Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee Part 20

Peter had, however, over-rated his own strength in supposing that he could bear the long dozen in future; ere many months pa.s.sed he was scarcely able to reach the half of that number without sinking into intoxication. Whilst in this state, he was in the habit of going to the graveyard in which his wife lay buried, where he sat, and wept like a child, sang her favorite songs, or knelt and offered up his prayers for the repose of her soul. None ever mocked him for this; on the contrary, there was always some kind person to a.s.sist him home. And as he staggered on, instead of sneers and ridicule, one might hear such expressions as these:--

"Poor Pether! he's nearly off; an' a dacent, kind neighbor he ever was.

The death of the wife broke his heart--he never ris his head since."

"Ay, poor man! G.o.d pity him! h.e.l.l soon be sleepin' beside her, beyant there, where she's lyin'. It was never known of Peter Connell that he offinded man, woman, or child since he was born, barrin' the gaugers, bad luck to thim, afore he was marrid--but that was no offince. Sowl, he was their match, any how. When he an' the wife's gone, they won't lave their likes behind them. The sons are bodaghs--gintlemen, now; an'

it's nothin' but dinners an' company. Ahagur, that wasn't the way their hardworkin' father an' mother made the money that they're houldin' their heads up wid such consequence upon."

The children, however, did not give Peter up as hopeless. Father Mulcahy, too, once-more a.s.sailed him on his weak side. One morning, when he was sober, nervous, and depressed, the priest arrived, and finding him at home, addressed him as follows:--

"Peter, I'm sorry, and vexed, and angry this morning; and you are the cause of it"

"How is that, your Reverence?" said Peter. "G.o.d help me," he added, "don't be hard an me, sir, for I'm to be pitied. Don't be hard on me, for the short time I'll be here. I know it won't be long--I'll be wid her soon. Asth.o.r.e machree, we'll' be together, I hope, afore long--an', oh! if it was the will o' G.o.d, I would be glad if it was afore night!"

The poor, shattered, heart-broken creature wept bitterly, for he felt somewhat sensible of the justice of the reproof which he expected from the priest, as well as undiminished sorrow for his wife.

"I'm not going to be hard on you," said the good-natured priest; "I only called to tell you a dream that your son Dan had last night about you and his mother."

"About Ellis.h.!.+ Oh, for heaven's sake what about her, Father, avourneen?"

"She appeared to him, last night," replied Father Mulcahy, "and told him that your drinking kept her out of happiness."

"Queen of heaven!" exclaimed Peter, deeply affected, "is that true? Oh,"

said he, dropping on his knees, "Father, ahagur machree, pardon me--oh, forgive me! I now promise, solemnly and seriously, to drink neither in the house nor out of it, for the time to come, not one drop at all, good, bad, or indifferent, of either whiskey, wine, or punch--barrin'

one gla.s.s. Are you now satisfied? an' do you think she'll get to happiness?"

"All will be well, I trust," said the priest. "I shall mention this to Dan and the rest, and depend upon it, they, too, will be happy to hear it."

"Here's what Mr. O'Flaherty an' myself made up," said Peter: "burn it, Father; take it out of my sight, for it's now no use to me."

"What is this at all?" said Mr. Mulcahy, looking into it. "Is it an oath?"

"It's the Joggraphy of one I swore some time ago; but it's now out of date--I'm done wid it."

The priest could not avoid smiling when he perused it, and on getting from Peter's lips an explanation of the hieroglyphics, he laughed heartily at the ingenious s.h.i.+fts they had made to guide his memory.

Peter, for some time after this, confined himself to one gla.s.s, as he had promised; but he felt such depression and feebleness, that he ventured slowly, and by degrees, to enlarge the "gla.s.s" from which he drank. His impression touching the happiness of his wife was, that as he had for several months strictly observed his promise, she had probably during that period gone to heaven. He then began to exercise his ingenuity gradually, as we have said, by using, from time to time, a gla.s.s larger than the preceding one; thus receding from the spirit of his vow to the letter, and increasing the quant.i.ty of his drink from a small gla.s.s to the most capacious tumbler he could find. The manner in which he drank this was highly ill.u.s.trative of the customs which prevail on this subject in Ireland. He remembered, that in making the vow, he used the words, "neither in the house nor out of it;" but in order to get over this dilemma, he usually stood with one foot outside the threshold, and the other in the house, keeping himself in that position which would render it difficult to determine whether he was either out or in. At other times, when he happened to be upstairs, he usually thrust one-half of his person out of the window, with the same ludicrous intention of keeping the letter of his vow.

Many a smile this adroitness of his occasioned to the lookers-on: but further ridicule was checked by his wobegone and afflicted look. He was now a mere skeleton, feeble and tottering.

One night, in the depth of winter, he went into the town where his two sons resided; he had been ill in mind and body during the day, and he fancied that change of scene and society might benefit him. His daughter and son-in-law, in consequence of his illness, watched him so closely, that he could not succeed in getting his usual "gla.s.s." This offended him, and he escaped without their knowledge to the son who kept the inn.

On arriving there, he went upstairs, and by a douceur to the waiter, got a large tumbler filled with spirits. The lingering influences of a conscience that generally felt strongly on the side of a moral duty, though poorly instructed, prompted him to drink it in the usual manner, by keeping one-half of his body, as, nearly as he could guess, out of the window, that it might be said he drank it neither in nor out of the house. He had scarcely finished his draught, however, when he lost his balance, and was precipitated upon the pavement. The crash of his fall was heard in the bar, and his son, who had just come in, ran, along with several others, to ascertain what had happened. They found him, however, only severely stunned. He was immediately brought in, and medical aid sent for; but, though he recovered from the immediate effects of the fall, the shock it gave to his broken const.i.tution, and his excessive grief, carried him off in a few months afterwards. He expired in the arms of his son and daughter, and amidst the tears of those who knew his simplicity of character, his goodness of heart, and his attachment to the wife by whose death that heart had been broken.

Such was the melancholy end of the honest and warm-hearted Peter Connell, who, unhappily, was not a solitary instance of a man driven to habits of intoxication and neglect of business by the force of sorrow, which time and a well-regulated mind might otherwise have overcome. We have held him up, on the one hand, as an example worthy of imitation in that industry and steadiness which, under the direction of his wife, raised him from poverty to independence and wealth; and, on the other, as a man resorting to the use of spirituous liquors that he might be enabled to support affliction--a course which, so far from having sustained him under it, shattered his const.i.tution, shortened his life, and destroyed his happiness. In conclusion, we wish our countrymen of Peter's cla.s.s would imitate him in his better qualities, and try to avoid his failings.

THE LIANHAN SHEE.

One summer evening Mary Sullivan was sitting at her own well-swept hearthstone, knitting feet to a pair of sheep's gray stockings for Bartley, her husband. It was one of those serene evenings in the month of June, when the decline of day a.s.sumes a calmness and repose, resembling what we might suppose to have irradiated Eden, when our first parents sat in it before their fall. The beams of the sun shone through the windows in clear shafts of amber light, exhibiting millions of those atoms which float to the naked eye within its mild radiance. The dog lay barking in his dreams at her feet, and the gray cat sat purring placidly upon his back, from which even his occasional agitation did not dislodge her.

Mrs. Sullivan was the wife of a wealthy farmer, and niece to the Rev.

Felix O'Rourke; her kitchen was consequently large, comfortable, and warm. Over where she sat, jutted out the "brace" well lined with bacon; to the right hung a well-scoured salt-box, and to the left was the jamb, with its little gothic paneless window to admit the light. Within it hung several ash rungs, seasoning for flail-sooples, or boulteens, a dozen of eel-skins, and several stripes of horse-skin, as hangings for them. The dresser was a "parfit white," and well furnished with the usual appurtenances. Over the door and on the "threshel," were nailed, "for luck," two horse-shoes, that had been found by accident. In a little "hole" in the wall, beneath the salt-box, lay a bottle of holy water to keep the place purified; and against the cope-stone of the gable, on the outside, grew a large lump of house-leek, as a specific for sore eyes and other maladies.

In the corner of the garden were a few stalks of tansy "to kill the thievin' worms in the childhre, the crathurs," together with a little Rose-n.o.ble, Solomon's Seal, and Bu-gloss, each for some medicinal purpose. The "lime wather" Mrs. Sullivan could make herself, and the "bog bane" for the Unh roe, (* Literally, red water) or heart-burn, grew in their own meadow drain; so that, in fact, she had within her reach a very decent pharmacopoeia, perhaps as harmless as that of the profession itself. Lying on the top of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and sewed in the folds of her own scapular was the dust of what had once been a four-leaved shamrock, an invaluable specific "for seein' the good people," if they happened to come within the bounds of vision. Over the door in the inside, over the beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of withered palm, that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday; and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being overlooked by evil eyes, or elf-shot* by the fairies, who seem to possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the period of parturition. It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, the toothache, headache, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let it suffice to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them; and that, in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing forever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife. Whether it produced this desirable object or not our readers may conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to disappear from the neighborhood, in order to avoid meeting with Bartley, who had a sharp lookout for him, not exactly on his own account, but "in regard," he said, "that it had no effect upon Mary, at all, at all;"

whilst Mary, on the other hand, admitted its efficacy upon herself, but maintained, "that Bartley was worse nor ever afther it."

* This was, and in remote parts of the country still is, one of the strongest instances of belief in the power of the Fairies. The injury, which, if not counteracted by a charm from the lips of a "Fairy-man,"

or "Fairy-woman," was uniformly inflicted on the animal by what was termed an elf-stone--which was nothing more nor less than a piece of sharp flint, from three to four or five ounces in weight. The cow was supposed to be struck upon the loin with it by these mischievous little beings, and the nature of the wound was indeed said to be very peculiar--that is, it cut the midriff without making any visible or palpable wound on the outward skin. All animals dying of this complaint, were supposed to be carried to the good people, and there are many in the country who would not believe that the dead carca.s.s of the cow was that of the real one at all, but an old log or block of wood, made to resemble it. All such frauds, however, and deceptions were inexplicable to every one, but such as happened to possess a four-leaved shamrock, and this enabled its possessor to see the block or log in its real shape, although to others it appeared to be the real carca.s.s.

Such was Mary Sullivan, as she sat at her own hearth, quite alone, engaged as we have represented her. What she may have been meditating on we cannot pretend to ascertain; but after some time, she looked sharply into the "backstone," or hob, with an air of anxiety and alarm. By and by she suspended her knitting, and listened with much earnestness, leaning her right ear over to the hob, from whence the sounds to which she paid such deep attention proceeded. At length she crossed herself devoutly, and exclaimed, "Queen of saints about us!--is it back ye are?

Well sure there's no use in talkin', bekase they say you know what's said of you, or to you--an' we may as well spake yez fair.--Hem--musha, yez are welcome back, crickets, avourneenee! I hope that, not like the last visit ye ped us, yez are comin' for luck now! Moolyeen (* a cow without horns) died, any way, soon afther your other kailyee, (* short visit) ye crathurs ye. Here's the bread, an' the salt, an' the male for yez, an' we wish ye well. Eh?--saints above, if it isn't listenin' they are jist like a Christhien! Wurrah, but ye are the wise an' the quare crathurs all out!"

She then shook a little holy water over the hob, and muttered to herself an Irish charm or prayer against the evils which crickets are often supposed by the peasantry to bring with them, and requested, still in the words of the charm, that their presence might, on that occasion, rather be a presage of good fortune to man and beast belonging to her.

"There now, ye _dhonans_ (* a diminuitive, delicate little thing) ye, sure ye can't say that ye're ill-thrated here, anyhow, or ever was mocked or made game of in the same family. You have got your hansel, an'

full an' plenty of it; hopin' at the same time that you'll have no rason in life to cut our best clothes from revinge. Sure an' I didn't desarve to have my brave stuff long body (* an old-fas.h.i.+oned Irish gown) riddled the way it was, the last time ye wor here, an' only bekase little Barny, that has but the sinse of a gorsoon, tould yez in a joke to pack off wid yourself somewhere else. Musha, never heed what the likes of him says; sure he's but a caudy, (* little boy) that doesn't mane ill, only the bit o' divarsion wid yez."

She then resumed her knitting, occasionally stopping, as she changed her needles, to listen, with her ear set, as if she wished to augur from the nature of their chirping, whether they came for good or for evil. This, however, seemed to be beyond her faculty of translating their language; for--after sagely shaking her head two or three times, she knit more busily than before.*

* Of the origin of this singular superst.i.tion I can find no account whatsoever; it is conceived, however, in a mild, sweet, and hospitable spirit. The visits of these migratory little creatures, which may be termed domestic gra.s.shoppers, are very capricious and uncertain, as are their departures; and it is, I should think, for this reason, that they are believed to be cognizant of the ongoings of human life. We can easily suppose, for instance, that the coincidence of their disappearance from a family, and the occurrence of a death in that family, frequently multiplied as such coincidences must be in the country at large, might occasion the people, who are naturally credulous, to a.s.sociate the one event with the other; and on that slight basis erect the general superst.i.tion. Crickets, too, when chirupping, have a habit of suddenly ceasing, so that when any particularly interesting conversation happens to go on about the rustic hearth, this stopping of their little chaunt looks so like listening, that it is scarcely to be wondered at that the country folks think they understand every word that is spoken. They are thought, also, to foresee both good and evil, and are considered vindictive, but yet capable of being conciliated by fair words and kindness. They are also very destructive among wearing-apparel, which they frequently nibble into holes; and this is always looked upon as a piece of revenge, occasioned by some disrespectful language used towards them, or some neglect of their little wants. This note was necessary in order to render the conduct and language of Mary Sullivan perfectly intelligible.

At this moment, the shadow of a person pa.s.sing the house darkened the window opposite which she sat, and immediately a tall female, of a wild dress and aspect, entered the kitchen.

"_Gho manhy dhea ghud, a ban chohr!_ the blessin' o' goodness upon you, dacent woman," said Mrs. Sullivan, addressing her in those kindly phrases so peculiar to the Irish language.

Instead of making her any reply, however, the woman, whose eye glistened with a wild depth of meaning, exclaimed in low tones, apparently of much anguish, "_Husht, husht', dherum!_ husht, husht, I say--let me alone--I will do it--will you husht? I will, I say--I will--there now--that's it--be quiet, an' I will do it--be quiet!" and as she thus spoke, she turned her face back over her left shoulder, as if some invisible being dogged her steps, and stood bending over her.

"_Gho manhy dhea ghud, a ban chohr, dherhum arees.h.!.+_ the blessin' o' G.o.d on you, honest woman, I say again," said Mrs. Sullivan, repeating that sacred form of salutation with which the peasantry address each other.

"'Tis a fine evenin', honest woman, glory be to him that sent the same, and amin! If it was cowld, I'd be axin' you to draw your chair in to the fire: but, any way, won't you sit down?"

As she ceased speaking, the piercing eye of the strange woman became riveted on her with a glare, which, whilst it startled Mrs. Sullivan, seemed full of an agony that almost abstracted her from external life. It was not, however, so wholly absorbing as to prevent it from expressing a marked interest, whether for good or evil, in the woman who addressed her so hospitably.

"Husht, now--husht," she said, as if aside--"husht, won't you--sure I may speak the thing to her--you said it--there now, husht!" And then fastening her dark eyes on Mrs. Sullivan, she smiled bitterly and mysteriously.

"I know you well," she said, without, however, returning the blessing contained in the usual reply to Mrs. Sullivan's salutation--"I know you well, Mary Sullivan--husht, now, husht--yes, I know you well, and the power of all that you carry about you; but you'd be better than you are--and that's well enough now--if you had sense to know--ah, ah, ah!--what's this!" she exclaimed abruptly, with three distinct shrieks, that seemed to be produced by sensations of sharp and piercing agony.

"In the name of goodness, what's over you, honest woman?" inquired Mrs.

Sullivan, as she started from her chair, and ran to her in a state of alarm, bordering on terror--"Is it sick you are?"

The woman's face had got haggard, and its features distorted; but in a few minutes they resumed their peculiar expression of settled wildness and mystery. "Sick!" she replied, licking her parched lips, "awirck, awirek! look! look!" and she pointed with a shudder that almost convulsed her whole frame, to a lump that rose on her shoulders; this, be it what it might, was covered with a red cloak, closely pinned and tied with great caution about her body--"'tis here! I have it!"

"Blessed mother!" exclaimed Mrs. Sullivan, tottering over to her chair, as finished a picture of horror as the eye could witness, "this day's Friday: the saints stand betwixt me an' all harm! Oh, holy Mary protect me! _Nhanim an airh_," in the name of the Father, etc., and she forthwith proceeded to bless herself, which she did thirteen times in honor of the blessed virgin and the twelve apostles.

"Ay, it's as you see!" replied the stranger, bitterly. "It is here--husht, now--husht, I say--I will say the thing to her, mayn't I?

Ay, indeed, Mary Sullivan, 'tis with me always--always. Well, well, no, I won't. I won't--easy. Oh, blessed saints, easy, and I won't."