Stories by English Authors: Ireland
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Various >> Stories by English Authors: Ireland
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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.
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.
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 DONE the whole of yez--I'm
as blue-mowlded as ever for want of a batin'."
"Don't go," said the wife.
"I WILL go," said Neal, with vehemence; "I 'll go if the whole
parish was to go to prevint me."
In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business
instead of going to the fair!
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.
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."
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.
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.
"Well," thought he with a sigh, "this waistcoat certainly DID fit
me to a T; but it's wonderful to think how--cloth stretches!"
"Neal," said the wife, on perceiving him dressed, "where are you
bound for?"
"Faith, FOR LIFE" replied Neal, with a mitigated swagger; "and I'd
as soon, if it had been the will of Provid--"
He paused.
"Where are you going?" asked the wife a second time.
"Why," he answered, "only to dance at Jemmy Connolly's; I 'll be
back early."
"Don't go," said the wife.
"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
MAN who'd fight him? Neal Malone, that was never beat by MAN! Why,
tare an' ouns, woman! Whoo! I'll get enraged some time, an' play
the divil! Who's afeard, I say?"
"DON'T GO," added the wife a third time, giving Neal a significant
look in the face.
In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business
instead of going to the dance!
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.
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.
Both paused and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment
was all on the side of Mr. O'Connor.
"Neal," said the schoolmaster, "by all the household gods, I conjure
you to speak, that I may be assured you live!"
The ghost of a blush crossed the churchyard visage of the tailor.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "why the divil did you tempt me to marry a
wife?"
"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'?"
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'!"
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.
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 BOTH be unhappy together," which rose upon the
twilight breeze with a cautious quaver of sorrow truly heartrending
and lugubrious.
"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."
"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 ONE o' them, I tell
you; but, be my sowl, I'll not undertake A PAIR o' them. The very
name's enough for me." They then separated.
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 HE 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.
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.
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.
THE BANSHEE
(ANONYMOUS)
Of 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.
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.
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.
"Arrah, Moya," said he, "what brings you out of your bed so early?"
"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."
"And what ails you, Moya? Are you sick, or what came over you?"
"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."
"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.
"Dreaming!" reechoed Moya, with a bitter sneer; "ay, dreaming.
Och, I wish to God I was ONLY DREAMING; but I am very much afraid
it is worse than that, and that there is trouble and misfortune
hanging over uz."
"And what makes you think so, Moya?" asked he, with a half-suppressed
smile.
Moya, aware of his well-known hostility to every species of
superstition, remained silent, biting her lips and shaking her gray
head prophetically.
"Why don't you answer me, Moya?" again asked the man.
"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."
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:
"And how do you know it was the banshee, Moya?"
"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?"
The man smiled faintly; he was frightened, yet was ashamed to appear
so. He again said:
"And did you ever see the banshee before, Moya?"
"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."
"And where did you see her, and what way did she look to-night?"
"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."
"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."
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."
"Nonsense, woman!" said he; "make haste and get me my breakfast."
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.
Having now completed his other arrangements, he sat down to breakfast,
and, having concluded it, he arose to depart.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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