still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what
then?"
"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' however, the
circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards,
turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole
business is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it _is_
a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other
attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge upon
the face of the rock.
"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended by
Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the
abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me
alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give
him the slip, and went into the hills in search of the tree. After much
toil I found it. When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me
a flogging. With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well
acquainted as myself."
"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at
digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through
the right instead of through the left eye of the skull."
"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a
half in the 'shot',--that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest
the tree; and had the treasure been _beneath_ the 'shot,' the error
would have been of little moment; but 'the shot,' together with the
nearest point of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment
of a line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the
beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and by the time we
had gone fifty feet threw us quite off the scent. But for my
deep-seated impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle,--how
excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist upon
letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions
touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own
way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung
the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An
observation of yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me.
What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There
seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them,--and yet
it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would
imply. It is clear that Kidd,--if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure,
which I doubt not,--it is clear that he must have had assistance in the
labor. But, this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to
remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a
mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit;
perhaps it required a dozen,--who shall tell?"
[Transcriber's note: In this book the dagger and double dagger
characters were used in the cipher. Since these two characters are not
part of the ISO-8859-1 character set, the + and $, respectively, were
substituted for them.]
THE FAIRY-FINDER.
BY SAMUEL LOVER.
"Finding a fortune," is a phrase often heard amongst the peasantry of
Ireland. If any man from small beginnings arrives at wealth, in a
reasonable course of time, the fact is scarcely ever considered as the
result of perseverance, superior intelligence, or industry; it passes
as a byword through the country that "he found a fortin"; whether by
digging up a "crock o' goold" in the ruins of an old abbey, or by
catching a Leprechaun and forcing him to "deliver or die," or
discovering it behind an old wainscot, is quite immaterial: the _when_
or _where_ is equally unimportant, and the thousand are satisfied with
the rumor, "He found a fortin." Besides, going into particulars
destroys romance,--and the Irish are essentially romantic,--and their
love of wonder is more gratified in considering the change from poverty
to wealth as the result of superhuman aid, than in attributing it to
the mere mortal causes of industry and prudence.
The crone of every village has plenty of stories to make her hearers
wonder, how fortunes have been arrived at by extraordinary short cuts;
and as it has been laid down as an axiom, "That there never was a fool
who had not a greater fool to admire him," so there never was any old
woman who told such stories without plenty of listeners.
Now, Darby Kelleher was one of the latter class, and there was a
certain collioch[1] who was an extensive dealer in the marvellous, and
could supply "wholesale, retail, and for exportation" any customer such
as Darby Kelleher, who not only was a devoted listener, but also made
an occasional offering at the cave of the sibyl, in return for her
oracular communications. This tribute generally was tobacco, as the
collioch was partial to chewing the weed; and thus Darby returned a
_quid pro quo_, without having any idea that he was giving a practical
instance of the foregoing well-known pun.
[Footnote 1: Old woman.]
Another constant attendant at the hut of the hag was Oonah Lenehan,
equally prone to the marvellous with Darby Kelleher, and quite his
equal in idleness. A day never passed without Darby and Oonah paying
the old woman a visit. She was sure to be "at home," for age and
decrepitude rendered it impossible for her to be otherwise; the utmost
limit of her ramble from her own chimney-corner being the seat of sods
outside the door of her hut, where, in the summer time, she was to be
found, so soon as the sunbeams fell on the front of her abode, and made
the seat habitable for one whose accustomed vicinity to the fire
rendered heat indispensable to comfort. Here she would sit and rock
herself to and fro in the hot noons of July and August, her own
appearance and that of her wretched cabin being in admirable keeping.
To a fanciful beholder the question might have suggested itself,
whether the hag was made for the hovel, or it for her; or whether they
had grown into a likeness of one another, as man and wife are said to
do, for there were many points of resemblance between them. The
tattered thatch of the hut was like the straggling hair of its
mistress, and Time, that had grizzled the latter, had covered the
former with gray lichens. To its mud walls, a strong likeness was to be
found in the tint of the old woman's shrivelled skin; they were both
seriously out of the perpendicular; and the rude mud and wicker chimney
of the edifice having toppled over the gable, stuck out, something in
the fashion of the doodeen, or short pipe, that projected from the old
woman's upper story; and so they both were smoking away from morning
till night; and to complete the similitude sadly, both were poor,--both
lonely,--both fast falling to decay.
Here were Darby Kelleher and Oonah Lenehan sure to meet every day.
Darby might make his appearance thus:--
"Good morrow, kindly, granny."
"The same to you, avick," mumbled out the crone.
"Here's some baccy for you, granny."
"Many thanks to you, Darby. I didn't lay it out for seeing you so
airly, the day."
"No, nor you wouldn't neither, only I was passin' this a way, runnin'
an arrand for the squire, and I thought I might as well step in and ax
you how you wor."
"Good boy, Darby."
"Throth an' it's a hot day that's in it, this blessed day. Phew! Faix,
it's out o' breath I am, and mighty hot intirely; for I was runnin'
a'most half the way, bekase it's an arrand, you see, and the squire
towld me to make haste, and so I did, and wint acrass the fields by the
short cut; and as I was passin' by the owld castle, I remembered what
you towld me awhile agon, granny, about the crock o' goold that is
there _for sartin_, if any one could come upon it."
"An' that's thrue indeed, Darby, avick,--and never heerd any other the
longest day I can remember."
"Well, well! think o' that!! O, then it's he that'll be the lucky
fellow that finds it."
"Thrue for you, Darby; but that won't be _antil it is laid out_ for
some one to rise it."
"Sure, that's what I say to myself often; and why mightn't it be my
chance to be the man that it was laid out for to find it?"
"There's no knowin'," mumbled the crone, mysteriously, as she shook the
ashes out of her tobacco-pipe, and replenished the _doodeen_ with some
of the fresh stock Darby had presented.
"Faix, an' that's thrue, sure enough. O, but you've a power o'
knowledge, granny!! Sure enough, indeed, there's no knowin'; but they
say there's great virtue in dhrames."
"That's ondeniable, Darby," said the hag, "and by the same token maybe
you'd step into the house and bring me out a bit o' 'live turf[2] to
light my pipe."
[Footnote 2: In Ireland the tobacco in a pipe is very generally ignited
by the application of a piece of burning turf, or, as it is
figuratively called, 'live turf.]
"To be sure, granny." And away went Darby to execute the commission.
While he was raking, from amongst the embers on the hearth, a piece of
turf sufficiently "alive" for the purpose, Oonah made her appearance
outside the hut, and gave the usual cordial salutation to the old
woman; just as she had done her civility, out came Darby, holding the
bit of turf between the two extremities of an osier twig, bent double
for the purpose of forming rustic tongs.
"Musha, an' is that you, Darby?" said Oonah.
"Who else would it be?" said Darby.
"Why, you towld me over an hour agone, down there in the big field,
that you wor in a hurry."
"And so I am in a hurry, and wouldn't be here, only I jist stepped in
to say God save you to the mother here, and to light her pipe for her,
the craythur."
"Well, don't be standin' there, lettin' the coal go black out, Darby,"
said the woman; "but let me light my pipe at wanst."
"To be sure, granny," said Darby, applying the morsel of lighted ember
to the bowl of her pipe, until the process of ignition had been
effected. "And now, Oonah, my darlint, if you're so sharp an other
people, what the dickens brings you here, when it is mindin' the geese
in the stubbles you ought to be, and not here? What would the misthriss
say to that, I wondher?"
"O, I left them safe enough, and they're able to take care of
themselves for a bit, and I wanted to ax the granny about a dhrame I
had."
"Sure, so do I," said Darby; "and you know _first come first sarved_ is
a good owld sayin'. And so, granny, you own to it that there's a power
o' vartue in dhrames?"
A long-drawn whiff of the pipe was all the hag vouchsafed in return.
"O, then, but that's the iligant tabaccy! musha but it's fine and
sthrong, and takes the breath from one a'most, it's so good. Long life
to you Darby,--paugh!!"
"You're kindly welkim, granny. An' as I was sayin' about the
dhrames,--you say there's a power o' virtue in them."
"Who says agin it?" said the hag, authoritatively, and looking with
severity on Darby.
"Sure, an' it's not me you'd suspect o' the like? I was only goin' to
say that _myself_ had a mighty sharp dhrame last night, and sure I kem
to ax you about the maynin' av it."
"Well, avic, tell us your dhrame," said the hag, sucking her pipe with
increased energy.
"Well, you see," said Darby, "I dhremt I was goin' along a road, and
that all of a suddint I kem to _crass_ roads, and you know there's
great vartue in crass roads."
"That's thrue, avourneen!--paugh!!--go an."
"Well, as I was sayin', I kem to the crass roads, and soon afther I
seen four walls; now I think the four walls _manes_ the owld castle."
"Likely enough, avic."
"O," said Oonah, who was listening with her mouth as wide open as if
the faculty of hearing lay there, instead of in her ears, "sure, you
know the owld castle has only _three_ walls, and how could that be it?"
"No matther for that," said the crone, "it _ought_ to have four, and
that's the same thing."
"Well! well! I never thought o' that," said Oonah, lifting her hands in
wonder; "sure enough, so it ought!"
"Go an, Darby," said the hag.
"Well, I thought the greatest sight o' crows ever I seen flew out o'
the castle, and I think _that_ must mane the goold there is in it."
"Did you count how many there was?" said the hag, with great solemnity.
"Faith, I never thought o' that," said Darby, with an air of vexation.
"Could you tell me, itself, wor they odd or even, avic?"
"Faix, an' I could not say for _sartin_."
"Ah, that's it!!" said the crone, shaking her head in token of
disappointment. "How can I tell the maynin' o' your dhrame, if you
don't know how it kem out exactly?"
"Well, granny, but don't you think the crows was _likely_ for goold?"
"Yis,--if they flew heavy."
"Throth, then, an' now I remimber they did fly heavy, and I said to
myself there would be rain soon, the crows was flyin' so heavy."
"I wish you didn't dhrame o' rain, Darby."
"Why, granny? What harm is it?"
"O, nothin', only it comes in a crass place there."
"But it doesn't spile the dhrame, I hope?"
"O no. Go an."
"Well, with that, I thought I was passin' by Doolins the miller's, and
says he to me, 'Will you carry home this sack o' male for me?' Now, you
know, male is money, every fool knows!"
"Right, avic."
"And so I tuk the sack o' male an my shouldher, and I thought the
woight iv it was killin' me, just as if it _was_ a sack o' goold."
"Go an, Darby."
"And with that I thought I met with a cat, and that, you know, manes an
ill-nathur'd woman."
"Right, Darby."
"And says she to me, 'Darby Kelleher,' says she, 'you're mighty yollow,
God bless you; is it the jandhers you have?' says she. Now wasn't that
mighty sharp? I think the jandhers manes goold?"
"Yis, iv it was the yollow jandhers you dhremt iv, and not the black
jandhers."
"Well, it _was_ the yollow jandhers."
"Very good, avic; that's makin' a fair offer at it."
"I thought so, myself," said Darby, "more by token when there was a dog
in my dhrame next; and that's a frind, you know."
"Right, avic."
"And he had a silver collar an him."
"O, bad luck to that silver collar, Darby; what made you dhrame o'
silver at all?"
"Why, what harm?"
"O, I thought you knew bether nor to dhrame o' silver; why, cushla
machree, sure silver is a disappointment all the world over."
"O murther!" said Darby, in horror, "and is my dhrame spylte by that
blackguard collar?"
"Nigh hand indeed, but not all out. It would be spylte only for the
dog, but the dog is a frind, and so it will be only a frindly
disappointment, or maybe a fallin' out with an acquaintance."
"O, what matther," said Darby, "so the dhrame is to the good still!!"
"The dhrame _is_ to the good still; but tell me if you dhremt o' three
sprigs o' _spare_mint at the ind iv it?"
"Why, then, now I could not say for sartin, bekase I was nigh wakin' at
the time, and the dhrame was not so clear to me."
"I wish you could be sartin o' that."
"Why, I have it an my mind that there _was_ sparemint in it, bekase I
thought there was a garden in part iv it, and the sparemint was
_likely_ to be there."
"Sure enough, and so you did dhrame o' the three sprigs o' sparemint?"
"Indeed, I could a'most make my book-oath that I dhremt iv it. I'm
partly sartin, if not all out."
"Well, that's raysonable. It's a good dhrame, Darby."
"Do you tell me so!"
"'Deed an' it is, Darby. Now wait till the next quarther o' the new
moon, and dhrame again _then_, and you'll see what'll come of it."
"By dad an' I will, granny. O but it's you _has_ taken the maynin' out
of it beyant everything; and faix if I find the crock, it's yourself
won't be the worse iv it; but I must be goin', granny, for the squire
bid me to hurry, or else I would stay longer wid you. Good mornin' to
you--good mornin', Oonah! I'll see you to-morrow some time, granny."
And off went Darby, leisurely enough.
The foregoing dialogue shows the ready credulity of poor Darby; but it
was not in his belief of the "vartue of dhrames" that his weakness only
lay. He likewise had a most extensive creed as regarded fairies of all
sorts and sizes, and was always on the lookout for a Leprechaun. Now a
Leprechaun is a fairy of peculiar tastes, properties, and powers, which
it is necessary to acquaint the reader with. His taste as to occupation
is very humble, for he employs himself in making shoes, and he loves
retirement, being fond of shady nooks where he can sit alone and pursue
his avocation undisturbed. He is quite a hermit in this respect, for
there is no instance on record of two Leprechauns being seen together.
But he is quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a
red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, waistcoat and
inexpressibles of the same, cocked hat, shoes, and buckles. He has the
property of deceiving, in so great a degree, those who chance to
discover him, that none have ever yet been known whom he has not
overreached in the "keen encounter of the wits," which his meeting with
mortals always produces. This is occasioned by his possessing the power
of bestowing unbounded wealth on whoever can keep him within sight
until he is weary of the _surveillance_, and gives the ransom demanded,
and to this end, the object of the mortal who is so fortunate as to
surprise one is to seize him and never withdraw his eye from him, until
the threat of destruction forces the Leprechaun to produce the
treasure; but the sprite is too many for us clumsy-witted earthlings,
and is sure, by some device, to make us avert our eyes, when he
vanishes at once.
This Enchanted Cobbler of the meadows, Darby Kelleher was always on the
lookout for. But though so constantly on the watch for a Leprechaun, he
never had got even within sight of one, and the name of the
Fairy-Finder was bestowed upon him in derision. Many a trick too was
played upon him; sometimes a twig stuck amongst long grass, with a red
rag hanging upon it, has betrayed Darby into a cautious observance and
approach, until a nearer inspection, and a laugh from behind some
neighboring hedge, have dispelled the illusion. But this, though often
repeated, did not cure him, and no turkey-cock had a quicker eye for a
bit of red, or flew at it with greater eagerness, than Darby Kelleher;
and he entertained the belief that one day or other he would reap the
reward of all his watching, by finding a Leprechaun in good earnest.
But that was all in the hands of Fate, and must be waited for; in the
mean time there was the castle and the "crock o' goold" for a
certainty, and, under the good omens of the "sharp dhrame" he had, he
determined on taking that affair in hand at once. For his companion in
the labor of digging, and pulling the ponderous walls of the castle to
pieces, he selected Oonah, who was, in the parlance of her own class,
"a brave two-handed long-sided jack," and as great a believer in dreams
and omens as Darby himself; besides, she promised profound secrecy, and
agreed to take a small share of the treasure for her reward in
assisting to discover it.
For about two months Darby and Oonah labored in vain; but at last
something came of their exertions. In the course of their work, when
they occasionally got tired, they would sit down to rest themselves and
talk over their past disappointments and future hopes. Now it was
during one of these intervals of repose that Darby, as he was resting
himself on one of the coign-stones of the ruin, suddenly
discovered--that he was in love with Oonah.
Now Oonah happened to be thinking much in the same sort of way about
Darby, at that very moment, and the end of the affair was, that Darby
and Oonah were married the Sunday following.
The calculating Englishman will ask, Did he find the treasure before he
married the girl? The unsophisticated boys of the sod never calculate
on these occasions; and the story goes that Oonah Lenehan was the only
treasure Darby discovered in the old castle. Darby's acquaintances were
in high glee on the occasion, and swore he got _a great lob_; for
Oonah, be it remembered, was on the grenadier scale, or what in Ireland
is called "the full of a door," and the news spread over the country in
some such fashion as this:--
"Arrah, an' did you hear the news?"
"What news?"
"About Darby Kelleher."
"What of him?"
"Sure he found a fairy at last."
"Tare an ounty!"
"Thruth I'm tellin' you. He's married to Oonah Lenehan."
"Ha! ha! ha! by the powers it's she that is the rale fairy! musha, more
power to you, Darby, but you've cotched it in airnest now!"
But the fairy he had caught did not satisfy Darby so far as to make him
give up the pursuit for the future. He was still on the watch for a
Leprechaun; and one morning, as he was going to his work, he stopped
suddenly on his path, which lay through a field of standing corn, and
his eye became riveted on some object with the most eager expression.
He crouched, and crawled, and was making his way with great caution
towards the point of his attraction, when he was visited on the back of
the head with a thump that considerably disturbed his visual powers,
and the voice of his mother, a vigorous old beldame, saluted his ear at
the same time with a hearty, "Bad luck to you, you lazy thief, what are
you slindging there for, when it's minding your work you ought to be?"
"Whisht! whisht! mother," said Darby, holding up his hand in token of
silence.
"What do you mane, you omadhaun?"
"Mother, be quiet, I bid you! whisht! I see it!"
"What do you see?"
"Stoop down here. Straight forninst you, don't you see it as plain as a
pikestaff?"
"See what?"
"That little red thing."
"Well, what of it?"
"See there, how it stirs. O murther! it's goin' to be off afore I can
catch it. O murther! why did you come here at all, makin' a noise and
frightenin' it away?"
"Frightenin' what, you big fool?"
"The Leprechaun there. Whisht! it is quiet agin!"
"May the d----l run a huntin' wid you for a big omadhaun; why, you born
nath'ral, is it that red thing over there you mane?"
"Yis, to be sure it is; don't spake so loud, I tell you."
"Why, bad scran to you, you fool, it's a poppy it is, and nothin'
else." And the old woman went over to the spot where it grew, and
plucking it up by the roots threw it at Darby, with a great deal of
abuse into the bargain, and bade him go mind his work, instead of being
a "slindging vagabone, as he was."
It was some time after this occurrence, that Darby Kelleher had a
meeting with a certain Doctor Dionysius Mac Finn, whose name became
much more famous than it had hitherto been, from the wonderful events
that ensued in consequence.