switch, which in all that time never failed fearlessly to visit him
as often as he offended. It was on All Souls' eve when he had his
next fight with it. He did that which brought it for the purpose, and
resolutely grappled it with both hands, just under the chin, as soon as
it appeared. Some say that it bate Duck while he held it; and others,
that it turned and twisted about his body, almost breaking his bones,
like them snakes we hear of in foreign parts would: but for all this,
Duck got it into the big fire that was before him, and kept it there,
with poker and tongs, bating its head down as often as it jumped out of
the blaze to grin at him, until it was quite consumed. And we're tould,
that it didn't crackle like wood does while burning, but the noise it
made was like that of two unearthly voices,--one laughing bitterly, and
the other shrieking and groaning as of a crature in agony.
Now whether Duck Davie got rid of the switch this way or not I can't
well tell you, for he won't let us know. There's different stories about
it. Some say, the witch came to him that time, and begged hard for her
stick; but he swore, by the holy iron with which he was banging it, he
wouldn't listen to her; and that he never saw switch or witch after. But
there's others say they know this, namely--that Duck Davie saw the ould
woman long after, sleeping under the tree, with the stick standing whole
and entire, where it was when he first set eyes on it.
Duck Davie came to settle in these parts about ten years ago. His wife
is one of this place: but she left it in her young days, and Duck met
with and married her when she was housekeeper to an apothecary, and he
a journeyman tailor in Limerick, where he lived long with her, and came
here, one morning, when he was grey, in the wake of Timberleg Toe-Trap
the bailiff, for whom he'd been doing many's the dirty job, in making
seizures and dogging debtors, and so forth. This was after he'd been
refused work by all the master tailors everywhere he could go, because
his eyes was got too weak for fine stitches: so he was obliged to do
something for himself, and nothing better being offered him, he turned
follower to Nick; and when an execution was issued by Pierce Veogh's
creditors, which happened about three months after his quitting this
country, Timberleg, who made the seizure, left Duck Davie and another of
his men, as his proxies, in possession of The Beg. But before he'd been
in it a week, Duck had a quarrel with his master, Timberleg, and another
was put in his place. So then his wife's brother, Paddy Doolan, who is
one of my neighbours, persuaded him to quit the bailiff entirely, and to
set up for himself here among us, as we didn't want finer work than
he was able to do without straining his ould eyes. Duck took his
brother-in-law's advice, and has been with us from that day to this.
He has just as great a dislike to ould women as ever he had; that's why
he don't trate his wife as he should do, as many think; and some say,
when he gets in a passion,--as he will often, and rave and tear like a
madman,--that the stick with the nightmare's head has been bating him
for abusing his wife. Duck Davie has a good quality or two, but take him
head and heels, I, for one, don't much like him. You'll say, may be,
why do I employ him, then?--And I'll answer you,--because there isn't
another tailor within ten miles of us: and moreover, if I was Paddy
Doolan, and had the use of my limbs, when he abused his wife without
a cause, as he did yesterday, and often before, I'd give him as fine a
basting as he got from the witch's switch that day when he looked over
his shoulder, and saw it standing behind him in the field.
[Illustration: 233]
THE WEED WITNESS.
As the world goes, there's few places but have had somebody to blacken
their good name, by robbery or murder, or crime of one sort or another;
and there's few that hav'n't now, nor hadn't before now, but will one
day or other, there's no doubt of it for as sure as the poppy grows in
the corn-field, so will bad passions spring up in the hearts of some
of us; and them that's the best in their young days, often turn out the
worst when they're ould: so that, as somebody says, it's foolish to be
spaking much in praise of a man's goodness of heart, and so forth, until
the green grass grows over him, and he can't belie us by braking out
into badness. It's a fine shew of potato-plants, that has but a single
curly-leaved one among them; and we've rason to pride ourselves, that
never within our own memory, or that of the ouldest people the ouldest
of us now alive knew when we were little ones,--was there more than one
man convicted (I don't say taken up on suspicion--I'd be wrong if I
did) of killing, or burning, or shooting, or joining with White-Boys or
Break-o'-day-Boys, or the likes o' that, for three miles every way from
the door o' my house. To be sure, there's but few people in that space;
but they're enough in number to have had black sheep among 'em. If
you're uncharitable, you'll say, “So they have; but the rogues have had
the luck not to be found out.” May be, you're right; there's many, to
tell the truth, I wouldn't swear for. Much to our glory, however, the
one that _was_ found out, didn't draw the first breath o' life here; but
came from far away up the country, after he'd done that which brought
him to a bad end.
Johnny O'Rourke, as it's said, had a dacent woman for his mother; but,
for his own part, Johnny was a downright bad one,--egg and bird. He got
into such company when he grew up, as couldn't well improve his morals;
and, by-and-by, he'd brought his ould mother--she was a widow--at once
to death's door, and the brink of beggary, by his bad goings-on.
One night, after he'd been away for more than a week, Johnny came
home, with the mud of three baronies lying in clots and layers on his
stockings, white as a corpse, and looking every way as though he'd
travelled far and fast, on no pleasant errand.
“It's well you're come,” says somebody to him from behind, as he put his
hand on the door.
“Why so?” says Johnny; and though he knew by the voice it was one of the
neighbours that spoke to him, his heart knocked against his ribs, and
then seemed to be climbing up to his throat; for something whispered
him, all wasn't well: indeed, he hadn't much reason to expect it.--“Why
so,” says he, “Biddy?--Isn't the ould woman as she should be?”
“Did you lave her as she should be, or didn't you?”
“Poorly, Biddy, and you know it; for you was wid her whin I wint away.
But tell me, now, upon your soul, is she worse?”
“My grief! it's herself that is, then!--You've broke her heart, out and
out, God help you!”
“Don't say that, Biddy! or I'll go get a knife and kill meeself. Tell
her, I'm here, and that I can't come in 'till she forgives me for all's
said and done:--and bring me something to comfort me, for I hav'n't
heart to look in the face of her.”
“Is it comfort for yourself, you're talking of?--and your mother
wailing and howling night and day, as she has been, for the sight of her
llanuv!--What has she done to have such a one as yourself, Johnny, no
one can tell. Down on your knees, and crawl that way up to her, there
where she lies on her death-bed; and don't be thinking of sending me
as a go-between; or, may be, your mother may die before you get her
blessing.”
“Oh! Biddy, Biddy! you're destroying me--root and branch! Sure, she
can't be so bad as that!”
“Come in and see,” says Biddy, taking his cold hand in her's, and
leading him at once right into the house, and up to the bedside of his
mother, and shewing her to him, propped up as she was, and raving with
the little speech that was left her, for her darling, and her llanuv,
and her white-headed boy, and the life of her heart, and all the dear
names she could call that bad son, who had brought sorrow and misery
upon her. And they say it was awful to hear the shriek of joy that came
from her, and how she leaped out of the women's arms that was houlding
her, when somebody put aside the long grey hair, which in her grief
she'd pulled over her face, and shewed her Johnny himself standing
by the bed-side, the image of woe and remorse. There wasn't a hair's
breadth of his face that she didn't kiss; and though a little before,
when he stood like a statue, looking at her as he did, Johnny was too
much choking with grief to be able to utter a word, yet, when he'd
mingled the scalding drops that burst from his eyes, with the cold tears
on his mother's cheek, he found himself restored; and drawing back from
her embrace, he had courage enough to look up at her: but he couldn't
bear the sight for a moment, and hid his face on her breast again,
exclaiming,--“Oh! mother, mother! and is it this way I find you? Why
didn't I die before I saw this night?”
“Cheer up, my darling!” said the ould woman, “for I'll now braathe mee
last in peace, that you're here to close mee eyes.--Oh! that hand,
Johnny!--put that hand close to mee heart!--it's often I felt it there
before now,--long, long ago, Johnny, whin it was young and innocent,
and I'd no comfort on earth--widow as I was--but the sight of mee baby
laughing up in mee eyes;--though the look of you then even brought the
tears into them, you were so like him that was taken from me before you
were born.”
“I've been a bad son to you, mother,” said Johnny; “it's now I feel it.”
“Take your mother's blessing and forgiveness, my child; and mee last
prayer will be, that you'll get as free pardon here and hereafter for
all things, as your poor ould dying mother now gives you.”
“Oh! you're not dying, mother;--you can't be dying!” cried Johnny, in
the greatest agony; “such a thought as that of your dying never crossed
mee brain,--and I can't bear it;--Sure, mother, I'm home, and I'll watch
you, and be wid you night and day:--there's hope for us yet. Isn't there
hope, mother? Don't you feel life come into you at the sight of me, and
mee tears and repentance for what I've done?”
“No, Johnny,” said the ould woman; “I'm sure I'll not see the morning.
The sight of you does me good; but I'd live longer iv you hadn't
come:--now I've nothing to wait for, as I know mee last look will be
fixed on the child I bore, and who's the only one that's kith, kin, or
kind to me, on the face of the earth. But, oh! mee child!--don't do as
you have done!”
“Why spake of it, mother?--be quiet about the past, for it troubles
me--so it does.”
“I've had bad dreams of you, Johnny. Neighbours, iv you'd let me be
alone awhile wid me child, I'd thank you.”
The women retired slowly from the room, and closed the door behind them.
“What have you been dreaming, mother?” eagerly inquired Johnny, as soon
as they had departed.
“There was a river of blood, Johnny, wid yourself struggling for life
in it; and me in a boat, widout rudder or oar, not able to save you: and
then--”
“Don't go on, mother! it's worse than throwing water on me!--I'm shaking
from head to foot.”
“You didn't mind dreams once, Johnny;--and you used to laugh at me when
I'd be telling you warnings I had that way, about you.”
“I wasn't so bad then, may be, mother, as I'm now: bud you'll live long
yet, and help me to pray meeself out of all of it; and I'll mind what
you say, and go to work for you honestly, instead of feeding you wid
what I got in sorrow and sin. If I escape this once, I'll make a vow
never to sleep out of mee own little bed there again. Oh! that I never
had!--bud it's too late to make that wish.”
“Don't despair, darling! for he that's above us is good: and iv you're
penitent, and do as your father's son should, my dear, in spite of that
other bad dream I had, the grass will grow on your grave, as it does on
his.”
“Oh! mercy! and did'nt the grass grow over me, mother? And did you see
mee grave in your dreams?”
“A thousand times, Johnny, since you were gone:--the little hillock
itself was barren and bare, and all round it, as far as the eye could
reach, there was nothing bud wild turnips growing.”
“Mother! you're mad to tell me so! You couldn't have dreamed that--you
couldn't have seen the prushaugh vooe--”
“I see it now, my dear boy, as I did in mee dreams, waving its yellow
flowers backwards and forwards, summer and winter, as iv they were to
last for ever and ever.”
“Oh! mother, mother! spake no more o'them! Iv I thought it wouldn't be
the death of you, I'd aize mee mind.”
“Pray God, you've murdered nobody!”
“I have, mother!--I have!--Iv you didn't spake o' the prushaugh vooe, I
wouldn't have tould you; bud there'd be no salvation for me, iv you died
and did'nt forgive me for it:--for though you forgave me for every thing
besides, you couldn't forgive me for what you didn't know about. I'd die
iv I didn't confess to somebody;--and who's there in the wide world I
could open mee soul to bud yourself, mother?”
“Oh! my grief, Johnny! and is it come to this?--Bud are you sure you're
not pursued?--(spake low, for they're at the door, and it won't shut
close)--are you sure, my dear?”
“I don't know, mother; I think I'm not: bud I'm afraid, as well I may,
from what he said to me, and that same thing you dreamed about, I'll be
found out and hung, worse luck! who knows?--though I never meant to harm
him, as you'll hear, mother, at the last day,--the day o' judgment, whin
there's no keeping a secret.”
“Who was your victim, Johnny? And where was it you were tempted to risk
your soul?”
“It was the Hearthmoneyman I killed!--I'd been watching for him,
different ways, day and night, to rob him of his collection; but he'd
always somebody wid him, or there was people coming; or whin there
wasn't, I hadn't the heart, until this blessed morning.”
“In the broad day?”
“It was;--miles away where you never have been. Bud he was too much for
me, mother; and if it wasn't for the bit of ould baggonet I carried in
mee sherkeen, without ever intinding to use it, he'd have taken me off
to the police: for he got away mee stick from me, and I couldn't manage
him; no, nor keep him off, nor get away from him even, till I took out
the baggonet.”
“Did no one see you?--Was there nobody near?--Are you sure, now?”
“I am:--bud, oh! mother! what do you think he said to me? There was
wild turnips growing by the road side, and as he fell among them, says
he,--'You think no one sees you; bud while there's a single root of
this prushaugh vooe growing in Ireland, I'll not want a witness that you
murdered me!' Then he dragged up a handful of it, and threw it in the
face o' me, as he fell back for ever.”
“My dream! my dream!” cried the ould woman; “Curse his collection! Curse
the money that tempted mee child into this sin!”
“I took none of his money!--not a keenogue! How could I touch it after
what I tould you?--But what'll I do, mother?”
“Fly, my dear! Go hide yourself far, far away! Go, and my blessing be on
you!--Go, for you'll be suspected and pursued!--Go at once, for I'll
not be able to spake much more!--Go, while I've mee sight to see you
depart!--Go, while I've sinse left to hear the last o' your footsteps,
out away through the garden! Mee eyes is getting dim, and the breath's
going from me.”
“Oh! mother! how can I tear meeself from you?”
“Obey me on mee death-bed, if you never did before. I'd linger long in
agonies iv you didn't; and, may be, die shrieking, just as they came to
take you up!--Go off, my darling boy, and I'll expire in peace, wid the
hope of your escaping. Soul and body I'll try to hould together until
morning; and then, iv I don't hear of your being taken,--as bad news
travels fast,--I'll think you're safe, and die happy.”
Well, at last Johnny promised his mother he'd try all he could to get
away to some place where he couldn't be known; and after taking her
blessing, and an eternal lave of her,--a sorrowful one it was, they
say,--he wint out at the back door of the cabin, and made off as fast as
he well could. After skulking about in different parts for many months,
at last he came to this place, got a wife, and did as well as here
and there one;--nobody suspecting him of being worse than his
neighbours,--for eighteen or twenty long years. His wife, who was a
cousin of mine, loved him all that while; and said, though he was
dull and gloomy at times, and didn't get his sleep for bad dreams he
had,--which she thought made him cross,--take him altogether, he was as
good a husband as woman could wish.
Well, as I said 'while ago, Johnny O'Rourke lived among us here, for
eighteen or twenty years,--under the name of Michael Walsh though, I
must tell you,--then you'll hear what happened him. He wint out to
fetch a bit of a walk one day, after being bad a week or two, so that he
couldn't well work; but he hadn't been over the threshould a quarter of
an hour, when he came running back the most lamentable-looking object
that ever darkened a door. Every hair on his head seemed to have a life
of its own; his eye-balls were fixed as those of one just killed with
fright; his mouth was half open; his jaw seemingly motionless; his lips
white as a sheet; and around them both was a blue circle, as though he'd
been painted to imitate death. Down he dropped upon the floor as soon as
he got in; and all his wife and the neighbours could do, didn't restore
him to his right senses for hours. At last, he began to call for the
priest;--I remember it as well as if it happened but yesterday;--and
here it was where they found Father Killala, who was telling me the
middle and both ends of the _cant_ at The Beg: for all Pierce Veogh's
furniture and things were sould under the hammer that day, and the
Monday before, for a mere nothing, or next kin to it. And when Father
Killala got to the sick man, he said, that though we'd so long called
him Mick Walsh, his raal name was Johnny O'Rourke; and that he'd seen a
sight that day, which drove him to do what he'd long been thinking of;
namely,--confessing that he was the murderer of Big Dick Blaney, the
Hearthmoneyman, who was found, with an ould baggonet in his breast,
among the prushaugh vooe by the road side, away up the country,
twenty years before. “And,” says he, “I can't live wid the load on mee
heart;--whether I lie abroad or at home I'm always tossing about in
a bed of prushaugh vooe, wid the baggonet glimmering like a flash of
lightning over mee head: so you'll deliver me up at once, that I may
suffer by man for raising mee hand against man, and God help me to go
through it!”
And, no doubt, the sight he saw was enough to make him do as he did. A
week after he tould his wife his whole history; and how, when he wint
out that day when he came home and called for the priest, after walking
a little way along the road, thinking of no harm in the world, but with
his heart weighed down as usual for the deed he'd done long ago, he was
suddenly startled, by hearing somebody singing what he thought was a
keentaghaun; and what should he see, on turning his eyes to the bit of
wild broken ground by the road-side, but the face of his ould mother!
And what was she doing, think you, but tearing up the wild turnip-plants,
which were growing on the spot where she stood, as though her life
depended on their destruction!--He thought she'd been in her grave years
and years before; but there she was, miserably ould, and withered away
to skin and bone: but though altered by time, he saw, at the first look,
it was his mother. She wint on with her work, not noticing her son, and
singing in a low, wild, heart-breaking tone--
“Still the prushaugh vooe grows!
For the winds are his foes,
And scatter the seed,
Of the fearful weed,
O'er mountain and moor;
While weary and sore,
I travel, up-rooting
Each bright green shooting:--
But the winds are his foes,
And the prushaugh still grows!
Oh! mee llanuv! mee lanuv!”
And says she, “Mee task will never be ended; for mee tears water the
seeds, while I pull up the ould plants that bore them. Oh! Johnny! where
are you, my son?--Come to your mother and help her, my darling!”
So then he staggered up to her, but she didn't know him!--the mother
didn't know the son she doated on,--but cursed him, and called him
“Dick Blaney,” and “Hearthmoneyman!”--All this it was that drove
Johnny O'Rourke to run home, like one out of his senses, and make his
confession.
It's said, that he tried, at the bar, with tears and lamentation, which
wasn't expected of him, to save his life; or, at any rate, to get a
long day given him:--promising how good he'd be, if he was let live,
and pleading the years he'd passed in repentance. But you'd guess, if I
did'nt tell you, that such blarney, from one who'd done as he had, would
have no weight. So he suffered; and that, too, penitently, as I'm tould
by them that saw him at the last. His wife spent all she could scrape
together,--as he bid her with his last words a'most,--in search of his
mother; but the ould woman never was found, as far as I know, from
that day to this; and, may be, the poor soul is still wandering about,
tearing up the prushaugh vooe, and singing her melancholy song.
[Illustration: 241]
ME AND MY GHOST-SHIP.
About a month after the _cant_ at The Beg of all the goods that was
in it,--the particulars of which Father Killala was telling me, as you
heard while ago, when he was sent for by Johnny O'Rourke,--the large
creditors that had claims on the land, and the house itself, made up
their minds to follow the example set them by the small fry, who had
paid themselves out o' the sale o' the furniture, and things o' that
kind,--the goods and chattels I mane;--and news came that the whole
domain would soon be publicly put up, and sould to the best bidder. Such
tidings as this couldn't but grieve me,--I'll say that much for myself;
for I didn't know into what hands the fine ould place might fall. And
what would it matter to me, a poor ould cripple as I am, living here in
a cabin,--you'll ask,--who had it, since I'd no call to it?--Why, then,
I'll tell you; and if you laugh at me for loving The Beg, so be it, and
you're welcome. It's in the small room, to the left, as you go up the
back staircase, just above what's called the Oratory, and over-right the
chamber where there's a portrait of William the Third, the long-nosed
Orangeman, one side o' the chimney, and a picture of poor Jimmy Stuart,
the king, on the other--it's there where I drew my first breath; and
it's there, too, on the same day and hour, my mother drew her last. My
father lived with the Veoghs, and so did his father before him; and,
it's said, we once was owners of The Beg ourselves, and should be so
still, if right ruled the roast. There's a pedigree of our forefathers
drawn out upon parchment, in the form of a tree, stuck up against one
o' the walls, by which it seems we were fine fellows long ago:--but
that doesn't matter a ha'p'orth to me now; for I'd rather find a guinea
without an owner, than have it proved that my grandfather was king of
ten countries, and I could lay claim to the title as his heir, if it
was nothing but the bare name I got by it. Not but what if I was a fine
fellow myself, I must own, I'd rather have fine fellows than vagabonds
for my forefathers; but as I'm but a fisherman, or next kin to it, I'd
as soon have fishermen as King Ferguses for my ancestors;--and rather,
too, may be: for while, in the one case, the honour of those I sprung
from might make me strive to be great and honourable myself; that
same honour, in the other, might make me draw comparisons, and be
discontented with my own lot, and so neglect doing what I might, and go
to the dogs,--don't you see?