THE GHOST.
“Well, I believe your honor heard me tell long ago how my father left the
army, and the way that he took to another line of life that was more to his
liking. And so it was, he was happy as the day was long; he drove a hearse
for Mr. Callaghan of Cork for many years, and a pleasant place it was; for
ye see, my father was a ‘cute man, and knew something of the world; and
though he was a droll devil, and could sing a funny song when he was among
the boys, no sooner had he the big black cloak on him and the weepers, and
he seated on the high box with the six long-tailed blacks before him, you’d
really think it was his own mother was inside, he looked so melancholy and
miserable. The sexton and gravedigger was nothing to my father; and he had
a look about his eye--to be sure there was a reason for it--that you’d
think he was up all night crying; though it’s little indulgence he took
that way.
“Well, of all Mr. Callaghan’s men, there was none so great a favorite as my
father. The neighbors were all fond of him.
“‘A kind crayture, every inch of him!’ the women would say. ‘Did ye see his
face at Mrs. Delany’s funeral?’
“‘True for you,’ another would remark; ‘he mistook the road with grief, and
stopped at a shebeen house instead of Kilmurry church.’
“I need say no more, only one thing,--that it was principally among the
farmers and the country people my father was liked so much. The great
people and the quality--ax your pardon; but sure isn’t it true, Mister
Charles?--they don’t fret so much after their fathers and brothers, and
they care little who’s driving them, whether it was a decent, respectable
man like my father, or a chap with a grin on him like a rat-trap. And so
it happened that my father used to travel half the county; going here and
there wherever there was trade stirring; and faix, a man didn’t think
himself rightly buried if my father wasn’t there; for ye see, he knew all
about it: he could tell to a quart of spirits what would be wanting for a
wake; he knew all the good criers for miles round; and I’ve heard it was a
beautiful sight to see him standing on a hill, arranging the procession as
they walked into the churchyard, and giving the word like a captain,--
“‘Come on, the stiff; now the friends of the stiff; now the pop’lace.’
“That’s what he used to say, and troth he was always repeating it, when he
was a little gone in drink,--for that’s the time his spirits would rise,
and he’d think he was burying half Munster.
“And sure it was a real pleasure and a pride to be buried in them times;
for av it was only a small farmer with a potato garden, my father would
come down with the black cloak on him, and three yards of crape behind his
hat, and set all the children crying and yelling for half a mile round;
and then the way he’d walk before them with a spade on his shoulder, and
sticking it down in the ground, clap his hat on the top of it, to make it
look like a chief mourner. It was a beautiful sight!”
“But Mike, if you indulge much longer in this flattering recollection of
your father, I’m afraid we shall lose sight of the ghost entirely.”
“No fear in life, your honor; I’m coming to him now. Well, it was this
way it happened: In the winter of the great frost, about forty-two or
forty-three years ago, the ould priest of Tullonghmurray took ill and died.
He was sixty years priest of the parish, and mightily beloved by all
the people, and good reason for it; a pleasanter man, and a more
social crayture never lived,--‘twas himself was the life of the whole
country-side. A wedding nor a christening wasn’t lucky av he wasn’t there,
sitting at the top of the table, with may be his arm round the bride
herself, or the baby on his lap, a smoking jug of punch before him, and as
much kindness in his eye as would make the fortunes of twenty hypocrites if
they had it among them. And then he was so good to the poor; the Priory was
always so full of ould men and ould women sitting around the big fire in
the kitchen that the cook could hardly get near it. There they were, eating
their meals and burning their shins till they were speckled like a trout’s
back, and grumbling all the time; but Father Dwyer liked them, and he would
have them.
“‘Where have they to go,’ he’d say, ‘av it wasn’t to me? Give Molly
Kinshela a lock of that bacon. Tim, it’s a could morning; will ye have a
taste of the “dew?”’
“Ah, that’s the way he’d spake to them; but sure goodness is no warrant
for living, any more than devilment, and so he got could in his feet at a
station, and he rode home in the heavy snow without his big coat,--for he
gave it away to a blind man on the road; in three days he was dead.
“I see you’re getting impatient, so I’ll not stop to say what grief was
in the parish when it was known; but troth, there never was seen the like
before,--not a crayture would lift a spade for two days, and there was more
whiskey sold in that time than at the whole spring fair. Well, on the third
day the funeral set out, and never was the equal of it in them parts:
first, there was my father,--he came special from Cork with the six horses
all in new black, and plumes like little poplar-trees,--then came Father
Dwyer, followed by the two coadjutors in beautiful surplices, walking
bare-headed, with the little boys of the Priory school, two-and-two.”
“Well, Mike, I’m sure it was very fine; but for Heaven’s sake, spare me all
these descriptions, and get on to the ghost!”
“‘Faith, yer honor’s in a great hurry for the ghost,--may be ye won’t like
him when ye have him; but I’ll go faster, if ye please. Well, Father Dwyer,
ye see, was born at Aghan-lish, of an ould family, and he left it in his
will that he was to be buried in the family vault; and as Aghan-lish was
eighteen miles up the mountains, it was getting late when they drew near.
By that time the great procession was all broke up and gone home. The
coadjutors stopped to dine at the ‘Blue Bellows’ at the cross-roads; the
little boys took to pelting snowballs; there was a fight or two on the way
besides,--and in fact, except an ould deaf fellow that my father took to
mind the horses, he was quite alone. Not that he minded that same; for when
the crowd was gone, my father began to sing a droll song, and told the deaf
chap that it was a lamentation. At last they came in sight of Aghan-lish.
It was a lonesome, melancholy-looking place with nothing near it except two
or three ould fir-trees and a small slated house with one window, where the
sexton lived, and even that was shut up and a padlock on the door. Well,
my father was not over much pleased at the look of matters; but as he was
never hard put to what to do, he managed to get the coffin into the vestry,
and then when he had unharnessed the horses, he sent the deaf fellow with
them down to the village to tell the priest that the corpse was there, and
to come up early in the morning and perform Mass. The next thing to do was
to make himself comfortable for the night; and then he made a roaring fire
on the ould hearth,--for there was plenty of bog-fir there,--closed the
windows with the black cloaks, and wrapping two round himself, he sat down
to cook a little supper he brought with him in case of need.
“Well, you may think it was melancholy enough to pass the night up there
alone with a corpse, in an ould ruined church in the middle of the
mountains, the wind howling about on every side, and the snowdrift beating
against the walls; but as the fire burned brightly, and the little plate of
rashers and eggs smoked temptingly before him, my father mixed a jug of the
strongest punch, and sat down as happy as a king. As long as he was eating
away he had no time to be thinking of anything else; but when all was done,
and he looked about him, he began to feel very low and melancholy in his
heart. There was the great black coffin on three chairs in one corner; and
then the mourning cloaks that he had stuck up against the windows moved
backward and forward like living things; and outside, the wild cry of the
plover as he flew past, and the night-owl sitting in a nook of the old
church. ‘I wish it was morning, anyhow,’ said my father, ‘for this is a
lonesome place to be in; and faix, he’ll be a cunning fellow that catches
me passing the night this way again.’ Now there was one thing distressed
him most of all,--my father used always to make fun of the ghosts and
sperits the neighbors would tell of, pretending there was no such thing;
and now the thought came to him, ‘May be they’ll revenge themselves on me
to-night when they have me up here alone;’ and with that he made another
jug stronger than the first, and tried to remember a few prayers in case of
need, but somehow his mind was not too clear, and he said afterwards he
was always mixing up ould songs and toasts with the prayers, and when he
thought he had just got hold of a beautiful psalm, it would turn out to be
‘Tatter Jack Walsh’ or ‘Limping James’ or something like that. The storm,
meanwhile, was rising every moment, and parts of the old abbey were falling
as the wind shook the ruin; and my father’s spirits, notwithstanding the
punch, wore lower than ever.
“‘I made it too weak,’ said he, as he set to work on a new jorum; and
troth, this time that was not the fault of it, for the first sup nearly
choked him.
“‘Ah,’ said he, now, ‘I knew what it was; this is like the thing; and Mr.
Free, you are beginning to feel easy and comfortable. Pass the jar. Your
very good health and song. I’m a little hoarse, it’s true, but if the
company will excuse--’
“And then he began knocking on the table with his knuckles, as if there was
a room full of people asking him to sing. In short, my father was drunk as
a fiddler; the last brew finished him; and he began roaring away all kinds
of droll songs, and telling all manner of stories as if he was at a great
party.
“While he was capering this way about the room, he knocked down his hat,
and with it a pack of cards he put into it before leaving home, for he was
mighty fond of a game.
“‘Will ye take a hand, Mr. Free?’ said he, as he gathered them up and sat
down beside the fire.
“‘I’m convanient,’ said he, and began dealing out as if there was a partner
fornenst him.
“When my father used to get this far in the story, he became very confused.
He says that once or twice he mistook the liquor, and took a pull at the
bottle of poteen instead of the punch; and the last thing he remembers was
asking poor Father Dwyer if he would draw near to the fire, and not be
lying there near the door.
“With that he slipped down on the ground and fell fast asleep. How long he
lay that way he could never tell. When he awoke and looked up, his hair
nearly stood on an end with fright. What do you think he seen fornenst him,
sitting at the other side of the fire, but Father Dwyer himself. There he
was, divil a lie in it, wrapped up in one of the mourning cloaks, trying to
warm his hands at the fire. “‘_Salve hoc nomine patri!_’ said my father,
crossing himself, ‘av it’s your ghost, God presarve me!’
“‘Good-evening t’ye, Mr. Free,’ said the ghost; ‘and av I might be bould,
what’s in the jug?’--for ye see, my father had it under his arm fast, and
never let it go when he was asleep.
“‘_Pater noster qui es in_,--poteen, sir,’ said my father; for the ghost
didn’t look pleased at his talking Latin.
“‘Ye might have the politeness to ax if one had a mouth on him, then,’ says
the ghost.
“‘Sure, I didn’t think the likes of you would taste sperits.’
“‘Try me,’ said the ghost; and with that he filled out a glass, and tossed
it off like a Christian.
“‘Beamish!’ says the ghost, smacking his lips.
“‘The same,’ says my father; ‘and sure what’s happened you has not spoiled
your taste.’
“‘If you’d mix a little hot,’ says the ghost, ‘I’m thinking it would be
better,--the night is mighty sevare.’
“‘Anything that your reverance pleases,’ says my father, as he began to
blow up a good fire to boil the water.
“‘And what news is stirring?’ says the ghost.
“‘Devil a word, your reverance,--your own funeral was the only thing doing
last week. Times is bad; except the measles, there’s nothing in our parts.’
“‘And we’re quite dead hereabouts, too,’ says the ghost.
“‘There’s some of us so, anyhow, says my father, with a sly look. ‘Taste
that, your reverance.’
“‘Pleasant and refreshing,’ says the ghost; ‘and now, Mr. Free, what do you
say to a little “spoilt five,” or “beggar my neighbor”?’
“‘What will we play for? ‘says my father, for a thought just struck
him,--‘may be it’s some trick of the Devil to catch my soul.’
“‘A pint of Beamish,’ says the ghost.
“‘Done!’ says my father; ‘cut for deal. The ace of clubs,--you have it.’
“Now the whole time the ghost was dealing the cards, my father never took
his eyes off of him, for he wasn’t quite aisy in his mind at all; but when
he saw him turn up the trump, and take a strong drink afterwards, he got
more at ease, and began the game.
“How long they played it was never rightly known; but one thing is sure,
they drank a cruel deal of sperits. Three quart bottles my father brought
with him were all finished, and by that time his brain was so confused with
the liquor, and all he lost,--for somehow he never won a game,--that he was
getting very quarrelsome.
“‘You have your own luck to it,’ says he, at last.
“‘True for you; and besides, we play a great deal where I come from.’
“‘I’ve heard so,’ says my father. ‘I lead the knave, sir; spades! Bad cess
to it, lost again!’
“Now it was really very distressing; for by this time, though they only
began for a pint of Beamish, my father went on betting till he lost the
hearse and all the six horses, mourning cloaks, plumes, and everything.
“‘Are you tired, Mr. Free? May be you’d like to stop?’
“‘Stop! faith it’s a nice time to stop; of course not.’
“‘Well, what will ye play for now?’
“The way he said these woods brought a trembling all over my father, and
his blood curdled in his heart. ‘Oh, murther!’ says he to himself, ‘it’s my
sowl he’s wanting all the time.’
“‘I’ve mighty little left,’ says my father, looking at him keenly, while he
kept shuffling the cards quick as lightning.
“‘Mighty little; no matter, we’ll give you plenty of time to pay,--and if
you can’t do it, it shall never trouble you as long as you live.’
“‘Oh, you murthering devil!’ says my father, flying at him with a spade
that he had behind his chair, ‘I’ve found you out.’
“With one blow he knocked him down, and now a terrible fight begun, for the
ghost was very strong, too; but my father’s blood was up, and he’d have
faced the Devil himself then. They rolled over each other several times,
the broken bottles cutting them to pieces, and the chairs and tables
crashing under them. At last the ghost took the bottle that lay on the
hearth, and levelled my father to the ground with one blow. Down he fell,
and the bottle and the whiskey were both dashed into the fire. That was
the end of it, for the ghost disappeared that moment in a blue flame that
nearly set fire to my father as he lay on the floor.
“Och, it was a cruel sight to see him next morning, with his cheek cut open
and his hands all bloody, lying there by himself,--all the broken glass and
the cards all round him,--the coffin, too, was knocked down off the chair,
may be the ghost had trouble getting into it. However that was, the funeral
was put off for a day, for my father couldn’t speak; and as for the sexton,
it was a queer thing, but when they came to call him in the morning, he had
two black eyes, and a gash over his ear, and he never knew how he got them.
It was easy enough to know the ghost did it; but my father kept the secret,
and never told it to any man, woman, or child in them parts.”