me the cow. I ask you for the last time, Mick Purcell.”
Mick started.
“How does he know my name?” thought he.
The stranger proceeded: “Mick Purcell, I know you, and I have regard
for you; therefore do as I warn you, or you may be sorry for it. How
do you know but your cow will die before you get to Cork?”
Mick was going to say “God forbid!” but the little man went on (and he
was too attentive to say any thing to stop him; for Mick was a very
civil man, and he knew better than to interrupt a gentleman, and
that’s what many people, that hold their heads higher, don’t mind
now).
“And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and
you will get a bad price, or may be you might be robbed when you are
coming home? but what need I talk more to you when you are determined
to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell?
“Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir,” said Mick; “and if I
was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an
empty bottle, although I had drank what was in it, I’d give you the
cow in the name——”
“Never mind names,” said the stranger, “but give me the cow; I would
not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do
what I direct exactly.”
Mick hesitated.
“Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be
rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in
poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick
Purcell!” said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him
look ten times more ugly than ever.
“May be ’tis true,” said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what
to do—he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a
fit of desperation he seized the bottle—“Take the cow,” said he, “and
if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you.”
“I care neither for your curses nor your blessings, but I have spoken
truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I
tell you.”
“And what’s that?” says Mick.
“When you go home, never mind if your wife is angry, but be quiet
yourself, and make her sweep the room clean, set the table out right,
and spread a clean cloth over it; then put the bottle on the ground,
saying these words: ‘Bottle, do your duty,’ and you will see the end
of it.”
“And is this all?” says Mick.
“No more,” said the stranger. “Good by, Mick Purcell—you are a rich
man.”
“God grant it!” said Mick, as the old man moved after the cow, and
Mick retraced the road towards his cabin; but he could not help
turning back his head, to look after the purchaser of his cow, who was
nowhere to be seen.
“Lord between us and harm!” said Mick: “_He_ can’t belong to this
earth; but where is the cow?” She too was gone, and Mick went homeward
muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
“And what would I do if it broke?” thought he. “Oh! but I’ll take care
of that;” so he put it into his bosom, and went on anxious to prove
his bottle, and doubting of the reception he should meet from his
wife; balancing his anxieties with his expectations, his fears with
his hopes, he reached home in the evening, and surprised his wife,
sitting over the turf fire in the big chimney.
“Oh! Mick, are you come back! Sure you wer’n’t at Cork all the way!
What has happened to you? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? How much
money did you get for her? What news have you? Tell us every thing
about it.”
“Why then, Molly, if you’ll give me time, I’ll tell you all about it.
If you want to know where the cow is, ’tisn’t Mick can tell you, for
the never a know does he know where she is now.”
“Oh! then, you sold her; and where’s the money?”
“Arrah! stop awhile, Molly, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?” said Molly, spying its
neck sticking out.
“Why, then, be easy now, can’t you,” says Mick, “till I tell it to
you?” and putting the bottle on the table, “That’s all I got for the
cow.”
His poor wife was thunderstruck. “All you got! and what good is that,
Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what’ll we do for
the rent, and what——”
“Now, Molly,” says Mick, “can’t you hearken to reason? Didn’t I tell
you how the old man, or whatsomever he was, met me,—no, he did not
meet me neither, but he was there with me—on the big hill, and how he
made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing
for me?”
“Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!” said Molly, seizing
the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband’s head; but Mick caught it,
and quietly (for he minded the old man’s advice) loosened his wife’s
grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down
crying, while Mick told his story, with many a crossing and blessing
between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him,
particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the
priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; may
be, he didn’t know she believed in them, and may be, he believed in
them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began
to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up
every thing, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth,
for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the
ground, looked at it and said, “Bottle, do your duty.”
“Look there! look there, mammy!” said his chubby eldest son, a boy
about five years old—“look there! look there!” and he sprang to his
mother’s side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the
bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of
gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and
when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked
at every thing with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and
dishes before, and didn’t think they could ever admire them enough;
the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly
said, “Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought
to be hungry after such a good day’s work.”
“Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle.”
Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table; and they made
a hearty meal, though they couldn’t taste half the dishes.
“Now,” says Molly, “I wonder will those two good little gentlemen
carry away these fine things again?” They waited, but no one came; so
Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, “Why, then,
Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you’ll be a rich man yet, Mick
Purcell.”
Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to
settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take
more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse
and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all
they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their
landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where
he got all his money—sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him
so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord
offered him a deal of money for it; but Mick would not give it, till
at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was
very rich, thought he’d never want any more money, and gave him the
bottle: but Mick was mistaken—he and his family spent money as if
there was no end of it; and, to make the story short, they became
poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and
Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair,
hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly
day-break when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he
reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and
curling like smoke-wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun
rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy
couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear
blue sky,
“Till its form like a speck in the airiness blending
And thrilling with music, was melting in light.”
Mick crossed himself, listening as he advanced to the sweet song of
the lark, but thinking, notwithstanding, all the time of the little
old man; when, just as he reached the summit of the hill, and cast his
eyes over the extensive prospect before and around him, he was
startled and rejoiced by the same well-known voice:—“Well, Mick
Purcell, I told you, you would be a rich man.”
“Indeed, then, sure enough I was, that’s no lie for you, sir. Good
morning to you, but it is not rich I am now—but have you another
bottle, for I want it now as much as I did long ago; so if you have
it, sir, here is the cow for it.”
“And here is the bottle,” said the old man, smiling; “you know what to
do with it.”
“Oh! then, sure I do, as good right I have.”
“Well, farewell for ever, Mick Purcell: I told you, you would be a
rich man.”
“And good-bye to you, sir,” said Mick, as he turned back; “and good
luck to you, and good luck to the big hill—it wants a name—Bottle
Hill.—Good-bye, sir, good-bye;” so Mick walked back as fast as he
could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the
cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with
it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,—“Oh! sure,
I’ve another bottle!”
“Arrah! then have you? why, then, you’re a lucky man, Mick Purcell,
that’s what you are.”
In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his
bottle, exultingly cried out, “Bottle, do your duty.” In a twinkling,
two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottle (I do not
know how they got room in it), and belaboured poor Mick and his wife
and all his family, till they lay on the floor, when in they went
again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he
thought and thought, and at last he took up his wife and his children;
and, leaving them to recover as well as they could, he took the bottle
under his coat, and went to his landlord, who had a great company: he
got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak to him, and at last he
came out to Mick.
“Well, what do you want now?”
“Nothing, sir, only I have another bottle.”
“Oh! ho! is it as good as the first?”
“Yes, sir, and better; if you like, I will show it to you before all
the ladies and gentlemen.”
“Come along, then.” So saying, Mick was brought into the great hall,
where he saw his old bottle standing high up on a shelf: “Ah! ha!”
says he to himself, “may be I won’t have you by and by.”
“Now,” says his landlord, “show us your bottle.” Mick set it on the
floor, and uttered the words; in a moment the landlord was tumbled on
the floor; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running and
roaring, and sprawling, and kicking and shrieking. Wine cups and
salvers were knocked about in every direction, until the landlord
called out, “Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I’ll have you
hanged!”
“They never shall stop,” said Mick, “till I get my own bottle that I
see up there at top of that shelf.”
“Give it down to him, give it down to him, before we are all killed!”
says the landlord.
Mick put the bottle in his bosom; in jumped the two men into the new
bottle, and he carried the bottles home. I need not lengthen my story
by telling how he got richer than ever, how his son married his
landlord’s only daughter, how he and his wife died when they were very
old, and how some of the servants, fighting at their wake, broke the
bottles; but still the hill has the name upon it; ay, and so ’twill be
always Bottle Hill to the end of the world, and so it ought, for it is
a strange story.
THE CONFESSIONS OF TOM BOURKE.
VII.
Tom Bourke lives in a low long farm-house, resembling in outward
appearance a large barn, placed at the bottom of the hill, just where
the new road strikes off from the old one, leading from the town of
Kilworth to that of Lismore. He is of a class of persons who are a
sort of black swans in Ireland; he is a wealthy farmer. Tom’s father
had, in the good old times, when a hundred pounds were no
inconsiderable treasure, either to lend or spend, accommodated his
landlord with that sum at interest; and obtained, as a return for the
civility, a long lease, about half-a-dozen times more valuable than
the loan which procured it. The old man died worth several hundred
pounds, the greater part of which, with his farm, he bequeathed to his
son Tom. But, besides all this, Tom received from his father, upon his
death-bed, another gift, far more valuable than worldly riches,
greatly as he prized, and is still known to prize them. He was
invested with the privilege, enjoyed by few of the sons of men, of
communicating with those mysterious beings called “the good people.”
Tom Bourke is a little, stout, healthy, active man, about fifty-five
years of age. His hair is perfectly white, short and bushy behind, but
rising in front erect and thick above his forehead, like a new
clothes-brush. His eyes are of that kind which I have often observed
with persons of a quick but limited intellect—they are small, gray,
and lively. The large and projecting eyebrows under, or rather
within, which they twinkle, give them an expression of shrewdness and
intelligence, if not of cunning. And this is very much the character
of the man. If you want to make a bargain with Tom Bourke, you must
act as if you were a general besieging a town, and make your advances
a long time before you can hope to obtain possession; if you march up
boldly, and tell him at once your object, you are for the most part
sure to have the gates closed in your teeth. Tom does not wish to part
with what you wish to obtain, or another person has been speaking to
him for the whole of the last week. Or, it may be, your proposal seems
to meet the most favourable reception. “Very well, sir;” “That’s true,
sir;” “I’m very thankful to your honour,” and other expressions of
kindness and confidence, greet you in reply to every sentence; and you
part from him wondering how he can have obtained the character which
he universally bears, of being a man whom no one can make any thing of
in a bargain. But when you next meet him, the flattering illusion is
dissolved: you find you are a great deal farther from your object than
you were when you thought you had almost succeeded: his eye and his
tongue express a total forgetfulness of what the mind within never
lost sight of for an instant; and you have to begin operations afresh,
with the disadvantage of having put your adversary completely upon his
guard.
Yet, although Tom Bourke is, whether from supernatural revealings, or
(as many will think more probable) from the tell-truth, experience, so
distrustful of mankind, and so close in his dealings with them, he is
no misanthrope. No man loves better the pleasures of the genial board.
The love of money, indeed, which is with him (and who will blame him?)
a very ruling propensity, and the gratification which it has received
from habits of industry, sustained throughout a pretty long and
successful life, have taught him the value of sobriety, during those
seasons, at least, when a man’s business requires him to keep
possession of his senses. He has therefore a general rule, never to
get drunk but on Sundays. But, in order that it should be a general
one to all intents and purposes, he takes a method which, according to
better logicians than he is, always proves the rule. He has many
exceptions: among these, of course, are the evenings of all the fair
and market days that happen in his neighbourhood; so also all the days
on which funerals, marriages, and christenings, take place among his
friends within many miles of him. As to this last class of exceptions,
it may appear at first very singular, that he is much more punctual
in his attendance at the funerals than at the baptisms or weddings of
his friends. This may be construed as an instance of disinterested
affection for departed worth, very uncommon in this selfish world. But
I am afraid that the motives which lead Tom Bourke to pay more court
to the dead than the living are precisely those which lead to the
opposite conduct in the generality of mankind—a hope of future
benefit and a fear of future evil. For the good people, who are a race
as powerful as they are capricious, have their favourites among those
who inhabit the world; often show their affection, by easing the
objects of it from the load of this burdensome life; and frequently
reward or punish the living, according to the degree of reverence paid
to the obsequies and the memory of the elected dead.
It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with
whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the
faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation
of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his
high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is _struck_[8] in his
neighbourhood. Still, he will not be won unsued: he is at first
difficult of persuasion, and must be overcome by a little gentle
violence. On these occasions he is unusually solemn and mysterious,
and if one word of reward be mentioned, he at once abandons the
unhappy patient, such a proposition being a direct insult to his
supernatural superiors. It is true, that as the labourer is worthy of
his hire, most persons, gifted as he is, do not scruple to receive a
token of gratitude from the patients or their friends, _after_ their
recovery.
[8] The term “fairy struck” is applied to paralytic affections,
which are supposed to proceed from a blow given by the invisible
hand of an offended fairy; this belief, of course, creates fairy
doctors, who by means of charms and mysterious journeys profess
to cure the afflicted. It is only fair to add, that the term has
also a convivial acceptation, the fairies being not unfrequently
made to bear the blame of the effects arising from too copious a
sacrifice to Bacchus.
The importance attached to the manner and place of burial by the
peasantry is almost incredible; it is always a matter of
consideration and often of dispute whether the deceased shall be
buried with his or her “own people.”
To do Tom Bourke justice, he is on these occasions, as I have heard
from many competent authorities, perfectly disinterested. Not many
months since, he recovered a young woman (the sister of a tradesman
living near him,) who had been struck speechless after returning from
a funeral, and had continued so for several days. He steadfastly
refused receiving any compensation; saying, that even if he had not as
much as would buy him his supper, he could take nothing in this case,
because the girl had offended at the funeral one of the _good people_
belonging to his own family, and though he would do her a kindness, he
could take none from her.
About the time this last remarkable affair took place, my friend Mr.
Martin, who is a neighbour of Tom’s, had some business to transact
with him, which it was exceedingly difficult to bring to a conclusion.
At last Mr. Martin, having tried all quiet means, had recourse to a
legal process, which brought Tom to reason, and the matter was
arranged to their mutual satisfaction, and with perfect good-humour
between the parties. The accommodation took place after dinner at Mr.
Martin’s house, and he invited Tom to walk into the parlour and take a
glass of punch, made of some excellent _potteen_, which was on the
table: he had long wished to draw out his highly endowed neighbour on
the subject of his supernatural powers, and as Mrs. Martin, who was in
the room, was rather a favourite of Tom’s, this seemed a good
opportunity.
“Well, Tom,” said Mr. Martin, “that was a curious business of Molly
Dwyer’s, who recovered her speech so suddenly the other day.”
“You may say that, sir,” replied Tom Bourke; “but I had to travel far
for it: no matter for that, now. Your health, ma’am,” said he, turning
to Mrs. Martin.
“Thank you, Tom. But I am told you had some trouble once in that way
in your own family,” said Mrs. Martin.
“So I had, ma’am; trouble enough; but you were only a child at that
time.”
“Come, Tom,” said the hospitable Mr. Martin, interrupting him, “take
another tumbler;” and he then added, “I wish you would tell us
something of the manner in which so many of your children died. I am
told they dropped off, one after another, by the same disorder, and
that your eldest son was cured in a most extraordinary way, when the
physicians had given over.”
“’Tis true for you, sir,” returned Tom; “your father, the doctor (God
be good to him, I won’t belie him in his grave) told me, when my
fourth little boy was a week sick, that himself and Doctor Barry did
all that man could do for him; but they could not keep him from going
after the rest. No more they could, if the people that took away the
rest wished to take him too. But they left him; and sorry to the heart
I am I did not know before why they were taking my boys from me; if I
did, I would not be left trusting to two of ’em now.”
“And how did you find it out, Tom?” inquired Mr. Martin.
“Why, then, I’ll tell you, sir,” said Bourke: “When your father said
what I told you, I did not know very well what to do. I walked down
the little _bohereen_, you know, sir, that goes to the river-side near
Dick Heafy’s ground; for ’twas a lonesome place, and I wanted to think
of myself. I was heavy, sir, and my heart got weak in me, when I
thought I was to lose my little boy; and I did not know well how to
face his mother with the news, for she doted down upon him. Beside,
she never got the better of all she cried at her brother’s berrin
(burying) the week before. As I was going down the bohereen, I met an
old bocough,[9] that used to come about the place once or twice a
year, and used always to sleep in our barn while he staid in the
neighbourhood. So he asked me how I was. ‘Bad enough, Shamous
(James),’ says I. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ says he; ‘but you’re a
foolish man, Mr. Bourke. Your son would be well enough if you would
only do what you ought with him.’ ‘What more can I do with him,
Shamous?’ says I: ‘the doctors give him over.’ ‘The doctors know no
more what ails him than they do what ails a cow when she stops her
milk,’ says Shamous: ‘but go to such a one,’ says he, telling me his
name, ‘and try what he’ll say to you.’”
[9] A peculiar class of beggars resembling the Gaberlunzie man
of Scotland.
“And who was that, Tom?” asked Mr. Martin.