complained not of being in subjection to them. There were so many
interesting features in the character of this young servant girl that
she became in many respects like a daughter to her mistress. There was
no broad line of division in those days, in even the manorial hall,
between the lord and his domestics, and still less defined was the
position of the employer and the employed in a small farmhouse.
Consequent on this condition of things, Frank Lenine and Nancy were
thrown as much together as if they had been brother and sister. Frank
was rarely checked in anything by his over-fond parents, who were
especially proud of their son, since he was regarded as the handsomest
young man in the parish. Frank conceived a very warm attachment for
Nancy, and she was not a little proud of her lover. Although it was
evident to all the parish that Frank and Nancy were seriously devoted to
each other, the young man's parents were blind to it, and were taken by
surprise when one day Frank asked his father and mother to consent to
his marrying Nancy.
The Lenines had allowed their son to have his own way from his youth up;
and now, in a matter which brought into play the strongest of human
feelings, they were angry because he refused to bend to their wills.
The old man felt it would be a degradation for a Lenine to marry a
Trenoweth, and, in the most unreasoning manner, he resolved it should
never be.
The first act was to send Nancy home to Alsia Mill, where her parents
resided; the next was an imperious command to his son never again to see
the girl.
The commands of the old are generally powerless upon the young where the
affairs of the heart are concerned. So were they upon Frank. He who was
rarely seen of an evening beyond the garden of his father's cottage, was
now as constantly absent from his home. The house, which was wont to be
a pleasant one, was strangely altered. A gloom had fallen over all
things; the father and son rarely met as friends--the mother and her boy
had now a feeling of reserve. Often there were angry altercations
between the father and son, and the mother felt she could not become the
defender of her boy, in his open acts of disobedience, his bold defiance
of his parents' commands.
Rarely an evening passed that did not find Nancy and Frank together in
some retired nook. The Holy Well was a favourite meeting-place, and here
the most solemn vows were made. Locks of hair were exchanged; a
wedding-ring, taken from the finger of a corpse, was broken, when they
vowed that they would be united either dead or alive; and they even
climbed at night the granite-pile at Treryn, and swore by the Logan Rock
the same strong vow.
Time passed onward unhappily, and as the result of the endeavours to
quench out the passion by force, it grew stronger under the repressing
power, and, like imprisoned steam, eventually burst through all
restraint.
Nancy's parents discovered at length that moonlight meetings between two
untrained, impulsive youths, had a natural result, and they were now
doubly earnest in their endeavours to compel Frank to marry their
daughter.
The elder Lenine could not be brought to consent to this, and he firmly
resolved to remove his son entirely from what he considered the hateful
influences of the Trenoweths. He resolved to go to Plymouth, to take
his son with him, and, if possible, to send him away to sea, hoping thus
to wean him from his folly, as he considered this love-madness. Frank,
poor fellow, with the best intentions, was not capable of any sustained
effort, and consequently he at length succumbed to his father; and, to
escape his persecution, he entered a ship bound for India, and bade
adieu to his native land.
Frank could not write, and this happened in days when letters could be
forwarded only with extreme difficulty, consequently Nancy never heard
from her lover.
A babe had been born into a troublesome world, and the infant became a
real solace to the young mother. As the child grew, it became an
especial favourite with its grandmother; the elder Nancy rejoiced over
the little prattler, and forgot her cause of sorrow. Young Nancy lived
for her child, and on the memory of its father. Subdued in spirit she
was, but her affliction had given force to her character, and she had
been heard to declare that wherever Frank might be, she was ever present
with him, whatever might be the temptations of the hour, that her
influence was all powerful over him for good. She felt that no distance
could separate their souls, that no time could be long enough to destroy
the bond between them.
A period of distress fell upon the Trenoweths, and it was necessary that
Nancy should leave her home once more, and go again into service. Her
mother took charge of the babe, and she found a situation in the village
of Kimyall, in the parish of Paul. Nancy, like her mother, contrived by
force of character to maintain an ascendancy amongst her companions. She
had formed an acquaintance, which certainly never grew into friendship,
with some of the daughters of the small farmers around. These girls were
all full of the superstitions of the time and place.
The winter was coming on, and nearly three years had passed away since
Frank Lenine left his country. As yet there was no sign. Nor father,
nor mother, nor maiden had heard of him, and they all sorrowed over his
absence. The Lenines desired to have Nancy's child, but the Trenoweths
would not part with it. They went so far even as to endeavour to
persuade Nancy to live again with them, but Nancy was not at all
disposed to submit to their wishes.
It was All-Hallows' eve, and two of Nancy's companions persuaded
her,--no very difficult task,--to go with them and sow hemp-seed.
At midnight the three maidens stole out unperceived into Kimyall
town-place to perform their incantation. Nancy was the first to sow, the
others being less bold than she.
Boldly she advanced, saying, as she scattered the seed,--
"Hemp-seed I sow thee,
Hemp-seed grow thee;
And he who will my true love be,
Come after me
And shaw thee."
This was repeated three times, when, looking back over her left
shoulder, she saw Lenine; but he looked so angry that she shrieked with
fear, and broke the spell. One of the other girls, however, resolved now
to make trial of the spell, and the result of her labours was the vision
of a white coffin. Fear now fell on all, and they went home sorrowful,
to spend, each one, a sleepless night.
November came with its storms, and during one terrific night a large
vessel was thrown upon the rocks in Bernowhall Cliff, and, beaten by the
impetuous waves, she was soon in pieces. Amongst the bodies of the crew
washed ashore, nearly all of whom had perished, was Frank Lenine. He was
not dead when found, but the only words he lived to speak were begging
the people to send for Nancy Trenoweth, that he might make her his wife
before he died.
Rapidly sinking, Frank was borne by his friends on a litter to Boscean,
but he died as he reached the town-place. His parents, overwhelmed in
their own sorrows, thought nothing of Nancy, and without her knowing
that Lenine had returned, the poor fellow was laid in his last bed, in
Burian Churchyard.
On the night of the funeral, Nancy went, as was her custom, to lock the
door of the house, and as was her custom too, she looked out into the
night. At this instant a horseman rode up in hot haste, called her by
name, and hailed her in a voice that chilled her blood.
The voice was the voice of Lenine. She could never forget that; and the
horse she now saw was her sweetheart's favourite colt, on which he had
often ridden at night to Alsia.
The rider was imperfectly seen; but he looked very sorrowful, and
deathly pale, still Nancy knew him to be Frank Lenine.
He told her that he had just arrived home, and that the first moment he
was at liberty he had taken horse to fetch his loved one, and to make
her his bride.
Nancy's excitement was so great, that she was easily persuaded to spring
on the horse behind him, that they might reach his home before the
morning.
When she took Lenine's hand a cold shiver passed through her, and as she
grasped his waist to secure herself in her seat, her arm became as stiff
as ice. She lost all power of speech, and suffered deep fear, yet she
knew not why. The moon had arisen, and now burst out in a full flood of
light, through the heavy clouds which had obscured it. The horse pursued
its journey with great rapidity, and whenever in weariness it slackened
its speed, the peculiar voice of the rider aroused its drooping
energies. Beyond this no word was spoken since Nancy had mounted behind
her lover. They now came to Trove Bottom, where there was no bridge at
that time; they dashed into the river. The moon shone full in their
faces. Nancy looked into the stream, and saw that the rider was in a
shroud and other grave-clothes. She now knew that she was being carried
away by a spirit, yet she had no power to save herself; indeed, the
inclination to do so did not exist.
On went the horse at a furious pace, until they came to the blacksmith's
shop, near Burian Church-town, when she knew by the light from the forge
fire thrown across the road that the smith was still at his labours. She
now recovered speech. "Save me! save me! save me!" she cried with all
her might. The smith sprang from the door of the smithy, with a red-hot
iron in his hand, and as the horse rushed by, caught the woman's dress,
and pulled her to the ground. The spirit, however, also seized Nancy's
dress in one hand, and his grasp was like that of a vice. The horse
passed like the wind, and Nancy and the smith were pulled down as far as
the old Alms-houses, near the churchyard. Here the horse for a moment
stopped. The smith seized that moment, and with his hot iron burned off
the dress from the rider's hand, thus saving Nancy, more dead than
alive; while the rider passed over the wall of the churchyard, and
vanished on the grave in which Lenine had been laid but a few hours
before.
The smith took Nancy into his shop, and he soon aroused some of his
neighbours, who took the poor girl back to Alsia. Her parents laid her
on her bed. She spoke no word, but to ask for her child, to request her
mother to give up her child to Lenine's parents, and her desire to be
buried in his grave. Before the morning light fell on the world Nancy
had breathed her last breath.
A horse was seen that night to pass through the Church-town like a ball
from a musket, and in the morning Lenine's colt was found dead in
Bernowhall Cliff, covered with foam, its eyes forced from its head, and
its swollen tongue hanging out of its mouth. On Lenine's grave was found
the piece of Nancy's dress which was left in the spirit's hand when the
smith burnt her from his grasp.
It is said that one or two of the sailors who survived the wreck related
after the funeral, how, on the 30th of October, at night, Lenine was
like one mad; they could scarcely keep him in the ship. He seemed more
asleep than awake, and, after great excitement, he fell as if dead upon
the deck, and lay so for hours. When he came to himself, he told them
that he had been taken to the village of Kimyall, and that if he ever
married the woman who had cast the spell, he would make her suffer the
longest day she had to live for drawing his soul out of his body.
Poor Nancy was buried in Lenine's grave, and her companion in sowing
hemp-seed, who saw the white coffin, slept beside her within the year.
XIV
THE POOL IN THE GRAVEYARD
By GREVILLE MACDONALD[5]
By this corner of the graveyard the red dawn discovered to Jonas a
little pool of clear water, with mosses and parsley-ferns all around it,
and so clear and cool-looking that he must drink. The larger part of it
was still shadowed by the wall. On knees and hands, he put his lips to
it and drank. The refreshment was wonderful. He rose with a sense that
he should find the lost sheep yet and bring her home. He looked down
once more into the clear pool. It was wider than he had thought--indeed,
he had been mistaken; it was a great tarn on the mountain-side! Then he
saw that wonderful things were happening on the face of and all round
the water. What appeared to be little glow-worms were lying motionless
in groups on the mosses in a still-shadowed region by the side of the
water. From beneath a low arch in the wall, where the water was slowly
flowing away in a river, there came, against stream and wave and wind, a
fishing-boat. Its great red sail was spread, and its pennant shone
silvery blue in the sun. It came alongside a pier of mossy stones, and
cast anchor. From it leapt twelve strong young fishermen, all with
bright faces. They took up the little creatures with the glowing lights,
and carried them aboard; then back again to other groups, until all were
gathered in. For they were all sleeping human forms, close-wrapped in
grave-clothes, but with their light still living, as might be seen by
anyone who had suffered. When all were safe aboard, the men cast off and
the boat disappeared under the arch.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: From _How Jonas Found his Enemy: a Romance of the South
Downs_ (1916).]
XV
THE LIANHAN SHEE
By WILL CARLETON
One summer evening Mary Sullivan was sitting at her own well-swept
hearthstone, knitting feet to a pair of sheep's-grey stockings for
Bartley, her husband. It was one of those serene evenings in the month
of June when the decline of day assumes a calmness and repose,
resembling what we might suppose to have irradiated Eden when our first
parents sat in it before their fall. The beams of the sun shone through
the windows in clear shafts of amber light, exhibiting millions of those
atoms which float to the naked eye within its mild radiance. The dog lay
barking in his dream at her feet, and the grey cat sat purring placidly
upon his back, from which even his occasional agitation did not dislodge
her.
Mrs Sullivan was the wife of a wealthy farmer, and niece to the Rev.
Felix O'Rourke; her kitchen was consequently large, comfortable, and
warm. Over where she sat, jutted out the "brace" well lined with bacon;
to the right hung a well-scoured salt-box, and to the left was the jamb,
with its little paneless window to admit the light. Within it hung
several ash rungs, seasoning for flail-sooples, or boulteens, a dozen of
eel-skins, and several stripes of horse-skin, as hangings for them. The
dresser was a "parfit white," and well furnished with the usual
appurtenances. Over the door and on the "threshel" were nailed, "for
luck," two horse-shoes, that had been found by accident. In a little
"hole" in the wall, beneath the salt-box, lay a bottle of holy water to
keep the place purified; and against the copestone of the gable, on the
outside, grew a large lump of house-leek, as a specific for sore eyes
and other maladies.
In the corner of the garden were a few stalks of tansy "to kill the
thievin' worms in the childhre, the crathurs," together with a little
Rosenoble, Solomon's Seal, and Bugloss, each for some medicinal purpose.
The "lime wather" Mrs Sullivan could make herself, and the "bog bane"
for the _linh roe_, or heartburn, grew in their own meadow-drain; so
that, in fact, she had within her reach a very decent pharmacopoeia,
perhaps as harmless as that of the profession itself. Lying on the top
of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and sewed in the folds of her
own scapular was the dust of what had once been a four-leaved shamrock,
an invaluable specific "for seein' the good people," if they happened to
come within the bounds of vision. Over the door in the inside, over the
beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of
withered palm, that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday;
and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own
hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being
overlooked by evil eyes, or _elf-shot_ by the fairies, who seem to
possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the period
of parturition. It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which
she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, for toothache,
headaches, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let
it suffice to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them;
and, that in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a
potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing for
ever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife.
Whether it produced this desirable object or not, our readers may
conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a
very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to
disappear from the neighbourhood, in order to avoid meeting with
Bartley, who had a sharp look-out for him, not exactly on his own
account, but "in regard," he said, "that it had no effect upon _Mary_,
at all at all"; whilst Mary, on the other hand, admitted its efficacy
upon herself, but maintained, "that _Bartley_ was worse nor ever afther
it."
Such was Mary Sullivan, as she sat at her own hearth, quite alone,
engaged as we have represented her. What she may have been meditating
on, we cannot pretend to ascertain; but after some time, she looked
sharply into the "backstone," or hob, with an air of anxiety and alarm.
By and by she suspended her knitting, and listened with much
earnestness, leaning her right ear over to the hob, from whence the
sounds to which she paid such deep attention proceeded. At length she
crossed herself devoutly, and exclaimed, "Queen of saints about us!--is
it back ye are? Well sure there's no use in talkin' bekase they say you
know what's said of you, or to you--an' we may as well spake yez fair.
Hem--musha yez are welcome back, crickets, avour-neenee! I hope that,
not like the last visit ye ped us, yez are comin' for luck now! Moolyeen
died, any way, soon afther your other _kailyee_, ye crathurs ye. Here's
the bread, an' the salt, an' the male for yez, an' we wish ye well.
Eh?--saints above, if it isn't listenin' they are jist like a
Christhien! Wurrah, but ye are the wise an' the quare crathurs all out!"
She then shook a little holy water over the hob, and muttered to herself
an Irish charm or prayer against the evils which crickets are often
supposed by the peasantry to bring with them, and requested, still in
the words of the charm, that their presence might, on that occasion,
rather be a presage of good fortune to man and beast belonging to her.
"There now, ye _dhonans_ ye, sure ye can't say that ye're ill-thrated
here, anyhow, or ever was mocked or made game of in the same family. You
have got your hansel, an' full an' plenty of it; hopin' at the same time
that you'll have no rason in life to cut our best clothes from revinge.
Sure an' I didn't desarve to have my brave stuff _long body_ riddled the
way it was the last time ye wor here, an' only bekase little Barny, that
has but the sinse of a _gorsoon_, tould yez in a joke to pack off wid
yourselves somewhere else. Musha, never heed what the likes of him says;
sure he's but a _caudy_, that doesn't mane ill, only the bit o'
divarsion wid yez."
She then resumed her knitting, occasionally stopping, as she changed her
needles, to listen, with her ear set, as if she wished to augur from the
nature of their chirping, whether they came for good or evil. This,
however, seemed to be beyond her faculty of translating their language;
for after sagely shaking her head two or three times, she knit more
busily than before.
At this moment, the shadow of a person passing the house darkened the
window opposite which she sat, and immediately a tall female, of a wild
dress and aspect, entered the kitchen.
"_Gho manhy dhea ghud, a ban chohr_! the blessin' o' goodness upon you,
dacent woman," said Mrs Sullivan, addressing her in those kindly phrases
so peculiar to the Irish language.
Instead of making her any reply, however, the woman, whose eye glistened
with a wild depth of meaning, exclaimed in low tones, apparently of much
anguish, "_Husht, husht, dherum_! husht, husht, I say--let me alone--I
will do it--will you husht? I will, I say--I will--there now--that's
it--be quiet, an' I will do it--be quiet!" and as she thus spoke she
turned her face back over her left shoulder, as if some invisible being
dogged her steps, and stood bending over her.
"_Gho manhy dhea ghud, a ban chohr, dherhum areesht_! the blessin' o'
God on you, honest woman, I say again," said Mrs Sullivan, repeating
that _sacred_ form of salutation with which the peasantry address each
other. "'Tis a fine evenin', honest woman, glory be to Him that sent the
same, and amin! If it was cowld, I'd be axin' you to draw your chair in
to the fire; but, any way, won't you sit down?"
As she ceased speaking the piercing eye of the strange woman became
riveted on her with a glare, which, whilst it startled Mrs Sullivan,
seemed full of an agony that almost abstracted her from external life.
It was not, however, so wholly absorbing as to prevent it from
expressing a marked interest, whether for good or evil, in the woman who
addressed her so hospitably.
"Husht, now--husht," she said, as if aside--"husht, won't you--sure I
may speak _the thing_ to her--you said it--there now, husht!" And then
fastening her dark eyes on Mrs Sullivan, she smiled bitterly and
mysteriously.
"I know you well," she said, without, however, returning the _blessing_
contained in the usual reply to Mrs Sullivan's salutation--"I know you
well, Mary Sullivan--husht, now, husht--yes, I know you well, and the
power of all that you carry about you; but you'd be better than you
are--and that's well enough _now_--if you had sense to know--ah, ah,
ah!--what's this!" she exclaimed abruptly, with three distinct shrieks,
that seemed to be produced by sensations of sharp and piercing agony.
"In the name of goodness, what's over you, honest woman?" inquired Mrs
Sullivan, as she started from her chair, and ran to her in a state of
alarm, bordering on terror--"Is it sick you are?"
The woman's face had got haggard, and its features distorted; but in a
few minutes they resumed their peculiar expression of settled wildness
and mystery. "Sick!" she replied, licking her parched lips; "_awirck,
awirck!_ look! look!" and she pointed with a shudder that almost
convulsed her whole frame, to a lump that rose on her shoulders; this,
be it what it might, was covered with a red cloak, closely pinned and
tied with great caution about her body--"'tis here!--I have it!"
"Blessed mother!" exclaimed Mrs Sullivan, tottering over to her chair,
as finished a picture of horror as the eye could witness, "this day's
Friday: the saints stand betwixt me an' all harm! Oh, holy Mary, protect
me! _Nhanim an airh_," in the name of the Father, etc., and she
forthwith proceeded to bless herself, which she did thirteen times in
honour of the blessed virgin and the twelve apostles.
"Ay, it's as you see!" replied the stranger bitterly. "It is
here--husht, now--husht, I say--I will say _the thing_ to her, mayn't I?
Ay, indeed, Mary Sullivan, 'tis with me always--always. Well, well, no,
I won't I won't--easy. Oh, blessed saints, easy, and I won't!"
In the meantime Mrs Sullivan had uncorked her bottle of holy water, and
plentifully bedewed herself with it, as a preservative against this
mysterious woman and her dreadful secret.
"Blessed mother above!" she ejaculated, "the _Lianhan Shee_!" And as she
spoke, with the holy water in the palm of her hand, she advanced
cautiously, and with great terror, to throw it upon the stranger and the
unearthly thing she bore.
"Don't attempt it!" shouted the other, in tones of mingled fierceness
and terror; "do you want to give _me_ pain without keeping _yourself_
anything at all safer? Don't you know _it_ doesn't care about your holy
water? But I'd suffer for it, an' perhaps so would you."
Mrs Sullivan, terrified by the agitated looks of the woman, drew back
with affright, and threw the holy water with which she intended to
purify the other on her own person.
"Why thin, you lost crathur, who or what are you at all?--don't,
don't--for the sake of all the saints and angels of heaven, don't come
next or near me--keep your distance--but what are you, or how did you
come to get that 'good thing' you carry about wid you?"
"Ay, indeed!" replied the woman bitterly, "as if I would or could tell
you that! I say, you woman, you're doing what's not right in asking me a
question you ought not let to cross your lips--look to yourself, and
what's over you."