People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke,
but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above
and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the
walls of the Pooka's tower. I knew the man well. He lived at the
bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right-hand side of the road as you
go towards Bantry. An old man was he, at the time he told me the
story, with grey hair and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June
1813 that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe
under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from
the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent
the morning at Glengariff.
"I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go before
Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a
dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high
and low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen after
all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little,
to be sure, and, may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we
were no losers by it in the end; and they were so easy and civil, and
kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes; and there was no
grinding for rent, and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that
did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often in a year; but
now it's another thing. No matter for that, sir, for I'd better be
telling you my story.
"Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate,
and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token
danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they
were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short,
I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can't
remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place; only I did
leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself,
I'd just step to Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word
about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing
the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up
at the stars and blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed
my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I,
'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming
away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other,
but never the one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I
wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as
bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir (with your pardon for
mentioning her), and I looked east and west, and north and south, and
every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog--I could never find
out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and
certain I was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down upon a
stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began
to scratch my head, and sing the _Ullagone_--when all of a sudden the
moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world
as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what
it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face;
and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the
kingdom of Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me,
'Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you,
sir,' says I; 'I hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the
time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you
here, Dan,' says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I; 'only I wish I was
safe home again.' 'Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?' says
he. ''Tis, sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop
too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I
got into the bog and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he,
after a minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get
drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass
well, and never fling stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in
the fields--my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and
grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the
bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for
who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the
honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast,
'I am quite in earnest: and so now either take my offer or starve in
the bog--besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'
"It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint
heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance. 'I thank your
honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take your
kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held
him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark.
Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up, God
knows how far up he flew. 'Why then,' said I to him--thinking he did
not know the right road home--very civilly, because why? I was in his
power entirely; 'sir,' says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with
humble submission to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit,
you're now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many
thanks to your worship.'
"'_Arrah_, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next
field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no
joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked
up off of a _could_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to myself, but
I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept,
flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no
use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your
tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and don't be interfering
with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this is my business, I
think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said no more.
"At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can't
see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook
sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure thus
[Illustration] on the ground with the end of his stick).
"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion
'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world _axed_ you
to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg and pray and beseech you to stop
half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' said he; 'I'm tired
bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest
myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I; 'is it upon that little
round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall off in a minute, and be
_kilt_ and spilt, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver--so
you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he; 'you can catch fast hold of the
reaping-hook that's sticking out of the side of the moon, and 'twill
keep you up.' 'I won't then,' said I. 'May be not,' said he, quite
quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one
slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in
your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in
the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to
have come along with the likes of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse
in Irish, for fear he'd know what I said, I got off his back with a
heavy heart, took hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the moon,
and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.
"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he; 'I think I've nicked
you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year' ('twas true enough for
him, but how he found it out is hard to say), 'and in return you are
freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
cockthrow.'
"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you,' says
I. 'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook'd nose, and to all your
breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use; he spread out
his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like
lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and
bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw
him from that day to this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure
I was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare
grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon,
creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month
before, I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there
walks--who do you think, but the man in the moon himself? I knew him
by his bush.
"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he; 'how do you do?'
'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.'
'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a
little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a
_dissolute_ island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how, instead of
that, he had fled me up to the moon.
"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
your business,' said he; 'Dan, mine is to tell you that here you must
not stay; so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says
I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.'
'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may
I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor
traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with
strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself,
Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Faith, and
with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more you
bids me, the more I won't let go;--so I will.' 'You had better, Dan,'
says he again. 'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the whole
weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two words to
that bargain; and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.' 'We'll see
how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the door such a
great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed) that I thought
the moon and all would fall down with it.
"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back
again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and, without
saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook
that was keeping me up, and _whap!_ it came in two. 'Good morning to
you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me
cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand; 'I thank you
for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not time to
make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling
and rolling, at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'God help me!' says I, 'but
this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this time of
night: I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my mouth when,
whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of wild geese,
all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenogh, else how should they
know _me_? The _ould_ gander, who was their general, turning about his
head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The same,' said I, not a
bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by this time used to all
kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him of _ould_. 'Good
morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke; how are you in health this
morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you kindly,' drawing my
breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I hope your honour's the
same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,' says he. 'You may say
that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all the way so fast?'
said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how I
came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon
turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out your hand and
catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is your hand in a
pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the time I thought
within myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no help, so I
caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew
after him as fast as hops.
"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
up out of the water. 'Ah, my lord,' said I to the goose, for I
thought it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to
land if you please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for a
while, because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I;
'that's surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose:
why then, to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist,
whist, you fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a
very decent sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like
another, only there is a little more sand there.'
"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
before the wind. 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the
ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he; 'if I
dropped you now you would go splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says
I; 'I know better than that, for it is just clean under us, so let me
drop now at once.'
"'If you must, you must,' said he; 'there, take your own way;' and he
opened his claw, and faith he was right--sure enough I came down plump
into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went,
and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me,
scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in the
face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
splashed me all over again with the cold salt water till there wasn't
a dry stitch upon my whole carcass! and I heard somebody saying--'twas
a voice I knew, too--'Get up, you drunken brute, off o' that;' and
with that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water,
which she was splashing all over me--for, rest her soul! though she
was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a
bitter hand of her own.
"'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish would no
place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
Carrigapooka? uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure enough
I had: for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles, and men
of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through
bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green ocean.
If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd lie down
in the same spot again, I know that."