had exiled himself while he was yet a child, and without previously
having become known to the eyes of the nephew he had so much injured.
But if Shamus occasionally drew a bitter and almost savage
gratification from the downfall of his inhuman persecutor, no
recurrence to the past could alleviate the misery of his present
situation. He passed under one of the capacious open arches of the old
abbey, and then entered his squalid shed reared against its wall, his
heart as shattered and as trodden down as the ruins around him. No
words of greeting ensued between him and his equally hopeless wife, as
she sat on the straw of her bed, rocking to sleep, with feeble and
mournful cries, her youngest infant. He silently lighted a fire of
withered twigs on his ready-furnished hearthstone; put to roast among
their embers a few potatoes which he had begged during the day; divided
them between her and her crying children; and as the moon, rising high
in the heavens, warned him that night asserted her full empire over the
departed day, Shamus sank down upon the couch from which his father's
mortal remains had lately been borne, supperless himself, and
dinnerless, too, but not hungry; at least not conscious or recollecting
that he was.
His wife and little ones soon slept soundly, but Shamus lay for hours
inaccessible to nature's claims for sleep as well as for food. From
where he lay he could see, through the open front of his shed, out into
the ruins abroad. After much abstraction in his own thoughts, the
silence, the extent, and the peculiar desolation of the scene, almost
spiritualized by the magic effect of alternate moonshine and darkness,
of objects and of their parts, at last diverted his mind, though not to
relieve it. He remembered distinctly, for the first time, where he
was,--an intruder among the dwellings of the dead; he called to mind,
too, that the present was their hour for revealing themselves among the
remote loneliness and obscurity of their crumbling and intricate abode.
As his eye fixed upon a distant stream of cold light or of blank
shadow, either the wavering of some feathery herbage from the walls, or
the flitting of some night bird over the roofless aisle, made motion
which went and came during the instant of his alarmed start, or else
some disembodied sleeper around had challenged and evaded his vision so
rapidly as to baffle even the accompaniment of thought. Shamus would,
however, recur, during these entrancing aberrations, to his more real
causes for terror; and he knew not, and to this day cannot distinctly
tell, whether he waked or slept, when a new circumstance absorbed his
attention. The moon struck fully, under his propped roof, upon the
carved slab he had appropriated as a hearthstone, and turning his eye
to the spot, he saw the semblance of a man advanced in years, though
not very old, standing motionless, and very steadfastly regarding him;
the still face of the figure shone like marble in the nightbeam,
without giving any idea of the solidity of that material; the long and
deep shadows thrown by the forehead over the eyes left those unusually
expressive features vague and uncertain. Upon the head was a
close-fitting black cap, the dress was a loose-sleeved, plaited garment
of white, descending to the ground, and faced and otherwise checkered
with black, and girded round the loins; exactly the costume which
Shamus had often studied in a little framed and glazed print, hung up
in the sacristy of the humble chapel recently built in the neighborhood
of the ruin by a few descendants of the great religious fraternity to
whom, in its day of pride, the abbey had belonged. As he returned very
inquisitively, though, as he avers, not now in alarm, the fixed gaze of
his midnight visitor, a voice reached him, and he heard these strange
words:--
"Shamus Dempsey, go to London Bridge, and you will be a rich man."
"How will that come about, your reverence?" cried Shamus, jumping up
from the straw.
But the figure was gone; and stumbling among the black embers on the
remarkable place where it had stood, he fell prostrate, experiencing a
change of sensation and of observance of objects around, which might be
explained by supposing a transition from a sleeping to a waking state
of mind.
The rest of the night he slept little, thinking of the advice he had
received, and of the mysterious personage who gave it. But he resolved
to say nothing about his vision, particularly to his wife, lest, in her
present state of health, the frightful story might distress her; and,
as to his own conduct respecting it, he determined to be guided by the
future,--in fact, he would wait to see if his counsellor came again. He
did come again, appearing in the same spot at the same hour of the
night, and wearing the same dress, though not the same expression of
feature; for the shadowy brows now slightly frowned, and a little
severity mingled with the former steadfastness of look.
"Shamus Dempsey, why have you not gone to London Bridge, and your wife
so near the time when she will want what you are to get by going there?
Remember, this is my second warning."
"Musha, your reverence, an' what am I to do on Lunnon Bridge?"
Again he rose to approach the figure; again it eluded him. Again a
change occurred in the quality of the interest with which he regarded
the admonition of his visitor. Again he passed a day of doubt as to the
propriety of undertaking what seemed to him little less than a journey
to the world's end, without a penny in his pocket, and upon the eve of
his wife's accouchement, merely in obedience to a recommendation which,
according to his creed, was not yet sufficiently strongly given, even
were it under any circumstances to be adopted. For Shamus had often
heard, and firmly believed, that a dream or a vision, instructing one
how to procure riches, ought to be experienced three times before it
became entitled to attention.
He lay down, however, half hoping that his vision might thus recommend
itself to his notice. It did so.
"Shamus Dempsey," said the figure, looking more angry than ever, "you
have not yet gone to London Bridge, although I hear your wife crying
out to bid you go. And, remember, this is my third warning."
"Why, then, tundher-an-ouns, your reverence, just stop and tell me--"
Ere he could utter another word the holy visitant disappeared, in a
real passion at Shamus's qualified curse; and at the same moment his
confused senses recognized the voice of his wife, sending up from her
straw pallet the cries that betoken a mother's distant travail.
Exchanging a few words with her, he hurried away, professedly to call
up, at her cabin window, an old crone who sometimes attended the very
poorest women in Nance Dempsey's situation.
"Hurry to her, Noreen, acuishla, and do the best it's the will of God
to let you do. And tell her from me, Noreen--" He stopped, drawing in
his lip, and clutching his cudgel hard.
"Shamus, what ails you, avick?" asked old Noreen; "what ails you, to
make the tears run down in the gray o' the morning?"
"Tell her from me," continued Shamus, "that it's from the bottom o' the
heart I'll pray, morning and evening, and fresh and fasting, maybe, to
give her a good time of it; and to show her a face on the poor child
that's coming, likelier than the two that God sent afore it. And that
I'll be thinking o' picturing it to my own mind, though I'll never see
it far away."
"Musha, Shamus, what are you speaking of?"
"No matter, Noreen, only God be wid you, and wid her, and wid the
weenocks; and tell her what I bid you. More-be-token, tell her that
poor Shamus quits her in her throuble, with more love from the heart
out than he had for her the first day we came together; and I'll come
back to her at any rate, sooner or later, richer or poorer, or as bare
as I went; and maybe not so bare either. But God only knows. The top o'
the morning to you, Noreen, and don't let her want the mouthful o'
praties while I'm on my thravels. For this,"--added Shamus, as he
bounded off, to the consternation of old Noreen,--"this is the very
morning and the very minute that, if I mind the dhrame at all at all, I
ought to mind it; ay, without ever turning back to get a look from her,
that 'ud kill the heart in my body entirely."
Without much previous knowledge of the road he was to take, Shamus
walked and begged his way along the coast to the town where he might
hope to embark for England. Here, the captain of a merchantman agreed
to let him work his passage to Bristol, whence he again walked and
begged into London.
Without taking rest or food, Shamus proceeded to London Bridge, often
put out of his course by wrong directions, and as often by forgetting
and misconceiving true ones. It was with old London Bridge that Shamus
had to do (not the old one last pulled down, but its more reverend
predecessor), which, at that time, was lined at either side by quaintly
fashioned houses, mostly occupied by shop-keepers, so that the space
between presented, perhaps, the greatest thoroughfare then known in the
Queen of Cities. And at about two o'clock in the afternoon, barefooted,
ragged, fevered, and agitated, Shamus mingled with the turbid human
stream, that roared and chafed over the, as restless and as evanescent,
stream which buffeted the arches of old London Bridge. In a situation
so novel to him, so much more extraordinary in the reality than his
anticipation could have fancied, the poor and friendless stranger felt
overwhelmed. A sense of forlornness, of insignificance, and of terror
seized upon his faculties. From the stare, or the sneers, or the jostle
of the iron-nerved crowd, he shrank with glances of wild timidity, and
with a heart as wildly timid as were his looks. For some time he stood
or staggered about, unable to collect his thoughts, or to bring to mind
what was his business there. But when Shamus became able to refer to
the motive of his pauper journey, from his native solitudes into the
thick of such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition
totally subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the
bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera.
Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched
place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there moaned
himself asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor Nance at
home, and in utter despair of all his future prospects.
At daybreak the next morning he awoke, a little less agitated, but
still with no hope. He was able, however, to resolve upon the best
course of conduct now left open to him; and he arranged immediately to
retrace his steps to Ireland, as soon as he should have begged
sufficient alms to speed him a mile on the road. With this intent he
hastily issued forth, preferring to challenge the notice of chance
passengers, even at the early hour of dawn, than to venture again, in
the middle of the day, among the dreaded crowds of the vast city. Very
few, indeed, were the passers-by whom Shamus met during his straggling
and stealthy walk through the streets, and those of a description
little able or willing to afford a half-penny to his humbled, whining
suit, and to his spasmed lip and watery eye. In what direction he went
Shamus did not know; but at last he found himself entering upon the
scene of his yesterday's terror. Now, however, it presented nothing to
renew its former impression. The shops at the sides of the bridge were
closed, and the occasional stragglers of either sex who came along
inspired Shamus, little as he knew of a great city, with aversion
rather than with dread. In the quietness and security of his present
position, Shamus was both courageous and weak enough again to summon up
his dream.
"Come," he said, "since I _am_ on Lunnon Bridge, I'll walk over every
stone of it, and see what good that will do."
He valiantly gained the far end. Here one house, of all that stood upon
the bridge, began to be opened; it was a public house, and, by a
sidelong glance as he passed, Shamus thought that, in the person of a
red-cheeked, red-nosed, sunk-eyed, elderly man, who took down the
window-shutters, he recognized the proprietor. This person looked at
Shamus, in return, with peculiar scrutiny. The wanderer liked neither
his regards nor the expression of his countenance, and quickened his
steps onward until he cleared the bridge.
"But I'll walk it over at the other side, now," he bethought, after
allowing the publican time to finish opening his house, and retire out
of view.
But, repassing the house, the man still appeared, leaning against his
door-jamb, and as if waiting for Shamus's return, whom, upon this
second occasion, he eyed more attentively than before.
"Sorrow's in him," thought Shamus, "have I two heads on me, that I'm
such a sight to him? But who cares about his pair of ferret-eyes? I'll
thrudge down the middle stone of it, at any rate!"
Accordingly he again walked towards the public house, keeping the
middle of the bridge.
"Good morrow, friend," said the publican, as Shamus a third time passed
his door.
"Sarvant kindly, sir," answered Shamus, respectfully pulling down the
brim of his hat, and increasing his pace.
"An early hour you choose for a morning walk," continued his new
acquaintance.
"Brave and early, faix, sir," said Shamus, still hurrying off.
"Stop a bit," resumed the publican. Shamus stood still. "I see you're a
countryman of mine,--an Irishman; I'd know one of you at a look, though
I'm a long time out of the country. And you're not very well off on
London Bridge this morning, either."
"No, indeed, sir," replied Shamus, beginning to doubt his skill in
physiognomy, at the stranger's kind address; "but as badly off as a
body 'ud wish to be."
"Come over to look for the work?"
"Nien, sir; but come out this morning to beg a ha'-penny, to send me a
bit of the road home."
"Well, here's a silver sixpence without asking. And you'd better sit on
the bench by the door here, and eat a crust and a cut of cheese, and
drink a drop of good ale, to break your fast."
With profuse thanks, Shamus accepted this kind invitation, blaming
himself at heart for having allowed his opinion of the charitable
publican to be guided by the expression of the man's features.
"Handsome is that handsome does," was Shamus's self-correcting
reflection.
While eating his bread and cheese, and drinking his strong ale, they
conversed freely together, and Shamus's heart opened more and more to
his benefactor. The publican repeatedly asked him what had brought him
to London; and though half out of prudence, and half out of shame, the
dreamer at first evaded the question, he felt it at last impossible to
refuse a candid answer to his generous friend.
"Why, then, sir, only I am such a big fool for telling it to you, it's
what brought me to Lunnon Bridge was a quare dhrame I had at home in
Ireland, that tould me just to come here, and I'd find a pot of goold."
For such was the interpretation given by Shamus to the vague admonition
of his visionary counsellor.
His companion burst into a loud laugh, saying, after it,--
"Pho, pho, man, don't be so silly as to put faith in nonsensical dreams
of that kind. Many a one like it I have had, if I would bother my head
with them. Why, within the last ten days, while you were dreaming of
finding a pot of gold on London Bridge, I was dreaming of finding a pot
of gold in Ireland."
"Ullaloo, and were you, sir?" asked Shamus, laying down his empty pint.
"Ay, indeed: night after night, an old friar with a pale face, and
dressed all in white and black, and a black skull-cap on his head, came
to me in a dream, and bid me go to Ireland, to a certain spot in a
certain county that I know very well, and under the slab of his tomb,
that has a cross and some old Romish letters on it, in an old abbey I
often saw before now, I'd find a treasure that would make me a rich man
all the days of my life."
"Musha, sir," asked Shamus, scarce able prudently to control his
agitation, "and did he tell you that the treasure lay buried there ever
so long under the open sky and the ould walls?"
"No; but he told me I was to find the slab covered in by a shed, that a
poor man had lately built inside the abbey for himself and his family."
"Whoo, by the powers!" shouted Shamus, at last thrown off his guard by
the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as well as by the
effects of the ale; and, at the same time, he jumped up, cutting a
caper with his legs, and flourishing his shillelagh.
"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked his friend, glancing at him a
frowning and misgiving look.
"We ax pardon, sir." Shamus rallied his prudence. "An' sure sorrow a
thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I believe, made me do it,
as it ever and always does, good luck to it for the same. An' isn't
what we were spaking about the biggest _raumaush_[1] undher the sun,
sir? Only it's the laste bit in the world quare to me how you'd have
the dhrame about your own country, that you didn't see for so many
years, sir,--for twenty long years, I think you said, sir?" Shamus had
now a new object in putting his sly question.
[Footnote 1: Nonsense.]
"If I said so, I forgot," answered the publican, his suspicions of
Shamus at an end. "But it is about twenty years, indeed, since I left
Ireland."
"And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I'll engage you were in a
good way in the poor place, afore you left it?"
"You guess correctly, friend." (The publican gave way to vanity.)
"Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good
hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in the
foolish dream I told you stands upon."
"An' so did my curse-o'-God's uncle," thought Shamus, his heart's blood
beginning to boil, though, with a great effort he kept himself
seemingly cool. "And this is the man fornent me, if he answers another
word I'll ax him. Faix, sir, and sure that makes your dhrame quarer
than ever; and the ground the ould abbey is on, sir, and the good acres
round it, did you say they lay somewhere in the poor county myself came
from?"
"What county is that, friend?" demanded the publican, again with a
studious frown.
"The ould County Monaghan, sure, sir," replied Shamus, very
deliberately.
"No, but the county of Clare," answered his companion.
"Was it?" screamed Shamus, again springing up. The cherished hatred of
twenty years imprudently bursting out, his uncle lay stretched at his
feet, after a renewed flourish of his cudgel. "And do you know who you
are telling it to this morning? Did you ever hear that the sisther you
kilt left a bit of a _gorsoon_ behind her, that one day or other might
overhear you? Ay," he continued, keeping down the struggling man, "_it
is_ poor Shamus Dempsey that's kneeling by you; ay, and that has more
to tell you. The shed built over the old friar's tombstone was built by
the hands you feel on your throttle, and that tombstone is his
hearthstone; and," continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate
man with a rope, snatched from a bench near them, "while you lie here
awhile, an' no one to help you, in the cool of the morning, I'll just
take a start of you on the road home, to lift the flag and get the
threasure; and follow me if you dare! You know there's good money bid
for your head in Ireland,--so here goes. Yes, faith and wid
this--_this_ to help me on the way!" He snatched up a heavy purse which
had fallen from his uncle's pocket in the struggle. "And sure, there's
neither hurt nor harm in getting back a little of a body's own from
you. A bright good-morning, uncle dear!"
Shamus dragged his manacled relative into the shop, quickly shut to and
locked the door, flung the key over the house into the Thames, and the
next instant was running at headlong speed.
He was not so deficient in the calculations of common-sense as to think
himself yet out of his uncle's power. It appeared, indeed, pretty
certain, that neither for the violence done to his person, nor for the
purse appropriated by his nephew, the outlawed murderer would raise a
hue and cry after one who, aware of his identity, could deliver him up
to the laws of his country. But Shamus felt certain that it would be a
race between him and his uncle for the treasure that lay under the
friar's tombstone. His simple nature supplied no stronger motive for a
pursuit on the part of a man whose life now lay in the breath of his
mouth. Full of his conviction, however, Shamus saw he had not a moment
to lose until the roof of his shed in the old abbey again sheltered
him. So, freely making use of his uncle's guineas, he purchased a
strong horse in the outskirts of London, and to the surprise, if not
under heavy suspicions of the vender, set off at a gallop upon the road
by which he had the day before gained the great metropolis.
A ship was ready to sail at Bristol for Ireland; but, to Shamus's
discomfiture, she waited for a wind. He got aboard, however, and in the
darksome and squalid hold often knelt down and, with clasped hands and
panting breast, petitioned Heaven for a favorable breeze. But from
morning until evening the wind remained as he had found it, and Shamus
despaired. His uncle, meantime, might have reached some other port, and
embarked for their country. In the depth of his anguish he heard a
brisk bustle upon deck, clambered up to investigate its cause, and
found the ship's sails already half unfurled to a wind that promised to
bear him to his native shores by the next morning. The last light of
day yet lingered in the heavens: he glanced, now under way, to the quay
of Bristol. A group who had been watching the departure of the vessel
turned round to note the approach to them of a man who ran furiously
towards the place where they stood, pointing after her, and evidently
speaking with vehemence, although no words reached Shamus's ear.
Neither was his eye sure of this person's features; but his heart read
them distinctly. A boat shot from the quay; the man stood up in it, and
its rowers made a signal.
Shamus stepped to the gangway, as if preparing to hurl his pursuer into
the sea. The captain took a speaking-trumpet, and informing the boat
that he could not stop an instant, advised her to wait for another
merchantman, which would sail in an hour. And during and after his
speech his vessel ploughed cheerily on, making as much way as she was
adapted to accomplish.
Shamus's bosom felt lightened of its immediate terror, but not freed of
apprehension for the future. The ship that was to sail in an hour
haunted his thoughts: he did not leave the deck, and, although the
night proved very dark, his anxious eyes were never turned from the
English coast. Unusual fatigue and want of sleep now and then
overpowered him, and his senses swam in a wild and snatching slumber;
but from this he would start, crying out and clinging to the cordage,
as the feverish dream of an instant presented him with the swelling
canvas of a fast-sailing ship, which came, suddenly bursting through
the gloom of midnight, alongside of his own. Morning dawned, really to
unveil to him the object of his fears following almost in the wake of
her rival. He glanced in the opposite direction, and beheld the shores
of Ireland; in another hour he jumped upon them; but his enemy's face
watched him from the deck of the companion vessel, now not more than a
few ropes' lengths distant.