peek of Knockmany rising in lofty eminence above them; these, as they
extended towards the south, became gradually deeper in their hue, until
at length they assumed the shape and form of heath-clad mountains,
dark and towering. The prospect on either range is highly pleasing,
and capable of being compared with any I have ever seen, in softness,
variety, and that serene lustre which reposes only on the surface of a
country rich in the beauty of fertility, and improved, by the hand of
industry and taste. Opposite Knockmany, at a distance of about four
miles, on the south-eastern side, rose the huge and dark outline of
Cullimore, standing out in gigantic relief against the clear blue of a
summer sky, and flinging down his frowning and haughty shadow almost to
the firm-set base of his lofty rival; or, in winter, wrapped in a mantle
of clouds, and crowned with unsullied snow, reposing in undisturbed
tranquillity, whilst the loud voice of storms howled around him.
To the northward, immediately behind Cullimore, lies Althadhawan, a
deep, craggy, precipitous glen, running up to its very base, and wooded
with oak, hazel, rowan-tree, and holly. This picturesque glen extends
two or three miles, until it melts into the softness of grove and
meadow, in the rich landscape below. Then, again, on the opposite side,
is _Lumford's Glen_, with its overhanging rocks, whose yawning depth and
silver waterfall, of two hundred feet, are at once finely and fearfully
contrasted with the elevated peak of Knockmany, rising into the clouds
above it.
From either side of these mountains may be seen six or eight country
towns--the beautiful grouping of hill and plain, lake, river, grove, and
dell--the reverend cathedral (of Clogher)--the white-washed cottage, and
the comfortable farm-house. To these may be added the wild upland
and the cultivated demesne, the green sheep-walk, the dark moor,
the splendid mansion, and ruined castle of former days. Delightful
remembrance! Many a day, both of sunshine and storm, have I, in the
strength and pride of happy youth, bounded, fleet as the mountain foe,
over these blue hills! Many an evening, as the yellow beams of the
setting sun shot slantingly, like rafters of gold, across the depth
of this blessed and peaceful valley, have I followed, in solitude, the
impulses of a wild and wayward fancy, and sought the quiet dell, or
viewed the setting sun, as he scattered his glorious and shining beams
through the glowing foliage of the trees, in the vista, where I stood;
or wandered along the river whose banks were fringed with the hanging
willow, whilst I listened to the thrush singing among the hazels that
crowned the sloping green above me, or watched the splashing otter, as
he ventured from the dark angles and intricacies of the upland glen,
to seek his prey in the meadow-stream during the favorable dusk of
twilight. Many a time have I heard the simple song of Roger M'Cann,
coming from the top of brown Dunroe, mellowed, by the stillness of the
hour, to something far sweeter to the heart than all that the labored
pomp of musical art and science can effect; or the song of Katty Roy,
the beauty of the village, streaming across the purple-flowered moor,
“Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains.”
Many a time, too, have I been gratified, in the same poetical hour, by
the sweet sound of honest Ned M'Keown's ungreased cartwheels, clacking,
when nature seemed to have fallen asleep after the day-stir and
animation of rural business--for Ned was sometimes a carman--on his
return from Dublin with a load of his own groceries, without as much
money in his pocket as would purchase oil wherewith to silence the
sounds which the friction produced--regaling his own ears the while, as
well as the music of the cart would permit his melody to be heard, with
his favorite tune of Cannie Soogah.*
* “The Jolly Pedlar,”--a fine old Irish air.
Honest, blustering, good-humored Ned was the indefatigable merchant of
the village; ever engaged in some ten or twenty pound speculation, the
capital of which he was sure to extort, perhaps for the twelfth time,
from the savings of Nancy's frugality, by the equivocal test of a month
or six weeks' consecutive sobriety, and which said speculation he never
failed to wind up by the total loss of the capital for Nancy, and
the capital loss of a broken head for himself. Ned had eternally some
bargain on his hands: at one time you might see him a yarn-merchant,
planted in the next market-town upon the upper step of Mr. Birney's
hall-door, where the yarn-market was held, surrounded by a crowd of
eager country-women, anxious to give Ned the preference, first, because
he was a well-wisher; secondly, because he hadn't his heart in the
penny; and thirdly, because he gave sixpence a spangle more than any
other man in the market.
There might Ned be found; with his twenty pounds of hard silver jingling
in the bottom of a green bag, as a decoy to his customers, laughing loud
as he piled the yarn in and ostentatious heap, which in the pride of his
commercial sagacity, he had purchased at a dead loss. Again you might
see him at a horse-fair, cantering about on the back of some sleek
but broken-winded jade, with spavined legs, imposed on him as “a great
bargain entirely,” by the superior cunning of some rustic sharper; or
standing over a hogshead of damaged flaxseed, in the purchase of which
he shrewdly suspected himself of having overreached the seller--by
allowing him for it a greater price than the prime seed of the market
would have cost tim. In short, Ned was never out of a speculation, and
whatever he undertook was sure to prove a complete failure. But he
had one mode of consolation, which consisted in sitting down with the
fag-end of Nancy's capital in his pocket, and drinking night and day
with this neighbor and that, whilst a shilling remained; and when he
found himself at the end of his tether, he was sure to fasten a quarrel
on some friend or acquaintance, and to get his head broken for his
pains.
None of all this blustering, however, happened within the range of
Nancy's jurisdiction. Ned, indeed, might drink and sing, and swagger and
fight--and he contrived to do so; but notwithstanding all his apparent
courage, there was one eye which made him quail, and before which he
never put on the hector;--there was one, in whose presence the loudness
of his song would fall away into a very awkward and unmusical quaver,
and under whose glance his laughing face often changed to the visage of
a man who is disposed to anything but mirth.
The fact was this: Whenever Ned found that his speculation was gone
a shaughran, (*Gone astray) as he termed it, he fixed himself in some
favorite public house, from whence he seldom stirred while his money
lasted, except when dislodged by Nancy, who usually, upon learning where
he had taken cover, paid him an unceremonious visit, to which Ned's
indefensible delinquency gave the color of legitimate authority. Upon
these occasions, Nancy, accompanied by two sturdy “servant-boys,” would
sally forth to the next market-town, for the purpose of bringing home
“graceless Ned,” as she called him. And then you might see Ned between
the two servants, a few paces in advance of Nancy, having very much
the appearance of a man performing a pilgrimage to the gallows, or of
a deserter guarded back to his barrack, in order to become a target for
the muskets of his comrades. Ned's compulsory return always became
a matter of some notoriety; for Nancy's excursion in quest of the
“graceless” was not made without frequent denunciations of wrath against
him, and many melancholy apologies to the neighbors for entering upon
the task of personally securing him. By this means her enterprise was
sure to get wind, and a mob of the idle young men and barefooted
urchins of the village, with Bob M'Cann, “a three-quarter clift” * of
a fellow--half knave, half fool, was to be found, a little below the
village, upon an elevation of the road, that commanded a level stretch
of half a mile or so, in anxious expectation of the procession. No
sooner had this arrived at the point of observation, than the little
squadron would fall rearward of the principal group, for the purpose of
extracting from Nancy a full and particular account of the capture.
[Illustration: PAGE 656-- Bringing home “graceless Ned,”]
* This is equal to the proverb--“he wants a square,” that
is, though knavish not thoroughly rational; in other words,
a combination of knave and fool. Bob, in consequence of his
accomplishments, was always a great favorite in the village.
Upon some odd occasions he was a ready and willing drudge at
everything, and as strong as a ditch. Give him only a good
fog-meal--which was merely a trifle, just what would serve
three men or so--give him, we say, a fog-meal of this kind,
about five times a day, with a liberal promise of more, and
never was there a Scotch Brownie who could get through so
much work. He knew no fatigue; frost and cold had no power
over him; wind, sleet, and hail he laughed at; rain! it
stretched his skin, he said, after a meal--and that, he
added, was a comfort. Notwithstanding all this, he was
neither more nor less than an impersonation of laziness,
craft, and gluttony. The truth is, that unless in the hope
of being gorged he would do nothing; and the only way to get
anything out of him was, never to let the gorge precede the
labor, but always, on the contrary, to follow it. Bob's
accomplishments were not only varied, but of a very elevated
order, and the means of holding him in high odor among us.
Great and wonderful, Heaven knows, did we look upon his
endowments to be. No man, wise or otherwise, could “hunt the
brock,” alias the badger, within a hundred miles of Bob; for
when he covered his mouth with his two hands, and gave forth
the very sounds which the badger is said to utter, did we
not look upon him--Bob--with as much wonder and reverence as
we would have done upon the badger himself? Phup-um-phup--
phup-um-phup--phup-um--phup-um--phup-um-phup. Who but a
first-rate genius could accomplish this feat in such a
style? Bob could crow like a cock, bark like a dog, mew like
a cat, neigh like a horse, bray like an ass, or gobble like
a turkey-cock. Unquestionably, I have never heard him
equalled as an imitator of birds and beasts. Bob's crack
feat, however, was performing the Screw-pin Dance, of which
we have only this to say, that by whatsoever means he became
acquainted with it, it is precisely the same dance which is
said to have been exhibited by some strolling Moor before
the late Queen Caroline. It is, indeed, very strange, but no
less true, that many of the oriental customs are yet
prevalent in the remote and isolated parts of Ireland. Had
the late Mr. O'Brien, author of the Essay on Irish Round
Towers, seen Bob perform the dance I speak of, he would have
hailed him as a regular worshipper of Budh, and adduced his
performance as a living confirmation of his theory. Poor
Bob! he is gone the way of all fools, and all flesh.
“Indeed, childher, it's no wonder for yez to enquire! Where did I get
him, Dick?--musha, and where would I get him but in the ould place,
a-hagur; with the ould set: don't yez know that a dacent place or dacent
company wouldn't sarve Ned?--nobody but Shane Martin, and Jimmy Tague,
and the other blackguards.” *
* The reader, here, is not to rely implicitly upon the
accuracy of Nancy's description of the persons alluded to.
It is true the men were certainly companions and intimate
acquaintances of Ned's, but not entitled to the epithet
which Nancy in her wrath bestowed upon them. Shane was a
rollicking fighting, drinking butcher, who cared not a fig!
whether he treated you to a drink or a drubbing, indeed, it
was at all times extremely difficult to say whether he was
likely to give you the drink first or the drubbing
afterwards, or vice versa. Sometimes he made the drubbing
the groundwork for the drink and quite as frequently the
drink the groundwork for the drubbing. Either one or other
you were sure to receive at his hands; but his general
practice was to give both. Shane, in fact, was a good-
humored fellow, well liked, and nobody's enemy but his own.
Jemmy Tague was a quiet man, who could fight his corner,
however, if necessary. Shane,was called Kittogue Shane, from
being left-handed. Both were butchers, and both, we believe,
alive and kicking at this day.
“And what will you do with him, Nancy?”
“Och! thin, Dick, avourneen, it's myself that's jist tired thinking of
that; at any rate, consamin' to the loose foot he'll get this blessed
month to come, Dick, agra!”
“Throth, Nancy,” another mischievous monkey would exclaim, “if
you hadn't great patience entirely, you couldn't put up with such
threatment, at all at all.”
“Why thin, God knows it's true for-you, Barney. D'ye hear that,
'graceless?' the very childhre making a laughing-stock and a may-game of
you!--but wait till we get under the roof, any how.”
“Ned,” a third would say, “isn't it a burning shame for you to break
the poor crathur's heart this a-way? Throth, but you ought to hould down
your head, sure enough--a dacent woman! that only for her you wouldn't
have a house over you, so you wouldn't.”
“And throth, and the same house is going, Tim,” Nancy would exclaim,
“and when it goes, let him see thin who'll do for him; let him thry if
his blackguards will stand to him, when he won't have poor foolish Nancy
at his back.”
During these conversations, Ned would walk on between his two guards
with a dogged-looking and condemned face; Nancy behind him, with his own
cudgel, ready to administer an occasional bang whenever he attempted
to slacken his pace, or throw over his shoulder a growl of dissent or
justification.
On getting near home, the neighbors would occasionally pop out their
heads, with a smile of good-humored satire on their faces, which Nancy
was very capable of translating:
“Ay,” she would say, addressing them, “I've caught him--here he is to
the fore. Indeed you may well laugh, Kitty Rafferty; not a one of myself
blames you for it.--Ah, ye mane crathur,” aside to Ned, “if you had the
blood of a hen in you, you wouldn't have the neighbors braking their
hearts laughing at you in sich a way; and above all the people in the
world, them Rafferty's, that got the decree against us at the last
sessions, although I offered to pay within fifteen shillings of the
differ--the grubs!”
Having seen her hopeful charge safely deposited on the hob, Nancy would
throw her cloak into this corner, and her bonnet into that, with the air
of a woman absorbed by the consideration of some vexatious trial;
she would then sit down, and, lighting her doodeen, (* a short pipe)
exclaim--
“Wurrah, wurrah! but it's me that's the heart-scalded crathur with that
man's four quarters! The Lord may help me and grant me patience with
him, any way!--to have my little honest, hard-earned penny spint among
a pack of vagabonds, that don't care if him and me wor both down the
river, so they could get their skinful of drink out of him! No matther,
agra, things can't long be this a-way; but what does Ned care?--give him
drink and fighting, and his blackguards about him, and that's his glory.
There now's the landlord coming down upon us for the rint; and unless he
takes the cows out of the byre, or the bed from anundher us, what in the
wide earth is there for him?”
The current of this lecture was never interrupted by a single
observation from Ned, who usually employed himself in silently playing
with “Bunty;” a little black cur, without a tail, and a great favorite
with Nancy; or, if he noticed anything out of its place in the house,
he would arrange it with great apparent care. In the meantime, Nancy's
wrath generally evaporated with the smoke of the pipe--a circumstance
which Ned well knew; for after she had sucked it until it emitted a
shrill, bubbling sound, like that from a reed, her brows, which wore
at other times an habitual frown, would gradually relax into a more
benevolent expression--the parenthetical curves on each side of her
mouth, formed by the irascible pursing of her lips, would become less
marked--the dog or cat, or whatever else came in her way, instead
of being kicked aside, or pursued in an underfit of digressional
peevishness, would be put out of her path with gentler force--so that
it was, in such circumstances, a matter of little difficulty to perceive
that conciliation would soon be the order of the day. Ned's conduct on
these critical occasions was very prudent and commendable: he still gave
Nancy her own way; never “jawed back to her;” but took shelter, as it
were, under his own patience, until the storm had passed, and the sun of
her good humor began to shine out again. Nancy herself, now softened
by the fumes of her own pigtail, usually made the first overtures to a
compromise, but, without departing from the practice and principles
of higher negotiators; always in an indirect manner: as, “Biddy,
avourneen,” speaking to her niece, “maybe that crathur,” pointing! to
Ned, “ate nothing to-day; you had better, agra! get him the could bacon
that's in the cupboard, and warm for him, upon the greeshaugh, (* hot
embers) them yallow-legs (* a kind of potato) that's in the colindher;
though God he knows it's ill my common (* It's ill-becoming--or it ill
becomes me, to everlook his conduct)--but no matther, ahagur! There's
enough said, I'm thinking--give them to him.”
On Ned seating himself to his bacon and potatoes, Nancy would light
another pipe, and plant herself on the opposite hob, putting some
interrogatory to him, in the way of business--always concerning a third
person, and still in a tone of dry ironical indifference: as--
“Did you see Jimmy Connolly on your travels?”
“No.”
“Humph! Can you tell us if Andy Morrow sould his coult?”
“He did.”
“May be you have _gumption_ enough to know what he got for him?”
“Fifteen guineas.”
“In troth, and it's more nor a poor body would get; but, anyway, Andy
Morrow desarves to get a good price; he's a man that takes care of his
own business, and minds nothing else. I wish that filly of ours was
dockt; you ought to spake to Jim M'Quade about her: it's time to make
her up--you know, we'll want to sell her for the rint.”
This was an assertion, by the way, which Ned knew to have everything but
truth in it.
“Never heed the filly,” Ned would reply, “I'll get Charley Lawdher (*
A blacksmith, and an honest man) to dock her--but it's not her I'm
thinking of: did you hear the news about the tobacky?”
“No; but I hope we won't be long go.”
“Well, any how, we wor in luck to buy in them three last rowls.”
“Eh?--in luck? death-alive, how, Ned?”
“Sure there was three ships of it lost last week, on their way from the
kingdom of Swuzerland, in the Aist Indians, where it grows: we can rise
it thruppence a-pound now.”
“No, Ned! you're not in airnest?”
“Faith, Nancy, you may say I am; and as soon as Tom Loan comes home from
Dublin, he'll tell us all about it; and for that matther, maybe it may
rise sixpence a-pound; any how we'll gain a lob by it, I'm thinking.”
“May I never stir, but that's luck! Well, Ned, you may thank me for
that, any way, or sorra rowl we'd have in the four corners of the
house; and you wanted to persuade me against buying them; but I knew
betther--for the tobacky's always sure to get a bit of a hitch at this
time o' the year.”
“Bedad, you can do it, Nancy: I'll say that for you--that is, and give
you your own way.”
“Eh!--can't I, Ned? And, what waa betther, I bate down Pether M'Entee
three-ha'pence a-pound afther I bought them.”
“Ha! ha! ha!--by my sannies, Nancy, as to market-making, they may
all throw their caps at you, you thief o' the world; you can do them
nately!”
“Ha! ha! ha! Stop, Ned; don't drink that water--it's not from the
garden-well. I'll jist mix a sup of this last stuff we got from the
mountains, till you taste it: I think it's not worse nor the last--for
Hugh Traynor's * an ould hand at making it.”
* Hugh, who, by the way, is still living, and, I am glad to
hear, in improved circumstances, was formerly in the habit
of making a drop of the right sort.
This was all Ned wanted: his point was now carried; but with respect to
the rising of the tobacco, the less that is said about it the bettor for
his veracity.
Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and Nancy, and of
the beautiful valley in which this worthy speculator had his residence,
I shall next proceed to introduce him to the village circle, which,
during the long winter nights, might be found in front of Ned's
kitchen-fire of blazing turf, whose light was given back in ruddy
reflection from the bright pewter plates, that were ranged upon the
white and well-scoured dresser in just and gradual order, from the small
egg-plate to the large and capacious dish, whereon, at Christmas and
Easter, the substantial round of corned beef used to rear itself so
proudly over the more ignoble joints at the lower end of the table.
Seated in this clear-obscure of domestic light--which, after all, gives
the heart a finer and more touching notion of enjoyment than the glitter
of the theatre or the blaze of the saloon--might be found first, Andy
Morrow,* the juryman of the quarter-sessions, sage and important in the
consciousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictatorial withal in its
application to such knotty points as arose out of the subjects of
their nocturnal debates. Secondly, Bob Gott, who filled the foreign and
military departments, and related the wonderful history of the ghost
which appeared to him on the night after the battle of Bunker's-hill. To
him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little asthmatic anecdotarian of half
the country,--remarkable for chuckling at his own stories. Then came old
M'Kinny, poacher and horse-jockey; little, squeaking, thin-faced Alick
M'Kinley, a facetious farmer of substance; and Shane Fadh, who handed
down, traditions and fairy tales. Enthroned on one hob sat Pat Frayne,
the schoolmaster with the short arm, who read and explained the
newspaper for “old Square Colwell,” and was looked upon as premier to
the aforesaid cabinet; Ned himself filled the opposite seat of honor.
One night, a little before the Christmas holidays in the year 18--, the
personages just described were seated around Ned's fire, some with their
chirping pints of ale or porter, and others with their quantum of
_Hugh Traynor_, or mountain-dew, and all with good humor, and a strong
tendency to happiness, visible in their faces. The night was dark,
close, and misty; so dark, indeed, that, as Nancy said, “you could
hardly see your finger before you.” Ned himself was full of fun, with
a pint of porter beside him, and a pipe in his mouth, just in his glory
for the night. Opposite to him was Pat Frayne, with an old newspaper on
his knee, which he had just perused for the edification of his
audience; beside him was, Nancy, busily employed in knitting a pair
of sheep's-grey stockings for Ned; the remaining personages formed a
semicircular ring about the hearth. Behind, on the kitchen-table sat
Paddy Smith, the servant-man, with three or four of the _gorsoons_ of
the village about him, engaged in an under-plot of their own. On the
other, a little removed from the light, sat Ned's two nieces, Biddy and
Bessy Connolly, former with Atty Johnson's mouth within whisper-reach
of her ear, and the latter seated close to her professed admirer, Billy
Fulton, her uncle's shopman.* This group; was completely abstracted from
the entertainment which was going forward in the circle round the fire.
* Each pair have been since married, and live not more
happily than I wish them. Fulton still lives in Ned's house
at the Cross-roads.
“I wondher,” said Andy Morrow, “what makes Joe M'Crea throw down that
fine ould castle of his, in Aughentain?”
“I'm tould,” said M'Roarkin, “that he expects money; for they say
there's a lot of it buried somewhere about the same building.”
“Jist as much as there's in my wig,” replied Shane Fadh, “and there's
ne'er a pocket to it yet. Why, bless your sowl, how could there be money
in it, whin the last man of the Grameses that owned it--I mane of the
ould stock, afore it went into Lord Mountjoy's hands--sould it out, ran
through the money, and died begging afther'? Did none of you ever hear
of--
'---- ---- ---- ---- Ould John Grame,
That swally'd the castle of Aughentain?'”
“That was long afore my time,” said the poacher; “but I know that the
rabbit-burrow between that and Jack Appleden's garden will soon be run
out.”