The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim
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Title: The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim
Author: William Carleton
Illustrator: M. L. Flanery
Release date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16013]
Most recently updated: December 9, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16013
Credits: Produced by David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STATION; THE PARTY FIGHT AND FUNERAL; THE LOUGH DERG PILGRIM ***
Produced by David Widger
THE WORKS OF WILLIAM CARLETON
VOLUME III.
TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY
PART II.
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Titlepage]
CONTENTS:
The Station.
The Party Fight And Funeral.
The Lough Derg Pilgrim.
THE STATION.
Our readers are to suppose the Reverend Philemy M'Guirk, parish priest
of Tir-neer, to be standing upon the altar of the chapel, facing the
congregation, after having gone through the canon of the Mass; and
having nothing more of the service to perform, than the usual prayers
with which he closes the ceremony.
“Take notice, that the Stations for the following week will be held as
follows:--
“_On Monday, in Jack Gallagher's of Corraghnamoddagh_. Are you there,
Jack?”
“To the fore, yer Reverence.”
“Why, then, Jack, there's something ominous--something auspicious--to
happen, or we wouldn't have you here; for it's very seldom that you
make part or parcel of this _present_ congregation; seldom are you here,
Jack, it must be confessed: however, you know the old classical proverb,
or if you don't, I do, which will just answer as well--_Non semper ridet
Apollo_--it's not every day _Manus_ kills a bullock; so, as you are
here, be prepared for us on Monday.”
“Never fear, yer Reverence, never fear; I think you ought to know that
the grazin' at Corraghnamoddagh's not bad.”
“To do you justice, Jack, the mutton was always good with you, only
if you would get it better killed it would be an improvement. Get Tom
McCusker to kill it, and then it'll have the right smack.”
“Very well, yer Rev'rence, I'll do it.”
“_On Tuesday, in Peter Murtagh's of the Crooked Commons_. Are you there,
Peter?”
“Here, yer Reverence.”
“Indeed, Peter, I might know you are here; and I wish that a great many
of my flock would take example by you: if they did, I wouldn't be so
far behind in getting in my _dues_. Well, Peter, I suppose you know that
this is Michaelmas?” *
* Michaelmas is here jocularly alluded to as that period
of the year when geese are fattest.
“So fat, yer Reverence, that they're not able to wag; but, any way,
Katty has them marked for you--two fine young crathurs, only this year's
fowl, and the ducks isn't a taste behind them--she crammin' them this
month past.”
“I believe you, Peter, and I would take your word for more than the
condition of the geese. Remember me to Katty, Peter.”
“_On Wednesday, in Parrah More Slevin's of Mullaghfadh_. Are you there,
Parrah More?”--No answer. “Parrah More Sle-vin?”--Silence. “Parrah More
Slevin, of Mullaghfadh?”--No reply. “Dan Fagan?”
“Present, sir.”
“Do you know what keeps that reprobate from mass?”
“I bleeve he's takin' advantage, sir, of the frost, to get in his
praties to-day, in respect of the bad footin', sir, for the horses in
the bog when there's not a frost. Any how, betune that and a bit of a
sore head that he got, yer Reverence, on Thursday last in takin' part
wid the O'Scallaghans agin the Bradys, I bleeve he had to stay away
to-day.”
“On the Sabbath day, too, without my leave! Well, tell him from me, that
I'll make an example of him to the whole parish, if he doesn't attend
mass better. Will the Bradys and the O'Scallaghans never be done with
their quarrelling? I protest, if they don't live like Christians, I'll
read them out from the altar. Will you tell Parrah More that I'll hold a
station in his house on next Wednesday?”
“I will, sir; I will, yer Reverence.”
“_On Thursday, in Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy's of the Esker_. Are you
there, Phaddhy?”'
“Wid the help of God, I'm here, sir.”
“Well, Phaddhy, how is yer son Briney, that's at the Latin? I hope he's
coming on well at it.”
“Why, sir, he's not more nor a year and a half at it yet, and he's got
more books amost nor he can carry; he'll break me buying books for him.”
“Well, that's a good sign, Phaddhy; but why don't you bring him to me
till I examine him?”
“Why, never a one of me can get him to come, sir, he's so much afeard of
yer Reverence.”
“Well, Phaddhy, we were once modest and bashful ourselves, and I'm glad
to hear that he's afraid of his clargy; but let him be prepared for
me on Thursday, and maybe I'll let him know something he never heard
before; I'll open his eyes for him.”
“Do you hear that, Briney?” said the father, aside to the son, who knelt
at his knee; “you must give up yer hurling and idling now, you see.
Thank yer Reverence; thank you, docthor.”
“_On Friday, in Barny O'Darby's, alias Barny Butters_. Are you there,
Barny?”
“All that's left of me is here, sir.”
“Well, Barny, how is the butter trade this season?”
“It's a little on the rise, now, sir: in a, month or so I'm expecting it
will be brisk enough. Boney, sir, is doing that much for us anyway.”
“Ay, and, Barny, he'll do more than that for us: God prosper him at all
events; I only hope the time's coming, Barny, when every one will be
able to eat his own butter, and his own beef, too.”
“God send it, sir.”
“Well, Barny, I didn't hear from your brother Ned these two or three
months; what has become of him?”
“Ah, yer Reverence, Pentland done him up.”
“What! the gauger?”
“He did, the thief; but maybe he'll sup sorrow for it, afore he's much
oulder.”
“And who do you think informed, Barny?”
“Oh, I only wish we knew that, sir.”
“I wish I knew it, and if I thought any miscreant here would become an
informer, I'd make an example of him. Well, Barny, on Friday next: but I
suppose Ned has a drop still--eh, Barny?”
“Why, sir, we'll be apt to have something stronger nor wather, anyhow.”
“Very well, Barny; your family was always a dacent and spirited family,
I'll say that for them; but, tell me, Barny, did you begin to dam the
river yet? * I think the trouts and eels are running by this time.”
* It is usual among the peasantry to form, about
Michaelmas, small artificial cascades, called dams,
under which they place long, deep, wicker creels,
shaped like inverted cones, for the purpose of securing
the fish that are now on their return to the large
rivers, after having deposited their spawn in the
higher and remoter streams. It is surprising what a
number of fish, particularly of eels, are caught in
this manner--sometimes from one barrel to three in the
course of a single night!
“The creels are made, yer Reverence, though we did not set them yet; but
on Tuesday night, sir, wid the help o' God, we'll be ready.”
“You can corn the trouts, Barny, and the eels too; but should you catch
nothing, go to Pat Hartigan, Captain Sloethorn's gamekeeper, and, if you
tell him it's for me, he'll drag you a batch out of the fish-pond.”
“Ah! then, you're Reverence, it's himself that'll do that wid a heart
an' a half.”
Such was the conversation which took place between the Reverend Philemy
M'Guirk, and those of his parishioners in whose houses he had appointed
to hold a series of Stations, for the week ensuing the Sunday laid in
this our account of that hitherto undescribed portion of the Romish
discipline.
Now, the reader is to understand, that a station in this sense differs
from a station made to any peculiar spot remarkable for local sanctity.
There, a station means the performance of a pilgrimage to a certain
place, under peculiar circumstances, and the going through a stated
number of prayers and other penitential ceremonies, for the purpose of
wiping out sin in this life, or of relieving the soul of some relation
from the pains of purgatory in the other; here, it simply means
the coming of the parish priest and his curate to some house in the
town-land, on a day publicly announced from the altar for that purpose,
on the preceding Sabbath.
This is done to give those who live within the district in which the
station is held an opportunity of coming to their duty, as frequenting
the ordinance of confession is emphatically called. Those who attend
confession in this manner once a year, are considered merely to have
done their duty; it is expected, however, that they should approach the
tribunal,* as it is termed, at least twice during that period, that is,
at the two great festivals of Christmas and Easter. The observance or
omission of this rite among Roman Catholics, establishes, in a great
degeee, the nature of individual character. The man who,frequents his
duty will seldom be pronounced a bad man, let his conduct and principles
be what they may in other respects; and he who neglects it, is looked
upon, by those who attend it, as in a state little short of reprobation.
* That is, of confession--so going to confession is
termed by the priests.
When the “giving out” of the stations was over, and a few more jests
were broken by his Reverence, to which the congregation paid the tribute
of a general and uproarious laugh, he turned round, and resumed the
performance of the mass, whilst his “flock” began to finger their beads
with faces as grave as if nothing of the kind had occurred. When mass
was finished, and the holy water sprinkled upon the people, out of a
tub carried by the mass-server through the chapel for that purpose, the
priest gave them a Latin benediction, and they dispersed.
Now, of the five individuals in whose houses the “stations” were
appointed to be held, we will select _Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy_ for
our purpose; and this we do, because it was the first time in which a
station was ever kept in his house, and consequently Phaddhy and his
wife had to undergo the initiatory ceremony of entertaining Father
_Philemy_ and his curate, the Reverend _Con M'Coul_, at dinner.
_Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy_ had been, until a short time before the period
in question, a very poor man; but a little previous to that event, a
brother of his, who had no children, died very rich--that is, for a
farmer--and left him his property, or, at least, the greater part of it.
While Phaddhy was poor, it was surprising what little notice he excited
from his Reverence; in fact, I have heard him acknowledge, that during
all the days of his poverty, he never got a nod of recognition or
kindness from Father Philemy, although he sometimes did, he said, from
Father Con, his curate, who honored him on two occasions so far as to
challenge him to a bout at throwing the shoulder-stone, and once to
a leaping match, at both of which exercises Father Con, but for the
superior power of Phaddhy, had been unrivalled.
“It was an unlucky day to him,” says Phaddy, “that he went to challenge
me, at all at all; for I was the only man that ever bate him, and he
wasn't able to hould up his head in the parish for many a day afther.”
As soon, however, as Phaddhy became a man of substance, one would almost
think that there had been a secret relationship between his good
fortune and Father Philemy's memory; for, on their first meeting, after
Phaddhy's getting the property, the latter shook him most cordially by
the hand--a proof that, had not his recollection been as much improved
as Phaddhy's circumstances, he could by no means have remembered him;
but this is a failing in the memory of many, as well as in that of
Father Philemy. Phaddhy, however, _was no Donnell_, to use his own
expression, and saw as far into a deal board as another man.
“And so, Phaddy,” said the priest, “how are all your family?--six you
have, I think?”
“Four, your Rev'rence, only four,” said Phaddy, winking at Tim Dillon,
his neighbor, who happened to be present--“three boys an' one girl.”
“Bless my soul, and so it is indeed, Phaddy, and I ought to know it; an
how is your wife Sarah?--I mean, I hope Mrs. Sheemus Phaddhy is well: by
the by, is that old complaint of hers gone yet?--a pain in the stomach,
I think it was, that used to trouble her; I hope in God, Phaddhy,
she's getting over it, poor thing. Indeed, I remember telling her, last
Easter, when she came to her duty, to eat oaten bread and butter
with water-grass every morning fasting, it cured myself of the same
complaint.”
“Why, thin, I'm very much obliged to your Rev'rence for purscribin' for
her,” replied Phaddhy; “for, sure enough, she has neither pain nor ache,
at the present time, for the best rason in the world, docthor, that
she'll be dead jist seven years, if God spares your Rev'rence an' myself
till to-morrow fortnight, about five o'clock in the mornin'.”
This was more than Father Philemy could stand with a good conscience, so
after getting himself out of the dilemma as well as he could, he shook
Phaddhy again very cordially by the hand, saying, “Well, good-bye,
Phaddliy, and God be good to poor Sarah's soul--I now remember her
funeral, sure enough, and a dacent one it was, for indeed she was a
woman that had everybody's good word--and, between you and me, she made
a happy death, that's as far as we can judge here; for, after all, there
may be danger, Phaddy, there may be danger, you understand--however,
it's your own business, and your duty, too, to think of that; but I
believe you're not the man that would be apt to forget her.”
“Phaddhy, ye thief o' the world,” said Jim Dillon, when Father Philemy
was gone, there's no comin' up to ye; how could you make sich a fool of
his Rev'rence, as to tell im that Katty was dead, and that you had
only four childher, an' you has eleven o' them, an' the wife in good
health?”
“Why, jist, Tim,” replied Phaddhy, with his usual shrewdness, “to tache
his Reverence himself to practise truth a little; if he didn't know
that I got the stockin' of guineas and the Linaskey farm by my brother
Barney's death, do ye think that he'd notish me at all at all?--not
himself, avick; an' maybe he won't be afther comin' round to me for a
sack of my best oats,* instead of the bushel I used to give him, and
houldin' a couple of stations wid me every year.”
* The priest accompanied by a couple of servants each
with a horse and sack, collects from such of his
parishioners as can afford it, a quantity of oats,
varying with the circumstances of the donor. This
collection--called _Questing_--is voluntary on the part
of his parishioners who may refuse it it they wish;
very few are found however, hardy enough to risk the
obloquy of declining to contribute, and the consequence
is that the custom operates with as much force as if it
were legal and compulsory.
“But won't he go mad when he hears you tould him nothing but lies?”
“Not now, Tim,” answered Phaddhy--“not now; thank God,--I'm not a poor
man, an' he'll keep his temper. I'll warrant you the horsewhip won't be
up now, although, afore this, I wouldn't say but it might--though the
poorest day I ever was, 'id's myself that wouldn't let priest or friar
lay a horsewhip to my back, an' that you know, Tim.”
Phaddhy's sagacity, however, was correct; for, a short time after this
conversation, Father Philemy, when collecting his oats, gave him a call,
laughed heartily at the sham account of Katty's death, examined young
Briney in his Latin, who was called after his uncle, pronounced him very
cute, and likely to become a great scholar--promised his interest with
the bishop to get him into Maynooth, and left the family, after having
shaken hands with, and stroked down the heads of all the children.
When Phaddhy, on the Sunday in question, heard the public notice given
of the Station about to be held in his house, notwithstanding his
correct knowledge of Father Philemy's character, on which he looked with
a competent portion of contempt, he felt a warmth of pride about
his heart, that arose from the honor of having a station, and of
entertaining the clergy, in their official capacity, under his own
roof, and at his own expense--that gave him, he thought, a personal
consequence, which even the “stockin' of guineas” and the Linaskey farm
were unable, of themselves, to confer upon him. He did enjoy, 'tis
true, a very fair portion of happiness on succeeding to his brother's
property; but this would be a triumph over the envious and ill-natured
remarks which several of his neighbors and distant relations had taken
the liberty of indulging in against him, on the occasion of his good
fortune. He left the chapel, therefore, in good spirits, whilst Briney,
on the contrary, hung a lip of more melancholy pendency than usual, in
dread apprehension of the examination that he expected to be inflicted
on him by his Reverence at the station.
Before I introduce the conversation which took place between Phaddhy
and Briney, as they went home, on the subject of this literary ordeal, I
must observe, that there is a custom, hereditary in some Irish families,
of calling fathers by their Christian names, instead of by the usual
appellation of “father.” This usage was observed, not only by Phaddhy
and his son, but by all the Phaddys of that family, generally. Their
surname was Doran, but in consequence of the great numbers in that part
of the country who bore the same name, it was necessary as of old, to
distinguish the several branches of it by the Christian names of their
fathers and grandfathers, and sometimes this distinction went as far
back as the great-grandfather. For instance--Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy,
meant Phaddhy, the son of Sheemus, the son of Phaddhy; and his son,
Briney, was called, Brian Phaddy Sheemus Phaddy, or, _anglice_, Bernard
the son of Patrick, the son of James, the son of Patrick. But the custom
of children calling fathers, in a viva voce manner, by their Christian
names, was independent of the other more general usage of the
patronymic.
“Well, Briney,” said Phaddy, as the father and son returned home, cheek
by jowl from the chapel, “I suppose Father Philemy will go very deep in
the Latin wid ye on Thursday; do ye think ye'll be able to answer him?”
“Why, Phaddhy,” replied Briney, “how could I be able to answer a
clargy?--doesn't he know all the languages, and I'm only in the _Fibulae
AEsiopii_ yet.”
“Is that Latin or Greek, Briney?”
“It's Latin, Phaddhy.”
“And what's the translation of that?”
“It signifies the Fables of AEsiopius.”
“Bliss my sowl! and Briney, did ye consther that out of yer own head?”
“Hogh! that's little of it. If ye war to hear me consther _Gallus
Gallinaceus_, a dunghill cock?”
“And, Briney, are ye in Greek at all yet?”
“No, Phaddhy, I'll not be in Greek till I'm in Virgil and Horace, and
thin I'll be near finished.”
“And how long will it be till that, Briney?”
“Why, Phaddhy, you know I'm only a year and a half at the Latin, and in
two years more I'll be in the Greek.”
“Do ye think will ye ever be as larned as! Father Philemy, Briney?”
“Don't ye, know whin I'm a clargy I will but I'm only a _lignum
sacerdotis_ yet, Phaddhy.”
“What's _ligdum saucerdoatis_, Briney?”
“A block of a priest, Phaddhy.”
“Now, Briney, I suppose Father Philemy knows everything.”
“Ay, to be sure he does; all the languages' that's spoken through the
world, Phaddhy.”
“And must all the priests know them, Briney?--how many are they?”
“Seven--sartainly, every priest must know them, or how could they lay
the divil, if he'd, spake to them in a tongue they couldn't understand,
Phaddhy?”
“Ah, I declare, Briney, I see it now; only for that, poor Father Philip,
the heavens be his bed, wouldn't be able to lay ould Warnock, that
haunted Squire Sloethorn's stables.”
“Is that when the two horses was stole, Phaddhy?”
“The very time, Briney; but God be thanked, Father Philip settled him to
the day of judgment.”
“And where did he put him, Phaddhy?”
“Why, he wanted to be put anundher the hearth-stone; but Father Philip
made him walk away with himself into a thumb-bottle, and tied a stone
to it, and then sent him to where he got a cooling, the thief, at the
bottom of the lough behind the house.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking I'll be apt to do, Phaddhy, when
I'm a clargy.”
“And what is that, Briney?”
“Why, I'll--but, Phaddhy,don't be talking of this, bekase, if it should
come to be known, I might get my brains knocked out by some of the
heretics.”
“Never fear, Briney, there's no danger of that--but what is it?”
“Why, I'll translate all the Protestants into asses, and then we'll get
our hands red of them altogether.”
“Well, that flogs for cuteness, and it's a wondher the clargy* doesn't
do it, and them has the power; for 'twould give us pace entirely. But,
Briney, will you speak in Latin to Father Philemy on Thursday?”
* I have no hesitation in asserting that the bulk of the uneducated
peasantry really believe that the priests have this power.
“To tell you the thruth, Phaddhy, I would rather he wouldn't examine me
this bout, at all at all.”
“Ay, but you know we couldn't go agin him, Briney, bekase he promised
to get you into the college. Will you speak some Latin, now till I hear
you?”
“Hem!--_Verbum personaley cohairit cum nomnatibo numbera at persona at
numquam sera yeast at bonis moras voia_.”
“Bless my heart!--and, Briney, where's that taken from?”
“From Syntax, Phaddhy.”
“And who was Syntax--do you know, Briney?”
“He was a Roman, Phaddhy, bekase there's a Latin prayer in the beginning
of the book.”
“Ay, was he--a priest, I'll warrant him. Well, Briney, do you mind yer
Latin, and get on wid yer larnin', and when you grow up you'll have
a pair of boots, and a horse of your own (and a good broadcloth black
coat, too) to ride on, every bit as good as Father Philemy's, and may be
betther nor Father Con's.”
From this point, which usually wound up these colloquies between the
father and son, the conversation generally diverged into the more
spacious fields of science; so that by the time they reached home,
Briney had probably given the father a learned dissertation upon the
elevation of the clouds above the earth, and told him within how
many thousand miles they approached it, at their nearest point of
approximation.
“Katty,” said Phaddhy, when he got home, “we're to have a station
here on Thursday next: 'twas given out from the altar to-day by Father
Philemy.”
“Oh, wurrah, wurrah!” exclaimed Katty, overwhelmed at the consciousness
of her own incapacity to get up a dinner in sufficient style for such
guests--“wurrah, wurrah! Phaddhy, ahagur, what on the livin' earth will
we do at all at all! Why, we'll never be able to manage it.”
“Arrah, why, woman; what do they want but their skinful to eat and
dhrink, and I'm sure we're able to allow them that, any way?”
“Arrah, bad manners to me, but you're enough to vex a saint--'their
skinful to eat and dhrink!'--you common crathur you, to speak that way
of the clargy, as if it was ourselves or the laborers you war spaking
of.”
“Ay, and aren't we every bit as good as they are, if you go to
that?--haven't we sowls to be saved as well as themselves?”
“'As good as they are!'--as good as the clargy!! _Manum a yea agus a
wurrah!_*--listen to what he says! Phaddhy, take care of yourself,
you've got rich, now; but for all that, take care of yourself. You had
betther not bring the priest's ill-will, or his bad heart upon us. You
know they never thruv that had it; and maybe it's a short time your
riches might stay wid you, or maybe it's a short time you might stay wid
them: at any rate, God forgive you, and I hope he will, for making use
of sich unsanctified words to your lawful clargy.”
* My soul to God and the Virgin.
“Well, but what do you intind to do?---or, what do you think of getting
for them?” inquired Phaddy.
“Indeed, it's very little matther what I get for them, or what I'll do
either--sorrow one of myself cares almost: for a man in his senses, that
ought to know better, to make use of such low language about the blessed
and holy crathurs, that hasn't a stain of sin about them, no more than
the child unborn!”
“So you think.”
“So I think! aye, and it would be betther for you that you thought
so, too; but ye don't know what's before ye yet, Phaddhy--and now take
warnin' in time, and mend your life.”
“Why what do you see wrong in my life? Am I a drunkard? am I lazy? did
ever I neglect my business? was I ever bad to you or to the childher?
didn't I always give yez yer fill to ate, and kept yez as well clad as
yer neighbors that was richer? Don't I go to my knees, too, every night
and morning?”
“That's true enough, but what signifies it all? When did ye cross
a priest's foot to go to your duty? Not for the last five years,
Phaddhy--not since poor Torly (God be good to him) died of the mazles,
and that'll be five years, a fortnight before Christmas.”
“And what are you the betther of all yer confessions? Did they ever mend
yer temper, avourneen? no, indeed, Katty, but you're ten times worse
tempered coming back from the priest than before you go to him.”
“Oh! Phaddhy! Phaddhy! God look down upon you this day, or any man
that's in yer hardened state--I see there's no use in spaking to you,
for you'll still be the ould cut.”
“Ay, will I; so you may as well give up talking about it Arrah, woman!”
said. Phaddhy, raising his voice, “who does it ever make betther--show
me a man now in all the neighborhood, that's a pin-point the holier of
it? Isn't there Jemmy Shields, that goes to _his duty_ wanst a month,
malivogues his wife and family this minute, and then claps them to a
Rosary the next; but the ould boy's a thrifle to him of a fast day,
afther coming from the priest. Betune ourselves, Katty, you're not much
behind him.”
Katty made no reply to him, but turned up her eyes, and crossed herself,
at the wickedness of her unmanageable husband. “Well, Briney,” said she,
turning abruptly to the son, “don't take patthern by that man, if you
expect to do any good; let him be a warning to you to mind yer duty, and
respect yer clargy--and prepare yerself, now that I think of it, to go
to Father Philemy or Father Con on Thursday: but don't be said or led by
that man, for I'm sure I dunna how he intends to face the Man above
when he laves this world--and to keep from his duty, and to spake of his
clargy as he does!”
There are few men without their weak sides. Phaddhy, although the
priests were never very much his favorites, was determined to give
what he himself called a _let-out_ on this occasion, simply to show his
ill-natured neighbors that, notwithstanding their unfriendly remarks,
he knew “what it was to be dacent,” as well as his betters; and Katty
seconded him in his resolution, from her profound veneration for the
clargy. Every preparation was accordingly entered into, and every plan
adopted that could possibly be twisted into a capability of contributing
to the entertainment of Fathers Philemy and Con.
One of those large, round, stercoraceous nosegays that, like many other
wholesome plants, make up by odor what is wanting in floral beauty, and
which lay rather too contagious as Phaddhy expressed it, to the door of
his house, was transplanted by about half a dozen laborers, and as many
barrows, in the course of a day or two, to a bed some yards distant from
the spot of its first growth; because, without any reference whatever to
the nasal sense, it was considered that it might be rather an
eye-sore to their Reverences, on approaching the door. Several concave
inequalities, which constant attrition had worn in the earthen floor of
the kitchen, were filled up with blue clay, brought on a cart from
the bank of a neighboring river, for the purpose. The dresser, chairs,
tables, I pots, and pans, all underwent a rigor of discipline, as if
some remarkable event was about to occur; nothing less, it must be
supposed than a complete, domestic revolution, and a new state of
things. Phaddhy himself cut two or three large furze bushes, and,
sticking them on the end of a pitchfork, attempted to sweep down the
chimney. For this purpose he mounted on the back of a chair, that he
might be able to reach the top with more ease; but, in order that his
footing might be firm, he made one of the servant-men sit upon the
chair, to keep it steady during the operation. Unfortunately, however,
it so happened that this man was needed to assist in removing a
meal-chest to another part of the house; this was under Katty's
superintendence, who, seeing the fellow sit rather more at his ease than
she thought the hurry and importance of the occasion permitted, called
him, with a little of her usual sharpness and energy, to assist in
removing the chest. For some reason or other, which it is not necessary
to mention here, the fellow bounced from his seat, in obedience to the
shrill tones of Katty, and the next moment Phaddhy (who was in a state
of abstraction in the chimney, and totally unconscious of what was going
forward below) made a descent decidedly contrary to the nature of
that which most aspirants would be inclined to relish. A severe stun,
however, was the most serious injury he received on his own part, and
several round oaths, with a good drubbing, fell to the servant; but
unluckily he left the furze bush behind him in the highest and narrowest
part of the chimney; and were it not that an active fellow succeeded
in dragging it up from the outside of the roof, the chimney ran
considerable risk, as Katy said, of being choked.
But along with the lustration which every fixture within the house was
obliged to undergo, it was necessary that all the youngsters should get
new clothes; and for this purpose, Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, with his two
journeymen and three apprentices, were sent for in all haste, that he
might fit Phaddhy and each of his six sons, in suits, from a piece of
home-made frieze, which Katty did not intend to break up till “towards
Christmas.”
A station is no common event, and accordingly the web was cut up, and
the tailor left a wedding-suit, half-made, belonging to Edy Dolan, a
thin old bachelor, who took it into his head to try his hand at becoming
a husband ere he'd die. As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door
was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit
upon, and a new drugget quilt was spread beside it, for his journeymen
and apprentices. With nimble fingers they plied the needle and thread,
and when night came, a turf was got, into which was stuck a piece of
rod, pointed at one end and split at the other; the “the white candle,”
slipped into a shaving of the fringe that was placed in the cleft end
of the stick, was then lit, whilst many a pleasant story, told by Jemmy,
who had been once in Dublin for six weeks, delighted the circle of
lookers-on that sat around them.
At length the day previous to the important one arrived. Hitherto, all
hands had contributed to make every thing in and about the house look
“dacent”--scouring, washing, sweeping, pairing, and repairing, had
been all disposed of. The boys got their hair cut to the quick with the
tailor's scissors; and such of the girls as were not full grown, not
only that which grew on the upper part of the head taken off, by a cut
somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that they looked extremely
wild and unsettled with their straight locks projecting over their ears;
every thing, therefore, of the less important arrangements had been gone
through--the weighty and momentous concern was as yet unsettled.
This was the feast; and alas! never was the want of experience more
strongly felt than here. Katty was a bad cook, even to a proverb; and
bore so indifferent a character in the country for cleanliness, that
very few would undertake to eat her butter. Indeed, she was called Katty
Sallagh (* Dirty Katy) on this account: however, this prejudice, whether
ill or weil founded, was wearing fast away, since Phaddhy had succeeded
to the stocking of guineas, and the Lisnaskey farm. It might be, indeed,
that her former poverty helped her neighbors to see this blemish more
clearly: but the world is so seldom in the habit of judging people's
qualities or failings through this uncharitable medium, that the
supposition is rather doubtful. Be this as it may, the arrangements for
the breakfast and dinner must be made. There was plenty of bacon, and
abundance of cabbages--eggs, ad infinitum--oaten and wheaten bread in
piles--turkeys, geese, pullets, as fat as aldermen--cream as rich as
Croesus--and three gallons of poteen, one sparkle of which, as Father
Philemy said in the course of the evening, would lay the hairs on St.
Francis himself in his most self-negative mood, if he saw it. So far so
good: everything excellent and abundant in its way. Still the higher and
more refined items--the _deliciae epidarum_--must be added. White bread,
and tea, and sugar, were yet to be got; and lump-sugar for the punch;
and a tea-pot and cups and saucers to be borrowed; all which was
accordingly done.
Well, suppose everything disposed for tomorrow's feast;--suppose Phaddhy
himself to have butchered the fowl, because Katty, who was not able to
bear the sight of blood, had not the heart to kill “the crathurs” and
imagine to yourself one of the servant men taking his red-hot tongs
out of the fire, and squeezing a large lump of hog's lard, placed in a
grisset, or _Kam_, on the hearth, to grease all their brogues; then see
in your mind's eye those two fine, fresh-looking girls, slyly take
their old rusty fork out of the fire, and going to a bit of three-corned
looking-glass, pasted into a board, or, perhaps, to a pail of water,
there to curl up their rich-flowing locks, that had hitherto never known
a curl but such, as nature gave them.
On one side of the hob sit two striplings, “thryin' wan another in their
catechiz,” that they may be able to answer, with some credit, to-morrow.
On the other hob sits Briney, hard at his syntax, with the _Fibulae
AEsiopii_, as he called it, placed open at a particular passage, on the
seat under him, with a hope that, when Philemy will examine him,
the book may open at his favorite fable of “_Gallus Gallinaceus_--a
dung-hill cock.” Phaddy himself is obliged to fast this day, there being
one day of his penance yet unperformed, since the last time he was at
his duty; which was, as aforesaid, about five years: and Katty, now that
everything is cleaned up and ready, kneels down in a corner to go over
her beads, rocking herself in a placid silence that is only broken by
an occasional malediction against the servants, or the cat, when it
attempts the abduction of one of the dead fowl.
The next morning the family were up before the sun, who rubbed his eyes,
and swore that he must have overslept himself, on seeing such a merry
column of smoke dancing over Phaddhy's chimney. A large wooden dish was
placed upon the threshold of the kitchen door, filled with water, in
which, with a trencher of oatmeal for soap,* they successively scrubbed
their faces and hands to some purpose. In a short time afterwards,
Phaddhy and the sons were cased, stiff and awkward, in their new suits,
with the tops of their fingers just peeping over the sleeve cuffs. The
horses in the stable were turned out to the fields, being obliged to
make room for their betters, that were soon expected under the reverend
bodies of Father Philemy and his curate; whilst about half a bushel of
oats was left in the manger, to regale them on their arrival. Little
Richard Maguire was sent down to the five-acres, with the pigs, on
purpose to keep them from about the house, they not being supposed fit
company at a set-dinner. A roaring turf fire, which blazed two yards up
the chimney, had been put down; on this was placed a large pot, filled
with water for the tea, because they had no kettle.
* Fact--Oatmeal is in general substituted for soap, by
those who cannot afford to buy the latter.
By this time the morning was tolerably advanced, and the neighbors were
beginning to arrive in twos and threes, to wipe out old scores. Katty
had sent several of the gorsoons “to see if they could see any sight of
the clargy,” but hitherto their Reverences were invisible. At length,
after several fruitless embassies of this description, Father Con was
seen jogging along on his easygoing hack, engaged in the perusal of his
Office, previous to his commencing the duties of the day. As soon as his
approach was announced, a chair was immediately placed for him in a room
off the kitchen--the parlor, such as it was, having been reserved for
Father Phileniy himself, as the place of greater honor. This was an
arrangement, however, which went against the grain of Phaddhy, who,
had he got his will, would have established Father Con in the most
comfortable apartment of the house: but that old vagabond, human nature,
is the same under all circumstances--or, as Katty would have (in her
own phraseology) expressed it, “still the ould cut;” for even there the
influence of rank and elevation was sufficient to throw merit into the
shade; and the parlor-seat was allotted to Father Philemy, merely for
being Parish Priest, although it was well known that he could not “tare
off” * mass in half the time that Father Con could, nor throw a
sledge, or shoulder-stone within a perch of him, nor scarcely clear a
street-channel, whilst the latter could jump one-and-twenty feet at a
running leap. But these are rubs which men of merit must occasionally
bear; and, when exposed to them, they must only rest satisfied in the
consciousness of their own deserts.
* The people look upon that priest as the best and most
learned who can perform the ceremony of the mass in the
shortest period of time. They call it as above “tareing
off”. The quickest description of mass, however, is the
“hunting mass,” so termed from the speed at which the
priest goes over it--that is, “at the rate of a hunt.”
From the moment that Father Con became visible, the conversation
of those who were collected in Phaddhy's dropped gradually, as he
approached the house, into a silence which was only broken by an
occasional short observation, made by one or two of those who were in
habits of the greatest familiarity with the priest; but when they heard
the noise of his horse's feet near the door, the silence became general
and uninterrupted.
There can scarcely be a greater contrast in anything than that presented
by the beginning of a station-day and its close. In the morning, the
faces of those who are about to confess present an expression in which
terror, awe, guilt, and veneration may be easily traced; but in the
evening all is mirth and jollity. Before confession every man's memory
is employed in running over the catalogue of crimes, as they are to be
found in the prayer-books, under the ten commandments, the seven deadly
sins, the Commandments of the Church, the four sins that cry to heaven
for vengeance, and the seven sins against the Holy Ghost.
When Father Con arrived, Phaddhy and Katty were instantly at the door to
welcome him.
“_Musha, cead millia failtha ghud_ (* A hundred thousand welcomes to
you.) to our house, Father Con, avourneen!” says Katty, dropping him a
low curtsey, and spreading her new, brown, quilted petticoat as far out
on each side of her as it would go--“musha, an' it's you that's welcome
from my heart out.”
“I thank you,” said honest Con, who, as he knew not her name, did not
pretend to know it.
“Well, Father Con,” said Phaddhy, this is, the first time you have ever
come to us this, way; but, plase God, it won't be the last, I hope.”
“I hope not, Phaddhy,” said Father Con, who, notwithstanding his
simplicity of character, loved a good dinner in the very core of his
heart, “I hope not, indeed, Phaddhy.” He then threw his eye about
the premises, to see what point he might set his temper to during the
remainder of the day; for it is right to inform our readers that a
priest's temper, at a station, generally rises or falls according to the
prospect of his cheer.
Here, however, a little vista, or pantry, jutting out from the kitchen,
and left ostentatiously open, presented him with a view which made his
very nose curl with kindness. What it contained we do not pretend to
say, not having seen it ourselves; we judge, therefore, only by its
effects upon his physiognomy.
“Why, Phaddhy,” he says, “this is a very fine house you've got over
you;” throwing his eye again towards a wooden buttress which supported
one of the rafters that was broken.
“Why then, your Reverence, it would not be a bad one,” Phaddhy replied,
“if it had a new roof and new side-walls; and I intend to get both next
summer, if God spares me till then.”
“Then, upon my word, if it had new side-walls, a new roof, and new
gavels, too,” replied Father Con, “it would look certainly a great
deal the better for it;--and do you intend to to get them next summer,
Paddy?”
“If God spares me, sir.”
“Are all these fine gorsoons yours, Phaddhy?”
“Why, so Katty says, your Reverence,” replied Phaddhy, with a
good-natured laugh.
“Haven't you got one of them for the church, Phaddhy?”
“Yes, your Reverence, there's one of them that I hope will live to have
the robes upon him Come over, Briney, and speak to Father Con. He's not
very far in his Latin yet, sir but his master tells me that he hasn't
the likes of him in the school for brightness--Briney, will you come
over, I say; come over, sarrah, and spake to the gintleman, and
him wants to shake hands wid you--come up, man, what are you afeard
of?--sure Father Con's not going to examine you now.”
“No, no, Briney,” said Father Con, “I'm not about to examine you at
present.”
“He's a little dashed, yer Reverence, be-kase he thought you war going
to put him through some of his Latin,” said the father, bringing him up
like a culprit to Father Con, who shook hands with him, and, after a few
questions as to the books he read, and his progress, dismissed him.
“But, Father Con, wid submission,” said Katty, “where's Father Philemy
from us?--sure, we expected him along wid you, and he wouldn't go to
disappoint us?”
“Oh, you needn't fear that, Katty,” replied Father Con; “he'll be here
presently--before breakfast, I'll engage for him at any rate; but he had
a touch of the headache this morning, and wasn't able to rise so early
as I was.”
During this conversation a little crowd had collected about the door of
the room in which he was to hear the confessions, each struggling and
fighting to get the first turn; but here, as in the more important
concerns of this world, the weakest went to the wall. He now went into
the room, and taking Katty herself first, the door was closed upon them,
and he gave her absolution; and thus he continued to confess and absolve
them, one by one, until breakfast.
Whenever a station occurs in Ireland, a crowd of mendicants and other
strolling impostors seldom fail to attend it; on this occasion, at
least, they did not. The day, though frosty, was fine; and the door was
surrounded by a train of this description, including both sexes, some
sitting on stones, some on stools, with their blankets rolled up under
them; and others, more ostensibly devout, on their knees, hard at
prayer; which, lest their piety might escape notice, our readers may be
assured, they did not offer up in silence. On one side you might observe
a sturdy fellow, with a pair of tattered urchins secured to his back
by a sheet or blanket pinned across his breast with a long iron skewer,
their heads just visible at his shoulders, munching a thick piece of
wheaten bread, and the father on his knees, with a a huge wooden cross
in hand, repeating _padareens_, and occasionally throwing a jolly eye
towards the door, or through the; window, opposite which he knelt,
into the kitchen, as often as any peculiar stir or commotion led him to
suppose that breakfast, the loadstar of his devotion, was about to be
produced.
Scattered about the door were knots of these, men and women,
occasionally chatting together; and when the subject of their
conversation happened to be exhausted, resuming their beads, until some
new topic would occur, and so on alternately.
The interior of the kitchen where the neighbors were assembled,
presented an appearance somewhat more decorous. Andy Lalor, the
mass-server, in whom the priest had the greatest confidence, stood in
a corner examining, in their catechism, those who intended to confess;
and, if they were able to stand the test, he gave them a bit of twisted
brown paper as a ticket, and they were received at the tribunal.
The first question the priest uniformly puts to the penitent is, “Can
you repeat the Confiteor?” If the latter answers in the affirmative, he
goes on until he comes to the words, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa, when he stops, it being improper to repeat the remainder until
after he has confessed; but, if he is ignorant of the “Confiteor,”
the priest repeats it for him! and he commences the rehearsal of his
offences, specifically as they occurred; and not only does he reveal
his individual crimes, but his very thoughts and intentions. By this
regulation our readers may easily perceive, that the penitent is
completely at the mercy of the priest--that all family feuds, quarrels,
and secrets are laid open to his eye--that the ruling; passions of
men's lives are held up before him, the weaknesses and propensities of
nature--all the unguarded avenues of the human heart and character are
brought within his positive knowledge, and that, too, as they exist
in the young and the old, the married and the single, the male and the
female.
It was curious to remark the ludicrous expression of temporary sanctity
which was apparent on the countenances of many young men and maidens who
were remarkable in the neighborhood for attending dances and wakes, but
who, on the present occasion, were sobered down to a gravity which sat
very awkwardly upon them; particularly in I the eyes of those who knew
the lightness and drollery of their characters. This, however, was
observable only before confession; for, as soon as, “the priest's
blessed hand had been over them,” their gloom and anxiety passed away,
and the thoughtless buoyancy of their natural disposition resumed its
influence over their minds. A good-humored nod, or a sly wink, from
a young man to his female acquaintance, would now be indulged in; or,
perhaps a small joke would escape, which seldom failed to produce a
subdued laugh from such as had confessed, or an impatient rebuke from
those who had not.
“Tim!” one would exclaim, “arn't ye ashamed or afeared to get an that
way, and his Reverence undher the wan roof wid ye?”
“Tim, you had better dhrop your joking,” a second would observe, “and
not be putting us through other, (* confusing us) when we have our
offenses to remimber; you have got your job over, and now you have
nothing to trouble you.”
“Indeed, it's fine behavior,” a third would say, “and you afther coming
from the priest's knee; and what more, didn't resave (* Communicate)
yet; but wait till Father Con appears, and, I'll warrant, you'll be as
grave as another, for all you're so stout now.”
The conversation would then pass to the merits of Father Philemy and
Father Con, as Confessors.
“Well,” one would observe--“for my part, I'd rather go to Father
Philemy, fifty times over, than wanst to Father Con, bekase he never
axes questions; but whatever you like to tell him, he hears it, and
forgives you at wanst.”
“And so sign's an it,” observed another; “he could confess more in a day
that Father Con could in a week.”
“But for all that,” observed Andy Lalor, “it's still best to go to the
man that puts the questions, you persave, and that won't let the turning
of a straw escape him. Whin myself goes to Father Philemy, somehow or
other, I totally disremember more nor wan half of what I intinded to
tell him, but Father Con misses nothing, for he axes it.”
When the last observation was finished, Father Con, finding that the
usual hour for breakfast had arrived, came into the kitchen, to prepare
for the celebration of mass. For this purpose, a table was cleared, and
just in the nick of time arrived old Moll Brian, the vestment woman, or
itinerant sacristan, whose usual occupation was to carry the priests'
robes and other apparatus, from station to station. In a short time,
Father Con was surpliced and robed; Andy Lalor, whose face was charged
with commensurate importance during the ceremony, sarved Mass, and
answered the priest stoutly in Latin although he had not the advantage
of understanding that sacerdotal language. Those who had confessed, now
communicated; after which, each of them took a draught, of water out of
a small jug, which was handed round from one to another. The ceremony
then closed, and those who had partaken of the sacrament, with the
exception of such as were detained for breakfast, after filling their
bottles with holy water, went home with a light heart. A little before
the mass had been finished, Father Philemy arrived; but, as Phaddy and
Katty were then preparing to resave they could not at that moment give
him a formal reception. As soon, however, as communion was over, the
_cead millia failtha_ was repeated with the usual warmth, by both, and
by all their immediate friends. Breakfast was now laid in Katty's
best style, and with an originality of arrangement that scorned all
precedent. Two tables were placed, one after another, in the kitchen;
for the other rooms were not sufficiently large to accommodate the
company. Father Philemy filled the seat of honor at the head of the
table, with his back to an immense fire. On his right hand sat Father
Con; on his left, Phaddhy himself, “to keep the-clargy company;” and,
in due succession after them, their friends and neighbors, each taking
precedence according to the most scrupulous notions of respectability.
Beside Father Con sat “Pettier Malone,” a “young collegian,” who had
been sent home from Maynooth to try his native air, for the recovery
of his health, which was declining. He arrived only a few minutes after
Father Philemy, and was a welcome reinforcement to Phaddhy, in the
arduous task of sustaining the conversation with suitable credit.
With respect to the breakfast, I can only say, that it was
superabundant--that the tea was as black as bog water--that there were
hen, turkey, and geese eggs--plates of toast soaked, crust and crumb, in
butter; and lest there might be a deficiency, one of the daughters sat
on a stool at the fire, with her open hand, by way of a fire screen,
across her red, half-scorched brows, toasting another plateful, and, to
crown all, on each corner of the table was a bottle of whiskey. At
the lower board sat the youngsters, under the surveillance of Katty's
sister, who presided in that quarter. When they were commencing
breakfast, “Father Philemy,” said Katty, “won't yer Rev'rence bless the
mate (* food) if ye plase?”
“If I don't do it myself,” said Father Philemy, who was just after
sweeping the top off a turkey egg, “I'll get them that will. Come,” said
he to the collegian, “give us grace, Peter; you'll never learn younger.”
This, however, was an unexpected blow to Peter, who knew that an
English grace would be incompatible with his “college feeding,” yet was
unprovided with any in Latin--The eyes of the company were now
fixed upon him, and he blushed like scarlet on finding himself in a
predicament so awkward and embarrassing. “_Aliquid, Petre, alliquid; 'de
profundis'--si habes nihil aliud_,” said Father Philemy, feeling for
his embarrassment, and giving him a hint. This was not lost, for Peter
began, and gave them the _De profundis_--a Latin psalm, which Roman
Catholics repeat for the relief of the souls in, purgatory. They forgot,
however, that there was a person in company who considered himself as
having an equal claim to the repetition of at least the one-half of it;
and accordingly, when Peter got up and repeated the first verse, Andy
Lalor got also on his legs, and repeated the response.* This staggered
Peter a little, who hesitated, as uncertain how to act.
* This prayer is generally repeated by two persons, who
recite each a verse alternately.
“_Perge, Petre, perge_,” said Father Philemy, looking rather wistfully
at his egg--“_perge, stultus est et asinus quoque_.” Peter and Andy
proceeded until it was finished, when they resumed their seats.
The conversation during breakfast was as sprightly, as full of fun and
humor as such breakfasts usually are. The priest, Phaddhy, and the young
collegian, had a topic of their own, whilst the rest were engaged in a
kind of by play, until the meal was finished.
“Father Philemy,” said Phaddhy, in his capacity of host, “before we
begin we'll all take a dhrop of what's in the bottle, if it's not
displasing to yer Reverence; and, sure, I know, 'tis the same that
doesn't come wrong at a station, any how.”
This, _more majorum_, was complied with; and the glass, as usual, went
round the table, beginning with their Reverences. Hitherto, Father
Philemy had not had time to bestow any attention on the state of Kitty's
larder, as he was in the habit of doing, with a view to ascertain
the several items contained therein for dinner. But as soon as the
breakfast-things were removed, and the coast clear, he took a peep into
the pantry, and, after throwing his eye over its contents, sat down
at the fire, making Phaddhy take a seat beside him, for the especial
purpose of sounding him as to the practicability of effecting a certain
design, which was then snugly latent in his Reverence's fancy. The fact
was, that on taking the survey of the premises aforesaid, he discovered
that, although there was abundance of fowl, and fish, and bacon, and
hung-beef--yet, by some unaccountable and disastrous omission, there was
neither fresh mutton nor fresh beef. The priest, it must be confessed,
was a man of considerable fortitude, but this was a blow for which he
was scarcely prepared, particularly as a boiled leg of mutton was one of
his fifteen favorite joints at dinner. He accordingly took two or three
pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and a seat at the fire, as I have
said, placing Phaddhy, unconscious of his design, immediately beside
him.
Now, the reader knows that Phaddhy was a man possessing a considerable
portion of dry, sarcastic humor, along with that natural, quickness of
penetration and shrewdness for which most of the Irish peasantry are in
a very peculiar degree remarkable; add to this that Father Philemy, in
consequence of his contemptuous bearing to him before he came in for his
brother's property, stood not very high in his estimation. The priest
knew this, and consequently felt that the point in question would
require to be managed, on his part, with suitable address.
“Phaddhy,” says his Reverence, “sit down here till we chat a little,
before I commence the duties of the day. I'm happy to, see that you have
such a fine thriving family: how many sons and daughters have you?”
“Six sons, yer Reverence,” replied. Phaddhy, “and five daughters:
indeed, sir, they're as well to be seen as their neighbors, considhering
all things. Poor crathurs, they get fair play* now, thank Grod, compared
to what they used to get--God rest their poor uncle's sowl for that!
Only for him, your Reverence, there would be very few inquiring this or
any other day about them.”
* By this is meant good food and clothing.
“Did he die as rich as they said, Phaddhy?” inquired his Reverence.
“Hut, sir,” replied Phaddhy, determined to take what he afterwards
called a rise out of the priest; “they knew little about it--as rich as
they said, sir! no, but three times as rich, itself: but, any how, he
was the man that could make the money.”
“I'm very happy to hear it, Phaddhy, on, your account, and that of your
children. God be good to him--_requiescat animus ejus in pace, per omnia
secula seculorum_, Amen!--he liked a drop in his time, Phaddhy, as well
as ourselves, eh?”
“Amen, amen--the heavens be his bed!--he-did, poor man! but he had it at
first cost, your Reverence, for he run it all himself in the mountains:
he could afford to take it.”
“Yes, Phaddhy, the heavens be his bed, I pray; no Christmas or Easter
ever passed but he was sure to send me the little keg of stuff that
never saw water; but, Phaddhy, there's one thing that concerns me about
him, in regard of his love of drink--I'm afraid it's a throuble to him
where he is at present; and I was sorry to find that, although he died
full of money, he didn't think it worth his while to leave even the
price of a mass to be said for the benefit of his own soul.”
“Why, sure you know, Father Philemy, that he wasn't what they call a
dhrinking man: once a quarther, or so, he sartinly did take a jorum;
and except at these times, he was very sober. But God look upon us, yer
Reverence--or upon myself, anyway; for if he's to suffer for his doings
that way, I'm afeard we'll have a troublesome reck'ning of it.”
“Hem, a-hem!--Phaddhy,” replied the priest, “he has raised you and your
children from poverty, at all events, and you ought to consider that. If
there is anything in your power to contribute to the relief of his
soul, you havs a strong duty upon you to do it; and a number of masses,
offered up devoutly, would--”
“Why, he did, sir, raise both myself and my childre from poverty,” said
Phaddhy, not willing to let that point go farther--“that I'll always own
to; and I hope in God that whatever little trouble might be upon him for
the dhrop of dhrink, will be wiped off by this kindness to us.”
“He hadn't even a Month's mind!”*
* A Mouth's Mind is the repetition of one or more
masses, at the expiration of a month after death, for
the repose of a departed soul. There are generally more
than the usual number of priests on such occasions:
each of whom receives a sum of money, varying according
to the wealth of the survivors--sometimes five
shillings, and sometimes five guineas.
“And it's not but I spoke to him about both, yer Eeverence.”
“And what did he say, Phaddy?”
“'Phaddy,' said he, 'I have been giving Father M'Guirk, one way or
another, between whiskey, oats, and dues, a great deal of money every
year; and now, afther I'm dead,' says he, 'isn't it an ungrateful
thing of him not to offer up one mass for my sowl, except I leave him
payment for it?'”
“Did he say that, Phaddhy?”
“I'm giving you his very words, yer Reverence.”
“Phaddhy, I deny it; it's a big lie--he could not make much use of such
words, and he going to face death. I say you could not listen to them;
the hair would stand on your head if he did; but God forgive him--that's
the worst I wish him. Didn't the hair stand on your head, Phaddhy, to
hear him?”
“Why, then, to tell yer Reverence God's truth, I can't say it did.”
“You can't say it did! and if I was in your coat, I would be ashamed to
say it did not. I was always troubled about the way the fellow died,
but I hadn't the slightest notion: that he went off such a reprobate. I
fought his battle and yours hard enough yesterday; but I knew less about
him than I do now.”
“And what, wid submission, did you fight our battles about, yer
Reverence?” inquired Phaddhy.
“Yesterday evening, in Parrah More Slevin's, they had him a miser, and
yourself they set down as very little better.”
“Then I don't think I desarved that from Parrah More, anyhow, Father
Philemy; I think I can show myself as dacent as Parrah More or any of
his faction.”
“It was not Parrah More himself, nor his family, that said anything
about you, Phaddhy,” said the priest, “but others that were present. You
must know that we were all to be starved here to-day.”
“Oh! ho!” exclaimed Phaddhy, who was hit most palpably upon the weakest
side--the very sorest spot about him, “they think bekase this is the
first station that ever was held in my house, that you won't be thrated
as you ought; but they'll be disappointed; and I hope, for so far, that
yer Reverence and yer friends had no rason to complain.”
“Not in the least, Phaddhy, considering that it was a first station; and
if the dinner goes as well off as the breakfast, they'll be biting their
nails: but I should not wish myself that they would have it in their
power to sneer or throw any slur over you about it.--Go along, Dolan,”
exclaimed his Reverence to a countryman who came in from the street,
where those stood who were for confession, to see if he had gone to his
room--“Go along, you vagrant, don't you see I'm not gone to the tribunal
yet?--But it's no matter about that, Phaddhy, it's of other things you
ought to think: when were you at your duty?”
“This morning, sir,” replied the other--“but I'd have them to
understand, that had the presumption to use my name in any such manner,
that I know when and where to be dacent with any mother's son of Parrah
More's faction; and that I'll be afther whispering to them some of these
fine mornings, plase goodness.”
“Well, well, Phaddhy, don't put yourself in a passion about it,
particularly so soon after having been at confession--it's not right--I
told them myself, that we'd have a leg of mutton and a bottle of wine
at all events for it was what they had; but that's not worth talking
about--when were you with the priest before Phaddhy?”
“If I wasn't able, it would be another thing, but as long as I'm able,
I'll let them know that I've the spirit”--said Phaddhy, smarting under
the implication of niggardliness--“when was I at confession before,
Father Philemy? Why, then, dear forgive me, not these five years;--and
I'd surely be the first of the family that would show a mane spirit, or
a want of hospitality.”
“A leg of mutton is a good dish, and a bottle of wine is fit for the
first man in the land!” observed his Reverence; “five years!--why, is
it possible you stayed away so long, Phaddhy! how could you expect to
prosper with five years' burden of sin upon your conscience--what would
it cost you--?”
“Indeed, myselfs no judge, your Reverence, as to that; but, cost what it
will, I'll get both.”
“I say, Phaddhy, what trouble would it cost you to come to your duty
twice a year at the very least; and, indeed, I would advise you to
become a monthly communicant. Parrah More was speaking of it as to
himself, and you ought to go--”
“And I will go and bring Parrah More here to his dinner, this very day,
if it was only to let him see with his own eyes--”
“You ought to go once a month, if it was only to set an example to
your children, and to show the neighbors how a man of substance and
respectability, and the head of a family, ought to carry himself.”
“Where is the best wine got, your Reverence?”
“Alick M'Loughlin, my nephew, I believe, keeps the best wine and spirits
in Ballyslantha.--You ought also, Phaddy, to get a scapular, and become
a scapularian; I wish your brother had thought of that, and he wouldn't
have died in so hardened a state, nor neglected to make a provision for
the benefit of his soul, as he did.”
“Lave the rest to me, yer Reverence, I'll get it; Mr. M'Loughlin will
give me the right sort, if he has it betune him and death.”
“M'Laughlin! what are you talking about?”
“Why, what is your Reverence talking about?”
“The scapular,” said the priest.
“But I mane the wine and the mutton,” says Phaddhy.
“And is that the way you treat me, you reprobate you?” replied his
Reverence in a passion: “is that the kind of attention you're paying me,
and I, advising you, all this time, for the good of your soul? Phaddhy,
I tell you, you're enough to vex me to the core--five years!--only once
at confession in five years! What do I care about your mutton and your
wine!--you may get dozens of them if you wish; or, may be, it would be
more like a Christian to never mind getting them, and let the neighbors
laugh away. It would teach you humility, you hardened creature, and God
knows you want it; for my part, I'm speaking to you about other things;
but that's the way with the most of you--mention any spiritual subject
that concerns your soul, and you turn a deaf ear to it--here, Dolan,
come in to your duty. In the meantime, you may as well tell Katty not
to boil the mutton too much; it's on your knees you ought to be at your
rosary, or the seven penitential psalms, any way.”
“Thrue for you, sir,” says Phaddhy; “but as to going wanst a month,
I'm afeard, your Rev'rence, if it would shorten my timper as it does
Katty's, that we'd be bad company for one another; she comes home from
confession, newly set, like a razor, every bit as sharp; and I'm sure
that I'm within the truth when I say there's no bearing her.”
“That's because you've no relish for anything spiritual yourself, you
nager you,” replied his Reverence, “or you wouldn't see her temper in
that light--but, now that I think of it, where did you get that stuff we
had at breakfast?”
“Ay, that's the sacret; but I knew your Rev'rence would like it; did
Parrah More aiquil it? No, nor one of his faction couldn't lay his
finger on such a dhrop.”
“I wish you could get me a few gallons of it,” said the priest; “but let
us drop that; I say, Phaddhy, you're too worldly and too careless about
your duty.”
“Well, Father Philemy, there's a good time coming; I'll mend yet.”
“You want it, Phaddhy.”
“Would three gallons do, sir?”
“I would rather you would make it five, Phaddhy; but go to your rosary.”
“It's the penitential psalms, first, sir,” said Phaddhy, “and the rosary
at night. I'll try, anyhow; and if I can make off five for you, I will.”
“Thank you, Phaddhy; but I would recommend you to say the rosary before
night.”
“I believe yer Reverence is right,” replied Phaddhy, looking somewhat
slyly in the priest's face; “I think it's best to make sure of it now,
in regard that in the evening, your Reverence--do you persave?”
“Yes,” said his Reverence, “you're in a better frame of mind at present,
Phaddhy, being fresh from confession.”
So saying, his Reverence--for whom Phaddhy, with all his shrewdness in
general, was not a match--went into his room, that he might send home
about four dozen of honest, good-humored, thoughtless, jovial, swearing,
drinking, fighting Hibernians, free from every possible stain of sin and
wickedness!
“Are you all ready now?” said the priest to a crowd of country people
who were standing about the kitchen door, pressing to get the “first
turn” at the tribunal, which on this occasion consisted of a good oaken
chair, with his Reverence upon it.
“Why do you crush forward in that manner, you ill-bred spalpeens? Can't
you stand back, and behave yourselves like common Christians?--back with
you! or, if you make me get my whip, I'll soon clear you from about the
dacent man's door. Hagarty, why do you crush them two girls there,
you great Turk, you? Look at the vagabonds! Where's my whip,” said he,
running in, and coming out in a fury, when he commenced cutting about
him, until they dispersed in all directions. He then returned into the
house; and, after calling in about two dozen, began to catechize them
as follows, still holding the whip in his hand, whilst many of those
individuals, who at a party quarrel or faction fight, in fair or market,
were incapable of the slightest terror, now stood trembling before him,
absolutely pale and breathless with fear.
“Come, Kelly,” said he to one of them, “are you fully prepared for the
two blessed sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, that you are about
to receive? Can you read, sir?”
“Can I read, is id?--my brother Barney can, yor Rev'rence,” replied
Kelly, sensible, amid all the disadvantages around him, of the
degradation of his ignorance.
“What's that to me, sir?” said the priest, “what your brother Barney can
do--can you not read yourself?”
“I can not, your Reverence,” said Kelly, in a tone of regret.
“I hope you have your Christian Doctrine, at all events,” said the
priest. “Go on with the Confiteor.”
Kelly went on--“Confeetur Dimnipotenmti batchy Mary semplar virginy,
batchy Mickletoe Archy Angelo, batchy Johnny Bartisty, sanctris
postlis--Petrum hit Paulum omnium sanctris, et tabby pasture, quay a
pixavit minus coglety ashy hony verbum et offer him smaxy quilia smaxy
quilta--sniaxy maxin in quilia.” *
* Let not our readers suppose that the above version in
the mouth of a totally illiterate peasant is
overcharged; for we have the advantage of remembering
how we ourselves used to hear it pronounced in our
early days. We will back the version in the text
against Edward Irving's new language--for any money.--
Original note.
“Very well, Kelly, right enough, all except the pronouncing,
which wouldn't pass muster in Maynooth, however. How many kinds of
commandments are there?”
“Two, sir.”
“What are they?”
“God's and the Church's.”
“Repeat God's share of them.”
He then repeated the first commandment according to his catechism.
“Very good, Kelly, very good. Well now, repeat the commandments of the
Church.”
“First--Sundays and holidays, Mass thou shalt sartinly hear;
“Second--All holidays sanctificate throughout all the whole year.
“Third--Lent, Ember days, and Virgins, thou shalt be sartain to fast;
“Fourth--Fridays and Saturdays flesh thou shalt not, good, bad or
indifferent, taste.
“Fifth--In Lent and Advent, nuptial fastes gallantly forbear.
“Sixth--Confess your sins, at laste once dacently and soberly every
year.
“Seventh--Resave your God at confission about great Easter-day;
“Eighth--And to his Church and his own frolicsome clargy neglect not
tides (tithes) to pay.”
“Well,” said his Eeverence, “now, to great point is, do you understand
them?”
“Wid the help of God, I hope so, your Rev'rence; and I have also the
three thriptological vartues.”
“Theological, sirrah!”
“Theojollyological vartues; the four sins that cry to heaven for
vingeance; the five carnal vartues--prudence, justice, timptation, and
solitude; (* Temperance and fortitude) the seven deadly sins; the eight
grey attitudes--”
“Grey attitudes! Oh, the Boeotian!” exclaimed his Eeverence, “listen to
the way in which he's playing havoc among them. Stop, sir,” for Kelly
was going on at full speed--“Stop, sir. I tell you it's not gray
attitudes, but bay attitudes--doesn't every one know the eight
beatitudes?”
“The eight bay attitudes; the nine ways of being guilty of another's
sins; the ten commandments; the twelve fruits of a Christian; the
fourteen stations of the cross; the fifteen mystheries of the passion--”
“Kelly,” said his Eeverence, interrupting him, and heralding, the joke,
for so it was intended, with a hearty chuckle, “you're getting fast out
of your teens, ma bouchal?” and this was of course, honored with a
merry peal; extorted as much by an effort of softening the rigor of
examination, as by the traditionary duty which entails upon the Irish
laity the necessity of laughing at a priest's jokes, without any
reference at all to their quality. Nor was his Reverence's own voice
the first to subside into that gravity which became the solemnity of the
occasion; or even whilst he continued the interrogatories, his eye was
laughing at the conceit with which it was evident the inner man was not
competent to grapple. “Well, Kelly, I can't say but you've answered
very well, as far as the repealing of them goes; but do you perfectly
understand all the commandments of the church?”
“I do, sir,” replied Kelly, whose confidence kept pace with his
Reverence's good-humor.
“Well, what is meant by the fifth?”
“The fifth, sir?” said the other, rather confounded--“I must begin agin,
sir, and go on till I come to it.”
“Well,” said the priest, “never mind that; but tell us what the eighth
means?”
Kelly stared at him a second time, but was not able to advance
“First--Sundays and holidays, mass thou shalt hear;” but before he
had proceeded to the second, a person who stood at his elbow began to
whisper to him the proper reply, and in the act of so doing received a
lash of the whip across the ear for his pains.
“You blackguard, you!” exclaimed Father Philemy, “take that--how dare
you attempt to prompt any person that I'm examining?”
Those who stood around Kelly now fell back to a safe distance, and all
was silence, terror, and trepidation once more.
“Come, Kelly, go on--the eighth?”
Kelly was still silent.
“Why, you ninny you, didn't you repeat it just now. 'Eighth--And to his
church neglect not tithes to pay.' Now that I have put the words in your
mouth, what does it mean?”
Kelly having thus got the cue, replied, in the words of the Catechism,
“To pay _tides_ to the lawful _pasterns_ of the church, sir.”
“Pasterns!--oh, you ass you! _Pasterns!_ you poor; base, contemptible,
crawling reptile, as if we trampled you under our hooves--oh, you scruff
of the earth! Stop, I say--it's pastors.”
“Pastures of the church.”
“And, tell me, do you fulfil that commandment?”
“I do, sir.”
“It's a lie, sir,” replied the priest, brandishing the whip over his
head, whilst Kelly instinctively threw up his guard to protect himself
from the blow. “It's a lie, sir,” repeated his Eeverence; “you don't
fulfil it. What is the church?”
“The church is the congregation of the faithful that purfiss the true
faith, and are obadient to the Pope.”
“And who do you pay tithes to?”
“To the parson, sir.”
“And, you poor varmint you, is he obadient to the Pope?”
Kelly only smiled at the want of comprehension which prevented him from
seeing the thing according to the view which his Reverence took of it.
“Well, now,” continued Father Philemy, “who are the lawful pastors of
God's church?”
“You are, sir: and all our own priests.”
“And who ought you to pay your tithes to?”
“To you, sir, in coorse; sure I always knew that, your Rev'rence.”
“And what's the reason, then, you don't pay them to me, instead of the
parson?”
This was a puzzler to Kelly, who only knew his own side of the question.
“You have me there, sir,” he replied, with a grin.
“Because,” said his Reverence, “the Protestants, for the present, have,
the law of the land on their side, and power over you to compel the
payment of tithes to themselves; but we have right, justice, and the law
of God on ours; and, if every thing was in its proper place, it is not
to the parsons, but to us, that you would pay them.”
“Well, well, sir,” replied Kelly, who now experienced a community of
feeling upon the subject with his Reverence, that instantly threw him
into a familiarity of manner which he thought the point between them
justified--“who knows, sir?” said he with a knowing smile, “there's a
good time coming, yer Rev'rence.”
“Ay,” said Father Philemy, “wait till we get once into the Big* House,
and if we don't turn the scales--if the Established Church doesn't
go down, why, it won't be our fault. Now, Kelly, all's right but the
money--have you brought your dues?”
* Parliament. This was written before the passing of
the Emancipation Bill.
“Here it is, sir,” said Kelly, handing him his dues for the last year.
It is to be observed here, that, according as the penitents went to be
examined, or to kneel down to confess, a certain sum was exacted from
each, which varied according to the arrears that might have been due to
the priest. Indeed, it is not unusual for the host and hostess, on these
occasions, to be refused a participation in the sacrament, until they
pay this money, notwithstanding the considerable expense they are put to
in entertaining not only the clergy, but a certain number of their own
friends and relations.
“Well, stand aside, I'll hear you first; and now, come up here, you
young gentleman, that laughed so heartily a while ago at my joke--ha,
ha, ha!--come up here, child.”
A lad now approached him, whose face, on a first view, had something
simple and thoughtless in it, but in which, on a closer inspection,
might be traced a lurking, sarcastic humor, of which his Reverence never
dreamt.
“You're for confession, of course?” said the priest.
“_Of coorse_,” said the lad, echoing him, and laying a stress upon
the word, which did not much elevate the meaning of the compliance in
general with the rite in question.
“Oh!” exclaimed the priest, recognizing him when he approached--“you are
Dan Fagan's son, and designed for the church yourself; you are a good
Latinist, for I remember examining you in Erasmus about two years
ago--_Quomodo sehabet corpus tuum, charum lignum sacredotis_”
“_Valde, Domine_,” replied the lad, “_Quomodo se habet anima tua, charum
exemplar sacerdotage, et fulcrum robustissium Ecclesiae sacrosancte_?”
“Very good, Harry,” replied his Reverence, laughing--“stand aside; I'll
hear you after Kelly.”
He then called up a man with a long melancholy face, which he noticed
before to have been proof against his joke, and after making two
or three additional and fruitless experiments upon his gravity, he
commenced a cross fire of peevish interrogatories, which would have
excluded him from the “tribunal” on that occasion, were it not that the
man was remarkably well prepared, and answered the priest's questions
very pertinently.
This over, he repaired to his room, where the work of absolution
commenced; and, as there was a considerable number to be rendered
sinless before the hour of dinner, he contrived to unsin them with an
alacrity that was really surprising.
Immediately after the conversation already detailed between his
Reverence and Phaddhy, the latter sought Katty, that he might
communicate to her the unlucky oversight which they had committed, in
neglecting to provide fresh meat and wine. “We'll be disgraced forever,”
said Phaddhy, “without either a bit of mutton or a bottle of wine for
the gintlemen, and that big thief Parrah More Slevin had both.”
“And I hope,” replied Katty, “that you're not so mane as to let any of
that faction outdo you in dacency, the nagerly set? It was enough for
them to bate us in the law-shoot about the horse, and not to have the
laugh agin at us about this.”
“Well, that same law-shoot is not over with them yet,” said Phaddhy;
“wait till the spring fair comes, and if I don't have a faction gathered
that'll sweep them out of the town, why my name's not Phaddhy! But where
is Matt till we sind him off?”
“Arrah, Phaddhy,” said Katty, “wasn't it friendly of Father Philemy to
give us the hard word about the wine and mutton?”
“Very friendly,” retorted Phaddhy, who, after all, appeared to have
suspected the priest--“very friendly, indeed, when it's to put a good
joint before himself, and a bottle of wine in his jacket. No, no, Katty!
it's not altogether for the sake of Father Philemy, but I wouldn't have
the neighbors say that I was near and undacent; and above all tilings,
I wouldn't be worse nor the Slevins--for the same set would keep it up
agin us long enough.”
Our readers will admire the tact with which Father Philemy worked upon
the rival feeling between the factions; but, independently of this,
there is a generous hospitality in an Irish peasant which would urge him
to any stratagem, were it even the disposal of his only cow, sooner than
incur the imputation of a narrow, or, as he himself terms it, “undacent”
or “nagerly” spirit.
In the course of a short time, Phaddhy dispatched two messengers, one
for the wine, and another for the mutton; and, that they might not
have cause for any unnecessary delay, he gave them the two reverend
gentlemen's horses, ordering them to spare neither whip nor spur until
they returned. This was an agreeable command to the messengers, who, as
soon as they found themselves mounted, made a bet of a “trate,” to be
paid on arriving in the town to which they were sent, to him who should
first reach a little stream that crossed the road at the entrance of it,
called the “Pound burn.” But I must not forget to state, that they not
only were mounted on the priest's horses, but took their great-coats, as
the day had changed, and threatened to rain. Accordingly, on getting out
upon the main road, they set off, whip and spur, at full speed, jostling
one another, and cutting each other's horses as if they had been
intoxicated; and the fact is, that, owing to the liberal distribution of
the bottle that morning, they were not far from it.
[Illustration: PAGE 756-- They set off, whip and spur, at full speed]
“Bliss us!” exclaimed the country people, as they passed, “what on airth
can be the matther with Father Philemy and Father Con, that they're
abusing wan another at sich a rate!”
“Oh!” exclaimed another, “it's apt to be a sick call, and they're
thrying, maybe, to be there before the body grows cowld.”
“Ay, it may be,” a third conjectured, “it's to old Magennis, that's on
the point of death, and going to lave all his money behind him.”
But their astonishment was not a whit lessened, when, in about an hour
afterwards, they perceived them both return; the person who represented
Father Con having an overgrown leg of mutton slung behind his back like
an Irish harp, reckless of its friction against his Reverence's coat,
which it had completely saturated with grease; and the duplicate of
Father Philemy with a sack over his shoulder, in the bottom of which was
half a dozen of Mr. M'Laughlin's best port.
Phaddhy, in the meantime, being determined to mortify his rival Parrah
More by a superior display of hospitality, waited upon that parsonage,
and exacted a promise from him to come down and partake of the dinner--a
promise which the other was not slack in fulfilling. Phaddhy's heart was
now on the point of taking its rest, when it occurred to him that there
yet remained one circumstance in which he might utterly eclipse his
rival, and that was to ask Captain Wilson, his landlord, to meet their
Reverences at dinner. He accordingly went over to him, for he only lived
a few fields distant, having first communicated the thing privately to
Katty, and requested that, as their Reverences that day held a station
in his house, and would dine there, he would have the kindness to dine
along with them. To this the Captain, who was intimate with both the
clergymen, gave a ready compliance, and Phaddhy returned home in high
spirits.
In the meantime, the two priests were busy in the work of absolution;
the hour of three had arrived, and they had many to shrive; but, in
the course of a short time, a reverend auxiliary made his appearance,
accompanied by one of Father Philemy's nephews, who was then about to
enter Maynooth. This clerical gentleman had been appointed to a parish;
but, owing to some circumstances which were known only in the distant
part of the diocese where he had resided, he was deprived of it, and
had, at the period I am writing of, no appointment in the church,
though he was in full orders. If I mistake not, he incurred his bishop's
displeasure by being too warm an advocate for Domestic Nomination,* a
piece of discipline, the re-establishment of which was then attempted by
the junior clergymen of the diocese wherein the scene of this station
is laid. Be this as it may, he came in time to assist the gentlemen in
absolving those penitents (as we must call them so) who still remained
unconfessed.
* Domestic Nomination was the right claimed by a
portion of the Irish clergy to appoint their own
bishops, independently of the Pope.
During all this time Katty was in the plenitude of her authority, and
her sense of importance manifested itself in a manner that was by no
means softened by having been that morning at her duty. Her tones
were not so shrill, nor so loud as they would have been, had not their
Reverences been within hearing; but what was wanting in loudness, was
displayed in a firm and decided energy, that vented, itself frequently
in the course of the day upon the backs and heads of her sons,
daughters, and servants, as they crossed her path in the impatience
and bustle of her employment. It was truly ludicrous to see her, on
encountering one of them in these fretful moments, give him a drive
head-foremost against the wall, exclaiming, as she shook her fist at
him, “Ho, you may bless your stars, that they're under the roof, or it
wouldn't go so asy wid you; for if goodness hasn't said it, you'll
make me lose my sowl this blessed and holy day: but this is still the
case--the very time I go to my duty, the devil (between us and harm)
is sure to throw fifty temptations acrass me, and to help him, you must
come in my way--but wait till tomorrow, and if I, don't pay you for
this, I'm not here.”
That a station is an expensive ordinance to the peasant who is honored
by having one held in his house, no one who knows the characteristic
hospitality of the Irish people can doubt. I have reason, however, to
know that, within the last few years, stations in every sense have been
very much improved, where they have not been abolished altogether.
The priests now are not permitted to dine in the houses of their
parishioners, by which a heavy tax has been removed from the people.
About four o'clock the penitents were at length all despatched; and
those who were to be detained for dinner, many of whom had not eaten
anything until then, in consequence of the necessity of receiving the
Eucharist fasting, were taken aside to taste some of Phaddhy's poteen.
At length the hour of dinner arrived, and along with it the redoubtable
Parra More Slevin, Captain Wilson, and another nephew of Father
Philemy's, who had come to know what detained his brother who had
conducted the auxiliary priest to Phaddhy's. It is surprising on these
occasions, to think how many uncles, nephews, and cousins, to the
forty-Second degree, find it needful to follow their Reverences on
messages of various kinds; and it is equally surprising to observe with
what exactness they drop in during the hour of dinner. Of course,
any blood-relation or friend of the priests must be received with
cordiality; and consequently they do not return without solid proofs
of the good-natured hospitality of poor Paddy, who feels no greater
pleasure than in showing his “dacency” to any one belonging to his
Reverence.
I dare say it would be difficult to find a more motley and diversified
company than sat down to the ungarnished fare which Katty laid before
them. There were first Fathers Philemy, Con, and the Auxiliary from the
far part of the diocese; next followed Captain Wilson, Peter Malone, and
Father Philemy's two nephews; after these came Phaddhy himself, Parrah
More Slevin, with about two dozen more of the most remarkable and
uncouth personages that could sit down to table. There were besides
about a dozen of females, most of whom by this time, owing to Katty's
private kindness, were in a placid state of feeling. Father Philemy _ex
officio_, filled the chair--he was a small man with cherub cheeks as red
as roses, black twinkling eyes, and double chin; was of the fat-headed
genus, and, if phrenologists be correct, must have given indications
of early piety, for he was bald before his time, and had the organ of
veneration standing visible on his crown; his hair from having once been
black, had become an iron gray, and hung down behind his ears, resting
on the collar of his coat according to the old school, to which, I must
remark, he belonged, having been educated on the Continent. His coat
had large double breasts, the lappels of which hung down loosely on each
side, being the prototype of his waistcoat, whose double breasts fell
downwards in the same manner--his black small-clothes had silver buckles
at the knees, and the gaiters, which did not reach up so far, discovered
a pair of white lamb's-wool stockings, somewhat retreating from their
original color.
Father Con was a tall, muscular, able-bodied young man, with an
immensely broad pair of shoulders, of which he was vain; his black hair
was cropped close, except a thin portion of it which was trimmed quite
evenly across his eyebrows; he was rather bow-limbed, and when walking
looked upwards, holding out his elbows from his body, and letting the
lower parts of his arms fall down, so that he went as if he carried a
keg under each; his coat, though not well made, was of the best glossy
broadcloth--and his long clerical boots went up about his knees like
a dragoon's; there was an awkward stiffness about him, in very good
keeping with a dark melancholy cast of countenance, in which, however, a
man might discover an air of simplicity not to be found in the visage of
his superior Father Philemy.
The latter gentleman filled the chair, as I said, and carved the goose;
on his right sat Captain Wilson; on his left, the auxiliary--next to
them Father Con, the nephews, Peter Malone, _et cetera_. To enumerate
the items of the dinner is unnecessary, as our readers have a pretty
accurate notion of them from what we have already said. We can only
observe, that when Phaddhy saw it laid, and all the wheels of the system
fairly set agoing, he looked at Parrah More with an air of triumph
which he could not conceal. It is also unnecessary for us to give the
conversation in full; nor, indeed, would we attempt giving any portion
of it, except for the purpose of showing the spirit in which a religious
ceremony such as it is, is too frequently closed.
The talk in the beginning was altogether confined to the clergymen and
Mr. Wilson, including a few diffident contributions from “Peter Malone”
and the “two nephews.”
“Mr. M'Guirk,” observed Captain Wilson, after the conversation had taken
several turns, “I'm sure that in the course of your professional duties,
sir, you must have had occasion to make many observations upon human
nature, from the circumstance of seeing it in every condition and state
of feeling possible; from the baptism of the infant, until the aged man
receives the last rites of your church, and the soothing consolation of
religion from your hand.”
“Not a doubt of it, Phaddhy,” said Father Philemy to Phaddhy, whom
he had been addressing at the time, “not a doubt of it; and I'll
do everything in my power to get him _in_* too, and I am told he is
bright.”
* That is--into Maynooth college--the great object of
ambition to the son of an Irish peasant or rather to
his parent.
“Uncle,” said one of the nephews, “this gentleman is speaking to you.”
“And why not?” continued his Eeverence, who was so closely engaged with
Phaddhy, that he did not even hear the nephew's appeal--“a bishop--and
why not? Has he not as good a chance of being a bishop as any of them?
though, God knows, it is not always merit that gets a bishopric in any
church, or I myself might--But let that pass.” said he, fixing his eyes
on the bottle. “Father Philemy,” said Father Con, “Captain Wilson was
addressing himself to you in a most especial manner.”
“Oh! Captain, I beg ten thousand pardons, I was engaged talking with
Phaddhy here about his son, who is a young shaving of our cloth, sir, he
is intended for the Mission*--Phaddhy, I will either examine him myself,
or make Father Con examine him by-and-by.--Well, Captain?” The Captain
now repeated what he had said.
* The Church of Rome existing in any heretical country--
that is, where she herself is not the State church--is
considered a missionary establishment; and taking
orders in her is termed “Going upon the Mission.” Even
Ireland is looked upon as _in partibus infidelium_,
because Protestantism is established by law--hence the
phrase above.
“Very true, Captain, and we do see it in as many shapes as ever--Con,
what do you call him?--put on him.”
“Proteus,” subjoined Con, who was famous at the classics.
Father Philemy nodded for the assistance, and continued--“but as for
human nature, Captain, give it to me at a good rousing christening;
or what is better again, at a jovial wedding between two of my own
parishioners--say this pretty fair-haired daughter of Phaddhy Shemus
Phaddhy's here, and long Ned Slevin, Parrah More's son there--eh
Phaddhy, will it be a match?--what do you say, Parrah More? Upon my
veracity I must bring that about.”
“Why, then, yer Reverence,” replied Phaddhy, who was now a little
softened, and forgot his enmity against Parrah More for the present,
“unlikelier things might happen.”
“It won't be my fault,” said Parrah More, “if my son Ned has no
objection.”
“He object!” replied Father Philemy, “if' I take it in hands, let me see
who'll dare to object; doesn't the Scripture say it? and sure we can't
go against the Scripture.”
“By the by,” said Captain Wilson, who was a dry humorist, “I am happy to
be able to infer from what you say, Father Philemy, that you are not, as
the clergymen of your church are supposed to be, inimical to the Bible.”
“Me an enemy to the Bible! no such thing, sir; but, Captain, begging
your pardon we will have nothing more about the bible; you see we are
met here, as friends and good fellows, to enjoy ourselves after the
severity of our spiritual duties, and we must relax a little; we can't
always carry long faces like Methodist parsons--come, Pairah More, let
the Bible take a nap, and give us a song.”
His Reverence was now seconded in his motion by the most of all present,
and Parrah More accordingly gave them a song. After a few songs more,
the conversation went on as before.
“Now, Parrah More,” said Phaddhy, “you must try my wine; I hope it's as
good as what you gave his Reverence yesterday.” The words, however, had
scarcely passed his lips, when Father Philemy burst out into a fit
of laughter, clapping and rubbing his hands in a manner the most
irresistible. “Oh, Phaddhy, Phaddhy!” shouted his Reverence, laughing
heartily, “I done you for once--I done you, my man, cute as you thought
yourself: why, you nager you, did you think to put us off with punch,
and you have a stocking of hard guineas hid in a hole in the wall?”
“What does yer Rev'rence mane,” said Phaddhy; “for myself can make no
understanding out of it, at all at all?”
To this his Reverence only replied by another laugh.
“I gave his Reverence no wine,” said Parrah More, in reply to Phaddhy's
question.
“What!” said Phaddhy, “none yesterday, at the station held with you?”
“Not a bit of me ever thought of it.”
“Nor no mutton?”
“Why, then, devil a morsel of mutton, Phaddhy; but we had a rib of
beef.”
Phaddhy now looked over to his Reverence rather sheepishly, with the
smile of a man on his face who felt himself foiled. “Well, yer Reverence
has done me, sure enough,” he replied, rubbing his head--“I give it up
to you, Father Philemy; but any how, I'm glad I got it, and you're all
welcome from the core of my heart. I'm only sorry I haven't as much more
now to thrate you all like gintlemen; but there's some yet, and as much
punch as will make all our heads come round.”
Our readers must assist us with their own imaginations, and suppose the
conversation to have passed very pleasantly, and the night, as well
as the guests, to be somewhat far gone. The principal part of the
conversation was borne by the three clergymen, Captain Wilson, and
Phaddy; that of the two nephews and Peter Malone ran in an under current
of its own; and in the preceding part of the night, those who occupied
the bottom of the table, spoke to each other rather in whispers, being
too much restrained by that rustic bashfulness which ties up the tongues
of those who feel that their consequence is overlooked among their
superiors. According as the punch circulated, however, their diffidence
began to wear off; and occasionally an odd laugh or so might be heard
to break the monotony of their silence. The youngsters, too, though at
first almost in a state of terror, soon commenced plucking each other;
and a titter, or a suppressed burst of laughter, would break forth from
one of the more waggish, who was put to a severe task in afterwards
composing his countenance into sufficient gravity to escape detection,
and a competent portion of chastisement the next day, for not being able
to “behave himself with betther manners.”
During these juvenile breaches of decorum, Katty would raise her arm
in a threatening attitude, shake her head at them, and look up at the
clergy, intimating more by her earnestness of gesticulation than met
the ear. Several songs again went round, of which, truth to tell,
Father Philomy's were by far the best; for he possessed a rich, comic
expression of eye, which, added to suitable ludicrousness of gesture,
and a good voice, rendered him highly amusing to the company. Father
Con declined singing, as being decidedly serious, though he was often
solicited.
“He!” said Father Philemy, “he has no more voice than a woolpack;
but Con's a cunning fellow. What do you think, Captain Wilson, but
he pretends to be too pious to sing, and gets credit for piety,--not
because he is devout, but because he has a bad voice; now, Con, you
can't deny it, for there's not a man in the three kingdoms knows it
better than myself; you sit there with a face upon you that might go
before the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet, when you ought to be as
jovial as another.”
“Well, Father Philemy,” said Phaddhy, “as he won't sing, may be, wid
submission he'd examine Briney in his Latin, till his mother and I hear
how's he doing at it.”
“Ay, he's fond of dabbling at Latin, so he may try him--I'm sure I have
no objection--: so, Captain, as I was telling you--”
“Silence there below!” said Phaddhy to those at the lower end of the
table, who were now talkative enough; “will yez whisht there till Father
Con hears Briney a lesson in his Latin. Where are you, Briney? come
here, ma bouchal.”
But Briney had absconded when he saw that the tug of war was about to
commence. In a few minutes, however, the father returned, pushing
the boy before him, who in his reluctance to encounter the ordeal of
examination, clung to every chair, table, and person in his way, hoping
that his restiveness might induce them to postpone the examination till
another occasion. The father, however, was inexorable, and by main force
dragged him from all his holds, and, placed him before Father Con.
“What's come over you, at all at all, you unsignified shingawn you, to
affront the gintleman in this way, and he kind enough to go for to give
you an examination?--come now, you had betther not vex me, I tell you,
but hould up your head, and spake out loud, that we can all hear
you: now, Father Con, achora, you'll not be too hard upon him in the
beginning, till he gets into it, for he's aisy dashed.”
“Here, Briney,” said Father Philemy, handing him his tumbler, “take
a pull of this and if you have any courage at all in you it will raise
it;--take a good pull.” Briney hesitated.
“Why, but you take the glass out of his Reverence's hand, sarrah,”
said the father--“what! is it without dhrinking his Reverence's health
first?”
Briney gave a most melancholy nod at his Reverence, as he put the
tumbler to his mouth, which he nearly emptied, notwithstanding his
shyness.
“For my part,” said his Reverence, looking at the almost empty tumbler,
“I am pretty sure that that same chap will be able to take care
of himself through life. And so, Captain,--” said he, resuming the
conversation with Captain Wilson--for his notice of Briney was only
parenthetical.
Father Con now took the book, which was AEsop's Fables, and, in
accordance with Briney's intention, it opened exactly at the favorite
fable of Gallus Gallinacexis. He was not aware, however, that Briney had
kept that place open during the preceding part of the week, in order to
effect this point. Father Philemy, however, was now beginning to relate
another anecdote to the Captain, and the thread of his narrative twined
rather ludicrously with that of the examination.
Briney, after, a few hems, at length proceeded--“_Gallus Gallinaceus_, a
dung-hill cock--”
“So, Captain, I was just after coming out of Widow Moylan's--it was in
the Lammas fair--and a large one, by the by, it was--so, sir, who should
come up to me but Branagan. 'Well, Branagan,' said I, 'how does the
world go now with you?'----”
“_Gallus Gallinaceus_, a dunghill cock----”
----“Says he. 'And how is that?' says I.
“_Gallus Gallinaceus_----”
-----“Says he, 'Hut tut, Branagan,' says I--'you're drunk.' 'That's
the thing, sir' says Branagan, 'and I want to explain it all to your
Reverence.' 'Well,' said I, 'go on---”
“_Gallus Gallinaceus_, a dunghill cock----”
----“Says he,----Let your Gallus Gallinaceus go to roost for this night,
Con,” said Father Philemy, who did not relish the interruption of his
story; “I say, Phaddhy, send the boy to bed, and bring him down in your
hand to my house on Saturday morning, and we will both examine him,
but this is no time for it, and me engaged in conversation with
Captain Wilson.--So, Captain ____'Well, sir,' says Branagan, and he
staggering,--'I took an oath against liquor, and I want your Reverence
to break it,' says he. 'What do you mean?' I inquired. 'Why, please your
Reverence,' said he, 'I took an oath against liquor, as I told you,
not to drink more nor a pint of whiskey in one day, and I want your
Reverence to break it for me, and make it only half a pint; for I find
that a pint is too much for me; by the same token, that when I get that
far, your Reverence, I disremember the oath entirely.”
The influence of the bottle now began to be felt, and the conversation
absolutely blew a gale, wherein hearty laughter, good strong singing,
loud argument, and general good humor blended into one uproarious peal
of hilarity, accompanied by some smart flashes of wit and humor which
would not disgrace a prouder banquet. Phaddhy, in particular, melted
into a spirit of the most unbounded benevolence--a spirit that would (if
by any possible means he could effect it) embrace the whole human race;
that is to say, he would raise them, man, woman, and child, to the same
elevated state of happiness which he enjoyed himself. That, indeed, was
happiness in perfection, as pure and unadulterated as the poteen which
created it. How could he be otherwise than happy?--he had succeeded to a
good property, and a stocking of hard guineas, without the hard labor of
acquiring them; he had the “clargy” under his roof at last, partaking
of a hospitality which he felt himself well able to afford them; he had
settled with his Reverence for five years' arrears of sin, all of which
had been wiped out of his conscience by the blessed absolving hand of
the priest; he was training up Briney for the Mission, and though last,
not least, he was--far gone in his seventh tumbler!
“Come, jinteels,” said he, “spare nothing here--there's lashings of
every thing; thrate yourselves dacent, and don't be saying tomorrow or
next day, that ever my father's son was nagerly. Death alive, Father
Con, what are you doin'? Why, then, bad manners to me if that'll sarve,
any how.”
“Phaddhy,” replied Father Con, “I assure you I have done my duty.”
“Very well, Father Con, granting all that, it's no sin to repate a good
turn you know. Not a word I'll hear, yer Reverence--one tumbler along
with myself, if it was only for ould times.” He then filled Father Con's
tumbler with his own hand, in a truly liberal spirit. “Arrah, Father
Con, do you remember the day we had the leapin'-match, and the bout at
the shoulder-stone?”
“Indeed, I'll not forget it, Phaddhy.”
“And it's yourself that may say that; but I bleeve I rubbed the consate
off of your Reverence--only that's betune ourselves, you persave.”
“You did win the palm, Phaddhy, I'll not deny it; but you are the only
man that ever bet me at either of the athletics.'
“And I'll say this for yer Reverence, that you are one of the best and
most able-bodied gintlemen I ever engaged with. Ah! Father Con, I'm past
all that now--but no matter, here's yer Reverence's health, and a shake.
hands; Father Philomy, yer health, docthor: yer strange Reverence's
health--Captain Wilson, not forgetting you, sir: Mr. Pettier, yours; and
I hope to see you soon with the robes upon you, and to be able to prache
us a good sarmon. Parrah More--_wus dha lauv_ (* give me yer hand),
you steeple you; and I haven't the smallest taste of objection to what
Father Philemy hinted at--yell obsarve. Kitty, you thief of the world,
where are you? Your health, avourneen; come here, and give us your fist,
Katty: bad manners to me if I could forget you afther all;--the best
crathur, your Reverence, under the sun, except when yer Reverence puts
yer _comedher_ on her at confession, and then she's a little, sharp or
so, not a doubt of it: but no matther, Katty ahagur, you do it all for
the best. And Father Philemy, maybe it's myself didn't put the thrick
upon you in the Maragy More, about Katty's death--ha, ha, ha! Jack
M'Craner, yer health--all yer healths, and yer welcome here, if you
war seven times as many. Briney, where are you, ma bouchal? Come up and
shake hands wid yer father, as well as another--come up, acushla, and
kiss me. Ah, Briney, my poor fellow, ye'll never be the cut of a man yer
father was; but no matther, avourneen, ye'll be a betther man, I hope;
and God knows you may asy be that, for Father Philemy, I'm not what I
ought to be, yer Reverence; however, I may mend, and will, maybe, before
a month of Sundays goes over me: but, for all that, Briney, I hope to
see the day when you'll be sitting an ordained priest at my own table;
if I once saw that, I could die contented--so mind yer larning, acushla,
and, his Reverence here will back you, and make inthorest to get you
into the college. Musha, God pity them crathurs at the door--aren't
they gone yet? Listen to them coughin', for fraid we'd forget them: and
throth and they won't be forgot this bout any how--Katty, avourneen,
give them every one, big and little, young and ould, their
skinful--don't lave a wrinkle in them; and see, take one of them
bottles--the crathurs, they're starved sitting there all night in
the cowld--and give them a couple of glasses a-piece--it's good, yer
Reverence, to have the poor body's blessing at all times; and now, as I
was saying, Here's all yer healths! and from the very veins of my heart
yer welcome here.”
Our readers may perceive that Phaddhy
“Was not only blest, but glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious;”
for, like the generality of our peasantry, the _native_ drew to the
surface of his character those warm, hospitable, and benevolent virtues,
which a purer system of morals and education would most certainly keep
in full action, without running the risk, as in the present instance, of
mixing bad habits with frank, manly, and generous qualities.
* * * * *
“I'll not go, Con--I tell you I'll not go till I sing another song.
Phaddhy, you're a prince--but where's the use of lighting more candles
now, man, than you had in the beginning of the night? Is Captain Wilson
gone? Then, peace be with him; it's a pity he wasn't on the right side,
for he's not the worst of them. Phaddhy, where are you?”
“Why, yer Reverence,” replied Katty, “he's got a little unwell, and jist
laid down his head a bit.”
“Katty,” said Father Con, “you had better get a couple of the men to
accompany Father Philemy home; for though the night's clear, he doesn't
see his way very well in the dark--poor man, his eye-sight's failing him
fast.”
“Then, the more's the pity, Father Con. Here, Denis, let yourself and
Mat go home wid Father Philemy.”
“Good-night, Katty,” said Father Con--“Good-night: and may our blessing
sanctify you all.”
“Good-night, Father Con, ahagur,” replied Katty; “and for goodness' sake
see that they take care of Father Philemy, for it's himself that's the
blessed and holy crathur, and the pleasant gintleman out and out.”
“Good-night, Katty,” again repeated Father Con, as the cavalcade
proceeded in a body--“Good-night!” And so ended the Station.
THE PARTY FIGHT AND FUNERAL.
We ought, perhaps, to inform our readers that the connection between a
party fight and funeral is sufficiently strong to justify the author in
classing them under the title which is prefixed to this story. The one
being usually the natural result of the other, is made to proceed from
it, as is, unhappily, too often the custom in real life among the Irish.
It has been long laid down as a universal principle, that
self-preservation is the first law of nature. An Irishman, however, has
nothing to do with this; he disposes of it as he does with the other
laws, and washes his hands out of it altogether. But commend him to a
fair, dance, funeral, or wedding, or to any other sport where there is
a likelihood of getting his head or his bones broken, and if he survive,
he will remember you with a kindness peculiar to himself to the last
day of his life--will drub you from head to heel if he finds that any
misfortune has kept you out of a row beyond the usual period of three
months--will render the same service to any of your friends that stand
in need of it; or, in short, will go to the world's end, or fifty miles
farther, as he himself would say, to serve you, provided you can
procure him a bit of decent fighting. Now, in truth and soberness, it
is difficult to account for this propensity; especially when the task
of ascertaining it is assigned to those of another country, or even to
those Irishmen whose rank in life places them too far from the customs,
prejudices, and domestic opinions of their native peasantry, none
of which can be properly known without mingling with them. To my own
knowledge, however, it proceeds in a great measure from education. And
here I would beg leave to point out an omission of which the several
boards of education have been guilty, and which, I believe, no one but
myself has yet been sufficiently acute and philosophical to ascertain,
as forming a _sine qua non_ in the national instruction of the lower
orders of Irishmen.
The cream of the matter is this:--a species of ambition prevails in the
Green Isle, not known in any other country. It is an ambition of about
three miles by four in extent; or, in other words, is bounded by the
limits of the parish in which the subject of it may reside. It puts
itself forth early in the character, and a hardy perennial it is. In my
own case, its first development was noticed in the hedge-school which I
attended. I had not been long there, till I was forced to declare myself
either for the Caseys or the Murphys, two tiny factions, that had split
the school between them. The day on which the ceremony of my declaration
took place was a solemn one. After school, we all went to the bottom of
a deep valley, a short distance from the school-house; up to the moment
of our assembling there, I had not taken my stand under either banner:
that of the Caseys was a sod of turf, stuck on the end of a broken
fishing-rod--the eagle of the Murphy's was a Cork red potato, hoisted
in the same manner. The turf was borne by an urchin, who afterwards
distinguished himself in fairs and markets as a _builla batthah_ (*
cudgel player) of the first grade, and from this circumstance he was
nicknamed _Parrah Rackhan_. (* Paddy the Rioter) The potato was borne
by little Mickle M'Phauden Murphy, who afterwards took away Katty Bane
Sheridan, without asking either her own consent or her father's. They
were all then boys, it is true, but they gave a tolerable promise of
that eminence which they subsequently attained.
When we arrived at the bottom of the glen, the Murphys and the Caseys,
including their respective followers, ranged themselves on either side
of a long line, which was drawn between the belligerent powers with the
but-end of one of the standards. Exactly on this line was I placed. The
word was then put to me in full form--“Whether will you side with the
dacent Caseys, or the blackguard Murphys?” “Whether will you side with
the dacent Murphys, or the blackguard Caseys?” “The potato for ever!”
said I, throwing up my caubeen, and running over to the Murphy standard.
In the twinkling of an eye we were at it; and in a short time the deuce
an eye some of us had to twinkle. A battle royal succeeded, that lasted
near half an hour, and it would probably have lasted above double the
time, were it not for the appearance of the “master,” who was seen by a
little shrivelled vidette, who wanted an arm, and could take no part in
the engagement. This was enough--we instantly radiated in all possible
directions, so that by the time he had descended through the intricacies
of the glen to the field of battle, neither victor nor vanquished was
visible, except, perhaps, a straggler or two as they topped the brow of
the declivity, looking back over their shoulders, to put themselves out
of doubt as to their visibility by the master. They seldom looked in
vain, however, for there he usually stood, shaking at us his rod, silently
prophetic of its application on the following day. This threat, for the
most part, ended in smoke; for except he horsed about forty or fifty of
us, the infliction of impartial justice was utterly out of his power.
[Illustration: PAGE 763-- Usually stood, shaking at us his rod]
But besides this, there never was a realm in which the evils of a
divided cabinet were more visible: the truth is, the monarch himself was
under the influence of female government--an influence which he felt
it either contrary to his inclination or beyond his power to throw
off. “Poor Norah, long may you reign!” we often used to exclaim, to the
visible mortification of the “master,” who felt the benevolence of the
wish bottomed upon an indirect want of allegiance to himself. Well, it
was a touching scene!--how we used to stand with the waistbands of our
small-clothes cautiously grasped in our hands, with a timid show of
resistance, our brave red faces slobbered over with tears, as we stood
marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation
in eloquence than we then exhibited--the supplicating look right up into
the master's face--the touching modulation of the whine--the additional
tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one
hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping our eyes and
noses with the polished sleeve-cuff--the sincerity and vehemence with
which we promised never to be guilty again, still shrewdly including the
condition of present impunity for our offence:--“this--one--time--
master, if ye plaise, sir;” and the utter hopelessness and despair which
were legible in the last groan, as we grasp the “master's” leg in utter
recklessness of judgment, were all perfect in their way. Reader, have
you ever got a reprieve from the gallows? I beg pardon, my dear sir; I
only meant to ask, are you capable of entering into what a personage of
that description might be supposed to feel, on being informed, after the
knot had been neatly tied under the left ear, and the cap drawn over his
eyes, that her majesty had granted him a full pardon? But you remember
your own schoolboy days, and that's enough.
The nice discrimination with which Norah used to time her interference
was indeed surprising. God help us! limited was our experience, and
shallow our little judgments, or we might have known what the master
meant, when with upraised arm hung over us, his eye was fixed upon the
door of the kitchen, waiting for Norah's appearance.
Long, my fair and virtuous countrywomen, I repeat it to you all, as
I did to Norah--may you reign in the hearts and affections of your
husbands (but nowhere else), the grace, ornaments, and happiness of
their hearths and lives, you jewels, you! You are paragons of all that's
good, and your feelings are highly creditable to yourselves and to
humanity.
When Norah advanced, with her brawny, uplifted arm (for she was a
powerful woman) and forbidding aspect, to interpose between us and the
avenging, terrors of the birch, do you think that she did not reflect
honor on her sex and the national character! I sink the base allusion
to the _miscaun_* of fresh butter, which we had placed in her hands that
morning, or the dish of eggs, or of meal, which we had either begged or
stolen at home, as a present for her; disclaiming, at the same time, the
rascally idea of giving it as a bribe, or from any motive beneath the
most lofty minded and disinterested generosity on our part.
* A portion of butter, weighing from one pound to six or
eight, made in the shape of a prism.
Then again, never did a forbidding face shine with so winning and
amicable an expression as did hers on that merciful occasion. The sun
dancing a hornpipe on Easter Sunday morning, or the full moon sailing as
proud as a peacock in a new halo head-dress, was a very disrespectable
sight, compared to Norah's red beaming face, shrouded in her dowd cap
with long ears, that descended to her masculine and substantial neck.
Owing to her influence, the whole economy of the school was good; for
we were permitted to cuff one another, and do whatever we pleased, with
impunity, if we brought the meal, eggs, or butter; except some scapegoat
who was not able to accomplish this, and he generally received on his
own miserable carcase what was due to us all.
Poor Jack Murray! His last words on the scaffold, for being concerned in
the murder of Pierce the gauger, were, that he got the first of his
bad habits under Pat Mulligan and Norah--that he learned to steal by
secreting at home, butter and meal to paste up the master's eyes to
his bad conduct--and that his fondness for quarrelling arose from being
permitted to head a faction at school; a most ungrateful return for the
many acts of grace which the indulgence of Norah caused; to be issued in
his favor.
I was but a short time under Pat, when, after the general example, I
had my cudgel, which I used to carry regularly to a certain furze
bush within fifty perches of the “seminary,” where I hid it till after
“dismiss.*”! I grant it does not look well in me to become I my own
panegyrist; but I can at least declare, that there were few among the
Gaseys able to, resist the prowess of this right arm, puny as it was at
the period in question. Our battles were obstinate and frequent; but as
the quarrels of the two families and their relations on each side, were
as bitter and pugnacious in fairs and markets as ours were in school, we
hit upon the plan of holding our Lilliputian engagements upon the same
days on which our fathers and brothers contested. According to this
plan, it very often happened that the corresponding parties were
successful, and as frequently, that whilst the Caseys were well drubbed
in the fair, their sons were victorious at school, and vice versa.
For my part, I was early trained in cudgelling, and before I reached my
fourteenth year, could pronounce as sage and accurate an opinion upon
the merits of a shillelagh, as it is called, or cudgel, as a veteran
of sixty could at first sight. Our plan of preparing them was this: we
sallied out to any place where there was an underwood of blackthorn or
oak, and, having surveyed the premises with the eye of a connoisseur, we
selected the straightest root-growing piece which we could find: for
if not root-growing we did not consider it worth cutting, knowing from
experience that a mere branch, how straight and fair soever it might
look, would be apt to snap in the twist and tug of war. Having cut it as
close to the root as possible, we then lopped off the branches, and
put it up the chimney to season. When seasoned, we took it down, and
wrapping it in brown paper, well steeped in hog's lard or oil, we buried
it in a horse dunghill, paying it a daily visit for the purpose of
making it straight by doubling back the bends or angles across the knee,
in a direction contrary to their natural tendency. Having daily repeated
this until we had made it straight, and renewed the oil wrapping paper
until the staff was perfectly saturated, we then rubbed it well with a
woollen cloth, containing a little black-lead and grease, to give it
a polish. This was the last process, except that if we thought it too
light at the top, we used to bore a hole in the lower end with a red-hot
iron spindle, into which we poured melted lead, for the purpose of
giving it the knock-down weight.
There were very few of Paddy Mulligan's scholars without a choice
collection of such cudgels, and scarcely one who had not, before his
fifteenth year, a just claim to be called the hero of a hundred fights,
and the heritor of as many bumps on the cranium as would strike both
Gall and Spurzheim speechless.
Now this, be it known, was, and in some districts yet is, an integral
part of an Irish peasant's education. In the northern parts of Ireland,
where the population of the Catholics on the one side, and of Protestant
and Dissenters on the other, is nearly equal, I have known the
respective scholars of Catholic and Protestant schools to challenge each
other and meet half-way to do battle, in vindication of their respective
creeds; or for the purpose of establishing the character of their
respective masters as the more learned man; for if we were to judge by
the nature of the education then received, we would be led to conclude
that a more commercial nation than Ireland was not on the face of the
earth, it being the indispensable part of every scholar's business to
become acquainted with the _three sets of Bookkeeping_.
The boy who was the handiest and the most daring with the cudgel at
Paddy Mulligan's school was Denis Kelly, the son of a wealthy farmer
in the neighborhood. He was a rash, hot-tempered, good-natured lad,
possessing a more than common share of this blackthorn ambition; on
which account he was cherished by his relations as a boy that was likely
at a future period to be able to walk over the course of the parish,
in fair, market, or patron. He certainly grew up a stout, able young
fellow; and before he reached nineteen years, was unrivalled at the
popular exercises of the peasantry. Shortly after that time he made
his debut in a party-quarrel, which took place in one of the Christmas
Margamores, (* Big Markets) and fully sustained the anticipations which
were formed of him by his relations. For a year or two afterwards no
quarrel was fought without him; and his prowess rose until he had gained
the very pinnacle of that ambition which he had determined to reach.
About this time I was separated from him, having found it necessity,
in order to accomplish my objects in life, to reside with a relation in
another part of the country.
The period of my absence, I believe, was about fifteen years, during
which space I heard no account of him whatsoever. At length, however,
that inextinguishable attachment which turns the affections and memory
to the friends of our early days--to those scenes which we traversed
when the heart was light and the spirits buoyant--determined me to make
a visit to my native place, that I might witness the progress of time
and care upon those faces that were once so familiar to me; that I might
again look upon the meadows, and valleys, and groves, and mountains,
where I had so often played, and to which I still found myself bound by
a tie that a more enlightened view of life and nature only made stronger
and more enduring. I accordingly set off, and arrived late in the
evening of a December day, at a little town within a few miles of my
native home. On alighting from the coach and dining, I determined to
walk home, as it was a fine frosty night. The full moon hung in the blue
unclouded firmament in all her lustre, and the stars shone out with that
tremulous twinkling motion so peculiarly remarkable in frost. I had been
absent, I said, about fifteen years, and felt that the enjoyment of this
night would form an era in the records of my memory and my feelings. I
find myself indeed utterly incapable of expressing what I experienced;
but those who have ever been in similar circumstances will understand
what I mean. A strong spirit of practical poetry and romance was upon
me; and I thought that a commonplace approach in the open day would
have rendered my return to the scenes of my early life a very stale and
unedifying matter. I left the inn at seven o'clock, and as I had only
five miles to walk, I would just arrive about nine, allowing myself to
saunter on at the rate of two miles and half per hour. My sensations,
indeed, as I went along, were singular; and as I took a solitary road
that went across the mountains, the loneliness of the walk, the deep
gloom of the valleys, the towering height of the dark hills, and the
pale silvery-light of a sleeping lake, shining dimly in the distance
below, gave me such a distinct notion of the sublime and beautiful, as
I have seldom since experienced. I recommend every man who has been
fifteen years absent from his native fields to return by moonlight.
Well, there is a mystery yet undiscovered in our being, for no man
can know the full extent of his feelings or his capacities. Many a
slumbering thought, and sentiment, and association reposes within him,
of which he is utterly ignorant, and which, except he come in contact
with those objects whose influence over his mind can alone call them
into being, may never be awakened, or give him one moment of either
pleasure or pain. There is, therefore, a great deal in the position
which we hold in society, and simply in situation. I felt this on that
night: for the tenor of my reflections was new and original, and my
feelings had a warmth and freshness in them, which nothing but the
situation in which I then found myself could give them. The force of
association, too, was powerful; for, as I advanced nearer home, the
names of hills, and lakes, and mountains, that I had utterly forgotten,
as I thought, were distinctly revived in my memory, and a crowd of
youthful thoughts and feelings, that I imagined my intercourse with the
world and the finger of time had blotted out of my being, began to crowd
afresh on my fancy. The name of, a townland would instantly return with
its appearance; and I could now remember the history of families and
individuals that had long been effaced from my recollection.
But what is even more singular is, that the superstitious terrors of
my boyhood began to come over me as formerly, whenever a spot noted
for supernatural appearances met my eye. It was in vain that I exerted
myself to expel them, by throwing the barrier of philosophic reasoning
in their way; they still clung to me, in spite of every effort to the
contrary. But the fact is, that I was, for the moment, the slave of a
morbid and feverish sentiment, that left me completely at the mercy of
the dark and fleeting images that passed over my fancy. I now came to a
turn where the road began to slope down into the depths of a valley
that ran across it. When I looked forward into the bottom of it, all was
darkness impenetrable, for the moon-beams were thrown off by the height
of the mountains that rose on each side of it. I felt an indefinite
sensation of fear, because at that moment I recollected that it had
been, in my younger days, notorious as the scene of an apparition,
where the spirit of a murdered pedlar had never been known to permit
a solitary traveler to pass without appearing to him, and walking
cheek-by-jowl along with him to the next house on the way, at which spot
he usually vanished. The influence of my feelings, or, I should rather
say, the physical excitement of my nerves, was by no means slight, as
these old traditions recurred to me; although, at the same time, my
moral courage was perfectly unimpaired, so that, notwithstanding this
involuntary apprehension, I felt a degree of novelty and curiosity in
descending the valley: “If it appear,” said I, “I shall at least satisfy
myself as to the truth of apparitions.” My dress consisted of a long,
dark surtout, the collar of which, as the night was keen, I had turned
up about my ears, and the corners of it met round my face. In addition
to this I had a black silk handkerchief tied across my mouth to keep out
the night air, so that, as my dark fur traveling cap came down over
my face, there was very little of my countenance visible. I now had
advanced half way into the valley, and all about me was dark and still:
the moonlight was not nearer than the top of the hill which I was
descending; and I often turned round to look upon it, so silvery and
beautiful it appeared in the distance. Sometimes I stopped for a few
moments, admiring' its effect, and, contemplating the dark mountains
as they stood out against the firmament, then kindled into magnificent
grandeur by the myriads of stars that glowed in its expanse. There was
perfect silence and solitude around me; and, as I stood alone in
the dark chamber of the mountains, I felt the impressiveness of the
situation gradually supersede my terrors. A sublime sense of religious
awe descended on me; my soul kindled into a glow of solemn and elevated
devotion, which gave me a more intense perception of the presence of God
than I had ever before experienced. “How sacred--how awful,” thought I,
“is this place!--how impressive is this hour!--surely I feel myself
at the footstool of God! The voice of worship is in this deep,
soul-thrilling silence, and the tongue of praise speaks, as it were,
from the very solitude of the mountains!” I then thought of Him who
went up into the mountain-top to pray, and felt the majesty of those
admirable descriptions of the Almighty, given in the Old Testament,
blend in delightful harmony with the beauty and fitness of the Christian
dispensation, that brought light and immortality to light. “Here,” said
I, “do I feel that I am indeed immortal, and destined for scenes of a
more exalted and comprehensive existence!”
I then proceeded further into the valley, completely freed from the
influence of old and superstitious associations. A few porches below
me a small river crossed the road, over which was thrown a little
stone bridge of rude workmanship. This bridge was the spot on which the
apparition was said to appear; and as I approached it, I felt the
folly of those terrors which had only a few minutes before beset me so
strongly. I found my moral energies recruited, and the dark phantasms of
my imagination dispelled by the light of religion, which had refreshed
me with a deep sense of the Almighty presence. I accordingly walked
forward, scarcely bestowing a thought upon the history of the place,
and had got within a few yards of the bridge, when on resting my eye
accidentally upon the little elevation formed by its rude arch, I
perceived a black coffin placed at the edge of the road, exactly upon
the bridge itself!
It may be evident to the reader, that, however satisfactory the force
of philosophical reasoning might have been upon the subject of the
solitude, I was too much the creature of sensation for an hour before,
to look on such a startling object with firm nerves. For the first two
or three minutes, therefore, T exhibited as finished a specimen of the
dastardly as could be imagined. My hair absolutely raised my cap
some inches off my head; my mouth opened to an extent which I did not
conceive it could possibly reach; I thought my eyes shot out from their
sockets, and my fingers spread out and became stiff, though powerless.
The “_obstupui_” was perfectly realized in me, for, with the exception
of a single groan, which I gave on first seeing the object, I found that
if one word would save my life, or transport me to my own fireside, I
could not utter it. I was also rooted to the earth, as if by magic;
and although instant tergiversation and flight had my most hearty
concurrence, I could not move a limb, nor even raise my eyes off
the sepulchral-looking object which lay before me. I now felt the
perspiration fall from my face in torrents, and the strokes of my heart
fell audibly on my ear. I even attempted to say, “God preserve me!” but
my tongue was dumb and powerless, and could not move. My eye was still
upon the coffin, when I perceived that, from being motionless, it
instantly began to swing,--first in a lateral, then in a longitudinal
direction, although it was perfectly evident that no human hand was
nearer it than my own. At length I raised my eyes off it, for my
vision was strained to an aching intensity, which I thought must have
occasioned my eye-strings to crack. I looked instinctively about me for
assistance--but all was dismal, silent, and solitary: even the moon had
disappeared among a few clouds that I had not noticed in the sky.
As I stood in this state of indescribable horror, I saw the light
gradually fade away from the tops of the mountains, giving the scene
around me a dim and spectral ghastliness, which, to those who were never
in such a situation, is altogether inconceivable.
At length I thought I heard a noise as it Were of a rushing tempest,
sweeping from the hills down into the valley; but on looking up, I could
perceive nothing but the dusky desolation that brooded over the place.
Still the noise continued; again I saw the coffin move; I then felt
the motion communicated to myself, and found my body borne and swung
backwards and forwards, precisely according to the motion of the coffin.
I again attempted to utter a cry for assistance, but could not: the
motion in my body still continued, as did the approaching noise in the
hills. I looked up a second time in the direction in which the valley
wound off between them, but judge of what I must have suffered, when
I beheld one of the mountains moving, as it were, from its base, and
tumbling down towards the spot on which I stood! In the twinkling of an
eye the whole scene, hills and all, began to tremble, to vibrate, and to
fly round me, with a rapid, delirious motion; the stars shot back into
the depths of heaven, and disappeared; the ground on which I stood began
to pass from beneath my feet; a noise like the breaking of a thousand
gigantic billows again burst from every direction, and I found myself
instantly overwhelmed by some deadly weight, which prostrated me on the
earth, and deprived me of sense and motion.
I know not how long I continued in this state; but I remember that, on
opening my eyes the first object that presented itself to me, was the
sky glowing as before with ten thousand stars, and the moon walking in
her unclouded brightness through the heavens. The whole circumstance
then rushed back upon my mind, but with a sense of horror very much
diminished; I arose, and on looking towards the spot, perceived the
coffin in the same place. I then stood, and endeavoring to collect
myself, viewed it as calmly as possible; it was, however, as motionless
and distinct as when I first saw it. I now began to reason upon the
matter, and to consider that it was pusillanimous in me to give way to
such boyish terrors. The confidence, also, which my heart, only a short
time before this, had experienced in the presence and protection of
the Almighty, again returned, and, along with it, a degree of religious
fortitude, which invigorated my whole system. “Well,” thought I, “in the
name of God I shall ascertain what you are, let the consequence be what
it may.” I then advanced until I stood exactly over it, and raising
my foot gave it a slight kick. “Now,” said I, “nothing remains but to
ascertain whether it contains a dead body or not;” but on raising the end
of it, I perceived by its lightness, that it was empty. To investigate
the cause of its being left in this solitary spot was, however, not
within the compass of my philosophy, so I gave that up. On looking at
it more closely, I noticed a plate, marked with the name and age of
the person for whom it was intended, and on bringing my eyes near the
letters, I was able, between fingering and reading, to make out the name
of my old cudgel-fighting school-fellow, Denis Kelly.
This discovery threw a partial light upon the business; but I now
remembered to have heard of individuals who had seen black, unearthly
coffins, inscribed with the names of certain living persons; and that
these were considered as ominous of the death of those persons. I
accordingly determined to be certain that this was a real coffin; and as
Denis's house was not more than a mile before me, I decided on carrying
it that far, “If he be dead,” thought I, “it will be all light, and
if not, we will see more about it.” My mind, in fact, was diseased by
terror. I instantly raised the coffin, and as I found a rope lying on
the ground under it, I strapped it about my shoulders and proceeded: nor
could I help smiling when I reflected upon the singular transition which
the man of sentiment and sensation so strangely underwent;--from the
sublime contemplation of the silent mountain solitude and the spangled
heavens to the task of carrying a coffin! It was an adventure, however,
and I was resolved to see how it would terminate.
There was from the bridge an ascent in the road, not so gradual as that
by which I descended on the other side; and as the coffin was rather
heavy, I began to repent of having anything to do with it; for I was
by no means experienced in carrying coffins. The carriage of it was,
indeed, altogether an irksome and unpleasant concern; for owing to my
ignorance of using the rope that tied it skilfully, it was every moment
sliding down my back, dragging along the stones, or bumping against my
heels: besides, I saw no sufficient grounds I had for entering upon the
ludicrous and odd employment of carrying another man's coffin, and was
several; times upon the point of washing my hands out of it altogether.
But the novelty of the incident, and the mystery in which it was
involved, decided me in bringing it as far as Kelly's house, which was
exactly on my way home.
I had yet half a mile to go; but I thought it would be best to strap it
more firmly about my body before I could start again: I therefore set
it standing on its end, just at the turn of the road, until I should
breathe a little, for I was rather exhausted by a trudge under it of
half a mile and upwards. Whilst the coffin was in this position, I
standing exactly behind it (Kelly had been a tall man, consequently
it was somewhat higher than I was), a crowd of people, bearing lights,
advanced round the corner; and the first object which presented itself
to their vision, was the coffin in, that position, whilst I was totally
invisible behind it. As soon as they saw it, there was an involuntary
cry of consternation from the whole crowd; at this time I had the coffin
once more strapped firmly by a running knot to my shoulders, so that
I could loose it whenever I pleased. On seeing the party, and hearing
certain expressions which dropped from them, I knew at once that there
had been some unlucky blunder in the business on their part; and I would
have given a good deal to be out of the circumstances in which I then
stood. I felt that I could not possibly have accounted for my situation,
without bringing myself in for as respectable a portion of rank
cowardice as those who ran away from the coffin; for that it was
left behind in a fit of terror, I now entertained no doubt whatever,
particularly when I remembered the traditions connected with the spot in
which I found it.
“_Manim a Yea agus a wurrah!_“* exclaimed one of them, “if the black man
hasn't brought it up from the bridge! _Dher a larna heena_**, he
did; for it was above the bridge we first seen him: jist for all the
world--the Lord be about us--as Antony and me war coming out on the road
at the bridge, there he was standing--a headless man, all black, without
face or eyes upon him--and then we left the coffin and cut acrass the
fields home.”
* My soul to God and the Virgin.
** By the very book--meaning the Bible, which, in the
Irish, is not simply called the book, but the very
book, or the book itself.
“But where is he now, Eman?” said one of them, “are you sure you seen
him?”
“Seen him!” both exclaimed, “do you think we'd take to our scrapers
like two hares, only we did; arrah, bad manners to you, do you think the
coffin could walk up wid itself from the bridge to this, only he brought
it?--isn't that enough?”
“Thrue for yez,” the rest exclaimed, “but what's to be done?”
“Why to bring the coffin home, now that we're all together,” another
observed; “they say he never appears to more than two at wanst, so he
won't be apt to show himself now, when we're together.”
“Well, boys, let two of you go down to it,” said one of them, “and we'll
wait here till yez bring it up.”
“Yes,” said Eman Dhu, “do you go down, Owen, as you have the Scapular*
on you, and the jug of holy water in your hand, and let Billy M'Shane,
here repate the confeethurs (* _The Confiteor_) along wid you.”
* The scapular is one of the highest religious orders,
and is worn by both priest and layman. It is considered
by the people a safeguard against evil both spiritual
and physical.
“Isn't it the same thing, Eman,” replied Owen, “if I shake the holy
water on you, and whoever goes wid you? sure you know that if only one
dhrop of it touched you, the devil himself couldn't harm you!”
“And what needs yourself be afraid, then,” retorted Eman; “and you has
the Scapular on you to the back of that? Didn't you say, you war coming
out, that if it was the devil, you'd disparse him?”
“You had betther not be mintioning his name, you _omadhaun_,” replied
the other; “if I was your age, and hadn't a wife and childre on my
hands, it's myself that would trust in God, and go down manfully; but
the people are hen-hearted now, besides what they used to be in my
time.”
During this conversation, I had resolved, if possible, to keep up the
delusion, until I could get myself extricated with due secrecy out of
this ridiculous situation; and I was glad to find that, owing to their
cowardice, there was some likelihood of effecting my design.
“Ned,” said one of them to a little man, “go down and speak to it, as it
can't harm you.”
“Why sure,” said Ned, with a tremor in his voice, “I can speak to it
where I am, widout going within rache of it. Boys, stand close to me:
hem--In the name of--but don't you think I had betther spake to it in
the Latin I sarve mass* wid; it can't but answer that, for the sowl of
it, seeing it's a blest language?”
* The person who serves mass, as it is called, is he
who makes the responses to the priest during that
ceremony. As the mass is said in Latin the serving of
it must necessarily fall upon many who are ignorant of
that language, and whose pronunciation of it is, of
course, extremely ludicrous.
“Very well,” the rest replied; “try that Ned; give it the best and
ginteelest grammar you have, and maybe it may thrate us dacent.”
Now it so happened that, in my schoolboy days, I had joined a class of
young fellows who were learning what is called the “_Sarvin' of Mass_”
and had impressed it so accurately on a pretty retentive memory, that
I never forgot it. At length, Ned pulled, out his beads, and bedewed
himself most copiously with the holy water. He then shouted out, with
a voice which resembled that of a man in an ague fit, “Dom-i-n-us
vo-bis-cum?” “Et cum spiritu tuo,” I replied, in a husky sepulchral
tone, from behind the coffin. As soon as I uttered these words, the
whole crowd ran back instinctively with fright; and Ned got so weak,
that they were obliged to support him.
“Lord have marcy on us!” said Ned; “hoys, isn't it an awful thing to
speak to a spirit? my hair is like I dunna what, it's sticking up so
stiff upon my head.”
“Spake to it in English, Ned,” said they, till we hear what it will say.
Ax it does anything trouble it; or whether its sowl's in Purgatory.”
“Wouldn't it be betther,” observed another, “to ax it who murthered it;
maybe it wants to discover that?”
“In the--na-me of Go-o-d-ness,” said Ned, down to me, “what are you?”
“I'm the soul,” I replied in the same voice, “of the pedlar that was
murdered on the bridge below.”
“And--who--was---it, sur, wid--submission, that--murdhered--you?”
To this I made no reply.
“I say,” continued Ned, “in--the--name--of--G-o-o-d-ness--who was
it--that took the liberty of murdhering you, dacent man?”
“Ned Corrigan,” I answered, giving his own name.
“Hem! God presarve us! Ned Corrigan!” he exclaimed. “What Ned, for
there's two of them--is it myself or the other vagabone?”
“Yourself, you murderer!” I replied.
“Ho!” said Ned, getting quite stout, “is that you, neighbor? Come, now,
walk out wid yourself out of that coffin, you vagabone you, whoever you
are.”
“What do you mane, Ned, by spaking to it that-a-way?” the rest inquired.
“Hut,” said Ned, “it's some fellow or other that's playing a thrick upon
us. Sure I never knew either act nor part of the murdher, nor of the
murdherers; and you know, if it was anything of that nature, it couldn't
tell me a lie, and me a Scapularian along wid axing it in God's name,
with Father Feasthalagh's Latin.”
“Big tare-an'-ouns;” said the rest; “if we thought it was any man making
fun of us, but we'd crop the ears off his head, to tache him to be
joking!”
To tell the truth, when I heard this suggestion, I began to repent of
my frolic; but I was determined to make another effort to finish the
adventure creditably.
“Ned,” said they, “throw some of the holy water on us all, and in the
name of St. Pether and the Blessed Virgin, we'll go down and examine it
in a body.”
This they considered a good thought, and Ned was sprinkling the water
about him in all directions, whilst he repeated some jargon which was
completely unintelligible. They then began to approach the coffin at
dead-march time, and I felt that this was the only moment in which my
plan could succeed; for had I waited until they came down all would have
been discovered. As soon, therefore, as they began to move towards me,
I also began, with equal solemnity, to retrograde towards them; so that,
as the coffin was between us, it seemed to move without human means.
“Stop, for God's sake, stop,”--shouted Ned; “it's movin'! It has made
the coffin alive; don't you see it thravelling this way widout hand or
foot, barring the boords?”
There was now a halt to ascertain the fact: but I still retrograded.
This was sufficient; a cry of terror broke from the whole group, and,
without waiting for further evidence, they set off in the direction
they came from, at full speed, Ned flinging the jug of holy water at the
coffin, lest the latter should follow, or the former encumber him in his
flight. Never was there so complete a discomfiture; and so eager were
they to escape, that several of them came down on the stones; and
I could hear them shouting with desperation, and imploring the more
advanced not to leave them behind. I instantly disentangled myself from
the coffin, and left it standing exactly in the middle of the road, for
the next passenger to give it a lift as far as Denis Kelly's, if he felt
so disposed. I lost no time in making the best of my way home; and on
passing poor Denis's house I perceived, by the bustle and noise within,
that he was dead.
I had given my friends no notice of this visit; my reception was
consequently the warmer, as I was not expected. That evening was a happy
one, which I shall long remember. At supper I alluded to Kelly, and
received from my brother a full account, as given in the following
narrative, of the circumstances which caused his death.
“I need not remind you, Toby, of our schoolboy days, nor of the
principles usually imbibed at such schools as that in which the two tiny
factions of the Caseys and the Murphys qualified themselves, among
the latter of whom you cut so distinguished a figure. You will not,
therefore, be surprised to hear that these two factions are as bitter
as ever, and that the boys who at Pat Mulligan's school belabored each
other, in imitation of their brothers and fathers, continue to set the
same iniquitous example to their children; so that this groundless and
hereditary enmity is likely to descend to future generations; unless,
indeed, the influence of a more enlightened system of education may
check it. But, unhappily, there is a strong suspicion of the object
proposed by such a system; so that the advantages likely to result from
it to the lower orders of the people will be slow and distant.”
“But, John,” said I, “now that we are upon that subject, let me ask what
really is the bone of contention between Irish factions?”
“I assure you,” he replied, “I am almost as much at a loss, Toby, to
give you a satisfactory answer, as if you asked me the elevation of
the highest mountain on the moon; and I believe you would find equal
difficulty in ascertaining the cause of their feuds from the factions
themselves. I really am convinced they know not, nor, if I rightly
understand them, do they much care. Their object is to fight, and the
turning of a straw will at any time furnish them with sufficient grounds
for that. I do not think, after all, that the enmity between them is
purery personal: they do not hate each other individually; but having
originally had one quarrel upon some trifling occasion, the beaten party
cannot bear the stigma of defeat without another trial of strength.
Then, if they succeed, the onus of retrieving lost credit is thrown upon
the party that was formerly victorious. If they fail a second time,
the double triumph of their conquerors excites them to a greater
determination to throw off the additional disgrace; and this species of
alternation perpetuates the evil.
“These habits, however, familiarize our peasantry to acts of outrage and
violence--the bad passions are cultivated and nourished, until crimes,
which peaceable men look upon with fear and horror, lose their real
magnitude and deformity in the eyes of Irishmen. I believe this kind
of undefined hatred between either parties or nations, is the most
dangerous and fatal spirit which can pervade any portion of society.
If you hate a man for an obvious and palpable injury, it is likely
that when he cancels that injury by an act of subsequent kindness,
accompanied by an exhibition of sincere sorrow, you will cease to look
upon him as your enemy; but where the hatred is such that, while feeling
you cannot, on a sober examination of your heart, account for it, there
is little hope that you will ever be able to stifle the enmity that you
entertain against him. This, however, in politics and religion, is what
is frequently designated as principle--a word on which men, possessing
higher and greater advantages than the poor ignorant peasantry of
Ireland, pride themselves. In sects and parties, we may mark its effects
among all ranks and nations. I therefore, seldom wish, Toby, to hear a
man assert that he is of this party or that, from principle; for I am
usually inclined to suspect that he is not, in this case, influenced by
conviction.
“Kelly was a man who, but for these scandalous proceedings among us,
might have been now alive and happy. Although his temperament was warm,
yet that warmth communicated itself to his good as well as to his
evil qualities. In the beginning his family were not attached to any
faction--and when I use the word faction, it is in contradistinction to
the word party--for faction, you know, is applied to a feud or grudge
between Roman Catholics exclusively. But when he was young, he ardently
attached himself to the Murphys; and, having continued among them until
manhood, he could not abandon them, consistently with that sense of
mistaken honor which forms so prominent a feature in the character of
the Irish peasantry. But although the Kellys were not _faction-men_,
they were bitter _party-men_, being the ringleaders of every quarrel
Which took place between the Catholics and Protestants, or, I should
rather say, between the Orangemen and Whiteboys.
“From the moment Denis attached himself to the Murphys, until the day he
received the beating which subsequently occasioned his death, he never
withdrew from them. He was in all their battles; and in course of
time, induced his relations to follow his example; so that, by general
consent, they were nicknamed 'the Errigle Slashers.' Soon after you left
the country, and went to reside with my uncle, Denis married a daughter
of little Dick Magrath's, from the Race-road, with whom he got a little
money. She proved a kind, affectionate wife; and, to do him justice,
I believe he was an excellent husband. Shortly after his marriage his
father died, and Denis succeeded him in his farm; for you know
that, among the peasantry, the youngest generally gets the landed
property--the elder children being obliged to provide for themselves
according to their ability, as otherwise a population would multiply
upon a portion of land inadequate to its support.
“It was supposed that Kelly's marriage would have been the means of
producing a change in him for the better, but it did not. He was, in
fact, the slave of a low, vain ambition, which constantly occasioned him
to have some quarrel or other on his hands; and, as he possessed great
physical courage and strength, he became the champion of the parish.
It was in vain that his wife used every argument to induce him to
relinquish such practices; the only reply he was in the habit of making,
was a good-humored slap on the back and a laugh, saying,
“'That's it, Honor; sure and isn't that the Magraths, all over, that
would let the manest spalpeen that ever chewed cheese thramp upon them,
without raising a hand in their own defence; and I don't blame you for
being a coward, seeing that you have their blood in your veins--not but
that there ought to be something betther in you, afther all; for it's
the M'Karrons, by your mother's side, that had the good dhrop of their
own in them, anyhow--but you're a Magrath out and out.'
“'And, Denis,' Honor would reply, 'it would be a blessed day for the
parish, if all in it were as peaceable as the same Magraths. There would
be no sore heads, nor broken bones, nor fighting, nor slashing of one
another in fairs and markets, when people ought to be minding their
business. You're ever and always at the Magraths, bekase they don't join
you agin the Caseys or the Orangemen, and more fools they'd be to make
or meddle between you, having no spite agin either of them; and it would
be wiser for you to be _sed_ by the Magraths, and _red_ your hands out
of sich ways altogether. What did ever the Murphys do to sarve you
or any of your family, that you'd go to make a great man of yourself
fighting for them? Or what did the poor Caseys do to make you go agin
the honest people? Arrah, bad manners to me, if you know what you're
about, or if _sonse_ (* Good Luck) or grace can ever come of it; and
mind my words, Denis, if God hasn't said it, you'll live to rue your
folly for the same work.'
“At this Denis would laugh heartily. 'Well said, Honor _Magrath_, but
not _Kelly_, Well, it's one comfort that our childher aren't likely to
follow your side of the house, any way. Come here, Lanty; come over,
acushla, to your father! Lanty, ma bouchal, what 'ill you do when you
grow a man?”
“'I'll buy a horse of my own to ride on, daddy.'
“'A horse, Lanty! and so you will, ma bouchal; but that's not it--sure
that's not what I mane, Lanty. What 'ill you do to the Caseys?”
“'Ho, ho! the Caseys! I'll bate the blackguards wid your blackthorn,
daddy!'
“'Ha, ha, ha! that's my stout man, my brave little soger! _Wus dha lamh
avick!_--give me your hand, my son! Here, Nelly,' he would say to the
child's eldest sister, 'give him a brave whang of bread, to make
him able to bate the Caseys. Well, Lanty, who more will you leather,
ahagur?'
“'All the Orangemen; I'll kill all the Orangemen!'
“This would produce another laugh from the father, who would again kiss
and shake hands with his son, for these early manifestations of his own
spirit.
“'Lanty, ma bouchal,' he would say, 'thank God, you're not a _Magrath_;
'tis you that's a _Kelly_, every blessed inch of you! and if you turn
out as good a _buillagh balthah_ as your father afore you, I'll be
contint, avour-neen!'
“'God forgive you, Denis,' the-wife would reply, 'it's long before you'd
think of larning him his prayers, or his cateehiz, or anything that's
good! Lanty, agra, come over to myself, and never heed what that man
says; for, except you have some poor body's blessing, he'll bring you to
no good.'
“Sometimes, however, Kelly's own natural good sense, joined with the
remonstrances of his wife, prevailed for a short time, and he would
withdraw himself from the connection altogether; but the force of habit
and of circumstances was too strong in him, to hope that he could
ever overcome it by his own firmness, for he was totally destitute of
religion. The peaceable intervals of his life were therefore very short.
“One summer evening I was standing in my own garden, when I saw a man
galloping up towards me at full speed. When he approached, I recognized
him as one of the Murphy faction, and perceived that he was cut and
bleeding.
“'Murphy,' said I, 'What's the matter!'
“'Hard fighting, sir,' said he, 'is the matter. The Caseys gathered all
their faction, bekase they heard that Denis Kelly has given us up, and
they're sweeping the street wid us. I'm going hot foot for Kelly, sir,
for even the very name of him will turn the tide in our favor. Along
wid that, I have sent in a score of the Duggans, and, if I get in Denis,
plase God we'll clear the town of them!'
“He then set off, but pulled up abruptly, and said,
“'Arrah, Mr. Darcy, maybe you'd be civil enough to lind me the loan of
a sword, or bagnet, or gun, or anything that way, that would be
sarviceable to a body on a pinch?'
“'Yes!' said I, 'and enable you to commit murder? No, no, Murphy;
I'm sorry it's not in my power to put a final stop to such dangerous
quarrels!'
“He then dashed off, and in the course of a short time I saw him and
Kelly, both on horseback, hurrying into the town in all possible haste,
armed with their cudgels. The following day, I got my dog and gun, and
sauntered about the hills, making a point to call upon Kelly. I found
him with his head tied up, and his arm in a sling.
“'Well, Denis,' said I, 'I find you have kept your promise of giving up
quarrels!'
“And so I did, sir,' said Denis; 'but, sure you wouldn't have me for to
go desart them, when the Caseys war three to one over them? No; God be
thanked, I'm not so mane as that, anyhow. Besides, they welted both my
brothers within an inch of their lives.'
“'I think they didn't miss yourself,' said I.
“'You may well say they did not, sir,' he replied: 'and, to tell God's
truth, they thrashed us right and left out of the town, although we
rallied three times, and came in agin. At any rate, it's the first
time for the last five years that they dare go up and down the street,
calling out for the face of a Murphy, or a Kelly; for they're as bitter
now agin us as agin the Murphys themselves.'
“'Well, I hope, Denis,' I observed, 'that what occurred yesterday will
prevent you from entering into their quarrels in future. Indeed, I shall
not give over, until I prevail on you to lead a quiet and peaceable
life, as the father of a rising family ought to do.'
“'Denis,' said the wife, when I alluded to the children, looking at
him with a reproachful and significant expression--'Denis, do you hear
that!--the father of a family, Denis! Oh, then, God look down on that
family; but it's--Musha, God bless you and yours, sir,' said she to me,
dropping that part of the subject abruptly; 'it's kind of you to trouble
yourself about him, at all at all: it's what them that has a better
right to do it, doesn't do.'
“'I hope,' said I, 'that Denis's own good sense will show him the folly
and guilt of his conduct, and that he will not, under any circumstances,
enter into their battles in future. Come, Denis, will you promise me
this?'
“'If any man,' replied Denis, 'could make me do it, it's yourself, sir,
or any one of your family; but if the priest of the parish was to go
down on his knees before me, I wouldn't give it up till we give them
vagabone Caseys one glorious battherin,' which, plase God, we'll do, and
are well able to do, before a month of Sundays goes over us. Now, sir,
you needn't say another word,' said he, seeing me about to speak; 'for
by Him that made me we'll do it! If any man, I say, could persuade me
agin it, you could; but, if we don't pay them full interest for what we
got, why my name's not Denis Kelly--ay, sweep them like varmint out of
the town, body and sleeves!'
“I saw argument would be lost on him, so I only observed, that I feared
it would eventually end badly.
“'Och, many and many's the time, Mr. Darcy,' said Honor, 'I prophesied
the same thing; and, if God hasn't said it, he'll be coming home a
corpse to me some day or other; for he got as much bating, sir, as
would be enough to kill a horse; and, to tell you God's truth, sir, he's
breeding up his childher--'
“'Honor,' said Kelly, irritated, 'whatever I do, do I lave it in your
power to say that I'm a bad husband? so don't rise me by your talk, for
I don't like to be provoked. I know it's wrong, but what can I do? Would
you have me for to show the Garran-bane,* and lave them like a cowardly
thraitor, now that the other faction is coming up to be their match?
No; let what will come of it, I'll never do the mane thing--death before
dishonor!'
* The white horse, i.e., be wanting in mettle.
Tradition affirms that James the Second escaped on a
white horse from the battle of the Boyne; and from this
circumstance a white horse has become the emblem of
cowardice.
“In this manner Kelly went on for years; sometimes, indeed, keeping
quiet for a short period, but eventually drawn in, from the apprehension
of being reproached with want of honor and truth, to his connection.
This, truly, is an imputation which no peasant could endure; nor, were
he thought capable of treachery, would he be safe from the vengeance of
his own party. Many a time have I seen Kelly reeling home, his head
and face sadly cut, the blood streaming from him, and his wife and some
neighbor on each side of him--the poor woman weeping and deploring the
senseless and sanguinary feuds in which her husband took so active a
part.
“About three miles from this, down at the Long Ridge, where the Shannons
live, dwelt a family of the Grogans, cousins to Denis. They were
anything but industrious, although they might have lived very
independently, having held a farm on what they called an old take, which
means a long lease taken out when lands were cheap. It so happened,
however, that, like too many of their countrymen, they paid little
attention to the cultivation of their farm; the consequence of which
neglect was, that they became embarrassed, and overburdened with
arrears. Their landlord was old Sam Simmons, whose only fault to his
tenants was an excess of indulgence, and a generous disposition wherever
he could possibly get an opportunity to scatter his money about him,
upon the spur of a benevolence which, it would seem, never ceased
goading him to acts of the most Christian liberality and kindness. Along
with these excellent qualities, he was remarkable for a most rooted
aversion to law and lawyers; for he would lose one hundred pounds rather
than recover that sum by legal proceedings, even when certain that five
Pounds would effect it; but he seldom or never was known to pardon a
breach of the peace.
“I have always found that an excess of indulgence in a landlord never
fails ultimately to injure and relax the industry of the tenant; at
least, this was the effect which his forbearance produced on them. But
the most extraordinary good-nature has its limits, and so had his; after
repeated warning, and the most unparalleled patience on his part, he
was at length compelled to determine on at once removing them from
his estate, and letting his land to some more efficient and deserving
tenant. He accordingly desired them to remove their property from the
premises, as he did not wish, he said, to leave them without the means
of entering upon another farm, if they felt so disposed. This they
refused to do; adding, that they would, at least, put him to the expense
of ejecting them. He then gave orders to his agent to seize; but they,
in the mean time, had secreted their effects by night among their
friends and relations, sending a cow to this one, and a horse to that;
so that, when the bailiff came to levy his execution, he found very
little, except the empty walls. They were, however, ejected without
ceremony, and driven altogether off the farm, for which they had
actually paid nothing for the three preceding years. In the mean time
the farm was advertised to be let, and several persons had offered
themselves as tenants; but what appeared very remarkable was, that the
Roman Catholics seldom came a second time to make any further inquiry
about it; or, if they did, Simmons observed that they were sure to
withdraw their proposals, and ultimately decline having anything to do
with it.
“This was a circumstance which he could not properly understand; but
the fact was, that the peasantry were almost to a man members of a
widely-extending system of agrarian combination, the secret influence of
which intimidated such of their own religion as intended to take it, and
prevented them from exposing themselves to the penalty which they knew
those who should dare to occupy it must pay. In a short time, however,
the matter began to be whispered about, until it spread gradually, day
after day, through the parish, that those who already had proposed, or
intended to propose, were afraid to enter upon the land on any terms.
Hitherto, it is true, these threats floated about only in the vague form
of rumor.
“The farm had been now unoccupied for about a year; party spirit ran
very high among the peasantry, and no proposals came in, or were at all
likely to come. Simmons then got advertisements printed, and had them
posted up in the most conspicuous parts of this and the neighboring
parishes. It was expected, however, that they would be torn down; but,
instead of that, there was a written notice posted up immediately under
each, which ran in the following words:--
“'Take Notess.
“'Any man that'll dare to take the farm belonging to
smooth Sam Simmons, and sitivated at the long ridge,
will be flayed alive.
“' Mat Midnight.
“'B. N.--It's it that was latterrally occupied by the
Grogans.'
“This occasioned Simmons and the other magistrates of the barony to
hold a meeting, at which they subscribed to the amount of fifty pounds
as a reward for discovering the author or authors of the threatening
notice; but the advertisement containing the reward, which was posted
in the usual places through the parish, was torn down on the first night
after it was put up. In the meantime, a man, nicknamed Vengeance--Vesey
Vengeance, in consequence of his daring and fearless spirit, and his
bitterness in retaliating injury--came to Simmons, and proposed for the
farm. The latter candidly mentioned the circumstances of the notice, and
fairly told him that he was running a personal risk in taking it.
“'Leave that to me, sir,' said Vengeance; 'if you will set me the farm at
the terms I offer, I am willing to become your tenant; and let them that
posted up the notices go to old Nick, or, if they annoy me, let them
take care I don't send them there. I am a true blue, sir--a purple
man*--have lots of fire-arms, and plenty of stout fellows in the parish
ready and willing to back me; and, by the light of day if they make or
meddle with me or mine, we will hunt them in the face of the world,
like so many mad dogs, out of the country: what are they but a pack of
ribles, that would cut our throats, if they dared?'
* These terms denote certain stages of initiation in
the Orange system
“'I have no objection,' said Simmons, 'that you should express a firm
determination to defend your life and protect your property; but I
utterly condemn the spirit with which you seem to be animated. Be
temperate and sober, but be firm. I will afford you every assistance and
protection in my power, both as a magistrate and a landlord; but if
you speak so incautiously, the result may be serious, if not fatal, to
yourself.'
“Instead of that,' said Vengeance, 'the more a man appears to be afeard,
the more danger he is in, as I know by what I have seen; but, at any
rate, if they injure me, I wouldn't ask better sport than taking down
the ribles--the bloody-minded villains! Isn't it a purty thing that a
man darn't put one foat past the other only as they wish. By the light
o' day, I'll pepper them!'
“Shortly after this, Vengeance, braving all their threats, removed to
the farm, and set about its cultivation with skill and vigor. He had
not been long there, however, when, a notice was posted one night on
his door, giving him ten days to clear off from this interdicted spot,
threatening, in case of non-compliance, to make a bonfire of the house
and offices, inmates included. The reply, which Vengeance made to this
was fearless and characteristic. He wrote another notice, which
he posted on the chapel-door, stating that he would not budge an
inch--recommending, at the same time, such as intended paying him a
nightly visit to be careful that they might not chance to go home with
their heels foremost. This, indeed, was setting them completely at
defiance, and would, no doubt have been fatal to Vesey, were it not for
a circumstance which I will now relate:--In a little dell, below Vesey's
house, lived a poor woman, called Doran, a widow; she inhabited a small
hut, and was principally supported by her two sons, who were servants,
one to a neighboring farmer, a Roman Catholic, and the other to Dr.
Ableson, rector of the parish. He who had been with the rector lost his
health shortly before Vengeance succeeded the Grogans as occupier of
the land in question, and was obliged to come home to his mother. He was
then confined to his bed, from which, indeed, he never rose.
“This boy had been his mother's principal support--for the other was
unsettled, and paid her but little attention, being like most of those
in his situation, fond of drinking, dancing, and attending fairs. In
short, he became a Ribbonman, and consequently was obliged to attend
their nightly meetings. Now it so happened that for a considerable time
after the threatening notice had been posted on Vengeance's door, he
received no annoyance, although the period allowed for his departure had
been long past, and the purport of the paper uncomplied with. Whether
this proceeded from an apprehension on the part of the Ribbonmen
of receiving a warmer welcome than they might wish, or whether they
deferred the execution of their threat until Vengeance might be off his
guard, I cannot determine; but the fact is, that some months had elapsed
and Vengeance remained hitherto unmolested.
“During this interval the distress of Widow Doran had become known to
the inmates of his family, and his mother--for she lived with him--used
to bring down each day some nourishing food to the sick boy. In these
kind offices she was very punctual; and so great was the poverty of the
poor widow, and so destitute the situation of her sick son, that, in
fact, the burden of their support lay principally upon Vengeance's
family.
“Vengeance was a small, thin man, with fair hair, and fiery eyes;
his voice was loud and shrill, his utterance rapid, and the general
expression of his countenance irritable. His motions were so quick, that
he rather seemed to run than walk. He was a civil, obliging neighbor,
but performed his best actions with a bad grace; a firm, unflinching
friend, but a bitter and implacable enemy. Upon the whole he was
generally esteemed and respected--though considered as an eccentric
character, for such indeed he was. On hearing of Widow Doran's distress,
he gave orders that a portion of each meal should be regularly sent
down to her and her son; and from that period forward they were both
supported principally from his table.
“In this way some months had passed, and still Vengeance was undisturbed
in his farm. It often happened, however, that Doran's other son came
to see his brother; and during these visits it was but natural that
his mother and brother should allude to the kindness which they daily
experienced from Vesey.
“One night, about twelve o'clock, a tap came to Widow Doran's door, who
happened to be attending the invalid, as he was then nearly in the last
stage of his illness. When she opened it, the other son entered, in an
evident hurry, having the appearance of a man who felt deep and serious
anxiety.
“'Mother,' said he, 'I was very uneasy entirely about Mick, and just
started over to see him, although they don't know at home that I'm out,
so I can't stay a crack; but I wish you would go to the door for two or
three minutes, as I have something to say to him.'
“'Why, thin, Holy Mother!--Jack, a-hagur, is there anything the matther,
for you look as if you had seen something?' *
* This phrase means--you look as if you had seen a
ghost; it is a very common one.
“'Nothing worse than myself, mother,' he replied; 'nor there's nothing
the matther at all--only I have a few words to say to Mick here, that's
all.'
“The mother accordingly removed herself out of hearing.
“'Mick,' says the boy, 'this is a bad business--I wish to God I was
clear and clane out of it.'
“'What is it?' said Mick, alarmed. “' Murther, I'm afeard, if God
doesn't turn it off of them, somehow.
“'What do you mane, man, at all?' said the invalid, raising himself, in
deep emotion, on his elbow, from his poor straw bed.
“'Vengeance,' said he--'Vengeance, man--he's going to get it. I was out
with the boys on Sunday evening, and at last it's agreed on to visit
him to-morrow night. I'm sure and sartin he'll never escape, for there's
more in for him than taking the farm, and daring them so often as he
did--he shot two fingers off of a brother-in-law of Jem Reilly's one
night that they war on for threshing him, and that's coming home to him
along with the rest.'
“'In the name of God, Jack,' inquired Mick, 'what do they intend to do
to him?'
“' Why,' replied Jack, 'it's agreed to put a coal in the thatch, in the
first place; and although they were afeared to name what he's to get
besides, I doubt they'll make a spatchcock of himself. They won't meddle
with any other of the family, though--but he's down for it.'
“'Are you to be one of them?' asked Mick.
“'I was the third man named,' replied the other, 'bekase, they said, I
knew the place.'
“'Jack,' said his emaciated brother, with much solemnity, raising
himself up in the bed--'Jack, if you have act or part in that bloody
business, God in his glory you'll never see. Fly the country--cut off a
finger or toe--break your arm--or do something that may prevent you from
being there. Oh, my God!' he exclaimed, whilst the tears fell fast down
his pale cheeks--'to go to murder the man, and lave his little family
widout a head or a father over them, and his wife a widow! To burn his
place, widout rhime, or rason, or offince! Jack, if you go, I'll die
cursing you. I'll appear to you--I'll let you rest neither night nor
day, sleeping nor waking, in bed or out of bed. I'll haunt you, till
you'll curse the very hour you war born.'
“'Whist, Micky,' said Jack, 'you're frightening me: I'll not go--will
that satisfy you?'
“'Well, dhrop down on your two knees, there,' said Micky, 'and swear
before the God that has his eye upon you this minute, that you'll have
no hand in injuring him or his, while you live. If you don't do this,
I'll not rest in my grave and maybe I'll be a corpse before mornin.'
“'Well Micky, said Jack, who though wild and unthinking, was a lad whose
heart and affections were good, 'it would be hard for me to refuse
you that much, and you! not likely to be long wid me--I will;' and he
accordingly knelt down and swore solemnly, in words which his brother
dictated to him, that he would not be concerned in the intended murder.
“'Now, give me your hand, Jack,' said the invalid; 'God bless you--and
so He will. Jack, if I depart before I see you again, I'll die happy.
That man has supported me and my mother for near the last three months,
bad as you all think him. Why, Jack, we would both be dead of hunger
long ago, only for his family; and, my God! to think, of such a
murdhering intention makes my blood run cowld'--
“'You had better give him a hint, then,' said Jack, 'some way, or he'll
be done for, as sure as you're stretched on that bed; but don't mintion
names, if you wish to keep me from being murdhered for what I did.
I must be off now, for I stole out of the barn:* and only that Atty
Laghy's gone along wid the master to the ---- fair, to help him to sell
the two coults, I couldn't get over at all.'
* Laboring servants in Ireland usually sleep in barns.
“'Well, go home, Jack, and God bless you, and so He will, for what you
did this night.'
“Jack accordingly departed, after bidding his mother and brother
farewell.
“When the old woman came in, she asked her son if there was anything
wrong with his brother, but he replied that there was not.
“'Nothing at all,' said he--'but will you get up airly in the morning,
plase God, and tell Vesey Johnston that I want to see him; and--that--I
have a great dale to say to him?'
“' To be sure I will, Micky; but, Lord guard us, what ails you,
avourneen, you look so frightened?'
“'Nothing at all, at all, mother; but will you go where I say airly
to-morrow, for me?'
“'It's the first thing I'll do, God willin',' replied the mother. And
the next morning Vesey was down with the invalid very early, for the old
woman kept her word and paid him a timely visit.
“'Well, Micky, my boy,' said Vengeance, as he entered the hut, 'I hope
you're no worse this morning.'
“'Not worse, sir,' replied Mick; 'nor, indeed, am I anything better
either, but much the same way. Sure it's I that knows very well that my
time here is but short.'
“'Well, Mick, my boy,' said Vengeance, 'I hope you're prepared for
death--and that you expect forgiveness, like a Christian. Look up, my
boy, to God at once, and pitch the priests and their craft to ould Nick,
where they'll all go at the long-run.'
“'I b'lieve,' said Mick, with a faint smile, 'that you're not very fond
of the priests, Mr. Johnston; but if you knew the power they possess as
well as I do, you wouldn't spake of them so bad, anyhow.'
“'Me fond of them!' replied the other;' 'why, man, they're a set of the
most gluttonous, black-looking hypocrites that ever walked on neat's
leather; and ought to be hunted out of the country--hunted out of the
country, by the light of day! every one of them; for they do nothing but
egg up the people against the Protestants.'
“'God help you, Mr. Johnston,' replied the invalid, 'I pity you from
my heart for the opinion you hould about them. I suppose if you were
sthruck dead on the spot wid a blast from the fairies, that you think a
priest couldn't cure you by one word's spaking?'
“'Cure me!' said Vengeance, with a laugh of disdain; 'by the light of
day! if I caught one of them curing me, I'd give him the purtiest chase
you ever saw in your life, across the hills.'
“'Don't you know,' said Mick, 'that priest Dannelly cured Bob Beaty of
the falling sickness--until he broke the vow that was laid upon him,
of not going into a church, and the minute he crossed the church-door,
didn't he dhrop down as bad as ever--and what could the minister do for
him?'
“'And don't you know,' rejoined Vengeance, 'that that's all a parcel of
the most lying stuff possible; lies--lies--all lies--and vagabondism?
Why, Mick, you Papishes worship the priests; you think they can bring
you to heaven at a word. By the light of day, they must have good sport
laughing at you, when they get among one another. Why don't they teach
you and give you the Bible to read, the ribelly rascals? but they're
afraid you'd know too much then.'
“'Well, Mr. Johnston,' said Mick, 'I b'lieve you'll never have a good
opinion of them, at any rate.'
“'Ay, when the sky falls,' replied Vengeance; 'but you're now on your
death bed, and why don't you pitch them to ould Nick, and get a Bible?
Get a Bible, man; there's a pair of them in my house, that's never used
at all--except my mother's, and she's at it night and day. I'll send one
of them down to you: turn yourself to God--to your Redeemer, that died
on the mount of Jehosha-phat, or somewhere about Jerusalem, for your
sins--and don't go out of the world from the hand of a rascally priest,
with a band about your eyes, as if you were at blind-man's-buff, for, by
the light of day, you're as blind as a bat in a religious way.'
“'There's no use in sending me a Bible,' replied the invalid, 'for I
can't read it: but, whatever you may think, I'm very willing to lave my
salvation with my priest.'
“'Why, man,' observed Vengeance, 'I thought you were going to have
sense at last, and that you sent for me to give you some spiritual
consolation.'
“'No, sir,' replied Mick; 'I have two or three words to spake to you.'
“'Come, come, Mick, now that we're on a spiritual subject, I'll hear
nothing from you till I try whether it's possible to give you a trute
insight into religion. Stop, now, and let us lay our heads together,
that we may make out something of a dacenter creed for you to believe
in than the one you profess. Tell me the truth, do you believe in the
priests?'
“'How?' replied Mick; 'I believe that they're holy men--but I know they
can't save me widout the Redeemer and His blessed mother,'
“'By the light above us, you're shuffling, Mick--I say you do believe in
them--now, don't tell me to the contrary--I say you're shuffling as fast
as possible.'
“'I tould you truth, sir,' replied Mick; 'and if you don't believe me, I
can't help it.'
“'Don't trust in the priests, Mick; that's the main point to secure your
salvation.'
“Mick, who knew his prejudices against the priests, smiled faintly, and
replied--
“'Why, sir, I trust in them as bein' able to make inthercession wid God
for me, that's all'
“'They make intercession! By the stool I'm sitting on, a single word
from one of them would ruin you. They, a set of ribles, to make interest
for you in heaven! Didn't they rise the rebellion in Ireland?--answer me
that.'
“'This is a subject, sir, we would never agree on,' replied Mick.
“'Have you the Ten Commandments?' inquired Vesey.
“'I doubt my mimory's not clear enough to have them in my mind,'
said the lad, feeling keenly the imputation of ignorance, which he
apprehended from Vesey's blunt observations.
“Vesey, however, had penetration enough to perceive his feelings, and,
with more delicacy than could be expected from him, immediately moved
the question.
“'No matter, Mick,' said he, 'if you would give up the priests, we
would get over that point: as it is, I will give you a lift in the
Commandments; and, as I said a while ago,' if you take my advice, I'll
work up a creed for you that you may depend upon. But now, for the
Commandments--let me see.
“'First: Thou shalt have no other gods but me. Don't you see, man how
that peppers the priests?'
“'Second: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day.'
“'Third: That shalt not make to thyself--no, hang it no!--I'm
out--that's the Second--very right. Third: Honor thy father and
thy mother--you understand that, Mick? It means that you are bound
to--to--just so--to honor your father and your mother, poor woman.'
“'My father--God be good to him!--is dead near fourteen years, sir,'
replied Mick.
“'Well, in that case, Mick, you see all that's left for you is to honor
your mother--although I'm not certain of that either; the Commandments
make no allowance at all for death, and in that case why, living or
dead, the surest way is to respect and obey them--that is, if the
thing were'nt impossible. I wish we had blind George M'Girr here, Mick;
although he's as great a rogue as ever escaped hemp, yet he'd beat the
devil himself at a knotty point.'
“'His breath would be bad about a dying man,' observed Mick.
“'Ay, or a living one,' said Vesey; 'however, let us get on--we were at
the Third. Fourth: Thou shalt do no murder.'
“At the word murder, Mick started, and gave a deep groan, whilst his
eyes and features assumed a gaunt and hollow expression, resembling that
of a man struck with an immediate sense of horror and affright.
“'Oh! for heaven's sake, sir, stop there,' said Doran, 'that brings to
my mind the business I had with you, Mr. Johnston.'
“'What is it about?' inquired Vengeance, in his usual eager manner.
“'Do you mind,' said Mick, 'that a paper was stuck one night upon your
door, threatening you, if you wouldn't lave that farm you're in?'.
“'I do, the blood-thirsty villains! but they knew a trick worth two of
coming near me.'
“'Well,' said Mick, 'a strange man, that I never seen before, came into
me last night, and tould me, if I'd see you, to say that you would get a
visit from the boys this night, and to take care of yourself.'
“'Give me the hand, Mick,' said Vengeance,--'give me the hand; in spite
of the priests, by the light of day you're an honest fellow. This night
you say, they're to come? And what are the bloody wretches to do, Mick.
But I needn't ask that, for I suppose it's to murder myself, and to burn
my place.
“'I'm afeard, sir, you're not far from the truth,' replied Mick; 'but,
Mr. Johnston, for God's sake don't mintion my name; for, if you do, I'll
get myself what they were laying out for you, be bumed in my bed maybe.'
“'Never fear, Mick,' replied Vengeance; 'your name will never cross my
lips.'
“'It's a great thing,' said Mick, 'that would make me turn informer: but
sure, only for your kindness and the goodness of your family, the Lord
spare you to one another! mightn't I be dead long ago? I couldn't have
one minute's peace if you or yours came to any harm when I could prevint
it.'
“'Say no more, Mick,' said Vengeance, taking his hand again; 'I know
that, leave the rest to me; but how do you find yourself, my poor
fellow? You look weaker than you did, a good deal.'
“'Indeed I'm going very fast, sir,' replied Mick; 'I know it'll soon be
over with me.'
“'Hut, no, man,' said Vengeance, drawing his hand rapidly across his
eyes, and clearing his voice, 'not at all--don't say so; would a little
broth serve you? or a bit of fresh meat?--or would you have a fancy for
anything that I could make out for you? I'll get you wine, if you think
it would do you good.”
“'God reward you,' said Mick feebly--'God reward you, and open your eyes
to the truth. Is my mother likely to come in, do you think?'
“'She must be here in a few minutes,' the other replied; 'she was
waiting till they'd churn, that she might bring you down a little fresh
milk and butter.'
“'I wish she was wid me,' said the poor lad, 'for I'm lonely wantin'
her--her voice and the very touch of her hands goes to my heart. Mother,
come home, and let me lay my head upon your breast, agra machree, for I
think it will be for the last time: we lived lonely, avourneen, wid none
but ourselves--sometimes in happiness, when the nabors 'ud be kind to
us--and sometimes in sorrow, when there 'ud be none to help us. It's
over now, mother, and I'm lavin' you for ever!'
“Vengeance wiped his eyes--'Rouse yourself, Mick,' said he, 'rouse
yourself.'
“'Who is that sitting along with you on the stool?' said Mick.
“'No one,' replied his neighbor; 'but what's the matter with you,
Mick?--your face is changed.'
“Mick, however, made no reply; but after a few slight struggles, in
which he attempted to call upon his mother's name, he breathed his last.
When Vengeance saw that he was dead--looked upon the cold, miserable
hut in which this grateful and affectionate young man was stretched--and
then reflected on the important service he had just rendered he could
not suppress his tears.
“After sending down some of the females to assist his poor mother in
laying him out, Vengeance went among his friends and acquaintances,
informing them of the intelligence he had received, without mentioning
the source from which he had it. After dusk that evening, they all
flocked, as privately as possible, to his house, to the number of thirty
or forty, well provided with arms and ammunition. Some of them stationed
themselves in the out-houses, some behind the garden edge, and others in
the dwelling-house.”
When my brother had got thus far in his narrative, a tap came to the
parlor-door, and immediately a stout-looking man, having the appearance
of a laborer, entered the room. “Well, Lachlin,” said my brother,
“what's the matter?”
“Why, sir,” said Lachlin, scratching his head, “I had a bit of a favor
to ax, if it would be plaisin' to you to grant it to me.”
“What is that,” said my brother. “Do you know, sir,” said he, “I haven't
been at a wake--let us see--this two or three years, anyhow; and, if
you'd have no objection, why, I'd slip up awhile to Denis Kelly's; he's
a distant relation of my own, sir; and blood's thicker than wather you
know.”
“I'm just glad you came in, Lachlin,” said my brother, “I didn't think
of you; take a chair here, and never heed the wake to-night, but sit
down and tell us about the attack on Vesey Vengeance, long ago. I'll get
you a tumbler of punch; and, instead of going to the wake to night, I
will allow you to go to the funeral to-morrow.”
“Ah, sir,” said Lachlin, “you know whenever the punch is consarned, I'm
aisily persuaded; but not making little of your tumbler, sir,” said the
shrewd fellow, “I would get two or three of them if I went to the wake.”
“Well, sit down,” said my brother, handing him one, “and we won't permit
you to get thirsty while you're talking, at all events.”
“In troth, you haven't your heart in the likes of it,” said Lachlin.
“Gintlemen, your healths--your health, sir, and we're happy to see you
wanst more. Why, thin, I remember you, sir, when you were a gorsoon,
passing to school wid your satchel on your back; but, I'll be bound
you're by no means as soople now as you were thin. Why, sir,” turning to
my brother “he could fly or kick football with the rabbits.--Well, this
is raal stuff!”
“Now, Lachlin,” said my brother, “give us an account of the attack you
made on Vesey Vengeance's house, at the Long Ridge, when all his party
were chased out of the town.”
“Why, thin, sir, I ought to be ashamed to mintion it; but you see,
gintleman, there was no getting over being connected wid them; but I
hope your brother's safe, sir!”
“Oh, perfectly safe, Lachlin; you may rest assured he'll never mention
it.”
“Well, sir,” said Lachlin, addressing himself to me, “Vesey Vengeance
was--.”
“Lachlin,” said my brother, “he knows all about Vesey; just give an
account of the attack.”
“The attack, sir! no, but the chivey we got over the mountains. Why,
sir, we met in, an ould empty house, you see, that belonged to the
Farrells of Ballyboulteen, that went over to America that spring. There
war none wid us, you may be sure, but them that war up;* and in all we
might be about sixty or seventy. The Grogans, one way or another, got
it up first among them, bekase they expected Mr. Simmons would take them
back when he'd find that no one else dare venther upon their land. There
war at that time two fellows down from the county Longford, in their
neighborhood, of the name of Collier--although that wasn't their right
name--they were here upon their keeping, for the murder of a proctor in
their own part of the country. One of them was a tall, powerful fellow,
with sandy hair, and red brows; the other was a slender chap, that
must have been drawn into it by his brother--for he was very mild
and innocent, and always persuaded us agin evil. The Grogans brought
lashings of whiskey, and made them that war to go foremost amost
drunk--these war the two Colliers, some of the strangers from behind the
mountains, and a son of Widdy Doran's, that knew every inch about the
place, for he was bred and born jist below the house a bit. He wasn't
wid us, however, in regard of his brother being under board that night;
but, instid of him, Tim Grogan went to show the way up the little glin
to the house, though, for that matther, the most of us knew it as well
as he did; but we didn't like to be the first to put a hand to it, if we
could help it.
* That is, had been made members of a secret society.
“At any rate, we sot in Farrell's empty house, drinking whiskey, till
they war all gathered, when about two dozen of them got the damp soot
from the chimley, and rubbed it over their faces, making them so black,
that their own relations couldn't know them. We then went across the
country in little lots, of about six or ten, or a score, and we war glad
that the wake was in Widdy Koran's, seeing that if any one would meet we
war going to it you know, and the blackening of the faces would pass for
a frolic; but there was no great danger of being met for it was now long
beyant midnight.
“Well, gintlemen, it puts me into a tremble, even at this time, to think
of how little we cared about doing what we were bent upon. Them that had
to manage the business war more than half drunk; and, hard fortune to
me! but you would think it was to a wedding they went--some of them
singing songs against the law--some of them quite merry, and laughing
as if they had found a mare's nest. The big fellow, Collier, had a dark
lanthern wid a half-burned turf in it to light the bonfire, as they
said; others had guns and pistols--some of them charged and some of them
not; some had bagnets, and ould rusty swords, pitchforks, and go on.
Myself had nothing in my hand but the flail I was thrashing wid that
day; and to tell the thruth, the divil a step I would have gone with
them, only for fraid of my health; for, as I said awhile agone, if any
discovery was made afterwards, them that promised to go, and turned
tail, would be marked as the informers. Neither was I so blind, but
I could see that there war plenty there that would stay away if they
durst.
“Well, we went on till we came to a little dark corner below the house,
where we met and held a council of war upon what we should do. Collier
and the other strangers from behind the mountains war to go first, and
the rest were to stand round the house at a distance--he carried the
lanthern, a bagnet, and a horse-pistol; and half a dozen more war to
bring over bottles of straw from Vengeance's own haggard, to hould up
to the thatch. It's all past and gone now--but three of the Reillys were
desperate against Vesey that night, particularly one of them that he
had shot about a year and a half before--that is, peppered two of the
right-hand fingers of him, one night in a scuffle, as Vesey came home
from an Orange lodge. Well, all went on purty fair; we had got as far as
the out-houses,where we stopped, to see if we could hear any noise; but
all was quiet as you plase.
“'Now, Vengeance,' says Reilly, swearing a terrible oath out of
him--'you murdering Orange villain, you're going to get your pay,' says
he.
“'Ay,' says Grogan, 'what he often threatened to others he'll soon meet
himself, plase God--come, boys,' says he, 'bring the straw and light it,
and just lay it up, my darlings, nicely to the thatch here, and ye'll
see what a glorious bonfire we'll have of the black Orange villain's
blankets in less than no time.'
“Some of us could hardly stand this: 'Stop, boys,' cried one of Dan
Slevin's sons--'stop, Vengeance is bad enough, but his wife and children
never offinded us--we'll not burn the place.'
“'No,' said others, spaking out when they heard any body at all having
courage to do so--'it's too bad, boys, to burn the place; for if we do,'
says they, 'some of the innocent may be burned before they get from the
house, or even before they waken out of their sleep.'
“'Knock at the door first,' says Slevin, 'and bring Vengeance out; let
us cut the ears off of his head and lave him.'
“'Damn him!' says another, 'let us not take the vagabone's life; it's
enough to take the ears from him, and to give him a prod or two of a
bagnet on the ribs; but don't kill him.'
“'Well, well,' says Reilly, 'let us knock at the door, and get himself
and the family out,' says he, 'and then we'll see what can be done wid
him.'
“'Tattheration to me,' says the big Longford fellow, 'if he had sarved
me, Reilly, as he did you, but I'd roast him in the flames of his own
house,' says he.
“'I'd have you to know,' says Slevin, 'that you have no command here,
Collier. I'm captain at the present time,' says he; 'and more nor what
I wish shall not be done. Go over,' says he to the blackfaces, 'and rap
him up.'
“Accordingly they began to knock at the door, commanding Vengeance to
get up and come out to them.
“'Come, Vengeance,' says Collier, 'put on you, my good fellow, and come
out till two or three of your neighbors, that wish you well, gets a
sight of your purty face, you babe of grace!'
“'Who are you that wants me at all?' says Vengeance from within.
“'Come out, first,' says Collier; 'a few friends that has a crow to
pluck with you; walk out, avourneen; or if you'd rather be roasted
alive, why you may stay where you are,' says he.
“'Gentlemen,' says Vengeance, 'I have never, to my knowledge, offended
any of you; and I hope you won't be so cruel as to take an industrious,
hard-working man from his family, in the clouds of the night, to do him
an injury. Go home, gentlemen, in the name of God, and let me and mine
alone. You're all mighty dacent gentlemen, you know, and I'm determined
never to make or meddle with any of you. Sure, I know right well it's
purtecting me you would be, dacent gentlemen. But I don't think
there's any of my neighbors there, or they wouldn't stand by and see me
injured.'
“'Thrue for you, avick,' says they giving, at the same time; a terrible
patterrara agin the door, with two or three big stones.
“'Stop, stop!' says Vengeance, 'don't break the door, and I'll open it.
I know you're merciful, dacent gentlemen--I know your merciful.'
“So the thief came and unbarred it quietly, and the next minute about
a dozen of them that war within the house let slap at us. As God would
have had it, the crowd didn't happen to be forenent the door, or numbers
of them would have been shot, and the night was dark, too, which was in
our favor. The first volley was scarcely over, when there was another
slap from the outhouse; and after that another from the gardens; and
after that, to be sure, we took to our scrapers. Several of them were
very badly wounded; but as for Collier, he was shot dead, and Grogan
was taken prisoner, with five more, on the spot. There never was such a
chase as we got; and only that they thought there was more of us in it,
they might have tuck most of us prisoners.
“'Fly, boys!' says Grogan as soon as they fired out of the house--'we've
been sould,' says he, 'but I'll die game, any how,'--and so he did, poor
fellow; for although he and the other four war transported, one of them
never sould the pass or stagged. Not but that they m
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