p> + +<p>“I see the specklety pullet’s after strayin’ on you agin,” he said; +“herself’s the conthrary little bein’; I must take a look about for her +prisintly.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, sure she’s sold,” said his mother; “it’s too many I had altogether. +I was torminted thryin’ to git feedin’ for them. So I sold her this +mornin’ to Mrs. Dunne at Loughmore, that gave me a fine price for her. +’Deed she’d have took her off of me this while back, on’y I’d just a +sort of notion agin’ partin’ from the crathur. But be comin’ in to your +supper, child alive; it’s ready waitin’ this good while. Molly’s below +at her sister’s, and I dunno were Thady’s off to, so there’s on’y you +and me in it to-night.”</p> + +<p>In the room the more familiar odour of turf-smoke was overborne by a +crisp smell of baking, and Mrs. Doherty picked up a steaming plate which +had been keeping warm on the hearth. “Isn’t that somethin’ like, now?” +she said, setting it on the table triumphantly. “Rale grand they turned +out this time, niver a scorch on the whole of them. I was afeard me hand +might maybe ha’ got out o’ mixin’ them, ’t is so long since I had e’er a +one for you; but sure I bought a half-stone of seconds wid the price of +the little hin, and that’ll make a good few, so it will, jewel avic, and +then we must see after some more. Take one of the thick bits, honey.”</p> + +<p>Probably most of us have had experience of the unceremonious methods +which Fate often chooses when communicating to us important +arrangements. We have seen by what a little seeming triviality of an +incident she may intimate that our cherished hope has been struck dead, +or that the execution of some other decree has turned the current of our +life away. It is sometimes as if she contemptuously sent us a grotesque +and dwarfish messenger, who makes grimaces at us while telling us the +bad news, which is ungenerous and scarcely dignified. So we need not +wonder if Mick Doherty had to read the death-warrant of his darling +ambition in a pile of three-cornered griddle-cakes. At any rate, he did +read it there swiftly as clearly. Most likely he knew it all before the +plate was set on the table, and his heart had already gone down with a +run when he replied to his mother’s commendations that they looked +first-rate. As he indorsed this praise with what appetite he could, +being, indeed, mechanically hungry, the uppermost thought in his mind +was how he should at once let his mother understand that she had got the +price she hoped for her pet hen; and after considering for a while, he +said: “Did you ever notice the quare sort of lane-over the turf-stack +out there’s takin’ on it? I question hadn’t we done righter to have took +a leveller bit of ground for under it. But I was thinkin’ this +mornin’<span class="lftspc">”</span>—of what a different subject he had been thinking!—“that next +year I’d thry buildin’ it agin’ the back o’ th’ ould shed, where there +does be ne’er a slant at all.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, sure that ’ud be grand,” said Mrs. Doherty, much more elated than +if she had heard of a large fortune; “you couldn’t find an iliganter +place for it in the width of this world.” She felt quite satisfied that +her craftily timed treat had dispelled the dreaded danger, which +actually was the case in a way. But if Mick would stay at home with her, +she was perfectly content to suppose that she came after a griddle-cake +in his estimation. Her relief made her unusually talkative; but Mick was +reflecting between his answers how he must now tell Paddy Joyce that +they were never to be comrades after all.</p> + +<p>He went out on this mission immediately after supper. The sun had gone +down, and the cold clearness left showed things plainly, yet was not +light. In front of the cabin-rows the small children of the place were +screeching over their final romp and quarrel, as they did every evening; +fowls and goats and pigs were settling down for the night with the +squawks and bleats and squeals which also took place every evening; on +the brown-hollowed grass-bank between Colgan’s and O’Reilly’s, old +Morissy, the blind fiddler, was feebly scraping and twangling, according +to his custom every evening, and, for that matter, all day long. Even +the wisps of straw and scraps of paper blowing down the middle of the +wide roadway seemed to have whirled over and over and caught in the +rough patches of stone just so, as often as the sun had set. Close to +the Joyces’, Mick met Peter Maclean driving home a brood of ducklings. A +broad and burly man, who says “shoo-shoo” to a high-piping cluster of +tiny yellow ducks, and flourishes a long willow wand to keep them from +straggling out of their compacted trot, does undoubtedly present rather +an absurd appearance; yet I cannot explain why the sight should have +seemed to prick like a sting through the wide weary disgust which Mick +experienced as he stood in the twilit boreen waiting for Paddy to come +out. He had scarcely a grunt to exchange for Peter’s cheerful “Fine +evenin’.” What does it signify in a universal desert whether evenings be +fine or foul? Altogether, it was a bad time; and Mick acted wisely in +taking precautions against its recurrence, especially as the obstacles +which had confronted him nearly two years back were now more +hope-baffling than ever. For the intervening months had not brought the +desirable “thrifle more wit” to his unsteady brother Thady, who, on the +contrary, was developing into one of those people whose +good-for-nothingness is taken as a matter of course even by themselves; +and a bolt was thus, so to speak, drawn across Mick’s locked door.</p> + +<p>He set off betimes on his long ramble. It was a cloudless July +morning—the noon of summer by air and light as well as by the calendar. +Even the barest tracts of the bog-land, which vary their aspect as +little as may be from shifting season to season, were flecked with +golden furze-blossom, and whitened with streaming tufts of fairy-cotton, +and sun-warmed herbs were fragrant underfoot. Mick rather hurried over +this stage of his “stravade,” partly because he foresaw a blazing hot +day, and he wished to be among more broken ground, where there are +sheltered hollows scooped in the “knockawns,” and cool patches under +their bushes and boulders. He entered the region of these things before +his shadow had shrunk to its briefest; for not so very far beyond +Kilmacrone the smooth floor of the big bog crumples itself into crusts +and ridges, as if it had caught the trick from its bounding ocean; and +the nearer it comes to the shore the higher it heaves itself, until at +last it is cut short by a sheer cliff wall, with storm-stunted brambles +and furzes cowering along the edge, fathoms above a base-line of +exuberant weed and foam. The long sea-frontage of this rock-rampart is +fissured by only a few narrow clefts. On the left hand, facing +oceanward, the coast is a labyrinth of mountain fiords, straits, and +bays, where you may see great craggy shoulders and domed summits waver +in their crystal calm at the flick of a gull’s dipping wing, or add to +the terror of the tempest as they start out black and unmoved behind +rifts of swirling mists. On the right there is the same fretwork of land +and water, but wrought in less high relief—a tract of lonely strands, +where shells and daisies whiten the grass, and pink-belled creepers +trail, entangled with tawny-podded wrack, across the shingle. You are +apt thereabouts to happen on clattering pebble-banks and curling foam +when you are apparently deep among meadows and corn-land, or to come on +sturdy green potato-drills round some corner where you had confidently +supposed the unstable furrows of the sea. And the intricate ground-plan +of the district must be long studied before you can always feel sure +whether the low-shelving swarded edges by which you are walking frame +salt or fresh water.</p> + +<p>Mick was bound eventually for one of those ravines which cleave the +cliffs’ precipitous wall and give access to the shore, generally by a +deep-sunken sandy boreen. Here, under a tall bank, there are a couple of +cabins, besides another which, having lost its roof, may be reckoned as +a half; so that Tullykillagin is not a large place, even as places go in +its neighbourhood. He knew, however, that he could count upon getting +something to eat at either of the two cabins first mentioned, and, +indeed, at the bare-raftered one also, if, as often chanced, it was +occupied by Tim Fottrel, the gatheremup; and this prospect served for an +incentive, feeble enough, though it strengthened a little as the hours +wore on. So languid, in fact, was his resolution that at one moment he +thought he would just sthreel home again without going any farther; if +he went aisy everybody would have cleared out of Kilmacrone before he +got back. But at this time he was sitting among some broom-bushes, under +which last year’s withered black pods were strewn, and he determined +that if there were an odd number of seeds in the first one he opened he +would go on to Tullykillagin. There were nine in it, and he logically +continued to loiter seaward.</p> + +<p>He dawdled so much that when he came to the cliff the sun already hung +low over the water, and as he walked along the edge his shadow stretched +away far inland across the dappled pale and dark green of the +furze-fretted sward. The sea unrolled a ceaseless scroll of faint +wild-hyacinth colour, on which invisible breeze-wafts inscribed and +erased mysterious curves and strokes like hieroglyphics. Here and there +it showed deep purple stains; for a flight of little snowflake clouds +were fluttering in from the Atlantic, followed at leisure by +deep-folded, glistering drifts, now massed on the horizon-rim to muffle +the descending sun. Yet that tide, with all its smoothness, showed a +broad band of foam wherever it touched the pebbles, which lay dry before +its sliding, for it was on its way in. It had nearly reached the cliff’s +foot in most places; but Mick presently came to a point where he looked +down on a small field of very green grass, set as an oasis between the +waves and the walling rock, with a miniature chaos of heaped-up boulders +to left and right. A few of them were scattered over it, and even the +highest of these wore a scarf of leathery flat sea-ribbon, in token of +occasional submergence; but amongst them grew hawthorn and sloe bushes, +and a clump of scarlet-tasselled fuchsia. To heighten the incongruity of +its aspect, this pasture was inhabited by a large strawberry cow, who +seemed to be enjoying the alternate mouthfuls of seaweed and woodbine, +which she munched off a thickly wreathed boulder, untroubled by the fact +that the meal bade fair to be her last, since the rising spring tide had +already all but cut off access on either hand, and would still flow for +some hours.</p> + +<p>“Musha, now I’ll be skivered,” said Mick, standing still, “if that’s not +Joe McEvoy’s ould cow. You’ll be apt to experience a dampin’, ould +woman, if you don’t quit out of there. Whethen, it’s a quare man he is +to lave the baste sthrayin’ about permiscuous in the welther of the +tide.”</p> + +<p>He peered over the edge of the cliff, evidently mistrusting its smooth +face; and then he threw several stones and clods at the cow, with shouts +of “Hi, out of that!” and “Shoo along!” But his missiles fell short of +their mark, and if his voice reached her, she treated it with the placid +disregard of which her kind are mistress on such occasions, and never +raised her crumple-horned head.</p> + +<p>“Have it your own way, then,” said Mick, cynically; “it’s nothin’ to me +if you’ve a mind to thry a taste of swimmin’ under wather.”</p> + +<p>He had not, however, strolled much farther when he met with somebody who +was vastly more concerned about the animal’s impending fate. This was +old Joe McEvoy himself, who, out of the mouth of a steep, sandy boreen, +sprang up suddenly, like a jack-fn-the-box-one of the shock-wigged, +saturnine-complexioned pattern. But no jack-in-the-box could have looked +so flurriedly distracted, or have muttered to itself such queer +execrations as he did, hobbling along.</p> + +<p>“A year’s loadin’ of bad luck to the whoule of thim!” he was saying with +gasps when Mick approached; “there’s not a one of thim but ’ud do +desthruction on herself sooner than lose a chanst to be annoyin’ +anybody, if she could conthrive it no other way.”</p> + +<p>“If it’s th’ ould cow you’re cursin’,” said Mick, “she’s down below +yonder.”</p> + +<p>“Och, tell me somethin’ I dunno, you gomeral, not but what I’m nigh as +big a one meself as can be, to go thrust her wid that little imp of +mischief. Bad scran to it, I must give me stiff leg a rest, and she’ll +be up here blatherin’ after me before you can look round, you may bet +your brogues she will.”</p> + +<p>“Gomeral yourself and save your penny,” said Mick, whose temper was not +at its best after his long day of hungry discontent. “And the divil a +call you have to be onaisy about the crathur follyin’ you anywheres. +Stayin’ where she is she’s apt to be, until she gets the chanst of goin’ +out to say wid the turn of the tide, and that’s like enough to happen +her.”</p> + +<p>“And who at all was talkin’ of the cow follyin’? It’s ould Biddy Duggan +down below that nivir has her tongue off of me, nagglin’ at me for +lettin’ the poor crathur pick her bit along the beach, and it a strip of +the finest grass in the townland, when it’s above wather, just goin’ to +loss. A couple of pints differ extry it does be makin’ in the milkin’ of +a day she’s grazed there. But it’s threatenin’ dhrowndin’ and +disthruction over it th’ ould banshee is this great while; and plased +she’ll be, rale plased and sot up. Sure, that’s what goes agin’ me, to +be so far gratifyin’ her, and herself as mischevious, harm-hopin’ an +ould toad as iver I hated the sight of—Och, bejabers, didn’t I tell you +so? It’s herself comin’ gabble-gobblin’ up.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke, a very small, meagre, raggged old woman emerged swiftly +from the lane, accompanied by one younger and stouter and less nimble of +foot, her temporary neighbour, Mrs. Gatheremup. Mrs. Duggan seemed to +bear out Joe’s character of her; for now, like Spenser’s hag Occasion, +“ever as she went her tongue did walk,” and the path it took was not one +of peace. “Maybe, after this happenin’, some she could name might have +the wit to believe what other people tould thim, who knew bitter than to +be thinkin’ to feed a misfortnit crathur of an ould cow on sand and +sayweed as if she was a sayl or a saygull, and it a scandal to the place +to behould her foostherin’ along down there wid the waves’ edges +slitherin’ up to her nose, and she sthrivin’ to graze, and the slippery +stones fit to break her neck.” Such was the purport of Mrs. Duggan’s +remarks, which were punctuated by Joe McEvoy’s peremptory requests that +she would lave gabbin’ and givin’ impidence, and his appeals to the +others to inform him whether they weren’t all to be pitied for havin’ to +put up wid the ould screech-owl’s foolish talk.</p> + +<p>“Sure, that’s the way they do be keepin’ it up continial, Micky lad,” +Mrs. Fottrel called to him, shrilly, as if athwart gusts of high wind. +“I’ll pass yon me word the two of thim ’ll stand at their doors of an +evenin” and give bad langwidge to aich other across the breadth of the +road till they have us all fairly moidhered wid the bawls of thim, and I +on’y wonder the thatch doesn’t take and slip down on their ould heads.”</p> + +<p>“Belike it’s lave of the likes of <i>you</i> I ought to be axin’ where I’m to +git grazin’ for me own cattle?” a growl of sarcastic thunder was just +then observing, to which flashed a scathing response: “And, bedad, then, +it’s lave you had a right to be axin’ afore you sent off me poor son +Hughey’s bit of a Pat, to be wastin’ his time mindin’ your ould +scarecrow and gettin’ himself dhrownded in the tide. It’s no thanks to +you if the innicent child isn’t as like as not lyin’ this minute under +six fut of could wather, instead of fetchin’ me in the full of me kettle +that I’m roarin’ to him for this half-hour, and niver a livin’ sinner +widin sight or—”</p> + +<p>“Saints above! is little Pat strayin’ along wid the cow?” said Mrs. +Fottrel, much aghast. “I was noticin’ I didn’t see him anywheres this +evenin’. What’s to become of him down there, and it risin’ beyond the +heighth of iverythin’ as fast as it can flow? Sure, this mornin’ ’t was +wallopin’ itself agin’ the wall, back of our place, fit to swally all +before it.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you tell me the child was below?” said Mick. “I’d lep down +there and fetch him up aisy enough; on’y there was no mortial use goin’ +after the cow, for niver a crathur that took its stand on four hoofs ’ud +git its own len’th up the cliff, unless it might be some little divil of +a goat. And the wather’s dhrowndin’-deep alongside it afore now.”</p> + +<p>“Musha, good gracious! sure, all I done was to bid the spalpeen be +keepin’ an eye on her now and agin while he would be playin’ about +there,” said Joe; “and it’s twinty chances if ivir he did at all. +Trapesed off wid himself somewheres; he’ll be right enough be this time. +’T is n’t the likes of him to go to loss, it’s the quare five-poun’ note +he’d fetch at Athenry fair.”</p> + +<p>“He might ha’ broke his legs climbin’ disp’rit on the rocks,” said Mrs. +Fottrel, unconvinced by the argument from unsaleability,” and be lyin’ +there now waitin’ for the say-waves to wash the life out of him. Heaven +pity the crathur!”</p> + +<p>“Sure, I’ll step down and see what’s gone wid him,” said Mick.</p> + +<p>The descent of the cliff, though not riskless, was no great feat for an +active youth, and Mick accomplished it safely, but to little purpose, he +thought at first, since the irreclaimable cow appeared to be the sole +denizen of the shrinking beach. However, when he had shouted and +scrambled for some time without result, he came abruptly upon a nook +among the piled-up rocks, where a very small black-headed boy in +tattered petticoats was digging the sandy floor with a razor-shell.</p> + +<p>“Och, it’s there you are,” said Mick, stepping down from a weedy ledge; +“and what have you in it at all that you didn’t hear me bawlin’ to you?”</p> + +<p>“Throops,” said Pat, gloatingly, almost too absorbed t o glance off his +work; “it’s Ballyclavvy, the way it did be in the school readin’-book at +Duffclane. There’s the Roossian guns” (he pointed to a row of +black-mouthed mussel-shells, mounted on periwinkle carriages), “and +here’s the sides of the valley I’m makin’; long and narrer it was. Just +step round and look at it from where I am, Micky, but don’t be clumpin’ +your fut on the French cavalary.”</p> + +<p>“The divil’s in it all,” said Mick, with a sudden bitter vehemence, +which he accounted for to himself by adding, as he pointed toward the +seething white line: “D’ you see where that’s come to, you little +bosthoon? And you sittin’ grubbin’ away here as if you were +pitaty-diggin’ a dozen mile inland.”</p> + +<p>Pat looked in the desired direction, but misapprehended the object to be +the western sky, where an overblown fiery rose seemed to have scattered +all its petals broadcast. “Sure, that’s on’y the sun settin’ red like,” +he explained, indifferently, and would have resumed his excavations if +he had not been seized and hustled half-way up the cliff before he could +disengage his mind from his brigades and batteries. Both heads soon +bobbed up over the edge without accident; for Pat climbed like a monkey +when once he had grasped the situation. His grandmother’s attitude +toward Joe McEvoy constrained her to receive him effusively as prey +snatched from the foaming jaws of death; but it was out of Mrs. +Fottrel’s pocket that a peppermint-drop came to sweetly seal his new +lease of life.</p> + +<p>“And what are you after now, Mick?” she said, observing that, instead of +drawing himself up to level ground, he stood poised on an uncomfortable +perch, and looked back the steep way he had come.</p> + +<p>“I’m thinkin’ to slip down agin,” he said, “and see if be any manner of +manes I could huroosha th’ ould baste round the rocks yonder. The wather +mightn’t be altogither too deep there yit; at all evints, she’s between +the divil and the deep say where she is now; it’s just a chanst.”</p> + +<p>“Sorra a much,” said Joe, disconsolately; “scarce worth breakin’ your +bones after, any way.”</p> + +<p>“Bones, how are you? Sure, there’s no call to be breakin’ bones in the +matter,” said Mick, beginning to descend. This was true enough, if he +had minded what he was about; but then he did not. So far from it, he +was saying to himself, “One ’ud ha’ thought now she might ha’ took a +sort of pride in it,” when the bottom of the world seemed to drop away +from under his feet, and his irrelevant meditations ended in a +shattering thud down on the rocky pavement a long way below. He never +heard the shouts and shrieks which the incident occasioned above his +head. Once only he became dimly conscious of a quivering network of +prismatic flashes, which he could not see through, and a booming throb +in his ears, which made him murmur dazedly: “Wirra, I thought I’d got +beyond hearin’ of them drums.” In another moment: “What’s took me?” he +said, with a start. But the depths he sank among remain always dark and +silent.</p> + +<p>Next day messengers from Tullykillagin told Mrs. Doherty that the Lord +had “took” her son Mick, and that “he had gone out to say wid the tide, +before they could get anybody to him, and there was no tellin’ where he +might be swep’ up, if ever he came to shore at all.”</p> + +<p>“And the quarest part of it was that Joe McEvoy’s ould cow that he went +after had legged herself up, somehow, on the rocks out of reach, and +niver a harm on her when they found her in the mornin’. But she’d been +all of a could quiver ever since, and himself doubted if she’d rightly +git over it—might the divil mend her, and she after bein’ the death of +a fine young man. Sure, every sowl up at Tullykillagin was rale annoyed +about it. Even ould Biddy Duggan, that was as cross-tempered as a +weasel, did be frettin’ for the lad; and Joe McEvoy was sittin’ crooched +like an ould wet hen, over his fire block out, that he hadn’t the heart +to be lightin’.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Doherty said she didn’t know what talk they had of the Lord and the +say and the ould cow; but she’d known well enough the way it was when +Mick niver come home last night. He’d just took off after the souldiers, +as he’d a great notion one time.</p> + +<p>She was, as may have been observed, rather a dull-witted woman, and +proportionately hard to convince against her will.</p> + +<p>“A great notion intirely,” she said; “on’y she’d scarce have thought +he’d go do such a thing on her in airnest. And I runnin’ away indoors +yisterday out of the heighth of the divarsion, when the band-music was a +thrate to be hearin’, just to see his bit of supper wouldn’t be late on +him. And the grand little pitaty-cake I had for him; I may be throwin’ +it to the hins now, unless Molly might fancy a bit; for we’ll not be apt +to set eyes on him this three year. Och, wirra! and he that contint at +home, and niver a word out of him about the souldierin’ this long while. +If it had been poor Thady itself, ’t would ha’ been diff’rint; but +Mick—I’d scarce ha’ thought it of him; for he’d a dale of good-nature, +Mrs. Geoghegan, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“He had so, tub-be sure, woman dear,” said Mrs. Geoghegan, “or he might +be sittin’ warm in here this minnit.”</p> + +<p>“The back of me hand to thim blamed ould throopers,” said Mrs. Doherty, +“that sets the lads wild wid their thrampin’ around.”</p> + +<p>“Poor Mick would be better wid them than where he is now—God have mercy +on his soul!” said a neighbour, solemnly.</p> + +<p>But Mick’s mother continued to bewail herself: “And I missin’ the best +of all the tunes they played, so Molly was tellin’ me, for ’fraid he’d +be kep’ waitin’ for his supper, and he comin’ home to me hungry; and +now—There’s a terrible len’th of time in three year. I wouldn’t ha’ +believed he’d ha’ done it on me.”</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_RIVAL_DREAMERS" id="THE_RIVAL_DREAMERS"></a>THE RIVAL DREAMERS<br /><br /> +BY JOHN BANIM</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. WASHINGTON IRVING has already given to the public a version of an +American legend, which, in a principal feature, bears some likeness to +the following transcript of a popular Irish one. It may, however, be +interesting to show this very coincidence between the descendants of a +Dutch transatlantic colony and the native peasantry of Ireland, in the +superstitious annals of both. Our tale, moreover, will be found original +in all its circumstances, that alluded to only excepted.</p> + +<p>Shamus Dempsey returned a silent, plodding, sorrowful man, though a +young one, to his poor home, after seeing laid in the grave his aged, +decrepit father. The last rays of the setting sun were glorious, +shooting through the folds of their pavilion of scarlet clouds; the last +song of the thrush, chanted from the bough nearest to his nest, was +gladdening; the abundant though but half-matured crops around breathed +of hope for the future. But Shamus’s bosom was covered with the darkness +that inward sunshine alone can illumine. The chord that should respond +to song and melody had snapped in it; for him the softly undulating +fields of light-green wheat, or the silken-surfaced patches of barley, +made a promise in vain. He was poor, penniless, friendless, and yet +groaning under responsibilities; worn out by past and present suffering, +and without a consoling prospect. His father’s corpse had just been +buried by a subscription among his neighbours, collected in an old +glove, a penny or a half-penny from each, by the most active of the +humble community to whom his sad state was a subject of pity. In the +wretched shed which he called “home,” a young wife lay on a truss of +straw, listening to the hungry cries of two little children, and +awaiting her hour to become the weeping mother of a third. And the +recollection that but for an act of domestic treachery experienced by +his father and himself, both would have been comfortable and respectable +in the world, aggravated the bitterness of the feeling in which Shamus +contemplated his lot. He could himself faintly call to mind a time of +early childhood, when he lived with his parents in a roomy house, eating +and sleeping and dressing well, and surrounded by servants and workmen; +he further remembered that a day of great affliction came, upon which +strange and rude persons forced their way into the house; and, for some +cause his infant observation did not reach, father, servants, and +workmen (his mother had just died) were all turned out upon the road and +doomed to seek the shelter of a mean roof. But his father’s discourse, +since he gained the years of manhood, supplied Shamus with an +explanation of all these circumstances, as follows.</p> + +<p>Old Dempsey had been the youngest son of a large farmer, who divided his +lands between two elder children, and destined Shamus’s father to the +Church, sending him abroad for education, and, during its course, +supplying him with liberal allowances. Upon the eve of ordination the +young student returned home to visit his friends; was much noticed by +neighbouring small gentry of each religion; at the house of one of the +opposite persuasion from his met a sister of the proprietor, who had a +fortune in her own right; abandoned his clerical views for her smiles; +eloped with her; married her privately; incurred thereby the irremovable +hostility of his own family; but, after a short time, was received, +along with his wife, by his generous brother-in-law, under whose +guidance both became reputably settled in the house to which Shamus’s +early recollections pointed and where, till he was about six years old, +he passed indeed a happy childhood.</p> + +<p>But, a little previous to this time, his mother’s good brother died +unmarried, and was succeeded by another of her brothers, who had +unsuccessfully spent half his life as a lawyer in Dublin, and who, +inheriting little of his predecessor’s amiable character, soon showed +himself a foe to her and her husband, professedly on account of her +marriage with a Roman Catholic. He did not appear to their visit, +shortly after his arrival in their neighbourhood, and he never +condescended to return it. The affliction experienced by his sensitive +sister from his conduct entailed upon her a premature accouchement, in +which, giving birth to a lifeless babe, she unexpectedly died. The event +was matter of triumph rather than of sorrow to her unnatural brother. +For, in the first place, totally unguarded against the sudden result, +she had died intestate; in the next place, he discovered that her +private marriage had been celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest, +consequently could not, according to law, hold good; and again, could +not give to her nominal husband any right to her property, upon which +both had hitherto lived, and which was now the sole means of existence +to Shamus’s father.</p> + +<p>The lawyer speedily set to work upon these points, and with little +difficulty succeeded in supplying for Shamus’s recollections a day of +trouble, already noticed. In fact, his father and he, now without a +shilling, took refuge in a distant cabin, where, by the sweat of his +parent’s brow, as a labourer in the fields, the ill-fated hero of this +story was scantily fed and clothed, until maturer years enabled him to +relieve the old man’s hand of the spade and sickle, and in turn labour +for their common wants.</p> + +<p>Shamus, becoming a little prosperous in the funeral we now see Shamus +returning, and to such a home does he bend his heavy steps.</p> + +<p>If to know that the enemy of his father and mother did not thrive on the +spoils of his oppression could have yielded Shamus any consolation in +his lot, he had long ago become aware of circumstances calculated to +give this negative comfort. His maternal uncle enjoyed, indeed, his +newly acquired property only a few years after it came into his +possession. Partly on account of his cruelty to his relations, partly +from a meanness and vulgarity of character, which soon displayed itself +in his novel situation, and which, it was believed, had previously kept +him in the lowest walks of his profession as a Dublin attorney, he found +himself neglected and shunned by the gentry of his neighbourhood. To +grow richer than those who thus insulted him, to blazon abroad reports +of his wealth, and to watch opportunities of using it to their injury, +became the means of revenge adopted by the parvenu. His legitimate +income not promising a rapid accomplishment of this plan, he ventured, +using precautions that seemingly set suspicion at defiance, to engage in +smuggling-adventures on a large scale, for which his proximity to the +coast afforded a local opportunity. Notwithstanding all his pettifogging +cleverness, the ex-attorney was detected, however, in his illegal +traffic, and fined to an amount which swept away half his real property. +Driven to desperation by the publicity of his failure, as well as by the +failure itself, he tried another grand effort to retrieve his fortune; +was again surprised by the revenue officers; in a personal struggle with +them, at the head of his band, killed one of their body; immediately +absconded from Ireland; for the last twenty years had not been +authentically heard of, but, it was believed, lived under an assumed +name in London, deriving an obscure existence from some mean pursuit, of +which the very nature enabled him to gratify propensities to drunkenness +and other vices, learned during his first career in life.</p> + +<p>All this Shamus knew, though only from report, inasmuch as his uncle had +exiled himself while he was yet a child, and without previously having +become known to the eyes of the nephew he had so much injured. But if +Shamus occasionally drew a bitter and almost savage gratification from +the downfall of his inhuman persecutor, no recurrence to the past could +alleviate the misery of his present situation.</p> + +<p>He passed under one of the capacious open arches of the old abbey, and +then entered his squalid shed reared against its wall, his heart as +shattered and as trodden down as the ruins around him. No words of +greeting ensued between him and his equally hopeless wife, as she sat on +the straw of her bed, rocking to sleep, with feeble and mournful cries, +her youngest infant. He silently lighted a fire of withered twigs on his +ready-furnished hearthstone; put to roast among their embers a few +potatoes which he had begged during the day; divided them between her +and her crying children; and, as the moon rising high in the heavens +warned him that night asserted her full empire over the departed day, +Shamus sank down upon the couch from which his father’s mortal remains +had lately been borne, supperless himself, and dinnerless, too, but not +hungry; at least not conscious or recollecting that he was.</p> + +<p>His wife and little ones soon slept soundly, but Shamus lay for hours +inaccessible to nature’s claims for sleep as well as for food. From +where he lay he could see, through the open front of his shed, out into +the ruins abroad. After much abstraction in his own thoughts, the +silence, the extent, and the peculiar desolation of the scene, almost +spiritualised by the magic effect of alternate moonshine and darkness, +of objects and of their parts, at last diverted his mind, though not to +relieve it. He remembered distinctly, for the first time, where he +was—an intruder among the dwellings of the dead; he called to mind, +too, that the present was their hour for revealing themselves among the +remote loneliness and obscurity of their crumbling and intricate abode. +As his eye fixed upon a distant stream of cold light or of blank shadow, +either the wavering of some feathery herbage from the walls or the +flitting of some night-bird over the roofless aisle, made motion which +went and came during the instant of his alarmed start, or else some +disembodied sleeper around had challenged and evaded his vision so +rapidly as to baffle even the accompaniment of thought. Shamus would, +however, recur, during these entrancing aberrations, to his more real +causes for terror; and he knew not, and to this day cannot distinctly +tell, whether he waked or slept, when a new circumstance absorbed his +attention. The moon struck fully, under his propped roof, upon the +carved slab he had appropriated as a hearthstone; and turning his eye to +the spot, he saw the semblance of a man advanced in years, though not +very old, standing motionless, and very steadfastly regarding him. The +still face of the figure shone like marble in the night-beam, without +giving any idea of the solidity of that material; the long and deep +shadows thrown by the forehead over the eyes left those unusally +expressive features vague and uncertain. Upon the head was a +close-fitting black cap, the dress was a loose-sleeved, plaited garment +of white, descending to the ground, and faced and otherwise checkered +with black, and girded round the loins; exactly the costume which Shamus +had often studied in a little framed and glazed print, hung up in the +sacristy of the humble chapel recently built in the neighbourhood of the +ruin by a few descendants of the great religious fraternity to whom, in +its day of pride, the abbey had belonged. As he returned very +inquisitively, though, as he avers, not now in alarm, the fixed gaze of +his midnight visitor, a voice reached him, and he heard these strange +words:</p> + +<p>“Shamus Dempsey, go to London Bridge, and you will be a rich man.”</p> + +<p>“How will that come about, your reverence?” cried Shamus, jumping up +from the straw.</p> + +<p>But the figure was gone; and stumbling among the black embers on the +remarkable place where it had stood, he fell prostrate, experiencing a +change of sensation and of observance of objects around, which might be +explained by supposing a transition from a sleeping to a waking state of +mind.</p> + +<p>The rest of the night he slept little, thinking of the advice he had +received, and of the mysterious personage who gave it. But he resolved +to say nothing about his vision, particularly to his wife, lest, in her +present state of health, the frightful story might distress her; and, as +to his own conduct respecting it, he determined to be guided by the +future; in fact, he would wait to see if his counsellor came again. He +did come again, appearing in the same spot at the same hour of the +night, and wearing the same dress, though not the same expression of +feature; for the shadowy brows now slightly frowned, and a little +severity mingled with the former steadfastness of look.</p> + +<p>“Shamus Dempsey, why have you not gone to London Bridge, and your wife +so near the time when she will want what you are to get by going there? +Remember, this is my second warning.”</p> + +<p>“Musha, your reverence, an’ what am I to do on Lunnon Bridge?”</p> + +<p>Again he rose to approach the figure; again it eluded him. Again a +change occurred in the quality of the interest with which he regarded +the admonition of his visitor. Again he passed a day of doubt as to the +propriety of undertaking what seemed to him little less than a journey +to the world’s end, without a penny in his pocket, and upon the eve of +his wife’s accouchement, merely in obedience to a recommendation which, +according to his creed, was not yet sufficiently strongly given, even +were it under any circumstances to be adopted. For Shamus had often +heard, and firmly believed, that a dream or a vision instructing one how +to procure riches ought to be experienced three times before it became +entitled to attention.</p> + +<p>He lay down, however, half hoping that his vision might thus recommend +itself to his notice It did so.</p> + +<p>“Shamus Dempsey,” said the figure, looking more angry than ever, “you +have not yet gone to London Bridge, although I hear your wife dying out +to bid you go. And, remember, this s my third warning.”</p> + +<p>“Why, then, tundher an’ ouns, your reverence, just stop and tell me-“</p> + +<p>Ere he could utter another word the holy visitant disappeared, in a real +passion at Shamus’s qualified curse; and at the same moment his confused +senses recognised the voice of his wife, sending up from her straw +pallet the cries that betoken a mother’s distant travail. Exchaning a +few words with her, he hurried away. professedly call up, at her cabin +window, an old crane who sometimes attended the very poorest women in +Nance Dempsey’s situation.</p> + +<p>“Hurry to her, Noreen, acuishla, and do the best it’s the will of God to +let you do. And tell her from me, Noreen—” He stopped, drawing in his +lip, and clutching his cudgel hard.</p> + +<p>“Shamus, what ails you, avick?” asked old Noreen; “what ails you, to +make the tears run down in the gray o’ the morning?”</p> + +<p>“Tell her from me,” continued Shamus, “that it’s from the bottom o’ the +heart I’ll pray, morning and evening, and fresh and fasting, maybe, to +give her a good time of it; and to show her a face on the poor child +that’s coming, likelier than the two that God sent afore it. And that +I’ll be thinking o’ picturing it to my own mind, though I’ll never see +it far away.”</p> + +<p>“Musha, Shamus, what are you speaking of?”</p> + +<p>“No Matter, Noreen, only God be wid you, and wid her, and wid the +weenocks; and tell her what I bid you. More-be-token, tell her that poor +Shamus quits her in her throuble wid more love from the heart out than +he had for her the first day we came together; and I’ll come back to her +at any rate, sooner or later, richer or poorer, or as bare as I went; +and maybe not so bare either. But God only knows. The top o’ the morning +to you, Noreen, and don’t let her want the mouthful o’ praties while I’m +on my thravels. For this,” added Shamus, as he bounded off, to the +consternation of old Noreen—“this is the very morning and the very +minute that, if I mind the dhrame at all at all, I ought to mind it; ay, +without ever turning back to get a look from her, that ’ud kill the +heart in my body entirely.”</p> + +<p>Without much previous knowledge of the road he was to take, Shamus +walked and begged his way along the coast to the town where he might +hope to embark for England. Here the captain of a merchantman agreed to +let him work his passage to Bristol, whence he again walked and begged +into London.</p> + +<p>Without taking rest or food, Shamus proceeded to London Bridge, often +put out of his course by wrong directions, and as often by forgetting +and misconceiving true ones. It was with old London Bridge that Shamus +had to do (not the old one last pulled down, but its more reverend +predecessor), which, at that time, was lined at either side by quaintly +fashioned houses, mostly occupied by shopkeepers, so that the space +between presented perhaps the greatest thoroughfare then known in the +Queen of Cities. And at about two o’clock in the afternoon, barefooted, +ragged, fevered, and agitated, Shamus mingled with the turbid human +stream, that roared and chafed over the as restless and as evanescent +stream which buffeted the arches of old London Bridge. In a situation so +novel to him, so much more extraordinary in the reality than his +anticipation could have fancied, the poor and friendless stranger felt +overwhelmed. A sense of forlornness, of insignificance, and of terror +seized upon his faculties. From the stare or the sneers or the jostle of +the iron-nerved crowd he shrank with glances of wild timidity, and with +a heart as wildly timid as were his looks. For some time he stood or +staggered about, unable to collect his thoughts, or to bring to mind +what was his business there. But when Shamus became able to refer to the +motive of his pauper journey from his native solitudes into the thick of +such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally +subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the +bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. +Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched +place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there mooned +himself asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor Nance at +home, and in utter despair of all his future prospects.</p> + +<p>At daybreak the next morning he awoke, a little less agitated, but still +with no hope. He was able, however, to resolve upon the best course of +conduct now left open to him; and he arranged immediately to retrace his +steps to Ireland, as soon as he should have begged sufficient alms to +speed him a mile on the road. With this intent he hastily issued forth, +preferring to challenge the notice of chance passengers, even at the +early hour of dawn, than to venture again, in the middle of the day, +among the dreaded crowds of the vast city. Very few, indeed, were the +passers-by whom Shamus met during his straggling and stealthy walk +through the streets, and those of a description little able or willing +to afford a half-penny to his humbled, whining suit, and to his spasmed +lip and watery eye. In what direction he went Shamus did not know; but +at last he found himself entering upon the scene of his yesterday’s +terror. Now, however, it presented nothing to renew its former +impression. The shops at the sides of the bridge were closed, and the +occasional stragglers of either sex who came along inspired Shamus, +little as he knew of a great city, with aversion rather than with dread. +In the quietness and security of his present position, Shamus was both +courageous and weak enough again to summon up his dream.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said, “since I <i>am</i> on Lunnon Bridge, I’ll walk over every +stone of it, and see what good that will do.”</p> + +<p>He valiantly gained the far end. Here one house, of all that stood upon +the bridge, began to be opened; it was a public-house, and, by a +sidelong glance as he passed, Shamus thought that, in the person of a +red-cheeked, red-nosed, sunken-eyed, elderly man, who took down the +window-shutters, he recognised the proprietor. This person looked at +Shamus, in return, with peculiar scrutiny. The wanderer liked neither +his regards nor the expression of his countenance, and quickened his +steps onward until he cleared the bridge.</p> + +<p>“But I’ll walk it over at the other side now,” he bethought, after +allowing the publican time to finish opening his house and retire out of +view.</p> + +<p>But, repassing the house, the man still appeared, leaning against his +door-jamb, and as if waiting for Shamus’s return, whom, upon this second +occasion, he eyed more attentively than before.</p> + +<p>“Sorrow’s in him,” thought Shamus, “have I two heads on me, that I’m +such a sight to him? But who cares about his pair of ferret eyes? I’ll +thrudge down the middle stone of it, at any rate!”</p> + +<p>Accordingly, he again walked toward the public-house, keeping the middle +of the bridge.</p> + +<p>“Good-morrow, friend,” said the publican, as Shamus a third time passed +his door.</p> + +<p>“Sarvant kindly, sir,” answered Shamus, respectfully pulling down the +brim of his hat, and increasing his pace.</p> + +<p>“Am early hour you choose for a morning walk,” continued his new +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>“Brave and early, faix, sir,” said Shamus, still hurrying off.</p> + +<p>“Stop a bit,” resumed the publican. Shamus stood still. “I see you’re a +countryman of mine—an Irishman; I’d know one of you at a look, though +I’m a long time out of the country. And you’re not very well off on +London Bridge this morning, either.”</p> + +<p>“No, indeed, sir,” replied Shamus, beginning to doubt his skill in +physiognomy, at the stranger’s kind address; “but as badly off as a body +’ud wish to be.”</p> + +<p>“Come over to look for the work?”</p> + +<p>“Nien, sir; but come out this morning to beg a ha’-penny, to send me a +bit of the road home.”</p> + +<p>“Well, here’s a silver sixpence without asking. And you’d better sit on +the bench by the door here, and eat a crust and a cut of cheese, and +drink a drop of good ale, to break your fast.”</p> + +<p>With profuse thanks Shamus accepted this kind invitation, blaming +himself at heart for having allowed his opinion of the charitable +publican to be guided by the expression of the man’s features. “Handsome +is that handsome does,” was Shamus’s self-correcting reflection.</p> + +<p>While eating his bread and cheese and drinking his strong ale, they +conversed freely together, and Shamus’s heart opened more and more to +his benefactor. The publican repeatedly asked him what had brought him +to London; and though, half out of prudence and half out of shame, the +dreamer at first evaded the question, he felt it at last impossible to +refuse a candid answer to his generous friend.</p> + +<p>“Why, then, sir, only I am such a big fool for telling it to you, it’s +what brought me to Lunnon Bridge was a quare dhrame I had at home in +Ireland, that tould me just to come here, and I’d find a pot of goold.” +For such was the interpretation given by Shamus to the vague admonition +of his visionary counsellor.</p> + +<p>His companion burst into a loud laugh, saying after it:</p> + +<p>“Pho, pho, man, don’t be so silly as to put faith in nonsensical dreams +of that kind. Many a one like it I have had, if I would bother my head +with them. Why, within the last ten days, while you were dreaming of +finding a pot of gold on London Bridge, I was dreaming of finding a pot +of gold in Ireland.”</p> + +<p>“Ullaloo, and were you, sir?” asked Shamus, laying down his empty pint.</p> + +<p>“Ay, indeed; night after night an old friar with a pale face, and +dressed all in white and black, and a black skull-cap on his head, came +to me in a dream, and bid me go to Ireland, to a certain spot in a +certain county that I know very well, and under the slab of his tomb, +that has a cross and some old Romish letters on it, in an old abbey I +often saw before now, I’d find a treasure that would make me a rich man +all the days of my life.”</p> + +<p>“Musha, sir,” asked Shamus, scarce able prudently to control his +agitation,” and did he tell you that the treasure lay buried there ever +so long under the open sky and the ould walls?”</p> + +<p>“No; but he told me I was to find the slab covered in by a shed that a +poor man had lately built inside the abbey for himself and his family.”</p> + +<p>“Whoo, by the powers!” shouted Shamus, at last thrown off his guard by +the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as well as by the +effects of the ale; and at the same time he jumped up, cutting a caper +with his legs, and flourishing his shillalah.</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked his friend, glancing at him a +frowning and misgiving look.</p> + +<p>“We ax pardon, sir.” Shamus rallied his prudence. “An’, sure, sorrow a +thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I believe, made me do it, as +it ever and always does, good luck to it for the same. An’ isn’t what we +were spaking about the biggest <i>raumaush</i><a name="FNanchor__2" id="FNanchor__2"></a> +<a href="#Footnote__2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> + undher the +sun, sir? Only it’s the laste bit in the world quare to me how you’d +have the dhrame about your own country, that you didn’t see for so many +years, sir—for twenty long years, I think you said, sir?” Shamus had +now a new object in putting his sly question.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote__2" id="Footnote__2"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor__2">[2]</a><span class="label">Nonsense.</span></p></div> + +<p>“If I said so, I forgot,” answered the publican, his suspicions of +Shamus at an end. “But it is about twenty years, indeed, since I left +Ireland.”</p> + +<p>“And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I’ll engage you were in a +good way in the poor place afore you left it?”</p> + +<p>“You guess correctly, friend.” (The publican gave way to vanity.) +“Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good hundred +acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in the foolish +dream I told you stands upon.”</p> + +<p>“An’ so did my curse-o’-God’s uncle,” thought Shamus, his heart’s blood +beginning to boil, though, with a great effort, he kept himself +seemingly cool. “And this is the man fornent me, if he answers another +word I’ll ax him. Faix, sir, and sure that makes your dhrame quarer than +ever; and the ground the ould abbey is on, sir, and the good acres round +it, did you say they lay somewhere in the poor county myself came from?”</p> + +<p>“What county is that, friend?” demanded the publican, again with a +studious frown.</p> + +<p>“The ould County Monaghan, sure, sir,” replied Shamus, very +deliberately.</p> + +<p>“No, but the county of Clare,” answered his companion.</p> + +<p>“Was it?” screamed Shamus, again springing up. The cherished hatred of +twenty years imprudently bursting out, his uncle lay stretched at his +feet, after a renewed flourish of his cudgel. “And do you know who you +are telling it to this morning? Did you ever hear that the sisther you +kilt left a bit of a gorsoon behind her, that one day or other might +overhear you? Ay,” he continued, keeping down the struggling man, “<i>It +is</i> poor Shamus Dempsey that’s kneeling by you; ay, and that has more to +tell you. The shed built over the old friar’s tombstone was built by the +hands you feel on your throttle, and that tombstone is his hearthstone; +and,” continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate man with a rope +snatched from a bench near them, “while you lie here awhile, an’ no one +to help you, in the cool of the morning, I’ll just take a start of you +on the road home, to lift the flag and get the threasure; and follow me +if you dare! You know there’s good money bid for your head in +Ireland—so here goes. Yes, faith, and wid this-<i>this</i> to help me on the +way!” He snatched up a heavy purse which had fallen from his uncle’s +pocket in the struggle. “And sure, there’s neither hurt nor harm in +getting back a little of a body’s own from you. A bright goodmorning, +uncle dear!”</p> + +<p>Shamus dragged his manacled relative into the shop, quickly shut to and +locked the door, flung the key over the house into the Thames, and the +next instant was running at headlong speed.</p> + +<p>He was not so deficient in the calculations of common sense as to think +himself yet out of his uncle’s power. It appeared, indeed, pretty +certain that, neither for the violence done to his person nor for the +purse appropriated by his nephew, the outlawed murderer would raise a +hue and cry after one who, aware of his identity, could deliver him up +to the laws of his country. But Shamus felt certain that it would be a +race between him and his uncle for the treasure that lay under the +friar’s tombstone. His simple nature supplied no stronger motive for a +pursuit on the part of a man whose life now lay in the breath of his +mouth. Full of his conviction, however, Shamus saw he had not a moment +to lose until the roof of his shed in the old abbey again sheltered him. +So, freely making use of his uncle’s guineas, he purchased a strong +horse in the outskirts of London, and, to the surprise if not under +heavy suspicions of the vender, set off at a gallop upon the road by +which he had the day before gained the great metropolis.</p> + +<p>A ship was ready to sail at Bristol for Ireland; but, to Shamus’s +discomfiture, she waited for a wind. He got aboard, however, and in the +darksome and squalid hold often knelt down, and, with clasped hands and +panting breast, petitioned Heaven for a favourable breeze. But from +morning until evening the wind remained as he had found it, and Shamus +despaired. His uncle, meantime, might have reached some other port, and +embarked for their country. In the depth of his anguish he heard a brisk +bustle upon deck, clambered up to investigate its cause, and found the +ship’s sails already half unfurled to a wind that promised to bear him +to his native shores by the next morning. The last light of day yet +lingered in the heavens; he glanced, now under way, to the quay of +Bristol. A group who had been watching the departure of the vessel +turned round to note the approach to them of a man, who ran furiously +toward the place where they stood, pointing after her, and evidently +speaking with vehemence, although no words reached Shamus’s ear. Neither +was his eye sure of this person’s features, but his heart read them +distinctly. A boat shot from the quay; the man stood up in it, and its +rowers made a signal.</p> + +<p>Shamus stepped to the gangway, as if preparing to hurl his pursuer into +the sea. The captain took a speaking-trumpet, and informing the boat +that he could not stop an instant, advised her to wait for another +merchantman, which would sail in an hour. And during and after his +speech his vessel ploughed cheerily on, making as much way as she was +adapted to accomplish.</p> + +<p>Shamus’s bosom felt lightened of its immediate terror, but not freed of +apprehension for the future. The ship that was to sail in an hour +haunted his thoughts; he did not leave the deck, and, although the night +proved very dark, his anxious eyes were never turned from the English +coast. Unusual fatigue and want of sleep now and then overpowered him, +and his senses swam in a wild and snatching slumber; but from this he +would start, crying out and clinging to the cordage, as the feverish +dream of an instant presented him with the swelling canvas of a +fast-sailing ship, which came, suddenly bursting through the gloom of +midnight, alongside of his own. Morning dawned, really to unveil to him +the object of his fears following almost in the wake of her rival. He +glanced in the opposite direction, and beheld the shores of Ireland; in +another hour he jumped upon them; but his enemy’s face watched him from +the deck of the companion vessel, now not more than a few ropes’ lengths +distant.</p> + +<p>Shamus mounted a second good horse, and spurred toward home. Often did +he look back, but without seeing any cause for increased alarm. As yet, +however, the road had been level and winding, and therefore could not +allow him to span much of it at a glance. After noon it ascended a high +and lengthened hill surrounded by wastes of bog. As he gained the summit +of this hill, and again looked back, a horseman appeared, sweeping to +its foot. Shamus galloped at full speed down the now quickly falling +road; then along its level continuation for about a mile; and then up +another eminence, more lengthened, though not so steep as the former; +and from it still he looked back, and caught the figure of the horseman +breaking over the line of the hill he had passed. For hours such was the +character of the chase, until the road narrowed and began to wind amid +an uncultivated and uninhabited mountain wilderness. Here Shamus’s horse +tripped and fell; the rider, little injured, assisted him to his legs, +and, with lash and spur, re-urged him to pursue his course. The animal +went forward in a last effort, and for still another span of time well +befriended his rider. A rocky valley, through which both had been +galloping, now opened at its farther end, presenting to Shamus’s eye, in +the distance, the sloping ground, and the ruin which, with its +mouldering walls, encircled his poor home; and the setting sun streamed +golden rays through the windows and rents of the old abbey.</p> + +<p>The fugitive gave a weak cry of joy, and lashed his beast again. The cry +seemed to be answered by a shout; and a second time, after a wild +plunge, the horse fell, now throwing Shamus off with a force that left +him stunned. And yet he heard the hoofs of another horse come thundering +down the rocky way; and, while he made a faint effort to rise on his +hands and look at his pursuer, the horse and horseman were very near, +and the voice of his uncle cried, “Stand!” at the same time that the +speaker fired a pistol, of which the ball struck a stone at Shamus’s +foot. The next moment his uncle, having left his saddle, stood over him, +presenting a second pistol, and he spoke in a low but distinct voice.</p> + +<p>“Spawn of a beggar! This is not merely for the chance of riches given by +our dreams, though it seems, in the teeth of all I ever thought, that +the devil tells truth at last. No, nor it is not quite for the blow; but +it <i>is</i> to close the lips that, with a single word, can kill me. You die +to let me live!”</p> + +<p>“Help!” aspirated Shamus’s heart, turning itself to Heaven. “Help me but +now, not for the sake of the goold either, but for the sake of them that +will be left on the wild world widout me; for them help me, great God!”</p> + +<p>Hitherto his weakness and confusion had left him passive. Before his +uncle spoke the last words, his silent prayer was offered, and Shamus +had jumped upon his assailant. They struggled and dragged each other +down. Shamus felt the muzzle of the pistol at his breast; heard it +snap—but only snap; he seized and mastered it, and once more the uncle +was at the mercy of his nephew. Shamus’s hand was raised to deal a good +blow; but he checked himself, and addressed the almost senseless ears of +his captive.</p> + +<p>“No; you’re my mother’s blood, and a son of hers will never draw it from +your heart; but I can make sure of you again; stop a bit.”</p> + +<p>He ran to his own prostrate horse, took off its bridle and its +saddle-girth, and with both secured his uncle’s limbs beyond all +possibility of the struggler being able to escape from their control.</p> + +<p>“There,” resumed Shamus; “lie there till we have time to send an ould +friend to see you, that, I’ll go bail, will take good care of your four +bones. And do you know where I’m going now? You tould me, on Lunnon +Bridge, that you knew <i>that</i>, at least,” pointing to the abbey; “ay, and +the quare ould hearthstone that’s to be found in it. And so, look at +this, uncle, honey.” He vaulted upon his relative’s horse. “I’m just +goin’ to lift it off o’ the barrel-pot full of good ould goold, and you +have only to cry halves, and you’ll get it, as, sure as that the big +divil is in the town you came from.”</p> + +<p>Nance Dempsey was nursing her new-born babe, sitting up in her straw, +and doing very well after her late illness, when old Noreen tottered in +from the front of the ruin to tell her that “the body they were just +speaking about was driving up the hill mad, like as if’t was his own +sperit in great throuble.” And the listener had not recovered from her +surprise when Shamus ran into the shed, flung himself, kneeling, by her +side, caught her in his arms, then seized her infant, covered it with +kisses, and then, roughly throwing it in her lap, turned to the +fireplace, raised one of the rocky seats lying near it, poised the +ponderous mass over the hearthstone, and shivered into pieces, with one +crash, that solid barrier between him and his visionary world of wealth.</p> + +<p>“It’s cracked he is out an’ out of a certainty,” said Nance, looking +terrified at her husband.</p> + +<p>“Nothing else am I,” shouted Shamus, after groping under the broken +slab; “an’, for a token, get along wid yourself out of this, ould gran!”</p> + +<p>He started up and seized her by the shoulder. Noreen remonstrated. He +stooped for a stone; she ran; he pursued her to the arches of the ruin. +She stopped half-way down the descent. He pelted her with clods to the +bottom, and along a good piece of her road homeward, and then danced +back into his wife’s presence.</p> + +<p>“Now, Nance,” he cried, “now that we’re by ourselves, what noise is this +like?”</p> + +<p>“And he took out han’fuls after han’fuls of the ould goold afore her +face, my dear,” added the original narrator of this story.</p> + +<p>“An’ after the gaugers and their crony, Ould Nick, ran off wid the uncle +of him, Nance and he and the childer lived together in their father’s +and mother’s house; and if they didn’t live and die happy, I wish that +you and I may.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NEAL_MALONE" id="NEAL_MALONE"></a>NEAL MALONE<br /><br /> +BY WILLIAM CARLETON</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE never was a greater-souled or doughtier tailor than little Neal +Malone. Though but four feet four in height, he paced the earth with the +courage and confidence of a giant; nay, one would have imagined that he +walked as if he feared the world itself was about to give way under him. +Let no one dare to say in future that a tailor is but the ninth part of +a man. That reproach has been gloriously taken away from the character +of the cross-legged corporation by Neal Malone. He has wiped it off like +a stain from the collar of a secondhand coat; he has pressed this +wrinkle out of the lying front of antiquity; he has drawn together this +rent in the respectability of his profession. No. By him who was +breeches-maker to the gods,—that is, except, like Highlanders, they +eschewed inexpressibles,—by him who cut Jupiter’s frieze jocks for +winter, and eke by the bottom of his thimble, we swear that Neal Malone +was <i>more</i> than the ninth part of a man.</p> + +<p>Setting aside the Patagonians, we maintain that two thirds of mortal +humanity were comprised in Neal; and perhaps we might venture to assert +that two thirds of Neal’s humanity were equal to six thirds of another +man’s. It is right well known that Alexander the Great was a little man, +and we doubt whether, had Alexander the Great been bred to the tailoring +business, he would have exhibited so much of the hero as Neal Malone. +Neal was descended from a fighting family, who had signalised themselves +in as many battles as ever any single hero of antiquity fought. His +father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather were all fighting +men, and his ancestors in general, up, probably, to Con of the Hundred +Battles himself. No wonder, therefore, that Neal’s blood should cry out +against the cowardice of his calling; no wonder that he should be an +epitome of all that was valorous and heroic in a peaceable man, for we +neglected to inform the reader that Neal, though “bearing no base mind,” +never fought any man in his own person. That, however, deducted nothing +from his courage. If he did not fight it was simply because he found +cowardice universal. No man would engage him; his spirit blazed in vain; +his thirst for battle was doomed to remain unquenched, except by whisky, +and this only increased it. In short, he could find no foe. He has often +been known to challenge the first cudgel-players and pugilists of the +parish, to provoke men of fourteenstone weight, and to bid mortal +defiance to faction heroes of all grades-but in vain. There was that in +him which told them that an encounter with Neal would strip them of +their laurels. Neal saw all this with a lofty indignation; he deplored +the degeneracy of the times, and thought it hard that the descendant of +such a fighting family should be doomed to pass through life peaceably, +whilst so many excellent rows and riots took place around him. It was a +calamity to see every man’s head broken but his own; a dismal thing to +observe his neighbours go about with their bones in bandages, yet his +untouched, and his friends beat black and blue, whilst his own cuticle +remained unscoloured.</p> + +<p>“Blur an’ agers!” exclaimed Neal one day, when half tipsy in the fair, +“am I never to get a bit o’ figtin’? Is there no cowardly spalpeen to +stand afore Neal Malone? Be this an’ be that, I’m blue-mowlded for want +of a batin’! I’m disgracin’ my relations by the life I’m ladin’! Will +none o’ ye fight me aither for love, money, or whisky, frind or inimy, +an’ bad luck to ye? I don’t care a traneen which, only out o’ pure +frindship, let us have a morsel o’ the rale kick-up, ’t any rate. Frind +or inimy, I say agin, if you regard me; sore <i>that</i> makes no differ, +only let us have the fight.”</p> + +<p>This excellent heroism was all wasted; Neal could not find a single +adversary. Except he divided himself like Hotspur, and went to buffets +one hand against the other, there was no chance of a fight; no person to +be found sufficiently magnanimous to encounter the tailor. On the +contrary, every one of his friends—or, in other words, every man in the +parish—was ready to support him. He was clapped on the back until his +bones were nearly dislocated in his body, and his hand shaken until his +arm lost its cunning at the needle for half a week afterward. This, to +be sure, was a bitter business, a state of being past endurance. Every +man was his friend—no man was his enemy. A desperate position for any +person to find himself in, but doubly calamitous to a martial tailor.</p> + +<p>Many a dolourous complaint did Neal make upon the misfortune of having +none to wish him ill; and what rendered this hardship doubly oppressive +was the unlucky fact that no exertions of his, however offensive, could +procure him a single foe. In vain did he insult, abuse, and malign all +his acquaintances. In vain did he father upon them all the rascality and +villainy he could think of; he lied against them with a force and +originality that would have made many a modern novelist blush for want +of invention—but all to no purpose. The world for once became +astonishingly Christian; it paid back all his efforts to excite its +resentment with the purest of charity; when Neal struck it on the one +cheek, it meekly turned unto him the other. It could scarcely be +expected that Neal would bear this. To have the whole world in +friendship with a man is beyond doubt an affliction. Not to have the +face of a single enemy to look upon would decidedly be considered a +deprivation of many agreeable sensations by most people as well as by +Neal Malone. Let who might sustain a loss or experience a calamity, it +was a matter of indifference to Neal. They were only his friends, and he +troubled neither his head nor his heart about them.</p> + +<p>Heaven help us! There is no man without his trials; and Neal, the reader +perceives, was not exempt from his. What did it avail him that he +carried a cudgel ready for all hostile contingencies, or knit his brows +and shook his kippeen at the fiercest of his fighting friends? The +moment he appeared they softened into downright cordiality. His presence +was the signal of peace; for, notwithstanding his unconquerable +propensity to warfare, he went abroad as the genius of unanimity, though +carrying in his bosom the redoubtable disposition of a warrior; just as +the sun, though the source of light himself, is said to be dark enough +at bottom.</p> + +<p>It could not be expected that Neal, with whatever fortitude he might +bear his other afflictions, could bear such tranquillity like a hero. To +say that he bore it as one would be basely to surrender his character; +for what hero ever bore a state of tranquillity with courage? It +affected his cutting out! It produced what Burton calls “a windie +melancholie,” which was nothing else than an accumulation of courage +that had no means of escaping, if courage can, without indignity, be +ever said to escape. He sat uneasy on his lap-board. Instead of cutting +out soberly, he flourished his scissors as if he were heading a faction; +he wasted much chalk by scoring his cloth in wrong places, and even +caught his hot goose without a holder. These symptoms alarmed his +friends, who persuaded him to go to a doctor. Neal went to satisfy them; +but he knew that no prescription could drive the courage out of him, +that he was too far gone in heroism to be made a coward of by apothecary +stuff. Nothing in the pharmacopoeia could physic him into a pacific +state. His disease was simply the want of an enemy, and an unaccountable +superabundance of friendship on the part of his acquaintances. How could +a doctor remedy this by a prescription? Impossible. The doctor, indeed, +recommended blood-letting; but to lose blood in a peaceable manner was +not only cowardly, but a bad cure for courage. Neal declined it: he +would lose no blood for any man until he could not help it; which was +giving the character of a hero at a single touch. <i>His</i> blood was not to +be thrown away in this manner; the only lancet ever applied to his +relations was the cudgel, and Neal scorned to abandon the principles of +his family.</p> + +<p>His friends, finding that he reserved his blood for more heroic purposes +than dastardly phlebotomy, knew not what to do with him. His perpetual +exclamation was, as we have already stated, “I’m blue-mowlded for want +of a batin’!” They did everything in their power to cheer him with the +hope of a drubbing; told him he lived in an excellent country for a man +afflicted with his malady; and promised, if it were at all possible, to +create him a private enemy or two, who, they hoped in heaven, might +trounce him to some purpose.</p> + +<p>This sustained him for a while; but as day after day passed and no +appearance of action presented itself, he could not choose but increase +in courage. His soul, like a sword-blade too long in the scabbard, was +beginning to get fuliginous by inactivity. He looked upon the point of +his own needle and the bright edge of his scissors with a bitter pang +when he thought of the spirit rusting within him; he meditated fresh +insults, studied new plans, and hunted out cunning devices for provoking +his acquaintances to battle, until by degrees he began to confound his +own brain and to commit more grievous oversights in his business than +ever. Sometimes he sent home to one person a coat with the legs of a +pair of trousers attached to it for sleeves, and despatched to another +the arms of the aforesaid coat tacked together as a pair of trousers. +Sometimes the coat was made to button behind instead of before; and he +frequently placed the pockets in the lower part of the skirts, as if he +had been in league with cutpurses.</p> + +<p>This was a melancholy situation, and his friends pitied him accordingly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be cast down, Neal,” said they; “your friends feel for you, poor +fellow.”</p> + +<p>“Divil carry my frinds,” replied Neal; “sure, there’s not one o’ yez +frindly enough to be my inimy. Tare an’ ouns! what’ll I do? I’m +blue-mowlded for want of a batin’!”</p> + +<p>Seeing that their consolation was thrown away upon him, they resolved to +leave him to his fate; which they had no sooner done then Neal had +thoughts of taking to the Skiomachia as a last remedy. In this mood he +looked with considerable antipathy at his own shadow for several nights; +and it is not to be questioned but that some hard battles would have +taken place between them had it not been for the cunning of the shadow, +which declined to fight him in any other position than with its back to +the wall. This occasioned him to pause, for the wall was a fearful +antagonist, inasmuch as it knew not when it was beaten; but there was +still an alternative left. He went to the garden one clear day about +noon, and hoped to have a bout with the shade free from interruption. +Both approached, apparently eager for the combat and resolved to conquer +or die, when a villainous cloud, happening to intercept the light, gave +the shadow an opportunity of disappearing, and Neal found himself once +more without an opponent.</p> + +<p>“It’s aisy known,” said Neal, “you haven’t the <i>blood</i> in you, or you’d +come to the scratch like a man.”</p> + +<p>He now saw that fate was against him, and that any further hostility +toward the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his health, +spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became pale and +peaceful-looking; the bluster departed from him; his body shrank up like +a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in his clothes, and +thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be necessarily spent +in pursuing his retreating person through the solitude of his almost +deserted garments.</p> + +<p>God knows it is difficult to form a correct opinion upon a situation so +parodoxical as Neal’s was. To be reduced to skin and bone by the +downright friendship of the world was, as the sagacious reader will +admit, next to a miracle. We appeal to the conscience of any man who +finds himself without an enemy whether he be not a greater skeleton than +the tailor; we will give him fifty guineas provided he can show a calf +to his leg. We know he could not; for the tailor had none, and that was +because he had not an enemy. No man in friendship with the world ever +has calves to his legs. To sum up all in a parodox of our own invention, +for which we claim the full credit of originality, we now assert that +more men have risen in the world by the injury of their enemies than +have risen by the kindness of their friends. You may take this, reader, +in any sense; apply it to hanging if you like; it is still immutably and +immovably true.</p> + +<p>One day Neal sat cross-legged, as tailors usually sit, in the act of +pressing a pair of breeches; his hands were placed, backs up, upon the +handle of his goose, and his chin rested upon the backs of his hands. To +judge from his sorrowful complexion, one would suppose that he sat +rather to be sketched as a picture of misery or of heroism in distress +than for the industrious purpose of pressing the seams of a garment. +There was a great deal of New Burlington Street pathos in his +countenance; his face, like the times, was rather out of joint; “the sun +was just setting, and his golden beams fell, with a saddened splendor, +athwart the tailor’s—” The reader may fill up the picture.</p> + +<p>In this position sat Neal when Mr. O’Connor, the schoolmaster, whose +inexpressibles he was turning for the third time, entered the workshop. +Mr. O’Connor himself was as finished a picture of misery as the tailor. +There was a patient, subdued kind of expression in his face which +indicated a very fair portion of calamity; his eye seemed charged with +affliction of the first water; on each side of his nose might be traced +two dry channels, which, no doubt, were full enough while the tropical +rains of his countenance lasted. Altogether, to conclude from +appearances, it was a dead match in affliction between him and the +tailor; both seemed sad, fleshless, and unthriving.</p> + +<p>“Misther O’Connor,” said the tailor, when the schoolmaster entered, +“won’t you be pleased to sit down?”</p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor sat; and, after wiping his forehead, laid his hat upon the +lap-board, put his half-handkerchief in his pocket, and looked upon the +tailor. The tailor, in return, looked upon Mr. O’Connor; but neither of +them spoke for some minutes. Neal, in fact, appeared to be wrapped up in +his own misery, and Mr. O’Connor in his; or, as we often have much +gratuitous sympathy for the distresses of our friends, we question but +the tailor was wrapped up in Mr. O’Connor’s misery, and Mr. O’Connor in +the tailor’s.</p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor at length said: “Neal, are my inexpressibles finished?”</p> + +<p>“I am now pressin’ your inexpressibles,” replied Neal; “but, be my sowl, +Mr. O’Connor, it’s not your inexpressibles I’m thinkin’ of. I’m not the +ninth part o’ what I was. I’d hardly make paddin’ for a collar now.”</p> + +<p>“Are you able to carry a staff still, Neal?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve a light hazel one that’s handy,” said the tailor, “but where’s the +use o’ carryin’ it whin I can get no one to fight wid? Sure, I’m +disgracin’ my relations by the life I’m ladin’. I’ll go to my grave +widout ever batin’ a man or bein’ bate myself; that’s the vexation. +Divil the row ever I was able to kick up in my life; so that I’m fairly +blue-mowlded for want of a batin’. But if you have patience—”</p> + +<p>“Patience!” said Mr. O’Connor, with a shake of the head that was +perfectly disastrous even to look at,—“patience, did you say, Neal?”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” said Neal, “an’ be my sowl, if you deny that I said patience I’ll +break your head!”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Neal,” returned the other, “I don’t deny it; for, though I’m +teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics every day in my life, +yet I’m learning patience myself both night and day. No, Neal; I have +forgotten to deny anything. I have not been guilty of a contradiction, +out of my own school, for the last fourteen years. I once expressed the +shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but ever since I have +abandoned even doubting. That doubt was the last expiring effort at +maintaining my domestic authority—but I suffered for it.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Neal, “if you have patience, I’ll tell you what afflicts me +from beginnin’ to endin’.”</p> + +<p>“I <i>will</i> have patience,” said Mr. O’Connor; and he accordingly heard a +dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.</p> + +<p>“You have told me that fifty times over,” said Mr. O’Connor, after +hearing the story. “Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life. If +you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current of +your existence to some purpose. <i>Marry a wife</i>. For twenty-five years I +have given instruction in three branches, namely, philosophy, knowledge, +and mathematics. I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that, +upon my misery and by the contents of all my afflictions, it is my +solemn and melancholy opinion that, if you marry a wife, you will, +before three months pass over your concatenated state, not have a single +complaint to make touching a superabundance of peace or tranquillity or +a love of fighting.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mane to say that any woman would make me afeard?” said the +tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel. “I’ll thank you +merely to go over the words agin, till I thrasy you widin an inch of +your life. That’s all”</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, meekly, “I won’t fight; I have been too +often subdued ever to presume on the hope of a single victory. My spirit +is long since evaporated; I am like one of your own shreds, a mere +selvage. Do you not know how much my habiliments have shrunk in even +within the last five years? Hear me, Neal, and venerate my words as if +they proceeded from the lips of a prophet. If you wish to taste the +luxury of being subdued—if you are, as you say, blue-moulded for want +of a beating, and sick at heart of a peaceful existence—why, marry a +wife. Neal, send my breeches home with all haste, for they are wanted, +you understand. Farewell.”</p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor, having thus expressed himself, departed; and Neal stood, +with the cudgel in his hand, looking at the door out of which he passed, +with an expression of fierceness, contempt, and reflection strongly +blended on the ruins of his once heroic visage.</p> + +<p>Many a man has happiness within his reach if he but knew it. The tailor +had been hitherto miserable because he pursued a wrong object. The +schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought upon which Neal now +fastened with all the ardour of a chivalrous temperament. Nay, be +wondered that the family spirit should have so completely seized upon +the fighting side of his heart as to preclude all thoughts of matrimony; +for he could not but remember that his relations were as ready for +marriage as for fighting. To doubt this would have been to throw a blot +upon his own escutcheon. He therefore very prudently asked himself to +whom, if he did not marry, should he transmit his courage. He was a +single man, and, dying as such, he would be the sole depository of his +own valor, which, like Junius’s secret, must perish with him. If he +could have left it as a legacy to such of his friends as were most +remarkable for cowardice, why, the case would be altered: but this was +impossible, and he had now no other means of preserving it to posterity +than by creating a posterity to inherit it. He saw, too, that the world +was likely to become convulsed. Wars, as everybody knew, were certain to +break out; and would it not be an excellent opportunity for being father +to a colonel, or perhaps a general, that might astonish the world?</p> + +<p>The change visible in Neal after the schoolmaster’s last visit +absolutely thunderstruck all who knew him. The clothes which he had +rashly taken in to fit his shrivelled limbs were once more let out. The +tailor expanded with a new spirit; his joints ceased to be supple, as in +the days of his valor; his eye became less fiery but more brilliant. +From being martial, he got desperately gallant; but, somehow, he could +not afford to act the hero and lover both at the same time. This, +perhaps, would be too much to expect from a tailor. His policy was +better. He resolved to bring all his available energy to bear upon the +charms of whatever fair nymph he should select for the honour of +matrimony; to waste his spirit in fighting would, therefore, be a +deduction from the single purpose in view.</p> + +<p>The transition from war to love is by no means so remarkable as we might +at first imagine. We quote Jack Falstaff in proof of this; or, if the +reader be disposed to reject our authority, then we quote Ancient Pistol +himself—both of whom we consider as the most finished specimens of +heroism that ever carried a safe skin. Acres would have been a hero had +he worn gloves to prevent the courage from oozing out at his palms, or +not felt such an unlucky antipathy to the “snug lying in the Abbey”; and +as for Captain Bobadil, he never had an opportunity of putting his plan +for vanquishing an army into practice. We fear, indeed, that neither his +character nor Ben Jonson’s knowledge of human nature is properly +understood; for it certainly could not be expected that a man whose +spirit glowed to encounter a whole host could, without tarnishing his +dignity, if closely pressed, condescend to fight an individual. But as +these remarks on courage may be felt by the reader as an invidious +introduction of a subject disagreeable to him, we beg to hush it for the +present and return to the tailor.</p> + +<p>No sooner had Neal begun to feel an inclination to matrimony than his +friends knew that his principles had veered by the change now visible in +his person and deportment. They saw he had ratted from courage and +joined love. Heretofore his life had been all winter, darkened by storm +and hurricane. The fiercer virtues had played the devil with him; every +word was thunder, every look lightning; but now all that had passed +away. Before he was the <i>fortiter in re</i>; at present he was the +<i>suaviter in modo</i>. His existence was perfect spring, beautifully +vernal. All the amiable and softer qualities began to bud about his +heart; a genial warmth was diffused over him; his soul got green within +him; every day was serene, and if a cloud happened to become visible, +there was a roguish rainbow astride of it, on which sat a beautiful Iris +that laughed down at him and seemed to say, “Why the dickens, Neal, +don’t you marry a wife?”</p> + +<p>Neal could not resist the afflatus which decended on him; an ethereal +light dwelled, he thought, upon the face of nature; the colour of the +cloth which he cut out from day to day was, to his enraptured eye, like +the colour of Cupid’s wings—all purple; his visions were worth their +weight in gold; his dreams a credit to the bed he slept on; and his +feelings, like blind puppies, young and alive to the milk of love and +kindness which they drew from his heart. Most of this delight escaped +the observation of the world, for Neal, like your true lover, became shy +and mysterious. It is difficult to say what he resembled; no dark +lantern ever had more light shut up within itself than Neal had in his +soul, although his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that +he had turned his back upon valor; but beyond this their knowledge did +not extend.</p> + +<p>Neal was shrewd enough to know that what he felt must be love; nothing +else could distend him with happiness until his soul felt light and +bladderlike but love. As an oyster opens when expecting the tide, so did +his soul expand at the contemplation of matrimony. Labour ceased to be a +trouble to him; he sang and sewed from morning till night; his hot goose +no longer burned him, for his heart was as hot as his goose; the +vibrations of his head, at each successive stitch, were no longer sad +and melancholy. There was a buoyant shake of exultation in them which +showed that his soul was placid and happy within him.</p> + +<p>Endless honour be to Neal Malone for the originality with which he +managed the tender sentiment! He did not, like your commonplace lovers, +first discover a pretty girl and afterward become enamoured of her. No +such thing; he had the passion prepared beforehand—cut out and made up, +as it were, ready for any girl whom it might fit. This was falling in +love in the abstract, and let no man condemn it without a trial, for +many a long-winded argument could be urged in its defence. It is always +wrong to commence business without capital, and Neal had a good stock to +begin with. All we beg is that the reader will not confound it with +Platonism, which never marries; but he is at full liberty to call it +Socratism, which takes unto itself a wife and suffers accordingly.</p> + +<p>Let no one suppose that Neal forgot the schoolmaster’s kindness, or +failed to be duly grateful for it. Mr. O’Connor was the first person +whom he consulted touching his passion. With a cheerful soul he waited +on that melancholy and gentleman-like man, and in the very luxury of his +heart told him that he was in love.</p> + +<p>“In love, Neal!” said the schoolmaster. “May I inquire with whom?”</p> + +<p>“Wid nobody in particular yet,” replied Neal; “but o’ late I’m got +divilish fond o’ the girls in general.”</p> + +<p>“And do you call that being in love, Neal?” said Mr. O’Connor.</p> + +<p>“Why, what else would I call it?” returned the tailor. “Am n’t I fond o’ +them?”</p> + +<p>“Then it must be what is termed the ‘universal passion,’ Neal,” observed +Mr. O’Connor, “although it is the first time I have seen such an +illustration of it as you present in your own person.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you would advise me how to act,” said Neal; “I’m as happy as a +prince since I began to get fond o’ them an’ to think o’ marriage.”</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster shook his head again, and looked rather miserable. Neal +rubbed his hands with glee, and looked perfectly happy. The schoolmaster +shook his head again, and looked more miserable than before. Neal’s +happiness also increased on the second rubbing.</p> + +<p>Now, to tell the secret at once, Mr. O’Connor would not have appeared so +miserable were it not for Neal’s happiness; nor Neal so happy were it +not for Mr. O’Connor’s misery. It was all the result of contrast; but +this you will not understand unless you be deeply read in modern novels.</p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor, however, was a man of sense, who knew, upon this +principle, that the longer he continued to shake his head the more +miserable he must become, and the more also would he increase Neal’s +happiness; but he had no intention of increasing Neal’s happiness at his +own expense—for, upon the same hypothesis, it would have been for +Neal’s interest had he remained shaking his head there and getting +miserable until the day of judgment. He consequently declined giving the +third shake, for he thought that plain conversation was, after all, more +significant and forcible than the most eloquent nod, however ably +translated.</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said he, “could you, by stretching your imagination, contrive to +rest contented with nursing your passion in solitude, and love the sex +at a distance?”</p> + +<p>“How could I nurse and mind my business?” replied the tailor. “I’ll +never nurse so long as I’ll have the wife; and as for ’magination, it +depends upon the grain o’it whether I can stretch it or not. I don’t +know that I ever made a coat o’it in my life.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t understand me, Neal,” said the schoolmaster. “In recommending +marriage, I was only driving one evil out of you by introducing another. +Do you think that, if you abandoned all thoughts of a wife, you would +get heroic again—that is, would you take once more to the love of +fighting?”</p> + +<p>“There is no doubt but I would,” said the tailor; “if I miss the wife, +I’ll kick up such a dust as never was seen in the parish, an’ you’re the +first man that I’ll lick. But now that I’m in love,” he continued, +“sure, I ought to look out for the wife.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “you are tempting destiny; your +temerity be, with all its melancholy consequences, upon your own head.”</p> + +<p>“Come,” said the tailor; “it wasn’t to hear you groaning to the tune o’ +‘Dhrimmindhoo,’ or ‘The old woman rockin’ her cradle,’ that I came; but +to know if you could help me in makin’ out the wife. That’s the +discoorse.”</p> + +<p>“Look at me, Neal,” said the schoolmaster, solemnly. “I am at this +moment, and have been any time for the last fifteen years, a living +<i>caveto</i> against matrimony. I do not think that earth possesses such a +luxury as a single solitary life. Neal, the monks of old were happy men; +they were all fat and had double chins; and, Neal, I tell you that all +fat men are in general happy. Care cannot come at them so readily as at +a thin man; before it gets through the strong outworks of flesh and +blood with which they are surrounded, it becomes treacherous to its +original purpose, joins the cheerful spirits it meets in the system, and +dances about the heart in all the madness of mirth; just like a sincere +ecclesiastic who comes to lecture a good fellow against drinking, but +who forgets his lecture over his cups, and is laid under the table with +such success that he either never comes to finish his lecture, or comes +often to be laid under the table. Look at me, Neal, how wasted, +fleshless, and miserable I am. You know how my garments have shrunk in, +and what a solid man I was before marriage. Neal, pause, I beseech you; +otherwise you stand a strong chance of becoming a nonentity like +myself.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care what I become,” said the tailor; “I can’t think that you’d +be so unreasonable as to expect that any o’ the Malones should pass out +o’ the world widout either bein’ bate or marrid. Have reason, Mr. +O’Connor, an’ if you can help me to the wife I promise to take in your +coat the next time for nothin’.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” said Mr. O’Connor, “what would you think of the butcher’s +daughter, Biddy Neil? You have always had a thirst for blood, and here +you may have it gratified in an innocent manner, should you ever become +sanguinary again. ’T is true, Neal, she is twice your size and possesses +three times your strength; but for that very reason, Neal, marry her if +you can. Large animals are placid; and Heaven preserve those bachelors +whom I wish well from a small wife; ’t is such who always wield the +sceptre of domestic life and rule their husbands with a rod of iron.”</p> + +<p>“Say no more, Mr. O’Connor,” replied the tailor; “she’s the very girl +I’m in love wid, an’ never fear but I’ll overcome her heart if it can be +done by man. Now, step over the way to my house, an’ we’ll have a sup on +the head o’ it. Who’s that calling?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Neal, I know the tones—there’s a shrillness in them not to be +mistaken. Farewell! I must depart; you have heard the proverb, ‘Those +who are bound must obey.’ Young Jack, I presume, is squalling, and I +must either nurse him, rock the cradle, or sing comic tunes for him, +though Heaven knows with what a disastrous heart I often sing, ‘Begone, +dull care,’ the ‘Rakes of Newcastle,’ or, ‘Peas upon a Trencher.’ Neal, +I say again, pause before you take this leap in the dark. Pause, Neal, I +entreat you. Farewell!”</p> + +<p>Neal, however, was gifted with the heart of an Irishman, and scorned +caution as the characteristic of a coward; he had, as it appeared, +abandoned all design of fighting, but the courage still adhered to him +even in making love. He consequently conducted the siege of Biddy Neil’s +heart with a degree of skill and valor which would not have come amiss +to Marshal Gerald at the siege of Antwerp. Locke or Dugald Stewart, +indeed, had they been cognisant of the tailor’s triumph, might have +illustrated the principle on which he succeeded; as to ourselves, we can +only conjecture it. Our own opinion is that they were both animated with +a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could +throw in a body-blow or plant a facer with singular energy and science. +Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the +limited range of domestic life; but should she ever find it necessary to +exercise it upon a larger scale, there was no doubt whatsoever, in the +opinion of her mother, brothers, and sisters, every one of whom she had +successively subdued, that she must undoubtedly distinguish herself. +There was certainly one difficulty which the tailor had <i>not</i> to +encounter in the progress of fats courtship: the field was his own, he +had not a rival to dispute his claim. Neither was there any opposition +given by her friends; they were, on the contrary, all anxious for the +match; and when the arrangements were concluded, Neal felt his hand +squeezed by them in succession, with an expression more resembling +condolence than joy. Neal, however, had been bred to tailoring, and not +to metaphysics; he could cut out a coat very well, but we do not say +that he could trace a principle—as what tailor, except Jeremy Taylor, +could?</p> + +<p>There was nothing particular in the wedding. Mr. O’Connor was asked by +Neal to be present at it; but he shook his head, and told him that he +had not courage to attend it or inclination to witness any man’s sorrows +but his own. He met the wedding-party by accident, and was heard to +exclaim with a sigh as they flaunted past him in gay exuberance of +spirits: “Ah, poor Neal! he is going like one of her father’s cattle to +the shambles! Woe is me for having suggested matrimony to the taylor! He +will not long be under the necessity of saying that he is ‘blue-moulded +for want of a beating.’ The butcheress will fell him like a Kerry ox, +and I may have his blood to answer for and his discomfiture to feel for +in addition to my own miseries.”</p> + +<p>On the evening of the wedding-day, about the hour of ten o’clock, Neal, +whose spirits were uncommonly exalted, for his heart luxuriated within +him, danced with his bridesmaid; after the dance he sat beside her, and +got eloquent in praise of her beauty; and it is said, too, that he +whispered to her and chucked her chin with considerable gallantry. The +<i>tête-à-tête</i> continued for some time without exciting particular +attention, with one exception; but <i>that</i> exception was worth a whole +chapter of general rules. Mrs. Malone rose up, then sat down again and +took off a glass of the native; she got up a second time; all the wife +rushed upon her heart. She approached them, and, in a fit of the most +exquisite sensibility, knocked the bridesmaid down, and gave the tailor +a kick of affecting pathos upon the inexpressibles. The whole scene was +a touching one on both sides. The tailor was sent on all-fours to the +floor, but Mrs. Malone took him quietly up, put him under her arm as one +would a lap-dog, and with stately step marched away to the connubial +apartment, in which everything remained very quiet for the rest of the +night.</p> + +<p>The next morning Mr. O’Connor presented himself to congratulate the +tailor on his happiness. Neal, as his friend, shook hands with him, gave +the schoolmaster’s fingers a slight squeeze, such as a man gives who +would gently entreat your sympathy. The schoolmaster looked at him, and +thought he shook his head. Of this, however, he could not be certain; +for, as he shook his own during the moment of observation, he concluded +that it might be a mere mistake of the eye, or, perhaps, the result of a +mind predisposed to be credulous on the subject of shaking heads.</p> + +<p>We wish it were in our power to draw a veil, or curtain, or blind of +some description, over the remnant of the tailor’s narrative that is to +follow; but as it is the duty of every faithful historian to give the +secret causes of appearances which the world in general does not +understand, so we think it but honest to go on, impartially and +faithfully, without shrinking from the responsibility that is frequently +annexed to truth.</p> + +<p>For the first three days after matrimony Neal felt like a man who had +been translated to a new and more lively state of existence. He had +expected, and flattered himself, that the moment this event should take +place he would once more resume his heroism, and experience the pleasure +of a drubbing. This determination he kept a profound secret; nor was it +known until a future period, when he disclosed it to Mr. O’Connor. He +intended, therefore, that marriage should be nothing more than a mere +parenthesis in his life—a kind of asterisk, pointing, in a note at the +bottom, to this single exception in his general conduct—a nota bene to +the spirit of a martial man, intimating that he had been peaceful only +for a while. In truth, he was, during the influence of love over him and +up to the very day of his marriage, secretly as blue-moulded as ever for +want of a beating. The heroic penchant lay snugly latent in his heart, +unchecked and unmodified. He flattered himself that he was achieving a +capital imposition upon the world at large, that he was actually hoaxing +mankind in general, and that such an excellent piece of knavish +tranquillity had never been perpetrated before his time.</p> + +<p>On the first week after his marriage there chanced to be a fair in the +next market-town. Neal, after breakfast, brought forward a bunch of +shillalahs, in order to select the best; the wife inquired the purpose +of the selection, and Neal declared that he was resolved to have a fight +that day if it were to be had, he said, for “love or money.” “The truth +is,” he exclaimed, strutting with fortitude about the house, “the truth +is, that I’ve <i>done</i> the whole of yez—I’m as blue-mowlded as ever for +want of a batin’.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t go,” said the wife.</p> + +<p>“I <i>will</i> go,” said Neal, with vehemence; “I’ll go if the whole parish +was to go to prevint me.”</p> + +<p>In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business instead +of going to the fair!</p> + +<p>Much ingenious speculation might be indulged in upon this abrupt +termination to the tailor’s most formidable resolution; but, for our own +part, we will prefer going on with the narrative, leaving the reader at +liberty to solve the mystery as he pleases. In the meantime we say this +much; let those who cannot make it out carry it to their tailor; it is a +tailor’s mystery, and no one has so good a right to understand +it—except, perhaps, a tailor’s wife.</p> + +<p>At the period of his matrimony Neal had become as plump and as stout as +he ever was known to be in his plumpest and stoutest days. He and the +schoolmaster had been very intimate about this time; but we know not how +it happened that soon afterward he felt a modest, bride-like reluctance +in meeting with that afflicted gentleman. As the eve of his union +approached, he was in the habit, during the schoolmaster’s visits to his +workshop, of alluding, in rather a sarcastic tone, considering the +unthriving appearance of his friend, to the increasing lustiness of his +person. Nay, he has often leaped up from his lap-board, and, in the +strong spirit of exultation, thrust out his leg in attestation of his +assertion, slapping it, moreover, with a loud laugh of triumph that +sounded like a knell to the happiness of his emaciated acquaintance. The +schoolmaster’s philosophy, however, unlike his flesh, never departed +from him; his usual observation was, “Neal, we are both receding from +the same point; you increase in flesh, whilst I, Heaven help me, am fast +diminishing.”</p> + +<p>The tailor received these remarks with very boisterous mirth, whilst Mr. +O’Connor simply shook his head and looked sadly upon his limbs, now +shrouded in a superfluity of garments, somewhat resembling a slender +thread of water in a shallow summer stream nearly wasted away and +surrounded by an unproportionate extent of channel.</p> + +<p>The fourth month after the marriage arrived, Neal, one day near its +close, began to dress himself in his best apparel. Even then, when +buttoning his waistcoat, he shook his head after the manner of Mr. +O’Connor, and made observations upon the great extent to which it +over-folded him.</p> + +<p>“Well,” thought he with a sigh, “this waistcoat certainly <i>did</i> fit me +to a T; but it’s wonderful to think how—cloth stretches!”</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said the wife, on perceiving him dressed, “where are you bound +for?”</p> + +<p>“Faith, <i>for life</i>” replied Neal, with a mitigated swagger; “and I’d as +soon, if it had been the will of Provid—”</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” asked the wife a second time.</p> + +<p>“Why,” he answered, “only to dance at Jemmy Connolly’s; I’ll be back +early.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t go,” said the wife.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go,” said Neal, “if the whole counthry was to prevint me. Thunder +an’ lightnin’, woman, who am I?” he exclaimed, in a loud, but rather +infirm voice. “Am n’t I Neal Malone, that never met a <i>man</i> who’d fight +him? Neal Malone, that was never beat by <i>man</i>! Why, tare an’ ouns, +woman! Whoo! I’ll get enraged some time, an’ play the divil! Who’s +afeard, I say?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Don’t go</i>,” added the wife a third time, giving Neal a significant +look in the face.</p> + +<p>In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business instead +of going to the dance!</p> + +<p>Neal now turned himself, like many a sage in similar circumstances, to +philosophy; that is to say, he began to shake his head upon principle, +after the manner of the schoolmaster. He would, indeed, have preferred +the bottle upon principle; but there was no getting at the bottle except +through the wife, and it so happened that by the time it reached him +there was little consolation left in it. Neal bore all in silence; for +silence, his friend had often told him, was a proof of wisdom.</p> + +<p>Soon after this, Neal one evening met Mr. O’Connor by chance upon a +plank which crossed a river. This plank was only a foot in breadth, so +that no two individuals could pass each other upon it. We cannot find +words in which to express the dismay of both on finding that they +absolutely glided past each other without collision.</p> + +<p>Both paused and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment was +all on the side of Mr. O’Connor.</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “by all the household gods, I conjure you +to speak, that I may be assured you live!”</p> + +<p>The ghost of a blush crossed the churchyard visage of the tailor.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” he exclaimed, “why the divil did you tempt me to marry a wife?”</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said his friend, “answer me in the most solemn manner possible; +throw into your countenance all the gravity you can assume; speak as if +you were under the hands of the hangman, with the rope about your neck, +for the question is indeed a trying one which I am about to put. Are you +still ‘blue-moulded for want of a beating’?”</p> + +<p>The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out—the +very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend, but, alas, how +dwindled! He opened his waistcoat and lapped it round him until he +looked like a weasel on its hind legs. He then raised himself up on his +tiptoes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, “No!!! the divil a bit I’m +blue-mowlded for want of a batin’!”</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster shook his head in his own miserable manner; but, alas! +he soon perceived that the tailor was as great an adept at shaking the +head as himself. Nay, he saw that there was a calamitous refinement, a +delicacy of shake in the tailor’s vibrations, which gave to his own nod +a very commonplace character.</p> + +<p>The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time +continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person. The +schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and +sympathised together. Mr. O’Connor, however, bore up somewhat better +than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit, thoroughly, +completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by +misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the +calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer +strutted as he was wont to do, he no longer carried a cudgel as if he +wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married +man. Sneakingly, and with a cowardly crawl, did he creep along, as if +every step brought him nearer to the gallows. The schoolmaster’s march +of misery was far slower than Neal’s, the latter distanced him. Before +three years passed he had shrunk up so much that he could not walk +abroad of a windy day without carrying weights in his pockets to keep +him firm on the earth which he once trod with the step of a giant. He +again sought the schoolmaster, with whom, indeed, he associated as much +as possible. Here he felt certain of receiving sympathy; nor was he +disappointed. That worthy but miserable man and Neal often retired +beyond the hearing of their respective wives, and supported each other +by every argument in their power. Often have they been heard in the dusk +of evening singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty, “Let us +<i>both</i> be unhappy together,” which rose upon the twilight breeze with a +cautious quaver of sorrow truly heartrending and lugubrious.</p> + +<p>“Neal,” said Mr. O’Connor on one of those occasions, “here is a book +which I recommend to your perusal; it is called ‘The Afflicted Man’s +Companion’; try if you cannot glean some consolation out of it.”</p> + +<p>“Faith,” said Neal, “I’m forever oblaged to you, but I don’t want it. +I’ve had ‘The Afflicted Man’s Companion’ too long, and not an atom o’ +consolation I can get out of it. I have <i>one</i> o’ them, I tell you; but, +be my sowl, I’ll not undertake <i>a pair</i> o’ them. The very name’s enough +for me.” They then separated.</p> + +<p>The tailor’s vis vitae must have been powerful or he would have died. In +two years more his friends could not distinguish him from his own +shadow, a circumstance which was of great inconvenience to him. Several +grasped at the hand of the shadow instead of his; and one man was near +paying it five and sixpence for making a pair of small-clothes. Neal, it +is true, undeceived him with some trouble, but candidly admitted that he +was not able to carry home the money. It was difficult, indeed, for the +poor tailor to bear what he felt; it is true he bore it as long as he +could; but at length he became suicidal, and often had thoughts of +“making his own quietus with his bare bodkin.” After many deliberations +and afflictions, he ultimately made the attempt; but, alas! he found +that the blood of the Malones refused to flow upon so ignominious an +occasion. So <i>he</i> solved the phenomenon; although the truth was that his +blood was not “i’ the vein” for it; none was to be had. What then was to +be done? He resolved to get rid of life by some process, and the next +that occurred to him was hanging. In a solemn spirit he prepared a +selvage, and suspended himself from the rafter of his workshop. But here +another disappointment awaited him, he would not hang. Such was his want +of gravity that his own weight proved insufficient to occasion his death +by mere suspension. His third attempt was at drowning; but he was too +light to sink; all the elements, all his own energies, joined +themselves, he thought, in a wicked conspiracy to save his life. Having +thus tried every avenue to destruction, and failed in all, he felt like +a man doomed to live forever. Henceforward he shrank and shrivelled by +slow degrees, until in the course of time he became so attenuated that +the grossness of human vision could no longer reach him.</p> + +<p>This, however, could not last always. Though still alive, he was to all +intents and purposes imperceptible. He could only now be heard; he was +reduced to a mere essence; the very echo of human existence, vox +etpraeterea nihil. It is true the schoolmaster asserted that he +occasionally caught passing glimpses of him; but that was because he had +been himself nearly spiritualised by affliction, and his visual ray +purged in the furnace of domestic tribulation. By-and-by Neal’s voice +lessened, got fainter and more indistinct, until at length nothing but a +doubtful murmur could be heard, which ultimately could scarcely be +distinguished from a ringing in the ears.</p> + +<p>Such was the awful and mysterious fate of the tailor, who, as a hero, +could not, of course, die; he merely dissolved like an icicle, wasted +into immateriality, and finally melted away beyond the perception of +mortal sense. Mr. O’Connor is still living, and once more in the fulness +of perfect health and strength. His wife, however, we may as well hint, +has been dead more than two years.</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_BANSHEE" id="THE_BANSHEE"></a>THE BANSHEE<br /><br /> +(ANONYMOUS)</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>F all the superstitions prevalent amongst the natives of Ireland at any +period, past or present, there is none so grand or fanciful, none which +has been so universally assented to or so cordially cherished, as the +belief in the existence of the banshee. There are very few, however +remotely acquainted with Irish life or Irish history, but must have +heard or read of the Irish banshee; still, as there are different +stories and different opinions afloat respecting this strange being, I +think a little explanation concerning her appearance, functions, and +habits will not be unacceptable to my readers.</p> + +<p>The banshee, then, is said to be an immaterial and immortal being, +attached, time out of mind, to various respectable and ancient families +in Ireland, and is said always to appear to announce, by cries and +lamentations, the death of any member of that family to which she +belongs. She always comes at night, a short time previous to the death +of the fated one, and takes her stand outside, convenient to the house, +and there utters the most plaintive cries and lamentations, generally in +some unknown language, and in a tone of voice resembling a human female. +She continues her visits night after night, unless vexed or annoyed, +until the mourned object dies, and sometimes she is said to continue +about the house for several nights after. Sometimes she is said to +appear in the shape of a most beautiful young damsel, and dressed in the +most elegant and fantastic garments; but her general appearance is in +the likeness of a very old woman, of small stature and bending and +decrepit form, enveloped in a winding-sheet or grave-dress, and her +long, white, hoary hair waving over her shoulders and descending to her +feet. At other times she is dressed in the costume of the middle +ages—the different articles of her clothing being of the richest +material and of a sable hue. She is very shy and easily irritated, and, +when once annoyed or vexed, she flies away, and never returns during the +same generation. When the death of the person whom she mourns is +contingent, or to occur by unforeseen accident, she is particularly +agitated and troubled in her appearance, and unusually loud and mournful +in her lamentations. Some would fain have it that this strange being is +actuated by a feeling quite inimical to the interests of the family +which she haunts, and that she comes with joy and triumph to announce +their misfortunes. This opinion, however, is rejected by most people, +who imagine her their most devoted friend, and that she was, at some +remote period, a member of the family, and once existed on the earth in +life and loveliness. It is not every Irish family can claim the honour +of an attendant banshee; they must be respectably descended, and of +ancient line, to have any just pretensions to a warning spirit. However, +she does not appear to be influenced by the difference of creed or +clime, provided there be no other impediment, as several Protestant +families of Norman and Anglo-Saxon origin boast of their own banshee; +and to this hour several noble and distinguished families in the country +feel proud of the surveillance of that mysterious being. Neither is she +influenced by the circumstances of rank or fortune, as she is oftener +found frequenting the cabin of the peasant than the baronial mansion of +the lord of thousands. Even the humble family to which the writer of +this tale belongs has long claimed the honourable appendage of a +banshee; and it may, perhaps, excite an additional interest in my +readers when I inform them that my present story is associated with her +last visit to that family.</p> + +<p>Some years ago there dwelt in the vicinity of Mountrath, in the Queen’s +County, a farmer, whose name for obvious reasons we shall not at present +disclose. He never was married, and his only domestics were a +servant-boy and an old woman, a housekeeper, who had long been a +follower or dependent of the family. He was born and educated in the +Roman Catholic Church, but on arriving at manhood, for reasons best +known to himself, he abjured the tenets of that creed and conformed to +the doctrines of Protestantism. However, in after years he seemed to +waver, and refused going to church, and by his manner of living seemed +to favour the dogmas of infidelity or atheism. He was rather dark and +reserved in his manner, and oftentimes sullen and gloomy in his temper; +and this, joined with his well-known disregard of religion, served to +render him somewhat unpopular amongst his neighbours and acquaintances. +However, he was in general respected, and was never insulted or annoyed. +He was considered as an honest, inoffensive man, and as he was well +supplied with firearms and ammunition,—in the use of which he was well +practised, having, in his early days, served several years in a yeomanry +corps,—few liked to disturb him, even had they been so disposed. He was +well educated, and decidedly hostile to every species of superstition, +and was constantly jeering his old housekeeper, who was extremely +superstitious, and pretended to be entirely conversant with every matter +connected with witchcraft and the fairy world. He seldom darkened a +neighbour’s door, and scarcely ever asked any one to enter his, but +generally spent his leisure hours in reading, of which he was extremely +fond, or in furbishing his firearms, to which he was still more +attached, or in listening to and laughing at the wild and blood-curdling +stories of old Moya, with which her memory abounded. Thus he spent his +time until the period at which our tale commences, when he was about +fifty years of age, and old Moya, the housekeeper, had become extremely +feeble, stooped, and of very ugly and forbidding exterior. One morning +in the month of November, A.D. 1818, this man arose before daylight, and +on coming out of the apartment where he slept he was surprised at +finding old Moya in the kitchen, sitting over the raked-up fire, and +smoking her tobacco-pipe in a very serious and meditative mood.</p> + +<p>“Arrah, Moya,” said he, “what brings you out of your bed so early?”</p> + +<p>“Och musha, I dunna,” replied the old woman; “I was so uneasy all night +that I could not sleep a wink, and I got up to smoke a blast, thinkin’ +that it might drive away the weight that’s on my heart.”</p> + +<p>“And what ails you, Moya? Are you sick, or what came over you?”</p> + +<p>“No, the Lord be praised! I am not sick, but my heart is sore, and +there’s a load on my spirits that would kill a hundred.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you were dreaming, or something that way,” said the man, in a +bantering tone, and suspecting, from the old woman’s grave manner, that +she was labouring under some mental delusion.</p> + +<p>“Dreaming!” reechoed Moya, with a bitter sneer; “ay, dreaming. Och, I +wish to God I was <i>only dreaming</i>; but I am very much afraid it is worse +than that, and that there is trouble and misfortune hanging over uz.”</p> + +<p>“And what makes you think so, Moya?” asked he, with a half-suppressed +smile.</p> + +<p>Moya, aware of his well-known hostility to every species of +superstition, remained silent, biting her lips and shaking her gray head +prophetically.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you answer me, Moya?” again asked the man.</p> + +<p>“Och,” said Moya, “I am heart-scalded to have it to tell you, and I know +you will laugh at me; but, say what you will, there is something bad +over uz, for the banshee was about the house all night, and she has me +almost frightened out of my wits with her shouting and bawling.”</p> + +<p>The man was aware of the banshee’s having been long supposed to haunt +his family, but often scouted that supposition; yet, as it was some +years since he had last heard of her visiting the place, he was not +prepared for the freezing announcement of old Moya. He turned as pale as +a corpse, and trembled excessively; at last, recollecting himself, he +said, with a forced smile:</p> + +<p>“And how do you know it was the banshee, Moya?”</p> + +<p>“How do I know?” reiterated Moya, tauntingly. “Didn’t I see and hear her +several times during the night? and more than that, didn’t I hear the +dead-coach rattling round the house, and through the yard, every night +at midnight this week back, as if it would tear the house out of the +foundation?”</p> + +<p>The man smiled faintly; he was frightened, yet was ashamed to appear so. +He again said:</p> + +<p>“And did you ever see the banshee before, Moya?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Moya, “often. Didn’t I see her when your mother died? +Didn’t I see her when your brother was drowned? and sure, there wasn’t +one of the family that went these sixty years that I did not both see +and hear her.”</p> + +<p>“And where did you see her, and what way did she look to-night?”</p> + +<p>“I saw her at the little window over my bed; a kind of reddish light +shone round the house; I looked up, and there I saw her old, pale face +and glassy eyes looking in, and she rocking herself to and fro, and +clapping her little, withered hands, and crying as if her very heart +would break.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Moya, it’s all imagination; go, now, and prepare my breakfast, as +I want to go to Maryborough to-day, and I must be home early.”</p> + +<p>Moya trembled; she looked at him imploringly and said: “For Heaven’s +sake, John, don’t go to-day; stay till some other day, and God bless +you; for if you go to-day I would give my oath there will something +cross you that’s bad.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, woman!” said he; “make haste and get me my breakfast.”</p> + +<p>Moya, with tears in her eyes, set about getting the breakfast ready; and +whilst she was so employed John was engaged in making preparations for +his journey.</p> + +<p>Having now completed his other arrangements, he sat down to breakfast, +and, having concluded it, he arose to depart.</p> + +<p>Moya ran to the door, crying loudly; she flung herself on her knees, and +said: “John, John, be advised. Don’t go to-day; take my advice; I know +more of the world than you do, and I see plainly that if you go you will +never enter this door again with your life.”</p> + +<p>Ashamed to be influenced by the drivellings of an old cullough, he +pushed her away with his hand, and, going out to the stable, mounted his +horse and departed. Moya followed him with her eyes whilst in sight; and +when she could no longer see him, she sat down at the fire and wept +bitterly.</p> + +<p>It was a bitter cold day, and the farmer, having finished his business +in town, feeling himself chilly, went into a public-house to have a +tumbler of punch and feed his horse; there he met an old friend, who +would not part with him until he would have another glass with him and a +little conversation, as it was many years since they had met before. One +glass brought another, and it was almost duskish ere John thought of +returning, and, having nearly ten miles to travel, it would be dark +night before he could get home. Still his friend would not permit him to +go, but called for more liquor, and it was far advanced in the night +before they parted. John, however, had a good horse, and, having had him +well fed, he did not spare whip or spur, but dashed along at a rapid +pace through the gloom and silence of the winter’s night, and had +already distanced the town upward of five miles, when, on arriving at a +very desolate part of the road, a gunshot, fired from behind the bushes, +put an end to his mortal existence. Two strange men, who had been at the +same public-house in Maryborough drinking, observing that he had money +and learning the road that he was to travel, conspired to rob and murder +him, and waylaid him in this lonely spot for that horrid purpose.</p> + +<p>Poor Moya did not go to bed that night, but sat at the fire, every +moment impatiently expecting his return. Often did she listen at the +door to try if she could hear the tramp of the horse’s footsteps +approaching. But in vain; no sound met her ear except the sad wail of +the night wind, moaning fitfully through the tall bushes which +surrounded the ancient dwelling, or the sullen roar of a little dark +river, which wound its way through the lowlands at a small distance from +where she stood. Tired with watching, at length she fell asleep on the +hearth-stone; but that sleep was disturbed and broken, and frightful and +appalling dreams incessantly haunted her imagination.</p> + +<p>At length the darksome morning appeared struggling through the wintry +clouds, and Moya again opened the door to look out. But what was her +dismay when she found the horse standing at the stable door without his +rider, and the saddle all besmeared with clotted blood. She raised the +death-cry; the neighbours thronged round, and it was at once declared +that the hapless man was robbed and murdered. A party on horseback +immediately set forward to seek him, and on arriving at the fatal spot +he was found stretched on his back in the ditch, his head perforated +with shot and slugs, and his body literally immersed in a pool of blood. +On examining him it was found that his money was gone, and a valuable +gold watch and appendages abstracted from his pocket. His remains were +conveyed home, and, after having been waked the customary time, were +committed to the grave of his ancestors in the little green churchyard +of the village.</p> + +<p>Having no legitimate children, the nearest heir to his property was a +brother, a cabinet-maker, who resided in London. A letter was +accordingly despatched to the brother announcing the sad catastrophe, +and calling on him to come and take possession of the property; and two +men were appointed to guard the place until he should arrive.</p> + +<p>The two men delegated to act as guardians, or, as they are technically +termed, “keepers,” were old friends and comrades of the deceased, and +had served with him in the same yeomanry corps. Jack O’Malley was a +Roman Catholic—a square, stout-built, and handsome fellow, with a +pleasant word for every one, and full of that gaiety, vivacity, and +nonchalance for which the Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland are so +particularly distinguished. He was now about forty-five years of age, +sternly attached to the dogmas of his religion, and always remarkable +for his revolutionary and anti-British principles. He was brave as a +lion, and never quailed before a man; but, though caring so little for a +<i>living</i> man, he was extremely afraid of a <i>dead</i> one, and would go ten +miles out of his road at night to avoid passing a “rath,” or “haunted +bush.” Harry Taylor, on the other hand, was a staunch Protestant; a +tall, genteel-looking man, of proud and imperious aspect, and full of +reserve and hauteur—the natural consequence of a consciousness of +political and religious ascendency and superiority of intelligence and +education, which so conspicuously marked the demeanour of the Protestant +peasantry of those days. Harry, too, loved his glass as well as Jack, +but was of a more peaceful disposition, and as he was well educated and +intelligent, he was utterly opposed to superstition, and laughed to +scorn the mere idea of ghosts, goblins, and fairies. Thus Jack and Harry +were diametrically opposed to each other in every point except their +love of the cruiskeen, yet they never failed to seize every opportunity +of being together; and, although they often blackened each other’s eyes +in their political and religious disputes, yet their quarrels were +always amicably settled, and they never found themselves happy but in +each other’s society.</p> + +<p>It was now the sixth or seventh night that Jack and Harry, as usual, +kept their lonely watch in the kitchen of the murdered man. A large turf +fire blazed brightly on the hearth, and on a bed of straw in the ample +chimney-corner was stretched old Moya in a profound sleep. On the +hearthstone, between the two friends, stood a small oak table, on which +was placed a large decanter of whisky, a jug of boiled water, and a bowl +of sugar; and, as if to add an idea of security to that of comfort, on +one end of the table were placed in saltier a formidable-looking +blunderbuss and a brace of large brass pistols. Jack and his comrade +perpetually renewed their acquaintance with the whisky-bottle, and +laughed and chatted and recounted the adventures of their young days +with as much hilarity as if the house which now witnessed their mirth +never echoed to the cry of death or blood. In the course of conversation +Jack mentioned the incident of the strange appearance of the banshee, +and expressed a hope that she would not come that night to disturb their +carouse.</p> + +<p>“Banshee the devil!” shouted Harry; “how superstitious you papists are! +I would like to see the phiz of any man, dead or alive, who dare make +his appearance here to-night.” And, seizing the blunderbuss, and looking +wickedly at Jack, he vociferated, “By Hercules, I would drive the +contents of this through their sowls who dare annoy us.”</p> + +<p>“Better for you to shoot your mother than fire at the banshee, anyhow,” +remarked Jack.</p> + +<p>“Psha!” said Harry, looking contemptuously at his companion. “I would +think no more of riddling the old jade’s hide than I would of throwing +off this tumbler;” and, to suit the action to the word, he drained off +another bumper of whisky-punch.</p> + +<p>“Jack,” says Harry, “now that we are in such prime humour, will you give +us a song?”</p> + +<p>“With all the veins of my heart,” says Jack. “What will it be?”</p> + +<p>“Anything you please; your will must be my pleasure,” answered Harry.</p> + +<p>Jack, after coughing and clearing his pipes, chanted forth, in a bold +and musical voice, a rude rigmarole called “The Royal Blackbird,” which, +although of no intrinsic merit, yet, as it expressed sentiments hostile +to British connection and British government and favourable to the house +of Stewart, was very popular amongst the Catholic peasantry of Ireland, +whilst, on the contrary, it was looked upon by the Protestants as highly +offensive and disloyal. Harry, however, wished his companion too well to +oppose the song, and he quietly awaited its conclusion.</p> + +<p>“Bravo, Jack,” said Harry, as soon as the song was ended; “that you may +never lose your wind.”</p> + +<p>“In the king’s name now I board you for another song,” says Jack.</p> + +<p>Harry, without hesitation, recognised his friend’s right to demand a +return, and he instantly trolled forth, in a deep, sweet, and sonorous +voice, the following:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">SONG.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Ho, boys, I have a song divine!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Come, let us now in concert join,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And toast the bonny banks of Boyne—<br /></span> +<span class="i3"> +The Boyne of ‘Glorious Memory.’<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“On Boyne’s famed banks our fathers bled;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Boyne’s surges with their blood ran red;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And from the Boyne our foemen fled—<br /></span> +<span class="i3"> +Intolerance, chains, and slavery.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Dark superstition’s blood-stained sons<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Pressed on, but ‘crack’ went William’s guns,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And soon the gloomy monster runs—<br /></span> +<span class="i3"> +Fell, hydra-headed bigotry.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Then fill your glasses high and fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Let shouts of triumph rend the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whilst Georgy fills the regal chair<br /></span> +<span class="i3">We’ll never bow to Popery.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Jack, whose countenance had, from the commencement of the song, +indicated his aversion to the sentiments it expressed, now lost all +patience at hearing his darling “Popery” impugned, and, seizing one of +the pistols which lay on the table and whirling it over his comrade’s +head, swore vehemently that he would “fracture his skull if he did not +instantly drop that blackguard Orange lampoon.”</p> + +<p>“Aisy, avhic,” said Harry, quietly pushing away the upraised arm; “I did +not oppose your bit of treason awhile ago, and besides, the latter end +of my song is more calculated to please you than to irritate your +feelings.”</p> + +<p>Jack seemed pacified, and Harry continued his strain.</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And fill a bumper to the brim—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A flowing one—and drink to him<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who, let the world go sink or swim,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Would arm for Britain’s liberty.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“No matter what may be his hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or black, or white, or green, or blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or Papist, Paynim, or Hindoo,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">We’ll drink to him right cordially.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Jack was so pleased with the friendly turn which the latter part of +Harry’s song took that he joyfully stretched out his hand, and even +joined in chorus to the concluding stanza.</p> + +<p>The fire had now decayed on the hearth, the whisky-bottle was almost +emptied, and the two sentinels, getting drowsy, put out the candle and +laid down their heads to slumber. The song and the laugh and the jest +were now hushed, and no sound was to be heard but the incessant “click, +click,” of the clock in the inner room and the deep, heavy breathing of +old Moya in the chimney-corner.</p> + +<p>They had slept they knew not how long when the old hag awakened with a +wild shriek. She jumped out of bed, and crouched between the men; they +started up, and asked her what had happened.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she exclaimed; “the banshee, the banshee! Lord have mercy on us! +she is come again, and I never heard her so wild and outrageous before.”</p> + +<p>Jack O’Malley readily believed old Moya’s tale; so did Harry, but he +thought it might be some one who was committing some depredation on the +premises. They both listened attentively, but could hear nothing; they +opened the kitchen door, but all was still; they looked abroad; it was a +fine, calm night, and myriads of twinkling stars were burning in the +deep-blue heavens. They proceeded around the yard and hay-yard; but all +was calm and lonely, and no sound saluted their ears but the shrill +barking of some neighbouring cur, or the sluggish murmuring of the +little tortuous river in the distance. Satisfied that “all was right,” +they again went in, replenished the expiring fire, and sat down to +finish whatever still remained in the whisky-bottle.</p> + +<p>They had not sat many minutes when a wild, unearthly cry was heard +without.</p> + +<p>“The banshee again,” said Moya, faintly. Jack O’Malley’s soul sank +within him; Harry started up and seized the blunderbuss; Jack caught his +arm. “No, no, Harry, you shall not; sit down; there’s no fear—nothing +will happen us.”</p> + +<p>Harry sat down, but still gripped the blunderbuss, and Jack lit his +tobacco-pipe, whilst the old woman was on her knees, striking her +breast, and repeating her prayers with great vehemence.</p> + +<p>The sad cry was again heard, louder and fiercer than before. It now +seemed to proceed from the window, and again it appeared as if issuing +from the door. At times it would seem as if coming from afar, whilst +again it would appear as if coming down the chimney or springing from +the ground beneath their feet. Sometimes the cry resembled the low, +plaintive wail of a female in distress, and in a moment it was raised to +a prolonged yell, loud and furious, and as if coming from a thousand +throats; now the sound resembled a low, melancholy chant, and then was +quickly changed to a loud, broken, demoniac laugh. It continued thus, +with little intermission, for about a quarter of an hour, when it died +away, and was succeeded by a heavy, creaking sound, as if of some large +waggon, amidst which the loud tramp of horses’ footsteps might be +distinguished, accompanied with a strong, rushing wind. This strange +noise proceeded round and round the house two or three times, then went +down the lane which led to the road, and was heard no more. Jack +O’Malley stood aghast, and Harry Taylor, with all his philosophy and +scepticism, was astonished and frightened.</p> + +<p>“A dreadful night this, Moya,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said she, “that is the dead-coach; I often heard it before, and +have sometimes seen it.”</p> + +<p>“Seen, did you say?” said Harry; “pray describe it.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” replied the old crone, “it’s like any other coach, but twice as +big, and hung over with black cloth, and a black coffin on the top of +it, and drawn by headless black horses.”</p> + +<p>“Heaven protect us!” ejaculated Jack.</p> + +<p>“It is very strange,” remarked Harry.</p> + +<p>“But,” continued Moya, “it always comes before the death of a person, +and I wonder what brought it now, unless it came with the banshee.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe it’s coming for you,” said Harry, with an arch yet subdued smile.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” she said; “I am none of that family at all at all.”</p> + +<p>A solemn silence now ensued for a few minutes, and they thought all was +vanished, when again the dreadful cry struck heavily on their ears.</p> + +<p>“Open the door, Jack,” said Harry, “and put out Hector.”</p> + +<p>Hector was a large and very ferocious mastiff belonging to Jack +O’Malley, and always accompanied him wherever he went.</p> + +<p>Jack opened the door and attempted to put out the dog, but the poor +animal refused to go, and, as his master attempted to force him, howled +in a loud and mournful tone.</p> + +<p>“You must go,” said Harry, and he caught him in his arms and flung him +over the half-door. The poor dog was scarcely on the ground when he was +whirled aloft into the air by some invisible power, and he fell again to +earth lifeless, and the pavement was besmeared with his entrails and +blood.</p> + +<p>Harry now lost all patience, and again seizing his blunderbuss, he +exclaimed: “Come, Jack, my boy, take your pistols and follow me; I have +but one life to lose, and I will venture it to have a crack at this +infernal demon.”</p> + +<p>“I will follow you to death’s doors,” said Jack; “but I would not fire +at the banshee for a million of worlds.”</p> + +<p>Moya seized Harry by the skirts. “Don’t go out,” she cried; “let her +alone while she lets you alone, for an hour’s luck never shone on any +one that ever molested the banshee.”</p> + +<p>“Psha, woman!” said Harry, and he pushed away poor Moya contemptuously.</p> + +<p>The two men now sallied forth; the wild cry still continued, and it +seemed to issue from amongst some stacks in the hay-yard behind the +house. They went round and paused; again they heard the cry, and Harry +elevated his blunderbuss.</p> + +<p>“Don’t fire,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>Harry replied not; he looked scornfully at Jack, then put his finger on +the trigger, and—bang—away it exploded with a thundering sound. An +extraordinary scream was now heard, ten times louder and more terrific +than they heard before. Their hair stood erect on their heads, and huge, +round drops of sweat ran down their faces in quick succession. A glare +of reddish-blue fight shone around the stacks; the rumbling of the +dead-coach was again heard coming; it drove up to the house, drawn by +six headless sable horses, and the figure of a withered old hag, +encircled with blue flame, was seen running nimbly across the hay-yard. +She entered the ominous carriage, and it drove away with a horrible +sound. It swept through the tall bushes which surrounded the house; and +as it disappeared the old hag cast a thrilling scowl at the two men, and +waved her fleshless arms at them vengefully. It was soon lost to sight; +but the unearthly creaking of the wheels, the tramping of the horses, +and the appalling cries of the banshee continued to assail their ears +for a considerable time after all had vanished.</p> + +<p>The brave fellows now returned to the house; they again made fast the +door, and reloaded their arms. Nothing, however, came to disturb them +that night, nor from that time forward; and the arrival of the dead +man’s brother from London, in a few days after, relieved them from their +irksome task.</p> + +<p>Old Moya did not live long after; she declined from that remarkable +night, and her remains were decently interred in the churchyard +adjoining the last earthly tenement of the loved family to which she had +been so long and so faithfully attached.</p> + +<p>The insulted banshee has never since returned; and although several +members of that family have since closed their mortal career, still the +warning cry was never given; and it is supposed that the injured spirit +will never visit her ancient haunts until every one of the existing +generation shall have “slept with their fathers.”</p> + +<p>Jack O’Malley and his friend Harry lived some years after. Their +friendship still continued undiminished; like “Tam O’Shanter” and +“Souter Johnny,” they still continued to love each other like “a very +brither”; and like that jovial pair, also, our two comrades were often +“fou for weeks thegither,” and often over their cruiskeen would they +laugh at their strange adventure with the banshee. It is now, however, +all over with them too; their race is run, and they are now “tenants of +the tomb.”</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: IRELAND ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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