Pat Diver, the tinker, was a man well-accustomed to a wandering life,
and to strange shelters; he had shared the beggar's blanket in smoky
cabins; he had crouched beside the still in many a nook and corner
where poteen was made on the wild Innishowen mountains; he had even
slept on the bare heather, or on the ditch, with no roof over him but
the vault of heaven; yet were all his nights of adventure tame and
commonplace when compared with one especial night.
During the day preceding that night, he had mended all the kettles and
saucepans in Moville and Greencastle, and was on his way to Culdaff,
when night overtook him on a lonely mountain road.
He knocked at one door after another asking for a night's lodging,
while he jingled the halfpence in his pocket, but was everywhere
refused.
Where was the boasted hospitality of Innishowen, which he had never
before known to fail? It was of no use to be able to pay when the
people seemed so churlish. Thus thinking, he made his way towards a
light a little further on, and knocked at another cabin door.
An old man and woman were seated one at each side of the fire.
"Will you be pleased to give me a night's lodging, sir?" asked Pat
respectfully.
"Can you tell a story?" returned the old man.
"No, then, sir, I canna say I'm good at story-telling," replied the
puzzled tinker.
"Then you maun just gang further, for none but them that can tell a
story will get in here."
This reply was made in so decided a tone that Pat did not attempt to
repeat his appeal, but turned away reluctantly to resume his weary
journey.
"A story, indeed," muttered he. "Auld wives fables to please the weans!"
As he took up his bundle of tinkering implements, he observed a barn
standing rather behind the dwelling-house, and, aided by the rising
moon, he made his way towards it.
It was a clean, roomy barn, with a piled-up heap of straw in one
corner. Here was a shelter not to be despised; so Pat crept under the
straw, and was soon asleep.
He could not have slept very long when he was awakened by the tramp
of feet, and, peeping cautiously through a crevice in his straw
covering, he saw four immensely tall men enter the barn, dragging a
body, which they threw roughly upon the floor.
They next lighted a fire in the middle of the barn, and fastened the
corpse by the feet with a great rope to a beam in the roof. One of
them then began to turn it slowly before the fire. "Come on," said he,
addressing a gigantic fellow, the tallest of the four--"I'm tired; you
be to tak' your turn."
"Faix an' troth, I'll no turn him," replied the big man. "There's Pat
Diver in under the straw, why wouldn't he tak' his turn?"
With hideous clamour the four men called the wretched Pat, who, seeing
there was no escape, thought it was his wisest plan to come forth as
he was bidden.
"Now, Pat," said they, "you'll turn the corpse, but if you let him
burn you'll be tied up there and roasted in his place."
Pat's hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration poured from his
forehead, but there was nothing for it but to perform his dreadful task.
Seeing him fairly embarked in it, the tall men went away.
Soon, however, the flames rose so high as to singe the rope, and the
corpse fell with a great thud upon the fire, scattering the ashes and
embers, and extracting a howl of anguish from the miserable cook, who
rushed to the door, and ran for his life.
He ran on until he was ready to drop with fatigue, when, seeing a
drain overgrown with tall, rank grass, he thought he would creep in
there and lie hidden till morning.
But he was not many minutes in the drain before he heard the heavy
tramping again, and the four men came up with their burthen, which
they laid down on the edge of the drain.
"I'm tired," said one, to the giant; "it's your turn to carry him a
piece now."
"Faix and troth, I'll no carry him," replied he, "but there's Pat
Diver in the drain, why wouldn't he come out and tak' his turn?"
"Come out, Pat, come out," roared all the men, and Pat, almost dead
with fright, crept out.
He staggered on under the weight of the corpse until he reached
Kiltown Abbey, a ruin festooned with ivy, where the brown owl hooted
all night long, and the forgotten dead slept around the walls under
dense, matted tangles of brambles and ben-weed.
No one ever buried there now, but Pat's tall companions turned into
the wild graveyard, and began digging a grave.
Pat, seeing them thus engaged, thought he might once more try to
escape, and climbed up into a hawthorn tree in the fence, hoping to be
hidden in the boughs.
"I'm tired," said the man who was digging the grave; "here, take the
spade," addressing the big man, "it's your turn."
"Faix an' troth, it's no my turn," replied he, as before. "There's Pat
Diver in the tree, why wouldn't he come down and tak' his turn?"
Pat came down to take the spade, but just then the cocks in the little
farmyards and cabins round the abbey began to crow, and the men looked
at one another.
"We must go," said they, "and well is it for you, Pat Diver, that the
cocks crowed, for if they had not, you'd just ha' been bundled into
that grave with the corpse."
Two months passed, and Pat had wandered far and wide over the county
Donegal, when he chanced to arrive at Raphoe during a fair.
Among the crowd that filled the Diamond he came suddenly on the big man.
"How are you, Pat Diver?" said he, bending down to look into the
tinker's face.
"You've the advantage of me, sir, for I havna' the pleasure of knowing
you," faltered Pat.
"Do you not know me, Pat?" Whisper--"When you go back to Innishowen,
you'll have a story to tell!"