While the foregoing scene of sadness took place in the lone churchyard,
unholy watch was kept over the second coffin by the myrmidons of the
law. The usurer who made the seizure had brought down from Dublin three
of the most determined bailiffs from amongst the tribe, and to their
care was committed the keeping of the supposed body in the old barn.
Associated with these worthies were a couple of ill-conditioned country
blackguards, who, for the sake of a bottle of whisky, would keep company
with Old Nick himself, and who expected, moreover, to hear “a power
o' news” from the “gentlemen” from Dublin, who, in their turn did not
object to have their guard strengthened, as their notions of a rescue in
the country parts of Ireland were anything but agreeable. The night was
cold, so, clearing away from one end of the barn the sheaves of corn
with which it was stored, they made a turf fire, stretched themselves
on a good shake-down of straw before the cheering blaze, and circulated
among them the whisky, of which they had a good store. A tap at the
door announced a new-comer; but the Dublin bailiffs, fearing a surprise,
hesitated to open to the knock until their country allies assured them
it was a friend whose voice they recognised. The door was opened, and in
walked Larry Hogan, to pick up his share of what was going, whatever it
might be, saying--
“I thought you wor for keeping me out altogether.”
“The gintlemin from Dublin was afeard of what they call a riskya”
(rescue), said the peasant, “till I told them 't was a friend.”
“Divil a riskya will come near you to-night,” said Larry, “you may make
your minds aisy about that, for the people doesn't care enough about
_his_ bones to get their own broke in savin' him, and no wondher. It's
a lantherumswash bully he always was, quiet as he is now. And there you
are, my bold squire,” said he, apostrophising the coffin which had
been thrown on a heap of sheaves. “Faix, it's a good kitchen you kep',
anyhow, whenever you had it to spind; and indeed when you _hadn't_ you
spint it all the same, for the divil a much you cared how you got
it; but death has made you pay the reckoning at last--that thing that
filly-officers call the debt o' nature must be paid, whatever else you
may owe.”
“Why, it's as good as a sarmon to hear you,” said one of the bailiffs.
“O Larry, sir, discourses iligant,” said a peasant.
“Tut, tut, tut,” said Larry, with affected modesty: “it's not what _I_
say, but I can tell you a thing that Docthor Growlin' put out on him
more nor a year ago, which was mighty 'cute. Scholars calls it an
'epithet of dissipation,' which means getting a man's tombstone ready
for him before he dies; and divil a more cutting thing was ever cut on a
tombstone than the doctor's rhyme; this is it--
'Here lies O'Grady, that cantankerous creature,
Who paid, as all must pay, the debt of nature;
But, keeping to his general maxim still,
Paid it--like other debts--against his will.'”
[Footnote: These bitter lines on a “bad pay” were written by a Dublin
medical wit of high repute, of whom Dr. Growling is a prototype.]
“What do _you_ think o' that, Goggins?” inquired one bailiff from the
other; “you're a judge o' po'thry.”
“It's _sevare,”_ answered Goggins, authoritatively, “but _coorse,_ I
wish you'd brile the rashers; I begin to feel the calls o' nature, as
the poet says.”
This Mister Goggins was a character in his way. He had the greatest
longing to be thought a poet, put execrable couplets together
sometimes, and always talked as fine as he could; and his mixture of
sentimentality, with a large stock of blackguardism, produced a strange
jumble.
“The people here thought it nate, sir,” said Larry.
“Oh, very well for the country!” said Goggins; “but 't wouldn't do for
town.”
“Misther Coggings knows best,” said the bailiff who first spoke, “for
he's a pote himself, and writes in the newspapers.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Larry.
“Yes,” said Goggins, “sometimes I throw off little things for the
newspapers. There's a friend of mine you see, a gentleman connected with
the press, who is often in defficulties, and I give him a hint to keep
out o' the way when he's in trouble, and he swears I've a genus for the
muses, and encourages me--”
“Humph!” says Larry.
“And puts my things in the paper, when he gets the editor's back turned,
for the editor is a consaited chap that likes no one's po'thry but his
own; but never mind--if I ever get a writ against that chap, _won't_ I
sarve it!”
“And I dar say some day you will have it agen him, sir,” said Larry.
“Sure of it, a'most,” said Goggins; “them litherary men is always in
defficulties.”
“I wondher you'd be like them, then, and write at all,” said Larry.
“Oh, as for me, it's only by way of amusement; attached as I am to the
legal profession, my time wouldn't permit; but I have been infected by
the company I kept. The living images that creeps over a man sometimes
is irresistible, and you have no pace till you get them out o' your
head.”
“Oh, indeed, they are very throublesome,” says Larry, “and are the
litherary gintlemen, sir, as you call them, mostly that way?”
“To be sure; it is _that_ which makes a litherary man: his head is
full--teems with creation, sir.”
“Dear, dear!” said Larry.
“And when once the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can
cure it but the scratching of a pen.”
“But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any other way you
can.”
“To be sure,” said Goggins, “I have seen a litherary gentleman in a
sponging-house do crack things on the wall with a bit of burnt stick,
rather than be idle--they must execute.”
“Ha!” says Larry.
“Sometimes, in all their poverty and difficulty, I envy the 'fatal
fatality,' as the poet says, of such men in catching ideas.”
“That's the genteel name for it,” says Larry.
“Oh!” exclaimed Goggins, enthusiastically, “I know the satisfaction of
catching a man, but it's nothing at all compared to catching an idea.
For the man, you see, can give hail and get off, but the idea is your
own for ever. And then a rhyme--when it has puzzled you all day, the
pleasure you have in _nabbing_ it at last!”
“Oh, it's po'thry you're spakin' about,” said Larry.
“To be sure,” said Goggins; “do you think I'd throw away my time on
prose? You're burning that bacon, Tim,” said he to his _sub_.
“Poethry, agen the world!” continued he to Larry, “the Castilian
sthraime for me!--Hand us that whisky”--he put the bottle to his mouth
and took a swig--“That's good--you do a bit of private here, I suspect,”
said he, with a wink, pointing to the bottle.
Larry returned a significant grin, but said nothing. Oh, don't be afraid
o' me--I would n't'peach--”
“Sure it's agen the law, and you're a gintleman o' the law,” said Larry.
“That's no rule,” said Goggins: “the Lord Chief Justice always goes to
bed, they say, with six tumblers o' potteen under his belt; and dhrink
it myself.”
“Arrah, how do you get it?” said Larry.
“From a gentleman, a friend o' mine, in the Custom-house.”
“A-dad, that's quare,” said Larry, laughing.
“Oh, we see queer things, I tell you,” said Goggins, “we gentlemen of
the law.”
“To be sure you must,” returned Larry; “and mighty improvin' it must be.
Did you ever catch a thief, sir?”
“My good man, you mistake my profession,” said Goggins, proudly; “we
never have anything to do in the _criminal_ line, that's much beneath
_us_.”
“I ax your pardon, sir.”
“No offence--no offence.”
“But it must be mighty improvin', I think, ketching of thieves, and
finding out their thricks and hidin'-places, and the like?”
“Yes, yes,” said Goggins, “good fun; though I don't do it, I know all
about it, and could tell queer things too.”
“Arrah, maybe you would, sir?” said Larry.
“Maybe I will, after we nibble some rashers--will you take share?”
“Musha, long life to you,” said Larry, always willing to get whatever he
could. A repast was now made, more resembling a feast of savages round
their war-fire than any civilised meal; slices of bacon broiled in
the fire, and eggs roasted in the turf-ashes. The viands were not
objectionable; but the cooking! Oh!--there was neither gridiron nor
frying-pan, fork nor spoon; a couple of clasp-knives served the whole
party. Nevertheless, they satisfied their hunger and then sent the
bottle on its exhilarating round. Soon after that, many a story of
burglary, robbery, swindling, petty larceny, and every conceivable
crime, was related for the amusement of the circle; and the plots
and counterplots of thieves and thief-takers raised the wonder of the
peasants. Larry Hogan was especially delighted; more particularly when
some trick of either villany or cunning came out.
“Now women are troublesome cattle to deal with mostly,” said Goggins.
“They are remarkably 'cute first, and then they are spiteful after;
and for circumventin' _either_ way are sharp hands. You see they do it
quieter than men; a man will make a noise about it, but a woman does
it all on the sly. There was Bill Morgan--and a sharp fellow he was,
too--and he had set his heart on some silver spoons he used to see down
in a kitchen windy, but the servant-maid, somehow or other, suspected
there was designs about the place, and was on the watch. Well, one
night, when she was all alone, she heard a noise outside the windy, so
she kept as quiet as a mouse. By-and-by the sash was attempted to be
riz from the outside, so she laid hold of a kittle of boiling wather and
stood hid behind the shutter. The windy was now riz a little, and a hand
and arm thrust in to throw up the sash altogether, when the girl poured
the boiling wather down the sleeve of Bill's coat. Bill roared with
the pain, when the girl said to him, laughing, through the windy, 'I
_thought_ you came for something.'”
“That was a 'cute girl,” said Larry, chuckling.
“Well, now, that's an instance of a woman's cleverness in preventing.
I'll teach you one of her determination to discover and prosecute to
conviction; and in this case, what makes it curious is, that Jack Tate
had done the bowldest thing, and run the greatest risks, 'the
eminent deadly,' as the poet says, when he was done up at last by a
feather-bed.”
“A feather-bed,” repeated Larry, wondering how a feather-bed could
influence the fate of a bold burglar, while Goggins mistook his
exclamation of surprise to signify the paltriness of the prize, and
therefore chimed in with him.
“Quite true--no wonder you wonder--quite below a man of his pluck; but
the fact was, a sweetheart of his was longing for a feather-bed, and
Jack determined to get it. Well, he marched into a house, the door of
which he found open, and went up-stairs, and took the best feather-bed
in the house, tied it up in the best quilt, crammed some caps and
ribbons he saw lying about into the bundle, and marched down-stairs
again; but you see, in carrying off even the small thing of a
feather-bed, Jack showed the skill of a high practitioner, for he
descendhered the stairs backwards.”
“Backwards!” said Larry, “what was that for?”
“You'll see by-and-by,” said Goggins; “he descendhered backwards when
suddenly he heard a door opening, and a faymale voice exclaim, 'Where
are you going with that bed?'
“'I am going up-stairs with it, ma'am,' says Jack, whose backward
position favoured his lie, and he began to walk up again.
“'Come down here,' said the lady, 'we want no beds here, man.'
“'Mr. Sullivan, ma'am, sent me home with it himself,' said Jack, still
mounting the stairs.
“'Come down, I tell you,' said the lady, in a great rage. 'There's
no Mr. Sullivan lives here--go out of this with your bed, you stupid
fellow.'
“'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' says Jack, turning round, and marching off
with the bed fair and aisy. Well, there was a regular shilloo in the
house when the thing was found out, and cart-ropes wouldn't howld the
lady for the rage she was in at being diddled; so she offered rewards,
and the dickens knows all; and what do you think at last discovered our
poor Jack?”
“The sweetheart, maybe,” said Larry, grinning in ecstasy at the thought
of human perfidy.
“No,” said Goggins, “honour even among sweethearts, though they do the
trick sometimes, I confess; but no woman of any honour would betray a
great man like Jack. No--'t was one of the paltry ribbons that brought
conviction home to him; the woman never lost sight of hunting up
evidence about her feather-bed, and, in the end, a ribbon out of one of
her caps settled the hash of Jack Tate.”
From robbings they went on to tell of murders, and at last that
uncomfortable sensation which people experience after a feast of horrors
began to pervade the party; and whenever they looked round, _there_ was
the coffin in the background.
“Throw some turf on the fire,” said Goggins, “'t is burning low;
and change the subject; the tragic muse has reigned sufficiently
long--enough of the dagger and the bowl--sink the socks and put on the
buckskins. Leather away, Jim--sing us a song.”
“What is it to be?” asked Jim.
“Oh--that last song of the Solicitor-General's,” said Goggins, with an
air as if the Solicitor-General were his particular friend.
“About the robbery?” inquired Jim.
“To be sure,” returned Goggins.
“Dear me,” said Larry, “and would so grate a man as the
Solicithor-General demane himself by writin' about robbers?”
“Oh!” said Goggins, “those in the heavy profession of the law must have
their little private moments of rollickzation; and then high men, you
see, like to do a bit of low by way of variety. 'The Night before Larry
was stretched' was done by a bishop, they say; and 'Lord Altamont's
Bull' by the Lord Chief Justice; and the Solicitor-General is as up to
fun as any bishop of them all. Come, Jim, tip us the stave!”
Jim cleared his throat and obeyed his chief.
THE QUAKER'S MEETING
I
“A traveller wended the wilds among,
With a purse of gold and a silver tongue;
His hat it was broad, and all drab were his clothes,
For he hated high colours--except on his nose,
And he met with a lady, the story goes.
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
II
“The damsel she cast him a merry blink,
And the traveller nothing was loth, I think;
Her merry black eye beamed her bonnet beneath,
And the quaker, he grinned, for he'd very good teeth,
And he asked, 'Art thee [1] going to ride on the heath?'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
[1][Footnote: The inferior class of quakers make THEE serve not only its
own grammatical use, but also do the duty of THY and THINE.]
III
“'I hope you'll protect me, kind sir,' said the maid,
'As to ride this heath over I'm sadly afraid;
For robbers, they say, here in numbers abound,
And I wouldn't “for anything” I should be found,
For, between you and me, I have five hundred pound.'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
IV
“'If that is thee own, dear,' the quaker he said,
'I ne'er saw a maiden I sooner would wed;
And I have another five hundred just now,
In the padding that's under my saddle-bow,
And I'll settle it all upon thee, I vow!'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
V
“The maiden she smiled, and her rein she drew,
'Your offer I'll take, though I'll not take you;'
A pistol she held at the quaker's head--
'Now give me your gold, or I'll give you my lead,
'Tis under the saddle I think you said.'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
VI
“The damsel she ripp'd up the saddle-bow,
And the quaker was never a quaker till now;
And he saw by the fair one he wish'd for a bride
His purse borne away with a swaggering stride,
And the eye that looked tender now only defied.
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
VII
“'The spirit doth move me, friend Broadbrim,' quoth she,
'To take all this filthy temptation from thee;
For Mammon deceiveth, and beauty is fleeting:
Accept from thy _maai-d'n_ a right loving greeting,
For much doth she profit by this quaker's meeting.
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
VIII
“'And hark! jolly quaker, so rosy and sly,
Have righteousness more than a wench in thine eye,
Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath,
Remember the one that you met on the heath,
_Her_ name's _Jimmy_ Barlow--I tell to your teeth!'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
IX
“'_Friend_ James,' quoth the quaker, 'pray listen to me,
For thou canst confer a great favour, d' ye see;
The gold thou hast taken is not mine, my friend,
But my master's--and on thee I depend
To make it appear I my trust did defend.
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
X
“'So fire a few shots through my clothes, here and there,
To make it appear 't was a desp'rate affair.'
So Jim he popped first through the skirt of his coat,
And then through his collar quite close to his throat.
'Now once through my broad-brim,' quoth Ephraim, 'I vote.
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
XI
“'I have but a brace,' said bold Jim, 'and they 're spent,
And I won't load again for a make-believe rent.'
'Then,' said Ephraim--producing his pistols--'just give
My five hundred pounds back--or, as sure as you live,
I'll make of your body a riddle or sieve.'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.
XII
“Jim Barlow was diddled, and though he was game,
He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim,
That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers;
And when the whole story got into the papers,
They said that '_the thieves were no match for the quakers_.'
Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.”
“Well, it's a quare thing you should be singin' a song here,” said Larry
Hogan, “about Jim Barlow, and it's not over half a mile out of this very
place he was hanged.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed all the men at once, looking with great interest at
Larry.
“It's truth I'm telling you. He made a very bowld robbery up by the long
hill there, on _two_ gintlemen, for he was mighty stout.”
“Pluck to the back-bone,” said Goggins.
“Well, he tuk the purses aff both o' them; and just as he was goin' on
afther doin' the same, what should appear on the road before him, but
two other travellers coming up forninst him. With that the men that was
robbed cried out, 'Stop thief!' and so Jim, seein' himself hemmed in
betune the four o' them, faced his horse to the ditch and took across
the counthry; but the thravellers was well mounted as well as himself,
and powdhered afther him like mad. Well, it was equal to a steeple chase
a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best
thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he
led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he
intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the
mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as
bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it,
missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped
his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse,
it was all over wid him--and up came the four gintlemen. Well, Jim had
his pistols yet, and he pulled them out, and swore he'd shoot the first
man that attempted to take him; but the gintlemen had pistols as well as
he, and were so hot on the chase they determined to have him, and closed
on him. Jim fired and killed one o' them; but he got a ball in the
shouldher himself, from another, and he was taken. Jim sthruv to shoot
himself with his second pistol, but it missed fire. 'The curse o' the
road is on me,' said Jim; 'my pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped
his shouldher, and now I'll be scragged,' says he, 'but it's not for
nothing--I've killed one o' ye,' says he.”
“He was all pluck,” said Goggins.
“Desperate bowld,” said Larry. “Well, he was thried and condimned _av
coorse_, and was hanged, as I tell you, half a mile out o' this very
place, where we are sittin', and his appearance walks, they say, ever
since.”
“You don't say so!” said Goggins.
“'Faith, it's thrue!” answered Larry.
“You never saw it,” said Goggins.
“The Lord forbid!” returned Larry; “but it's thrue, for all that. For
you see the big house near this barn, that is all in ruin, was desarted
because Jim's ghost used to walk.”
“That was foolish,” said Goggins; “stir up the fire, Jim, and hand me
the whisky.”
“Oh, if it was only walkin', they might have got over that; but at last
one night, as the story goes, when there was a thremendious storm o'
wind and rain--”
“Whisht!” said one of the peasants, “what's that?”
As they listened, they heard the beating of heavy rain against the door,
and the wind howled through its chinks.
“Well,” said Goggins, “what are you stopping for?”
“Oh, I'm not stoppin',” said Larry; “I was sayin' that it was a bad wild
night, and Jimmy Barlow's appearance came into the house and asked them
for a glass o' sper'ts, and that he'd be obleeged to them if they'd
help him with his horse that slipped his shouldher; and, 'faith, afther
_that_, they'd stay in the place no longer; and signs on it, the house
is gone to rack and ruin, and it's only this barn that is kept up at
all, because it's convaynient for owld Skinflint on the farm.”
“That's all nonsense,” said Goggins, who wished, nevertheless, that he
had not heard the “nonsense.”
“Come, sing another song, Jim.”
Jim said he did not remember one.
“Then you sing, Ralph.”
Ralph said every one knew he never did more than join a chorus.
“Then join me in a chorus,” said Goggins, “for I'll sing, if Jim's
afraid.”
“I'm not afraid,” said Jim.
“Then why won't you sing?”
“Because I don't like.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Goggins.
“Well, maybe you're afraid yourself,” said Jim, “if you towld thruth.”
“Just to show you how little I'm afeard,” said Goggins, with a
swaggering air, “I'll sing another song about Jimmy Barlow.”
“You'd better not,” said Larry Hogan. “Let him rest in pace!”
“Fudge!” said Goggins. “Will you join chorus, Jim?”
“I will,” said Jim, fiercely.
“We'll all join,” said the men (except Larry), who felt it would be a
sort of relief to bully away the supernatural terror which hung round
their hearts after the ghost story by the sound of their own voices.
“Then here goes!” said Goggins, who started another long ballad about
Jimmy Barlow, in the opening of which all joined. It ran as follows:--
“My name it is Jimmy Barlow,
I was born in the town of Carlow,
And here I lie in the Maryborough jail,
All for the robbing of the Wicklow mail.
Fol de rol de rol de riddle-ido!”
As it would be tiresome to follow this ballad through all its length,
breadth, and thickness, we shall leave the singers engaged in their
chorus, while we call the reader's attention to a more interesting
person than Mister Goggins or Jimmy Barlow.