only particular families--principally the Old Milesians. It
appeared or was heard before the death of any member of the
family. Its form was always that of a female--weeping,
wailing, wringing its hands, and uttering the national
keene, or lamentation for the dead. Banshee signifies gentle
woman.
“Did his brother hear it?” Ned inquired.
“He did,” said Tom, “and his wife along with him, and knew, at once,
that some death would happen in the family--but it wasn't long till he
suspected who it came for; for, as he was going to bed that night, on
looking towards his own hearth, he thought he saw his brother standing
at the fire, with a very sorrowful face upon him. 'Why, Larry,' says he,
'how did you get in, after me barring the door?--or did you turn back
from helping them with the corn? You surely hadn't time to go half the
way since.'
[Illustration: PAGE 713-- 'Why, Larry,' says he, 'how did you get in']
“Larry, however, made him no answer; and, on looking for him again,
there was no Larry there for him. 'Nelly,' says he to his wife,
'did you see any sight of Larry since, he went to the still-house?'
'Arrah, no indeed, Tom,' says she; 'what's coming over you to spake to
the man that's near Drum-furrar by this time?' 'God keep him from harm!'
said Tom;--'poor fellow, I wish nothing ill may happen him this night!
I'm afeard, Nelly, that I saw his _fetch_;* and if I did, he hasn't long
to live; for when one's fetch is seen at this time of night, their lase
of life, let them be sick or in health, is always short.'
* This in the North of Ireland is called wraith, as in
Scotland. The Fetch is a spirit that assumes the likeness of
a particular person. It does not appear to the individual
himself whose resemblance it assumes, but to some of his
friends. If it is seen in the morning, it betokens long
life; if after sunset, approaching death; after nightfall,
immediate death.
“'Hut, Tom aroon!' says Nelly, 'it was the shadow of the jamb or
yourself you saw in the light of the candle, or the shadow of the
bed-post.'
“The next morning they were all up, hoping that he would drop in to
them. Sally got a creel of turf, notwithstanding her condition, and put
down a good fire to warm him; but the morning passed, and no sign of
him. She now got very unasy, and mintioned to his brother what she felt,
and Tom went up to the still-house to know if he was there, or to try if
he could get any tidings of him. But, by the laws! when he heard that
he had left that for home the night before, and he in a state of liquor,
putting this, and what he had heard and seen in his house together, Tom
knew that something must have happened him. He went home again, and on
his way had his eye about him, thinking that it would be no miracle, if
he'd meet him lying head-foremost in a ditch; however, he did not, but
went on, expecting to find him at home before him.
“In the mane time, the neighbors had been all raised to search for him;
and, indeed, the hills were alive with people. It was the second day
after, that Sally was standing, looking out at her own door towards the
mountains, expecting that every man with a blue coat upon him might be
Larry, when she saw a crowd of people coming down the hills. Her heart
leaped to her mouth, and she sent Dick, the eldest of the sons, to meet
them, and run back with word to her if he was among them. Dick went
away; but he hadn't gone far when he met his uncle Tom, coming on before
the rest.
“'Uncle,' says Dick, 'did you get my father? for I must fly back with
word to my mother, like lightning.'
“'Come here, Dick,' says Tom; 'God help you, my poor bouchal (*
boy)--Come here, and walk alongside of me, for you can't go back to your
mother, till I see her first--God help you, my poor bouchal, it's you
that's to be pitied, this blessed and sorrowful day;' and the poor
fellow could by no means keep in the tears. But he was saved the trouble
of breaking the dismal tidings to poor Sally; for as she stood watching
the crowd, she saw a door carried upon their shoulders, with something
like a man stretched upon it. She turned in, feeling as if a bullet had
gone through her head, and sat down with her back to the door, for fraid
she might see the thruth, for she couldn't be quite sure, they we're at
such a distance. At last she ventured to take another look out, for she
couldn't bear what she felt within her, and just as she rose and came
to the door, the first thing she saw coming down the hill a little above
the house, was the body of her husband stretched on a door--dead. At
that minute, her brother-in-law, Tom, just entered, in time to prevent
her and the child she had in her arms from falling on the flure. She
had seen enough, God help her!--for she took labor that instant, and, in
about two hours, afterwards, was stretched a corpse beside her husband,
with her heart-broken and desolate orphans in an uproar of outher misery
about them. That was the end of Larry M'Farland and Sally Lowry;
two that might have done well in the world, had they taken care of
themselves--avoided, fairs and markets--except when they had business
there--not given themselves idle fashions by drinking, or going to
dances, and wrought as well for themselves as they did for others.”
“But how did he lose his life, at all at all?” inquired Nancy.
“Why, they found his hat in a bog-hole upon the water, and on searching
the hole itself poor Larry was fished up from the bottom of it.”
“Well, that's a murdhering sorrowful story,” said Shane Fadh: “but you
won't be after passing that on us for the wake, ainy how.”
“Well, you must learn patience, Shane,” said the narrator, “for you know
patience is a virtue.”
“I'll warrant you that Tom and his wife made a better hand of
themselves,” said Alick M'Kinley, “than Larry and Sally did.”
“Ah! I wouldn't fear, Alick,” said Tom, “but you would come at the
truth--'tis you that may say they did; there wasn't two in the parish
more comfortable than the same two, at the very time that Larry and
Sally came by their deaths. It would do you good to look at their
hagyard--the corn stacks were so nately roped and trimmed, and the walls
so well made up, that a bird could scarcely get into it. Their barn and
cowhouse, too, and dwelling-house, were all comfortably thatched, and
the windies all glazed, with not a broken pane in them. Altogether they
had come on wondherfully; sould a good dale of male and praties every
year; so that in a short time they were able to lay by a little money
to help to fortune off their little girls, that were growing up fine
colleens, all out.”
“And you may add, I suppose,” said Andy Morrow, “that they lost no time
going to fairs and dances, or other foolish divarsions. I'll engage
they never were at a dance in the Squire's kitchen; that they never went
about losing their time working for others, when their own business
was going at sixes and sevens, for want of hands; nor spent their money
drinking and thrating a parcel of friends that only laugh at them for
their pains, and wouldn't, maybe, put one foot past the other to sarve
them; nor never fought and abused one another for what they both were
guilty of.”
“Well,” says Tom, “you have saved me some trouble, Mr. Morrow, for you
just said, to a hair, what they were. But I mustn't forget to mintion
one thing that I saw the morning of the berril. We were,--about a dozen
neighbors of us, talking in the street, just before the door; both the
hagyards were forninst us--Tom's snug and nate--but Charley Lawdher had
to go over from where we stood to drive the pig out of poor Larry's.
There was one of the stacks with the side out of it, just as he had
drawn away the sheaves from time to time; for the stack leaned to one
side, and he pulled sheaves out of the other side to keep it straight.
Now, Mr. Morrow, wasn't he an unfortunate man? for whoever would go down
to Squire Dickson's hagyard, would see the same Larry's handiwork so
beautiful and illegant, though his own was in such _brutheen_.* Even
his barn to wrack; and he was obliged to thrash his oats in the open air
when ther would be a frost, and he used to lose one-third of it; and if
there came a thaw, 'twould almost brake the crathur.”
* Brutheen is potatoes champed with butter. Anything in a
loose, broken, and irregular state, is said to be in
brutheen--that is in disorder and contusion.
“God knows,” said Nancy, looking over at Ned very significantly, “and
Larry's not alone in neglecting his business; that is, if certain people
were allowed to take their own way; but the truth of it is, that he met
with a bad woman. If he had a careful, sober, industrious wife of his
own, that would take care of the house and place--(_Biddy, will you hand
me over that other dew out of the windy-stool there till I finish this
stocking for Ned_)--the story would have another ending any how.”
“In throth,” said Tom, “that's no more than thruth, Nancy; but he had
not, and everything went to the bad with them entirely.”
“It's a thousand pities he hadn't yourself, Nancy,” said Alick,
grinning; “if he had, I haven't the laste doubt at all, but he'd die
worth money.”
“Go on, Alick--go on, Avick; I will give you lave to have your joke,
any way; for it's you that's the patthern to any man that would wish to
thrive in the world.”
“If Ned dies, Nancy, I don't know a woman I'd prefer; I'm now a widdy'
these five years; and I feel, somehow, particularly since I began
to spend my evenings here, that I'm disremembering very much the old
proverb--a burnt child, dreads the fire.'”
* The peasantry of a great portion of Ireland use this word
as applicable to both sexes.
“Thank you, Alick; you think I swallow that; but as for Ned, the never
a fear of him; except that an increasing stomach is a sign of something;
or what's the best chance of all, Alick, for you and me, that he should
meet Larry's fate in some of his drunken fits.”
“Now, Nancy,” says Ned, “there's no use in talking that way; it's only
last Thursday, Mr. Morrow, that, in presence of her own brother, Jemmy
Connolly, the breeches-maker, and Billy M'Kinny, there, that I put my
two five fingers acrass, and swore solemnly by them five crosses,
that, except my mind changed, I'd never drink more nor one-half pint of
spirits and three pints of porther in a day.”
“Oh, hould your tongue, Ned--hould your tongue, and don't make me
spake,” said Nancy; “God help you! many a time you've put the same
fingers acrass, and many a time your mind has changed; but I'll say no
more now--wait till we see how you'll keep it.”
“Healths a-piece, your sowls,” said Ned, winking at the company.
“Well, Tom,” said Andy Morrow, “about the wake?”
“Och, och! that was the merry wake, Mr. Morrow. From that day to this I
remarked, that, living or dead, them that won't respect themselves, or
take care of their families, won't be respected: and sure enough, I saw
full proof of that same at poor Larry's wake. Many a time afterwards I
pitied the childher, for if they had seen better, they wouldn't turn out
as they did--all but the two youngest, that their uncle took to himself,
and reared afterwards; but they had no one to look afther them, and how
could it be expected from what they seen, that good could come of them?
Squire Dickson gave Tom the other seven acres, although he could have
got a higher rint from others; but he was an industrious man that
desarved encouragement, and he got it.”
“I suppose Tom was at the expense of Larry's berrin, as well as of his
marriage,” said Alick.
“In troth and he was,” said Tom, “although he didn't desarve it from him
when he was alive;* seeing he neglected many a good advice that Tom
and his dacent woman of a wife often gave him; for all that, blood is
thicker than wather--and it's he that waked and berried him dacently; by
the same token that there was both full and plenty of the best over him:
and everything, as far as Tom was consarned, dacint and creditable about
the place.”
* The genuine blunders of the Irish--not those studied for
them by men ignorant of their modes of expression and habits
of life--are always significant, clear, and full of strong
sense and moral truth.
“He did it for his own sake, of coorse,” said Nancy, “bekase one
wouldn't wish, if--they had it at all, to see any one belonging to them
worse off than another at their wake or berrin.”
“Thrue for you, Nancy,” said M'Roarkin, “and, indeed, Tom was well
spoken of by the neighbors for his kindness to his brother after his
death; and luck and grace attended him for it, and the world flowed upon
him before it came to his own turn.”
“Well, when a body dies even a natural death, it's wondherful how soon
it goes about; but when they come to an untimely one, it spreads like
fire on a dry mountain.”
“Was there no inquest?” asked Andy Morrow.
“The sorra inquist, not making you an ill answer, sir--the people
weren't so exact in them days: but any how the man was dead, and what
good could an inquist do him? The only thing that grieved them was, that
they both died without the priest; and well it might, for it's an awful
thing entirely to die without having the clargy's hands over a body.
I tould you that the news of his death spread over all the counthry
in less than no time. Accordingly, in the coorse of the day, their
relations began to come to the place; but, any way, messengers had been
sent especially for them.
“The squire very kindly lent sheets for them both to be laid out in,
and mould candle-sticks to hould the lights; and, God he knows, 'twas
a grievous sight to see the father and mother both stretched beside one
another in their poor place, and their little orphans about them; the
gorsoons,--them that had sense enough to know their loss,--breaking
their hearts, the craythurs, and so hoarse, that they weren't able to
cry or spake. But, indeed, it was worse to see the two young things
going over, and wanting to get acrass to waken their daddy and mammy,
poor desolit childher!
“When the corpses were washed and dressed, they looked uncommonly well,
consitherin'. Larry, indeed, didn't bear death so well as Sally; but
you couldn't meet a purtier corpse than she was in a day's travelling.
I say, when they were washed and dressed, their friends and neighbors
knelt down around them, and offered up a Pather and Ave a-piece, for
the good of their sowls: when this was done, they all raised the keena,
stooping over them at a half bend, clapping their hands, and praising
them, as far as they could say anything good of them; and indeed, the
craythurs, they were never any one's enemy but their own, so that nobody
could say an ill word of either of them. Bad luck to it for potteen-work
every day it rises! only for it, that couple's poor orphans wouldn't be
left without father or mother as they were; nor poor Hurrish go the gray
gate he did, if he had his father living, may be; but having nobody
to bridle him in, he took to horse riding for the squire, and then to
staling them for himself. He was hanged afterwards, along with Peter
Doraghy Crolly, that shot Ned Wilson's uncle of the Black Hills.
“After the first keening, the friends and neighbors took their sates
about the corpse. In a short time, whiskey, pipes, snuff, and tobacco
came, and every one about the place got a glass and a fresh pipe. Tom,
when he held his glass in his hand, looking at his dead brother, filled
up to the eyes, and couldn't for some time get out a word; at last,
when he was able to spake--'Poor Larry,' says he, 'you're lying there low
before me, and many a happy day we spint with one another. When we were
childher,' said he, turning to the rest, 'we were never asunder; he was
oulder nor me by two years, and can I ever forget the leathering he gave
Dick Rafferty long ago, for hitting me with the rotten egg--although
Dick was a great dale bigger than either of us. God knows, although you
didn't thrive in life, either of you, as you might and could have done,
there wasn't a more neighborly or friendly couple in the parish they
lived in; and now, God help them both, and their poor orphans over them!
Larry, acushla, your health, and Sally, yours; and may God Almighty have
marcy on both your sowls.'
“After this, the neighbors began to flock in more generally. When any
relation of the corpses would come, as soon, you see, as they'd get
inside the door, whether man or woman, they'd raise the shout of a
keena, and all the people about the dead would begin along with them,
stooping over them and clapping their hands as before.
“Well, I said, it's it that was the merry wake, and that was only the
thruth, neighbors. As soon as night came, all the young boys and girls
from the countryside about them flocked to it in scores. In a short
time the house was crowded; and maybe there wasn't laughing, and
story-telling, and singing, and smoking, and drinking, and crying--all
going on, heller-skelter, together. When they'd be all in full chorus
this way, may be, some new friend or relation, that wasn't there before,
would come in, and raise the keena; of coorse, the youngsters would then
keep quiet; and if the person coming in was from the one neighborhood
with any of them that were so merry, as soon as he'd raise the shout,
the merry folks would rise up, begin to pelt their hands together, and
cry along with him till their eyes would be as red as a ferret's.
That once over, they'd be down again at the songs, and divarsion, and
divilment--just as if nothing of the kind had taken place: the other
would then shake hands with the friends of the corpses, get a glass or
two, and a pipe, and in a few minutes be as merry as the best of them.”
“Well,” said Andy Morrow, “I should like to know if the Scotch and
English are such heerum-skeerum kind of people as we Irishmen are.”
“Musha, in throth I'm sure they're not,” says Nancy, “for I believe
that Irishmen are like nobody in the wide world but themselves; quare
crathurs, that'll laugh or cry, or fight with any one, just for nothing
else, good or bad but company.”
“Indeed, and you all know, that what I'm sayin's thruth, except Mr.
Morrow there, that I'm telling it to, bekase he's not in the habit of
going to wakes; although, to do him justice he's very friendly in going
to a neighbor's funeral; and, indeed, _kind father for you_* Mr. Morrow,
for it's he that was a real good hand at going to such places.
* That is, in this point you are the, same kind as your
father; possessing that prominent trait in his disposition
or character.
“Well, as I was telling you, there was great sport going on. In one
corner, you might see a knot of ould men sitting together, talking over
ould times--ghost stores, fairy tales, or the great rebellion of '41,
and the strange story of Lamh Dearg, or the _bloody hand_--that,
maybe, I'll tell you all some other night, plase God: there they'd sit
smoking--their faces quite plased with the pleasure of the pipe--amusing
themselves and a crowd of people, that would be listening to them with
open mouth. Or, it's odd, but there would be some droll young fellow
among them, taking a rise out of them; and, positively, he'd often find,
them able enough for him, particularly ould Ned Magin, that wanted at
the time only four years of a hundred. The Lord be good to him, and rest
his sowl in glory, it's he that was the pleasant ould man, and could
tell a story with any one that ever got up.
“In another corner there was a different set, bent on some piece of
divilment of their own. The boys would be sure to get beside their
sweethearts, any how; and if there was a purty girl, as you may set it
down there was, it's there the _skroodging_, (* pressure of the crowd)
and the pushing, and the shoving, and, sometimes, the knocking down
itself, would be, about seeing who'd get her. There's ould Katty Duffy,
that's now as crooked as the hind leg of a dog, and it's herself was
then as straight as a rush, and as blooming as a rose--Lord bless
us, what an alteration time makes upon the strongest and fairest of
us!--it's she that was the purty girl that night, and it's myself that
gave Frank M'Shane, that's still alive to acknowledge it, the broad of
his back upon the flure, when he thought to pull her off my knee. The
very gorsoons and girshas were sporting away among themselves, and
learning one another to smoke in the dark corners. But all this, Mr.
Morrow, took place in the corpse-house, before ten or eleven o'clock at
night; after that time the house got too thronged entirely, and couldn't
huld the half of them; so by jing, off we set, maning all the youngsters
of us, both boys and girls, out to Tom's barn, that was _red up_ (*
Cleared up for us--set in order), there to commence the plays. When we
were gone, the ould people had more room, and they moved about on the
sates we had left them. In the mane time, lashings of tobacco and snuff,
cut in platefuls, and piles of fresh new pipes, were laid on the table
for any one that wished to use them.
“When we got to the barn, it's then we _took our pumps off_ (* Threw
aside all restraint) in airnest--by the hokey, such sport you never saw.
The first play we began was _Hot-loof_; and maybe there wasn't skelping
then. It was the two parishes of Errigle-Keeran and Errigle-Truagh
against one another. There was the Slip from Althadhawan, for
Errigle-Truagh, against Pat M'Ardle, that had married Lanty Gorman's
daughter of Cargach, for Errigle-Keeran. The way they play it, Mr.
Morrow, is this--two young men out of each parish go out upon the
flure--one of them stands up, then bends himself, sir, at a half bend,
placing his left hand behind on the back part of his ham, keeping it
there to receive what it's to get. Well, there he stands, and the other
coming behind him, places his left foot out before him, doubles up the
cuff of his coat, to give his hand and wrist freedom: he then rises his
right arm, coming down with the heel of his hand upon the other
fellow's palm, under him, with full force. By jing, it's the divil's own
divarsion; for you might as well get a stroke of a sledge as a blow
from one of them able, hard-working fellows, with hands upon them like
lime-stone. When the fellow that's down gets it hot and heavy, the man
that struck him stands bent in his place, and some friend of the other
comes down upon him, and pays him for what the other fellow got.
“In this way they take it, turn about, one out of each parish, till it's
over; for I believe if they were to pelt one another _since_ (* from
that hour to this), that they'd never give up. Bless my soul, but it was
terrible to hear the strokes that the Slip and Pat M'Ardle did give that
night. The Slip was a young fellow upwards of six feet, with great able
bones and little flesh, but terrible thick shinnins (*sinews); his wrist
was as hard and strong as a bar of iron. M'Ardle was a low, broad man,
with a rucket head and bull neck, and a pair of shoulders that you
could hardly get your arms about, Mr. Morrow, long as they are; it's he,
indeed, that was the firm, well built chap, entirely. At any rate, a man
might as well get a kick from a horse as a stroke from either of them.
“Little Jemmy Teague, I remimber, struck a cousin of the Slip's a very
smart blow, that made him dance about the room, and blow his fingers for
ten minutes after it. Jemmy, himself, was a tight, smart fellow. When
the Slip saw what his cousin had got, he rises up, and stands over
Jemmy so coolly, and with such good humor, that every one in the house
trembled for poor Jemmy, bekase, you see, whenever the Slip was bent
on mischief, he used always to grin. Jemmy, however, kept himself bent
firm; and to do him justice, didn't flinch from under the stroke, as
many of them did--no, he was like a rock. Well, the Slip, as I said,
stood over him, fixing himself for the stroke, and coming down with such
a pelt on poor Jemmy's hand, that the first thing we saw was the blood
acrass the Slip's own legs and feet, that had burst out of poor Jemmy's
finger-ends. The Slip then stooped to receive the next blow himself, and
you may be sure there was above two dozen up to be at him. No matter;
one man they all gave way to, and that was Pat M'Ardle.
“'Hould away,' says Pat,--'clear off, boys, all of you--this stroke's
mine by right, any how;--and,' says he, swearing a terrible oath, 'if
you don't sup sorrow for that stroke,' says he to the Slip, 'why Pat
M'Ardle's not behind you here.'
“He, then, up with his arm, and came down--why, you would think that the
stroke he gave the Slip had druv his right hand into his body: but, any
way, it's he that took full satisfaction for what his cousin got; for
if the Slip's fingers had been cut off at the tops, the blood couldn't
spring out from under his nails more nor it did. After this the Slip
couldn't strike another blow, bekase his hand was disabled out and out.