up for the mischief, by calling some one to tie up the dogs,--or drive
away the bull,--or bring a boat,--why can't you?”
The ould woman sat down, and smoked her pipe, and she and Bat had a
little more confab this way across the stream; but, at last and in long
run, he persuaded her to come to us here, and tell us how matters stood
with Bat, and to beg us to help him off: not,--do you mind?--as I think,
out of any humanity to the man, but to shew us how truly she'd foretould
what was to happen him. I don't like her, so I'll say no good of
her,--but this, namely,--she gave a poor boy who was upon the shaughran,
without father or mother, house or home to his head, a penny and
a blessing, when it's my belief, she'd little more to give. I say
that,--for I'd like to give even a certain elderly gentleman, whose name
I won't mention, his due,--much more a poor ould cunning-woman, that's
weak flesh and blood, after all's said and done (though not a bit too
good), like one's ownself.
Down came the woman, but she found few at home besides Mick Maguire, for
a'most every mother's son that could move, had gone away to get Bat off
his predicament before. Mick wouldn't go at all; for, he said, sure he
was the bull bore a grudge against him, because he threw stones at his
head, and bullied him once.
“Ah! but,” says somebody, “may be, he wouldn't notice you, Mick.”
“May be, he would though,” says Mick; “so it's go I won't.”
“But sure we'll all be wid you, Mick.”
“That matters not,” says he; “for the bull might be ripping up ould
grievances, and select meeself, out of all of ye, to butt and abuse.”
“But couldn't you bring your gun, man?”
“I could then, but I won't,” says Mick; “for I'm inclined to suspect it
wasn't to shoot his bull, that Misther Pierce Veogh gave it me.”
You'll wonder how they came to know where Bat was,--won't you!--'Twas
the poor scholar then, that ducked down in a ditch, from the bull on one
side, and Bat on the other; and after that, saw how Bat got on with
the bull, and came to tell us. So some of them wint to Pierce Veogh's
people, and got the dogs called off, and down came Bat amongst them,
swearing that if he'd his big stick,--which, he said, he'd dropped he
didn't know how,--he'd baste the bull any day.
[Illustration: 222]
THE WITCH'S SWITCH.
There's nobody dies, but somebody's glad of it; few people, as I think,
but have one person standing between them and what they look upon as
comfort or happiness, or something or other they desire, but don't want,
for all that, may be. Duck Davie was with me yesterday, foaming away
like the sea against a rock it can't master and what for, think you?
Why, then, only because his wife looks so well and won't die to plaze
him. It's my belief he'd be glad to be rid of her, though she half
keeps him, and is loved far and near. She does all the little good she
can, in the way of nursing the sick, and so forth; and she saved
Duck Davie's own life three times, by her knowledge of herbs, and the
million-and-one ailments of our poor mortal bodies.
But Duck don't like her;--I'd be spaking what wasn't the truth if I said
that he did: and why should I tell a lie on Duck Davie?--I won't on him,
or any man if I know it. When he married her she was not young,--that
is, full thirty,--but trim and good-looking, which is more than could
be said of himself any day of his life; for he has a big nob on his face
for a nose, and a mouth so wide that it would be fearful to look at,
if he laughed: but Davie is either too discreet or too ill-tempered,
morning, noon, and night, to be jovial. He drinks, but don't ever get
merry over his cups: and yet his little grey eyes twinkles, and he
puckers the wrinkles in great folds about them, and you hear an odd
noise in his throat sometimes, when he's tould of a trick, that's
malicious and droll, being played off by the boys on any of the ould
women he knows. His knee-bands is always loose, and his big coat hitched
over his shoulders; he wears red sleeves to his waistcoat, with ragged
edges that reach to his finger-knuckles; and shoes--not brogues--but
shoes, down at heel. He never takes his ould grey hat off his bald head
but to pull on his night-cap. He's round-shouldered and short, but stout
and strong for his age, which is on the grave side of sixty; and the
fronts of his knees is turned in, and they jostle one another; and his
feet are broad and flat, with the heels far out and in front, instead of
being behind; and this--poor man!--makes him waddle oddly: he's none the
worse for that though. After this pedigree of his appearance, most
likely you'd know Duck if you met him.
I forgot a thing or two in him that's remarkable:--he turns his head
to and fro eternally, as if he were looking for some one, whether he's
alone or in company; and even when his eyes twinkles, as I tould you,
or if they're sparkling with passion, there's something in them all the
while that reminds you of a dog's look when he knows he has done wrong
and expects to be whipped.
Davie was tolerably fond of his wife for many long years after he'd
married her; but though she does little or nothing to vex him, that I
know of, Duck don't like her, now she's got ould any one with half an
eye could see that, if Davie didn't own it himself, which he does. It's
the way o' the world, you'll say: a man that's passed the prime of life
forgets his own wrinkles, though those of his wife, that's about the
same age as himself, are day after day staring him in the face;--he sees
her years, but if he can walk about, and eat, and get his health two
months out of the twelve, he won't let himself fancy he feels his own.
That's not altogether the case with Davie; it may be so in part, but not
entirely; at least, so thinks them that knows his story.
From the time he first knew the use of a button, it's said Duck Davie
had a deep-rooted grudge against ould women; they have always been at
war with him, and he with them. Duck lost his daddy before he saw the
light; and his mother died when he was weaned, or awhile after. She had
an ould aunt, who took the boy under her wing, and did what she could
for him, in her way: but, by all accounts, her temper was such that a
cat couldn't live with her; and if little Duck Davie's heart was kind as
that of a lamb by nature, there's no doubt she ruined it; if it was bad
before, she couldn't do otherwise than make it worse. A more terrible
Turk in petticoats, and on a small scale, never walked; but after awhile
she got little good of Duck. She seemed to live for no other purpose
than to vex and thwart and make the poor little fellow miserable. There
was no soul but the boy, to take off the scum and bitterness of her
temper; and, by-and-by, Duck began to think of nothing but how to pay
off the long score he felt he owed her. He should have put up with any
thing, you may say, and been grateful for her protecting him, and ate
his crust, though it was sopped in vinegar, with thanks and meekness:
may be, he ought; I won't argue it one way or another, but simply tell
you, he didn't.
The few acquaintance Duck's grand-aunt had, was folks of her own age as
well as sex, and having a spice of her own temper: to them she tould all
Duck's delinquencies, and they joined her in abusing him; and, what
was worse, often helped her to belabour him. Little Davie hadn't a
disposition to be reclaimed from his bad ways by a broomstick; may be,
kindness might have done better, but it never was tried on him: so on
he wint, from bad to worse, and, by the time he was twelve years ould,
hated every woman he met who'd a grey head and wrinkled face. He looked
upon them as his natural enemies, and did all he could to vex and
perplex them.
By-and-by, Duck was put out to a tailor; and he'd done with his
grand-aunt, and all other ould women, for ever, as he hoped. But,
no;--when he got to his master's house, which he never entered till he
was bound, little Duck discovered that his mistress was as crooked with
age, and almost as crooked in temper as his grand-aunt. When her first
husband died, she just did what many a widow, with a good house and
trade left her, has done before and since,--married her foreman. He was
a stout, brawny blade, having nothing but his needle to depend upon, but
good-looking, and not above thirty.
In the second year of Duck's apprenticeship, a mighty remarkable event
happened him; and I'll tell you what it was presently, if you'll wait.
He behaved himself, and liked the place, and his fellow-'prentices, and
his master too, for many months. Ould Alice, his mistress, was no sourer
with him than with the others, all this time: but at last she began to
single him out-just as he'd feared she would--as a natural prey to one
of her age and sex. She used him, by degrees, worse and worse, until
Duck convinced himself he was bound in justice to them feelings he had
of his own, to turn upon her, when he could slyly, and annoy her as
often as an opportunity for doing so, without danger, occurred. At
length, ould Alice smarted under his malicious tricks to such a degree
that she grew a fury almost; and the worse she behaved to him, the worse
he behaved to her:--for Duck was always obstinate. He'd bad luck though,
to meet with such a match for his grand-aunt as ould Alice; hadn't
he?--Now for the event I promised to tell you about.
One day, Duck was sent on an errand by his mistress, but instead of
getting back quick, as she wished him, though he knew she was just
standing on thorns till he got home to tell her what was said to her
message, what does he do but turn away out of the road into a field, to
pick thistles to put in her bed, the next time he might think fit to be
offended.--In one corner of the field was a big hollow tree,--an oak, I
believe, but it don't matter,--and under it lay an ould woman: her brown
skinny arms were half covered with a ragged cloak, and her face was
partly hid by a few straggling grey locks of hair, which had escaped
from under her bonnet. Instinct made Duck approach, and when he got near
the tree, a puff of wind blew up the grey hair, and Duck saw that her
eyes were closed. Her snoring satisfied him that she wasn't dead, while
it convinced him that she was fast asleep; and his fingers itched to
give her a touch of his tormenting talents.
A stick, stuck upright in the ground, close by the ould woman's side,
attracted Duck Davie's notice, when he got behind the tree: “What's
this?” thinks he, examining it, and feeling a little afraid or so, at
the looks of it;--and you wouldn't wonder, if you saw it yourself; for
they say it was an odd, outlandish staff, made of wood that never grew
in a Christian land, thick, twisted, tall as a middling man, and with as
ugly a face carved on it as ever you saw in a dream after taking a
tough supper--no nightmare's could be worse. Bat Boroo's big stick, the
mention of which made me think of the story I'm now telling you, was
just a bit of a baby's twig, compared with the ugly cudgel Duck Davie
saw that day sticking up in the field.
Duck, as I said, was a little dashed at first, but he soon got heart,
and, says he to himself, “It is but her stick she's stuck up there, like
a centinel, to scare away the boys from teazing her while she sleeps;
but I'll just teach her that I'm not to be come over so aisily.”
Upon this, with a long barley-straw, from behind the tree where he was,
Dick began to tickle and teaze the ould woman's nose, that was almost
as rough and as prickly as the ear of the straw.--Did you ever get your
nose tickled that way while you were asleep?--If you didn't, take my
word for it, and upon my honour and conscience, it's far from pleasant;
and so the ould woman found it. She scratched her nose with her long
blue nails, muttered a curse upon the flies, and snored again.--Duck was
in his glory; he tickled as before, and the ould woman opened her eyes,
but he shrunk behind the tree, and didn't breathe: so she dropped off
once more. The third time he touched her she awoke at once, and from
what she said, and her preparing to get up, Duck knew she was sure of
being teazed by something bigger than a fly: so, for fear of anything
unpleasant, he moved off, and ran away across the field, chuckling in
his own mind at the fine fun he'd had.
When he got within a step or two of the gate, Duck heard a sound with
which he was very well acquainted--I mane that of a stick descending
with force upon his back; and within much less than a quarter of a
second, he felt such a blow across his shoulders as he didn't get for
many's the long day. He looked behind, thinking to see the ould woman,
who he now thought was a witch, close at his heels; but no--it was only
her stick!--There it stood, staring him full in the face, though its
owner was yet but a little distance from the tree, and hobbling towards
him, in such a weak way, that Duck felt sure she couldn't have had
strength to throw it. Don't think that, while he observed this, Duck
wasn't wriggling his shoulders to and fro, and bellowing lustily with
the pain of the thwack. It wasn't a little that would make him cry; but
roar he did, this while, as loud as ever he roared in his life.
Not knowing what to make of this that had happened him, while the stick
stood where it did, he was afraid to turn his back to it again; and
there he was, still wriggling and roaring, when the ould woman came up.
The state she found Duck in seemed to give her great satisfaction: she
took the point of the stick out of the ground, and clasping it round the
middle to support herself, gnashed her toothless gums up in Duck's face,
and, for his malicious tricks to her that day,--waking her when she
was weary, as he did,--promised him a taste of her switch whenever
he worried an ould woman again. With this she tottered off, and Duck
sneaked home, blubbering as he went, expecting to be saluted with a
blow of either the ladle or the sleeve-board, for delaying: but he was
disappointed, for he got both;--one from ould Alice, and the other from
her husband.
All that happened Duck Davie I can't tell you;--it must only be a bit
here and there, and with that I hope you'll content yourself; or may
be you don't like him, and the less you hear of him the better plazed
you'll be.--Maybe, though, you're like me:
I don't like the man much, but his story don't displaze me; so I'll go
to the next thing I recollect hearing of him.--I mustn't pass on though
without mentioning how surprised Duck was not to find any mark of the
blow he got in the field: he expected his back was well wealed, and
so he might;--but it wasn't. “Here's the bump on my head,” says he
to himself, “from the ladle, and here's the mark of the edge of the
sleeve-board; but where's that of the switch, as the ould woman called
it?--Now I'm sure she's a witch, or else why wouldn't her blow mark me,
as well as them that I got from my master and mistress?”
After this, Duck was as quiet as ould Alice would let him be for a
month or more; but then he began again, and you'll hear how it was:--his
mistress was well to do in the world, and had her house filled with
what's useful; and to tell the truth of her, though stingy in
some things, a good housewife--so she was. Duck had a power of
fellow-'prentices, for his master did half the work of the town he lived
in; and the boys was destructive, as boys will be,--won't they?--Alice
was proud of her plates; but they broke them away about this time, at
such a rate, by accident and what not, that she was determined to put a
stop to it: so what does she do but give orders that no one should use a
sound plate, but ate off the broken ones! And when she found one of the
boys doing wrong this way, he got a crack on the head with the ladle for
his disobadience. One day, Duck wouldn't give himself the pains to look
for a broken plate; it was a mischievous moment with him, and ould Alice
had just before threatened him for something; so he took down a whole
plate from the dresser, and qualified it for his use, by breaking a
piece off its edge. The moment he did it, Duck felt a very disagreeable
sensation in his shoulders. You'll guess the witch kept her word, and
that it was the switch touched him. Faith! then, you're right; there
stood the weapon, with its evil-looking head, at Duck's back, though no
sign of the old crature herself could he see. And what does the
switch do, after Duck had stared at it a little, but make him a polite
reverence, face about, jump head foremost out of the window that was
open, and hop off down the garden walk, like a man would who had but one
leg and that a wooden one.
After Duck had done bellowing, and the pain of the blow was gone off,
he felt his back, but it was as smooth as the innumerable drubbings he'd
got from one and another had left it. He then asked everybody if they'd
seen a stick, with a big black head, hop into the window or go down
the garden: but he only got laughed at; and when he tould a pair of his
fellow-'prentices in confidence what had happened him, and why it was,
they jeered him, and tried to persuade him he was telling lies, or going
mad but he wouldn't believe them, for he had seen the switch with his
own eyes, and felt the blow with his own back. The two 'prentices,
however, reported the trick to the rest; and from that day, in imitation
of Duck Davie, when they couldn't or wouldn't find a broken plate, they
knocked a piece out of a sound one. Duck saw them do this often and
often, but the switch didn't strike them; and he began to feel sorry
that ever he'd tickled the rough nose of an ould witch with a straw.
Time wint on, and ould Alice at last found out the trick of the broken
crockery, and who it was put the 'prentices up to it; so poor Duck was in
a worse pickle than ever, but didn't dare to indulge himself in mischief
against his mistress, for fear of the switch. At last, however, he could
bear her behaviour no longer, and resolved to terrify her out of three
or four years of her natural life, happen what would after it. What
brought him to this was a practice of her's, in the cold mornings of
winter, which was now come on, of punishing him for the misdeeds of his
companions. You'll hear how she managed it. An hour before day-break,
without much disturbing her husband, who didn't get up for long after,
she'd take a pole that stood by her bed-side, and strike the beam that
wint across the ceiling with it, to wake up the boys that slept in a big
room above. Sometimes they wouldn't wake; and then she'd go up to them
herself, and feeling about in the dark, get hould of the nose that lay
nearest the door; that nose she knew well enough was Duck Davie's; and
when she had it in her horny fingers, she'd pull it till Duck roared
with the pain loud enough to wake himself and all his fellow-'prentices.
This way she got two or three of her ends at once:--she vented her
spite on Duck, punished one of the delinquents, and awoke the rest. Duck
didn't like it; and after he'd been served so twice, vowed revenge, in
his own mind, if she did it again. Well, the very next morning, while
Duck was dreaming of tickling the witch's nose, up came his ould
mistress, and performed as before upon his. Let Duck be as bad as he
would, this wasn't well of her, at any rate; and if he did play her a
trick after that, I won't say she didn't more than half deserve it.
One of the 'prentices said that he'd been awake, with a whitlow on his
thumb, for an hour before, and he'd swear the mistress hadn't knocked
at all that morning: so it was a piece of spite on her part, that day at
least, to punish Duck; and if he wasn't determined before, he certainly
became so on hearing this, and wint to work at once on a plan he had
laid down for the occasion.
Alice, you'll recollect, had been a widow: her first husband's picture,
larger, if anything, than life,--as little men's pictures usually
are,--was hung up in the parlour while he was alive; but after Alice got
married again, and a year or two had gone by, somehow it found its way
into a lumber room, at the top of the house. Duck discovered it in his
rambles; and with it, in the same room, three or four suits which the
ould tailor had left off in his life-time, a cocked hat he wore on high
days and holidays, and a smooth cane he carried on Sundays. These were
all fine matarials, and Duck didn't fail to make use of them. He claned
and patched up a suit of the clothes, brushed the hat, scoured the
cane, made an effigy of straw, and dressed it up mighty nate and all
that,--for Duck, though obstinate and dull at his trade, was 'cute and
ingenious in all sorts of mischief-making. When he'd got so far, he cut
the face out of the picture, washed it with something till it looked as
good as new, fixed it into the neck of the figure, with the hat on its
brow, and a white cravat under its chin. He then fastened the cane, by
manes of an ould glove, to the cuff of the right sleeve; and while the
master was out one night, brought it down stairs, propped it up against
the parlour door, and then giving a knock, got away in the dark. When
the ould woman opened the door, the figure bent forward, with the hat
on its head and the cane in its hand, just as though it would enter, and
looking for all the world like life itself!
Ould Alice shrieked, but Duck had taken care no one should come to her,
for he'd locked and barred the entrance from that part of the house
were the 'prentices and servants were, to the passage which led to the
parlour. But Alice wasn't the only one who made a great noise in the
house that night. The moment she first cried out, at seeing what she
thought was the ghost of the late tailor, her husband, and all the while
she lay screaming in the parlour, Duck Davie was keeping time with
her in the passage, by shouting under the blows of the switch, which
belaboured him this time, so unmercifully, that he took up the figure,
and got away with it out of the house.
Duck Davie never darkened the tailor's door again: he travelled all
night on foot, resolving to find some place, if he could, where there
was no ould women to torment or tempt him, or where the witch's switch
couldn't reach his shoulders. He got harbour and work elsewhere, and
wint on for a few years tolerably well, considering all things; but he
found to his cost that there was ould women everywhere, and it wasn't
aisy to get away from the switch he dreaded. Elderly persons of the fair
sex were occasionally vexatious to him; and his disposition now and then
broke out so as to summon the switch to his shoulders.
At last, Duck Davie became a man,--as boys will, you know, in years,
at least, if not in discretion; and he made up his mind to try if he
couldn't rid himself of the switch that haunted him. We'll see how he
succeeded.
It happened one morning, after he had been brooding over his misfortunes
all night, that he drank a little more than was wholesome on a fasting
stomach, and did something, almost without knowing it, that produced a
slight bruise on his shoulders from the switch. He turned round upon
it at once, and resolved to see if he couldn't master it. He began to
belabour it, before it had time to make its bow and hop off, as though
it was flesh and blood like himself; but only broke his own knuckles
against its hard head. He then tried to capture it, but the switch bent
and writhed in his grasp like an eel, got clear out of his hands, and
then, hopping back a little, gave Duck Davie a blow in the stomach with
its head, as he was advancing to make another attack, that laid him flat
on the ground. It then made its bow to him where he lay, and hopped off.
Instead of disheartening, this interview irritated obstinate Davie; and
the next day, he brought the switch to him again, by purposely tripping
up an ould woman's heels who hadn't done him a ha'p'orth of evil. There
was a holy well, which ran into a broad stream near the place where this
happened, and before the switch had given him a second blow, which he
knew he deserved, Duck had gripped it tight to his breast and carried
it to the bank. He cast it into the stream, hoping of course to see it
sink; but it swam back like a fish,--landed,--finished the drubbing it
owed Duck, and hopped away without giving him a chance of getting hould
of it again!