THE GHOSTS
We were very old-fashioned at Aghadoe Abbey and satisfied with
old-fashioned ways. There was a great deal of talk about opening up the
country, and even the gentry were full of it, but my grandfather would
take snuff and look scornful.
"And when you have opened it up," he said, "you will let in the devil
and all his angels."
It was certainly true that the people had hitherto been kind and
innocent, so that any change might be for the worse, yet I was a little
curious about what lay out in the world beyond our hills. And now it was
no great journey to see, for they had opened a light railway, and from
the front of the house we could see beyond the lake and the park,
through the opening where the Purple Hill rises, that weird thing which
rushes round the base of the hill half a dozen times a day before it
climbs with no effort to the gorge between the hills and makes its way
into the world. It does not even go by steam, so the thing was a great
marvel to us and our people, to whom steam was quite marvel enough.
My grandfather at first would not even look on it. I have seen him turn
away sharply from the window to avoid seeing it. When we went out to
drive we turned our backs upon it, my grandfather saying that he would
not insult his horses by letting them look at it, and indeed I think
that, old as they were, yet having blood in them they would curvet a bit
if they saw anything so strange to them.
There is one thing the light railway has done, and that is to give the
people a market for their goods. We were all much poorer than we once
were, except Mr. Dawson, who made his money by money-lending in Dublin
and London; but even with Mr. Dawson's big house we did not make a
market for the countryside.
Besides, there was a stir among the people there used not to be. They
were spinning and weaving in their cottages, and they were rearing fowl
and growing fruit and flowers.
The things which before the peasant children did for sport they now did
for profit as well. It caused the greatest surprise in the minds of the
people when they discovered that anybody could want their blackberries
and their mushrooms; that money was to be made out of even the gathering
of shamrocks. They thought that people out in the world who were ready
to pay money for such things must be very queer people indeed. But since
there were "such quare ould oddities," it was just as well, since they
made life easier for the poor.
Another thing was that a creamery had been started at Araglin, only a
mile or two from us, and the girls went there from the farms to learn
the trade of dairying.
If it were not for the light railway none of these things would have
been possible, and so I forgave it that it flew with a shriek round the
base of the Purple Hill, setting all the mountains rattling with echoes,
and disturbing the water fowl on the lakes and the song-birds in the
woods, the eagle in his eyrie, and the wild red deer, to say nothing of
the innumerable grouse and partridges and black cock and plover and
hares and rabbits on the mountain-side.
My grandmother was not as angry against the light railway as my
grandfather; she used to say that we must go with the times, and she was
glad the people were stirring since it kept their thoughts from turning
to America. She had been talked over by Miss Champion, my godmother and
the greatest friend we have. And Miss Champion was always on the side of
the people, and had even persuaded my grandmother to let her have some
of her famous recipes, such as those for elder and blackberry wine, and
for various preserves, and for fine soaps and washes for the skin, so
that the people might know them and make more money.
"Every one makes money except the gentry," my grandfather grumbled, "and
we grow poorer year by year."
My grandfather talked freely in my presence; and I knew that Aghadoe
Abbey was mortgaged to the doors and that the mortgages would be
foreclosed at my grandfather's death. They kept nothing from me, and my
grandmother has said to me with a watery smile: "If I survive your
grandfather, Bawn, my dear, you and I will have to find genteel lodgings
in Dublin. It would be a strange thing for a Lady St. Leger to come down
from Aghadoe Abbey to that. To be sure there was once a Countess went
ballad-singing in the streets of Cork."
"That day is far away," I answered. "And when it comes there will be no
genteel lodgings, but Theobald and I will take care of you somewhere.
In a little house it may be, but one with a garden where you can walk in
the sun in winter mornings as you do now, and prod at the weeds in the
path as you do now with your silver-headed cane."
"If I could survive your grandfather," she said, turning away her head,
"my heart would break to leave Aghadoe. I ask nothing of you and
Theobald, Bawn, but that you should take care of each other when we are
gone. It is not right that the old should burden the young."
I have always known, or at least since I was capable of entertaining
such things, that our grandparents destined Theobald and me for each
other. I have no love for Theobald such as I find in my books, but I
have a great affection for him as the dearest of brothers.
I have not said before that he is a soldier. What else should he be but
a soldier? Since there have always been soldiers in the family, and my
grandfather could not have borne him to be anything else.
Dear Theobald, how brave and simple and kind he was!
I have said nothing about the ghosts of Aghadoe Abbey, but it has many
ghosts, or it had.
First and foremost there is the Lord St. Leger, who was killed in a
Dublin street brawl a hundred years ago, who will come driving home at
midnight headless in his coach, and the coachman driving him also
headless, carrying his head under his arm. That is not a very pleasant
thing to see enter as the gates swing open of themselves to let the
ghost through.
Then there is the ghost of the woman who cries outside in the shrubbery.
I have seen her myself in a glint of the moonlight, her black hair
covering her face as she bends to the earth, incessantly seeking
something among the dead leaves, which she cannot discover, and for
which she cries.
And again, there is the lady who goes down the stairs, down, down,
through the underground passage, and yet lower to the well that lies
under the house, and is seen no more. A new maid once saw her in broad
daylight--or at least in the grey of the morning--and followed her down
the stairs, thinking that it was one of the family ill perhaps, who
needed some attention. She could tell afterwards the very pattern of the
lace on the fine nightgown, and describe how the fair curls clustered on
the lady's neck. It was only when the lady disappeared before her, a
white shimmer down the darkness of the underground corridor, that the
poor thing realized she had seen a ghost, and fell fainting, with a
clatter of her dustpan and brush which brought her help.
I could make a long list of the ghosts, for they are many, but I will
not, lest I should be tedious. Only Aghadoe Abbey was eerie at night,
especially in winter storms, since my cousin Theobald went away. I have
often thought that the curious formation of the house, which has as many
rooms beneath the ground as above it, helped to give it an eerie
feeling, for one could not but imagine those downstair rooms filled with
ghosts. I had seen the rooms lit dimly once or twice, but for a long
time we had not used them, the expense of lighting them with a thousand
wax candles glimmering in glittering chandeliers being too great.
But in the days before Cousin Theobald left us I was not afraid. He
slept across the corridor from my room, and I had only to cry out and I
knew he would fly to my assistance.
His sword was new at that time, and he was very proud of it. He turned
it about, making it flash in the sunlight, and, said he, "Cousin Bawn,
fear nothing; for if anything were to frighten you, either ghost or
mortal, I would run it through with my sword. At your least cry I
should wake, and I have always the sword close to my hand. Very often I
lie awake when you do not think it to watch over you."
It gave me great comfort at the time, though looking back on it now I
think my cousin, being so healthy and in the air all day, must have
slept very soundly. Yet I am sure he thought he woke.
And, indeed, after he left the ghosts were worse than ever. I used to
take my little dog into my arms for company, and, hiding my head under
the bedclothes, I used to lie quaking because of the crying of the
ghosts. It was a wild winter when Theobald left us, and they cried every
night. It is a sound I have never grown used to, though I have heard it
every winter I can remember. And also the swish of the satin as it went
by my door, and the tap of high-heeled shoes. They cried more that
winter than I ever heard them, except in the winter after Uncle Luke
went away (but then I was little, and had the company of Maureen Kelly,
my nurse); and in a winter which was yet to be.
But at that time I was happy despite the ghosts, and had no idea that
the world held any fate for me other than to be always among such
gentle, high-minded people as were my grandfather and grandmother, my
cousin Theobald, and my dear godmother. For ghosts, especially of one's
own blood, are gentle and little likely to harm one, and must be
permitted by the good God to come back for some good reason.
It is another matter when it is some one of flesh and blood, who wants
to take you in his arms and kiss you while your flesh creeps, and your
whole soul cries out against it. And it is the worst matter of all when
those to whom you have fled all your days for help and protection, to
whom you would have looked to save you from such a thing, look on, with
pale faces indeed, yet never interfere.
Often, often in the days that were to come I had rather be of the
company of the ghosts than to endure the things I had to endure.