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THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD
by
J. SHERIDAN LE FANU
Author of 'Uncle Silas' and 'Torlogh O'brien'
Dublin:
James Duffy and Co., Ltd. New York: The MacMillan Company.
1904.
Printed by Edmund Burke & Co., 61 & 62 Great Strand
Street, Dublin.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. Page
A Prologue--being a dish of village chat 1
I.--The rector's night-walk to his church 9
II.--The nameless coffin 12
III.--Mr. Mervyn in his inn 15
IV.--The Fair-green of Palmerstown 18
V.--How the Royal Artillery entertained some of the
neighbours at dinner 25
VI.--In which the minstrelsy proceeds 32
VII.--Showing how two gentlemen may misunderstand one another,
without enabling the company to understand their quarrel 35
VIII.--Relating how Doctor Toole and Captain Devereux went
on a moonlight errand 40
IX.--How a squire was found for the knight of the rueful
countenance 44
X.--The dead secret, showing how the fireworker proved
to Puddock that Nutter had spied out the nakedness
of the land 48
XI.--Some talk about the haunted house--being, as I suppose,
only old woman's tales 53
XII.--Some odd facts about the Tiled House--being an
authentic narrative of the ghost of a hand 57
XIII.--In which the rector visits the Tiled House,
and Doctor Toole looks after the Brass Castle 63
XIV.--Relating how Puddock purged O'Flaherty's head--a
chapter which, it is hoped, no genteel person will read 66
XV.--Æsculapius to the rescue 69
XVI.--The ordeal by battle 73
XVII.--Lieutenant Puddock receives an invitation and a rap
over the knuckles 81
XVIII.--Relating how the gentlemen sat over their claret,
and how Doctor Sturk saw a face 86
XIX.--In which the gentlemen follow the ladies 91
XX.--In which Mr. Dangerfield visits the church of Chapelizod,
and Zekiel Irons goes a-fishing 94
XXI.--Relating among other things how Doctor Toole walked
up to the Tiled House, and of his pleasant discourse with
Mr. Mervyn 100
XXII.--Telling how Mr. Mervyn fared at Belmont, and of a pleasant
little dejeuner by the margin of the Liffey 104
XXIII.--Which concerns the grand dinner at the King's House, and
who were there, and something of their talk, reveries,
disputes, and general jollity 108
XXIV.--In which two young persons understand one another better,
perhaps, than ever they did before, without saying so 113
XXV.--In which the sun sets, and the merry-making is kept up
by candle-light in the King's House, and Lily receives a
warning which she does not comprehend 116
XXVI.--Relating how the band of the Royal Irish Artillery played,
and, while the music was going on, how variously different
people were moved 122
XXVII.--Concerning the troubles and the shapes that began to gather
about Doctor Sturk 125
XXVIII.--In which Mr. Irons recounts some old recollections about
the Pied-horse and the Flower de Luce 129
XXIX.--Showing how poor Mrs. Macnamara was troubled and
haunted too, and opening a budget of gossip 132
XXX.--Concerning a certain woman in black 137
XXXI.--Being a short history of the great battle of Belmont that
lasted for so many days, wherein the belligerents showed
so much constancy and valour, and sometimes one side
and sometimes t'other was victorious 141
XXXII.--Narrating how Lieutenant Puddock and Captain Devereux
brewed a bowl of punch, and how they sang and discoursed
together 143
XXXIII.--In which Captain Devereux's fiddle plays a prelude to
'Over the hills and far away' 146
XXXIV.--In which Lilias hears a stave of an old song and
there is a leave-taking beside the river 148
XXXV.--In which Aunt Becky and Doctor Toole, in full blow,
with Dominick the footman, behind, visit Miss Lily at
the Elms 152
XXXVI.--Narrating how Miss Lilias visited Belmont, and saw a
strange cocked-hat in the shadow by the window 155
XXXVII.--Showing how some of the feuds in Chapelizod wared
fiercer, and others were solemnly condoned 158
XXXVIII.--Dreams and troubles, and a dark look-out 161
XXXIX.--Telling how Lilias Walsingham found two ladies awaiting
her arrival at the Elms 166
XL.--Of a messenger from Chapelizod vault who waited in the
Tiled House for Mr. Mervyn 168
XLI.--In which the rector comes home, and Lily speaks her
mind, and time glides on, and Aunt Rebecca calls at
the Elms 173
XLII.--In which Doctor Sturk tries this way and that for
a reprieve on the eve of execution 177
XLIII.--Showing how Charles Nutter's blow descended, and what
part the silver spectacles bore in the crisis 180
XLIV.--Relating how, in the watches of the night, a vision came
to Sturk, and his eyes were opened 184
XLV.--Concerning a little rehearsal in Captain Cluffe's lodging,
and a certain confidence between Doctor Sturk and Mr.
Dangerfield 187
XLVI.--The closet scene, with the part of Polonius omitted 191
XLVII.--In which pale Hecate visits the Mills, and Charles Nutter,
Esq., orders tea 195
XLVIII.--Swans on the water 202
XLIX.--Swans in the water 206
L.--Treating of some confusion, in consequence, in the
club-room of the Phoenix and elsewhere, and
of a hat that was picked up 208
LI.--How Charles Nutter's tea, pipe, and tobacco-box were
all set out for him in the small parlour at the
Mills, and how that night was passed in the house
by the church-yard 213
LII.--Concerning a rouleau of guineas and the crack
of a pistol 218
LIII.--Relating after what fashion Doctor Sturk came home 221
LIV.--In which Miss Magnolia and Doctor Toole, in different
scenes, prove themselves Good Samaritans; and the
great Doctor Pell mounts the stairs of the House by the
Church-yard 225
LV.--In which Doctor Toole, in full costume, stands upon the
hearth-stone of the club, and illuminates the company
with his back to the fire 230
LVI.--Doctor Walsingham and the Chapelizod Christians meet
to the sound of the holy bell, and a vampire sits in the
church 233
LVII.--In which Doctor Toole and Mr. Lowe make a visit at
the Mills, and recognise something remarkable while
there 235
LVIII.--In which one of little Bopeep's sheep comes home again,
and various theories are entertained respecting Charles
Nutter and Lieutenant Puddock 235
LIX.--Telling How a Coach Drew Up at the Elms, and Two Fine
Ladies, Dressed For the Ball, Stepped in. 244
LX.--Being a Chapter of Hoops, Feathers, and Brilliants,
and Bucks And Fiddlers. 249
LXI.--In Which the Ghosts of a By-gone Sin Keep Tryst. 254
LXII.--Of a Solemn Resolution Which Captain Devereux Registered
Among His Household Gods, With a Libation. 257
LXIII.--In Which a Liberty Is Taken With Mr. Nutter's Name,
and Mr. Dangerfield Stands at the Altar. 261
LXIV.--Being a Night Scene, in Which Miss Gertrude Chattesworth,
Being Adjured By Aunt Becky, Makes Answer. 266
LXV.--Relating Some Awful News That Reached the Village,
and How Dr. Walsingham Visited Captain Richard Devereux
at His Lodgings. 271
LXVI.--Of a Certain Tempest That Arose and Shook the
Captain's Spoons And Tea-cups; and How the Wind
Suddenly Went Down. 274
LXVII.--In Which a Certain Troubled Spirit Walks. 278
LXVIII.--How an Evening Passes at the Elms, and Dr. Toole Makes
a Little Excursion; and Two Choice Spirits Discourse,
and Hebe Trips in With The Nectar. 281
LXIX.--Concerning a Second Hurricane That Raged in Captain
Devereux's Drawing-room, and Relating How Mrs. Irons
Was Attacked With a Sort Of Choking in Her Bed. 285
LXX.--In Which an Unexpected Visitor Is Seen in the
Cedar-parlour of The Tiled House, and the Story of
Mr. Beauclerc and the 'flower de Luce' Begins To
Be Unfolded. 290
LXXI.--In Which Mr. Irons's Narrative Reaches Merton Moor. 295
LXXII.--In Which the Apparition of Mr. Irons Is Swallowed in
Darkness. 300
LXXIII.--Concerning a Certain Gentleman, with a Black Patch
Over His Eye, who made some Visits with a Lady,
in Chapelizod and its Neighbourhood. 304
LXXIV.--In Which Doctor Toole, in His Boots, Visits Mr. Gamble,
and Sees an Ugly Client of That Gentleman's; and
Something Crosses an Empty Room. 307
LXXV.--How a Gentleman Paid a Visit at the Brass Castle, and
There Read A Paragraph in an Old Newspaper. 311
LXXVI.--Relating How the Castle Was Taken, and How Mistress
Moggy Took Heart Of Grace. 316
LXXVII.--In Which Irish Melody Prevails. 321
LXXVIII.--In Which, While the Harmony Continues in Father Roach's
Front Parlour, A Few Discords Are Introduced Elsewhere;
and Doctor Toole Arrives in The Morning With a
Marvellous Budget of News. 325
LXXIX.--Showing How Little Lily's Life Began To Change Into
a Retrospect; And How on a Sudden She Began To Feel
Better. 330
LXXX.--In Which Two Acquaintances Become, on a Sudden,
Marvellously Friendly In The Church-yard; and Mr.
Dangerfield Smokes a Pipe in the Brass Castle,
and Resolves That the Dumb Shall Speak. 333
LXXXI.--In Which Mr. Dangerfield Receives a Visitor, and Makes
a Call. 339
LXXXII.--In Which Mr. Paul Dangerfield Pays His Respects and
Compliments At Belmont; Where Other Visitors Also
Present Themselves. 343
LXXXIII.--In Which the Knight of the Silver Spectacles Makes the
Acquaintance Of The Sage 'black Dillon,' and Confers
With Him in His Retreat. 349
LXXXIV.--In Which Christiana Goes Over; and Dan Loftus
Comes Home. 353
LXXXV.--In Which Captain Devereux Hears the News; and Mr.
Dangerfield Meets An Old Friend After Dinner. 357
LXXXVI.--In Which Mr. Paul Dangerfield Mounts the Stairs of the
House by The Church-yard, and Makes Some Arrangements. 364
LXXXVII.--In Which Two Comrades Are Tete-a-tete in Their Old
Quarters, and Doctor Sturk's Cue Is Cut Off, and a
Consultation Commences. 370
LXXXVIII.--In Which Mr. Moore the Barber Arrives, and the Medical
Gentlemen Lock The Door. 376
LXXXIX.--In Which a Certain Songster Treats the Company To a
Dolorous Ballad Whereby Mr. Irons Is Somewhat Moved. 384
XC.--Mr. Paul Dangerfield Has Something on His Mind, and
Captain Devereux Receives a Message. 390
XCI.--Concerning Certain Documents Which Reached Mr. Mervyn,
and the Witches' Revels at the Mills. 396
XCII.--The Wher-wolf. 401
XCIII.--In Which Doctor Toole and Dirty Davy Confer in
the Blue-room. 408
XCIV.--What Doctor Sturk Brought To Mind, and All That
Doctor Toole Heard At Mr. Luke Gamble's. 414
XCV.--In Which Doctor Pell Declines a Fee, and Doctor Sturk
a Prescription. 422
XCVI.--About the Rightful Mrs. Nutter of the Mills, and How
Mr. Mervyn Received The News. 427
XCVII.--In Which Obediah Arrives. 436
XCVIII.--In Which Charles Archer Puts Himself Upon the Country. 441
XCIX.--The Story Ends. 452
[Illustration]
THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
A PROLOGUE--BEING A DISH OF VILLAGE CHAT.
We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of what
was going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years,
to be sure, is a good while; but though fashions have changed, some old
phrases dropped out, and new ones come in; and snuff and hair-powder,
and sacques and solitaires quite passed away--yet men and women were men
and women all the same--as elderly fellows, like your humble servant,
who have seen and talked with rearward stragglers of that
generation--now all and long marched off--can testify, if they will.
In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of the
outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. The
poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed a
glimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined the
banks of the river and the valley of the Liffey, with a lively sort of
richness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steep
roofs and many coloured hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond the
turnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by
the mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the
sign of the Phoenix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, and
sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confronting
the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,
and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of
Skinner's Alley--a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobite
wars of the previous century--the corporation of shoemakers, or of
tailors, or the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at the
stately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and
wisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean gone
as the guests--a dream of the shadow of smoke.
Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'--so called from the
blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board--at the other
end of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right angles
from the line of the broad street, and directly confronting the
passenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the character of a
square, and just left room for the high road and Martin's Row to slip
between its flank and the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well!
it is gone. I blame nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that the
rats would soon have thrown up their lease of it; and that it was taken
down, in short, chiefly, as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' to
prevent the inconvenience of its coming down of itself. Still a peevish
but harmless old fellow--who hates change, and would wish things to stay
as they were just a little, till his own great change comes; who haunts
the places where his childhood was passed, and reverences the homeliest
relics of by-gone generations--may be allowed to grumble a little at the
impertinences of improving proprietors with a taste for accurate
parallelograms and pale new brick.
Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and rustling from
base to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The royal arms cut in
bold relief in the broad stone over the porch--where, pray, is that
stone now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity? Where is the
elevated pew, where many a lord lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, and
thunder-cloud periwig, sate in awful isolation, and listened to orthodox
and loyal sermons, and took French rappee; whence too, he stepped forth
between the files of the guard of honour of the Royal Irish Artillery
from the barrack over the way, in their courtly uniform, white, scarlet,
and blue, cocked hats, and cues, and ruffles, presenting arms--into his
emblazoned coach and six, with hanging footmen, as wonderful as
Cinderella's, and out-riders out-blazing the liveries of the troops, and
rolling grandly away in sunshine and dust.
The 'Ecclesiastical Commissioners' have done their office here. The
tower, indeed, remains, with half its antique growth of ivy gone; but
the body of the church is new, and I, and perhaps an elderly fellow or
two more, miss the old-fashioned square pews, distributed by a
traditional tenure among the families and dignitaries of the town and
vicinage (who are they now?), and sigh for the queer, old, clumsy
reading-desk and pulpit, grown dearer from the long and hopeless
separation; and wonder where the tables of the Ten Commandments, in long
gold letters of Queen Anne's date, upon a vivid blue ground, arched
above, and flanking the communion-table, with its tall thin rails, and
fifty other things that appeared to me in my nonage, as stable as the
earth, and as sacred as the heavens, are gone to.
As for the barrack of the Royal Irish Artillery, the great gate leading
into the parade ground, by the river side, and all that, I believe the
earth, or rather that grim giant factory, which is now the grand feature
and centre of Chapelizod, throbbing all over with steam, and whizzing
with wheels, and vomiting pitchy smoke, has swallowed them up.
A line of houses fronting this--old familiar faces--still look blank and
regretfully forth, through their glassy eyes, upon the changed scene.
How different the company they kept some ninety or a hundred years ago!
Where is the mill, too, standing fast by the bridge, the manorial
appendage of the town, which I loved in my boyhood for its gaunt and
crazy aspect and dim interior, whence the clapper kept time mysteriously
to the drone of the mill-sluice? I think it is gone. Surely _that_
confounded thing can't be my venerable old friend in masquerade!
But I can't expect you, my reader--polite and patient as you manifestly
are--to potter about with me, all the summer day, through this
melancholy and mangled old town, with a canopy of factory soot between
your head and the pleasant sky. One glance, however, before you go, you
will vouchsafe at the village tree--that stalworth elm. It has not grown
an inch these hundred years. It does not look a day older than it did
fifty years ago, _I_ can tell you. There he stands the same; and yet a
stranger in the place of his birth, in a new order of things, joyless,
busy, transformed Chapelizod, listening, as it seems to me, always to
the unchanged song and prattle of the river, with his reveries and
affections far away among by-gone times and a buried race. Thou hast a
story, too, to tell, thou slighted and solitary sage, if only the winds
would steal it musically forth, like the secret of Mildas from the
moaning reeds.
The palmy days of Chapelizod were just about a hundred years ago, and
those days--though I am jealous of their pleasant and kindly fame, and
specially for the preservation of the few memorials they have left
behind, were yet, I may say, in your ear, with all their colour and
adventure--perhaps, on the whole, more pleasant to read about, and dream
of, than they were to live in. Still their violence, follies, and
hospitalities, softened by distance, and illuminated with a sort of
barbaric splendour, have long presented to my fancy the glowing and
ever-shifting combinations upon which, as on the red embers, in a
winter's gloaming, I love to gaze, propping my white head upon my hand,
in a lazy luxury of reverie, from my own arm-chair, while they drop,
ever and anon, into new shapes, and silently tell their 'winter's
tales.'
When your humble servant, Charles de Cresseron, the compiler of this
narrative, was a boy some fourteen years old--how long ago precisely
that was, is nothing to the purpose, 'tis enough to say he remembers
what he then saw and heard a good deal better than what happened a week
ago--it came to pass that he was spending a pleasant week of his
holidays with his benign uncle and godfather, the curate of Chapelizod.
On the second day of his, or rather _my_ sojourn (I take leave to return
to the first person), there was a notable funeral of an old lady. Her
name was Darby, and her journey to her last home was very considerable,
being made in a hearse, by easy stages, from her house of Lisnabane, in
the county of Sligo, to the church-yard of Chapelizod. There was a great
flat stone over that small parcel of the rector's freehold, which the
family held by a tenure, not of lives, but of deaths, renewable for
ever. So that my uncle, who was a man of an anxious temperament, had
little trouble in satisfying himself of the meerings and identity of
this narrow tenement, to which Lemuel Mattocks, the sexton, led him as
straight and confidently as he could have done to the communion-table.
My uncle, therefore, fiated the sexton's presentment, and the work
commenced forthwith. I don't know whether all boys have the same liking
for horrors which I am conscious of having possessed--I only know that I
liked the churchyard, and deciphering tombstones, and watching the
labours of the sexton, and hearing the old world village talk that often
got up over the relics.
When this particular grave was pretty nearly finished--it lay from east
to west--a lot of earth fell out at the northern side, where an old
coffin had lain, and good store of brown dust and grimy bones, and the
yellow skull itself came tumbling about the sexton's feet. These
fossils, after his wont, he lifted decently with the point of his
shovel, and pitched into a little nook beside the great mound of mould
at top.
'Be the powers o' war! here's a battered head-piece for yez,' said young
Tim Moran, who had picked up the cranium, and was eyeing it curiously,
turning it round the while.
'Show it here, Tim;' 'let _me_ look,' cried two or three neighbours,
getting round as quickly as they could.
'Oh! murdher;' said one.
'Oh! be the powers o' Moll Kelly!' cried another.
'Oh! bloody wars!' exclaimed a third.
'That poor fellow got no chance for his life at all, at all!' said Tim.
'That was a bullet,' said one of them, putting his finger into a clean
circular aperture as large as a half-penny.
'An' look at them two cracks. Och, murther!'
'There's only one. Oh, I see you're right, _two_, begorra!'
'Aich o' them a wipe iv a poker.'
Mattocks had climbed nimbly to the upper level, and taking the skull in
his fist, turned it about this way and that, curiously. But though he
was no chicken, his memory did not go far enough back to throw any light
upon the matter.
'Could it be the Mattross that was shot in the year '90, as I often
heerd, for sthrikin' his captain?' suggested a by-stander.
'Oh! that poor fellow's buried round by the north side of the church,'
said Mattocks, still eyeing the skull. 'It could not be Counsellor
Gallagher, that was kilt in the jewel with Colonel Ruck--he was hot in
the head--bud it could not be--augh! not at all.'
'Why not, Misther Mattocks?'
'No, nor the Mattross neither. This, ye see, is a dhry bit o' the yard
here; there's ould Darby's coffin, at the bottom, down there, sound
enough to stand on, as you see, wid a plank; an' he was buried in the
year '93. Why, look at the coffin this skull belongs to, 'tid go into
powdher between your fingers; 'tis nothin' but tindher.'
'I believe you're right, Mr. Mattocks.'
'Phiat! to be sure. 'Tis longer undher ground by thirty years, good, or
more maybe.'
Just then the slim figure of my tall mild uncle, the curate, appeared,
and his long thin legs, in black worsted stockings and knee-breeches,
stepped reverently and lightly among the graves. The men raised their
hats, and Mattocks jumped lightly into the grave again, while my uncle
returned their salute with the sad sort of smile, a regretful kindness,
which he never exceeded, in these solemn precincts.
It was his custom to care very tenderly for the bones turned up by the
sexton, and to wait with an awful solicitude until, after the reading of
the funeral service, he saw them gently replaced, as nearly as might be,
in their old bed; and discouraging all idle curiosity or levity
respecting them, with a solemn rebuke, which all respected. Therefore it
was, that so soon as he appeared the skull was, in Hibernian phrase,
'dropt like a hot potato,' and the grave-digger betook himself to his
spade so nimbly.
'Oh! Uncle Charles,' I said, taking his hand, and leading him towards
the foot of the grave; 'such a wonderful skull has come up! It is shot
through with a bullet, and cracked with a poker besides.'
''Tis thrue for him, your raverence; he was murthered twiste over,
whoever he was--rest his sowl;' and the sexton, who had nearly completed
his work, got out of the grave again, with a demure activity, and
raising the brown relic with great reverence, out of regard for my good
uncle, he turned it about slowly before the eyes of the curate, who
scrutinised it, from a little distance, with a sort of melancholy
horror.
'Yes, Lemuel,' said my uncle, still holding my hand, ''twas undoubtedly
a murder; ay, indeed! He sustained two heavy blows, beside that gunshot
through the head.'
''Twasn't gunshot, Sir; why the hole 'id take in a grape-shot,' said an
old fellow, just from behind my uncle, in a pensioner's cocked hat,
leggings, and long old-world red frock-coat, speaking with a harsh reedy
voice, and a grim sort of reserved smile.
I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him freer access
to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw a light upon the
history of this remarkable memorial. The old fellow had a rat-like gray
eye--the other was hid under a black patch--and there was a deep red
scar across his forehead, slanting from the patch that covered the
extinguished orb. His face was purplish, the tinge deepening towards the
lumpish top of his nose, on the side of which stood a big wart, and he
carried a great walking-cane over his shoulder, and bore, as it seemed
to me, an intimidating, but caricatured resemblance to an old portrait
of Oliver Cromwell in my Whig grandfather's parlour.
'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle, mildly, and
touching his hat--for coming of a military stock himself, he always
treated an old soldier with uncommon respect.
'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating his
courtesy; 'I _know_ it's not.'
'And what _is_ it, then, my good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one
in authority, and standing on his own dunghill.
'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have cried
'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and with a
scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray eye.
'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the curate.
'Ay do I, Sir, _well_,' with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come,
now, you're a grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the
sexton cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under
ground?'
'Long enough; but not so long, _my_ fine fellow, as yours has been above
ground.'
'Well, you're right there, for _I_ seen him buried,' and he took the
skull from the sexton's hands; 'and I'll tell you more, there was some
dry eyes, too, at his funeral--ha, ha, ha!'
'You were a resident in the town, then?' said my uncle, who did not like
the turn his recollections were taking.
'Ay, Sir, that I was,' he replied; 'see that broken tooth, there--I
forgot 'twas there--and the minute I seen it, I remembered it like this
morning--I could swear to it--when he laughed; ay, and that sharp corner
to it--hang him,' and he twirled the loose tooth, the last but two of
all its fellows, from' its socket, and chucked it into the grave.
'And were you--you weren't in the army, _then_?' enquired the curate,
who could not understand the sort of scoffing dislike he seemed to bear
it.
'Be my faith I was _so_, Sir--the Royal Irish Artillery,' replied he,
promptly.
'And in what capacity?' pursued his reverence.
'Drummer,' answered the mulberry-faced veteran.
'Ho!--Drummer? That's a good time ago, I dare say,' said my uncle,
looking on him reflectively.
'Well, so it is, not far off fifty years,' answered he. 'He was a
hard-headed codger, he was; but you see the sprig of shillelagh was too
hard for him--ha, ha, ha!' and he gave the skull a smart knock with his
walking-cane, as he grinned at it and wagged his head.
'Gently, gently, my good man,' said the curate, placing his hand hastily
upon his arm, for the knock was harder than was needed for the purpose
of demonstration.
'You see, Sir, at that time, our Colonel-in-Chief was my Lord
Blackwater,' continued the old soldier, 'not that we often seen him, for
he lived in France mostly; the Colonel-en-Second was General
Chattesworth, and Colonel Stafford was Lieutenant-Colonel, and under him
Major O'Neill; Captains, four--Cluffe, Devereux, Barton, and Burgh:
First Lieutenants--Puddock, Delany, Sackville, and Armstrong; Second
Lieutenants--Salt; Barber, Lillyman, and Pringle; Lieutenant
Fireworkers--O'Flaherty--'
'I beg your pardon,' interposed my uncle, '_Fireworkers_, did you say?'
'Yes, Sir.'
'And what, pray, does a Lieutenant _Fireworker_ mean?'
'Why, law bless you, Sir! a Fireworker! 'twas his business to see that
the men loaded, sarved, laid, and fired the gun all right. But that
doesn't signify; you see this old skull, Sir: well, 'twas a nine days'
wonder, and the queerest business you ever heerd tell of. Why, Sir, the
women was frightened out of their senses, an' the men puzzled out o'
their wits--they wor--ha, ha, ha! an' I can tell you all about it--a
mighty black and bloody business it was--'
'I--I beg your pardon, Sir: but I think--yes--the funeral has arrived;
and for the present, I must bid you good-morning.'
And so my uncle hurried to the church, where he assumed his gown, and
the solemn rite proceeded.
When all was over, my uncle, after his wont, waited until he had seen
the disturbed remains re-deposited decently in their place; and then,
having disrobed, I saw him look with some interest about the
church-yard, and I knew 'twas in quest of the old soldier.
'I saw him go away during the funeral,' I said.
'Ay, the old pensioner,' said my uncle, peering about in quest of him.
And we walked through the town, and over the bridge, and we saw nothing
of his cocked hat and red single-breasted frock, and returned rather
disappointed to tea.
I ran into the back room which commanded the church-yard in the hope of
seeing the old fellow once more, with his cane shouldered, grinning
among the tombstones in the evening sun. But there was no sign of him,
or indeed of anyone else there. So I returned, just as my uncle, having
made the tea, shut down the lid of his silver tea-pot with a little
smack; and with a kind but absent smile upon me, he took his book, sat
down and crossed one of his thin legs over the other, and waited
pleasantly until the delightful infusion should be ready for our lips,
reading his old volume, and with his disengaged hand gently stroking his
long shin-bone.
In the meantime, I, who thirsted more for that tale of terror which the
old soldier had all but begun, of which in that strangely battered skull
I had only an hour ago seen face to face so grizzly a memento, and of
which in all human probability I never was to hear more, looked out
dejectedly from the window, when, whom should I behold marching up the
street, at slow time, towards the Salmon House, but the identical old
soldier, cocked-hat, copper nose, great red single-breasted coat with
its prodigious wide button-holes, leggings, cane, and all, just under
the village tree.
'Here he is, oh! Uncle Charles, here he comes,' I cried.
'Eh, the soldier, is he?' said my uncle, tripping in the carpet in his
eagerness, and all but breaking the window.
'So it is, indeed; run down, my boy, and beg him to come up.'
But by the time I had reached the street, which you may be sure was not
very long, I found my uncle had got the window up and was himself
inviting the old boy, who having brought his left shoulder forward,
thanked the curate, saluting soldier-fashion, with his hand to his hat,
palm foremost. I've observed, indeed, than those grim old campaigners
who have seen the world, make it a principle to accept anything in the
shape of a treat. If it's bad, why, it costs them nothing; and if good,
so much the better.
So up he marched, and into the room with soldierly self-possession, and
being offered tea, preferred punch, and the ingredients were soon on the
little round table by the fire, which, the evening being sharp, was
pleasant; and the old fellow being seated, he brewed his nectar, to his
heart's content; and as we sipped our tea in pleased attention, he,
after his own fashion, commenced the story, to which I listened with an
interest which I confess has never subsided.
Many years after, as will sometimes happen, a flood of light was
unexpectedly poured over the details of his narrative; on my coming into
possession of the diary, curiously minute, and the voluminous
correspondence of Rebecca, sister to General Chattesworth, with whose
family I had the honour to be connected. And this journal, to me, with
my queer cat-like affection for this old village, a perfect
treasure--and the interminable _bundles_ of letters, sorted and arranged
so neatly, with little abstracts of their contents in red ink, in her
own firm thin hand upon the covers, from all and to all manner of
persons--for the industrious lady made fair copies of all the letters
she wrote--formed for many years my occasional, and always pleasant
winter night's reading.
I wish I could infuse their spirit into what I am going to tell, and
above all that I could inspire my readers with ever so little of the
peculiar interest with which the old town has always been tinted and
saddened to my eye. My boyish imagination, perhaps, kindled all the more
at the story, by reason of it being a good deal connected with the
identical old house in which we three--my dear uncle, my idle self, and
the queer old soldier--were then sitting. But wishes are as vain as
regrets; so I'll just do my best, bespeaking your attention, and
submissively abiding your judgment.
CHAPTER I.
THE RECTOR'S NIGHT-WALK TO HIS CHURCH.
A.D. 1767--in the beginning of the month of May--I mention it because,
as I said, I write from memoranda, an awfully dark night came down on
Chapelizod and all the country round.
I believe there was no moon, and the stars had been quite put out under
the wet 'blanket of the night,' which impenetrable muffler overspread
the sky with a funereal darkness.
There was a little of that sheet-lightning early in the evening, which
betokens sultry weather. The clouds, column after column, came up
sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling themselves from one horizon
to the other into one black dome of vapour, their slow but steady motion
contrasting with the awful stillness of the air. There was a weight in
the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little
town, as if unseen crime or danger--some mystery of iniquity--was
stealing into the heart of it, and the disapproving heavens scowled a
melancholy warning.
That morning old Sally, the rector's housekeeper, was disquieted. She
had dreamed of making the great four-post, state bed, with the dark
green damask curtains--a dream that betokened some coming trouble--it
might, to be sure, be ever so small--(it had once come with no worse
result than Dr. Walsingham's dropping his purse, containing something
under a guinea in silver, over the side of the ferry boat)--but again it
might be tremendous. The omen hung over them doubtful.
A large square letter, with a great round seal, as big as a crown piece,
addressed to the Rev. Hugh Walsingham, Doctor of Divinity, at his house,
by the bridge, in Chapelizod, had reached him in the morning, and
plainly troubled him. He kept the messenger a good hour awaiting his
answer; and, just at two o'clock, the same messenger returned with a
second letter--but this time a note sufficed for reply. ''Twill seem
ungracious,' said the doctor, knitting his brows over his closed folio
in the study; 'but I cannot choose but walk clear in my calling before
the Lord. How can I honestly pronounce hope, when in my mind there is
nothing but _fear_--let another do it if he see his way--I do enough in
being present, as 'tis right I should.'
It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night--a rush and downpour of rain!
The doctor stood just under the porch of the stout brick house--of King
William's date, which was then the residence of the worthy rector of
Chapelizod--with his great surtout and cape on--his leggings buttoned
up--and his capacious leather 'overalls' pulled up and strapped over
these--and his broad-leafed hat tied down over his wig and ears with a
mighty silk kerchief. I dare say he looked absurd enough--but it was the
women's doing--who always, upon emergencies, took the doctor's wardrobe
in hand. Old Sally, with her kind, mild, grave face, and gray locks,
stood modestly behind in the hall; and pretty Lilias, his only child,
gave him her parting kiss, and her last grand charge about his shoes and
other exterior toggery, in the porch; and he patted her cheek with a
little fond laugh, taking old John Tracy's, the butler's, arm. John
carried a handsome horn-lantern, which flashed now on a roadside
bush--now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge--and now on a
streaming window. They stepped out--there were no umbrellas in those
days--splashing among the wide and widening pools; while Sally and
Lilias stood in the porch, holding candles for full five minutes after
the doctor and his 'Jack-o'-the-lantern,' as he called honest John,
whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night excursions, had
got round the corner.
Through the back bow-window of the Phoenix, there pealed forth--faint in
the distance and rain--a solemn royal ditty, piped by the tuneful
Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and neither unmusical nor somehow
uncongenial with the darkness, and the melancholy object of the doctor's
walk, the chant being rather monastic, wild, and dirge-like. It was a
quarter past ten, and no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was
stirring. If secrecy were an object, it was well secured by the sable
sky, and the steady torrent which rolled down with electric weight and
perpendicularity, making all nature resound with one long
hush--sh--sh--sh--sh--deluging the broad street, and turning the
channels and gutters into mimic mill-streams which snorted and hurtled
headlong through their uneven beds, and round the corners towards the
turbid Liffey, which, battered all over with rain, muddy, and sullen,
reeled its way towards the sea, rolling up to the heavens an aspect
black as their own.
As they passed by the Phoenix (a little rivulet, by-the-bye, was
spouting down from the corner of the sign; and indeed the night was such
as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon all thoughts of
self-incremation, and submit to an unprecedented death by drowning),
there was no idle officer, or lounging waiter upon the threshold.
Military and civilians were all snug in their quarters that night; and
the inn, except for the 'Aldermen' in the back parlour, was doing no
business. The door was nearly closed, and only let out a tall, narrow
slice of candle-light upon the lake of mud, over every inch of which the
rain was drumming.
The doctor's lantern glided by--and then across the street--and so
leisurely along the foot-way, by the range of lightless hall doors
towards the Salmon House, also dark; and so, sharp round the corner, and
up to the church-yard gate, which stood a little open, as also the
church door beyond, as was evidenced by the feeble glow of a lantern
from within.
I dare say old Bob Martin, the sexton, and grave Mr. Irons, the clerk,
were reassured when they heard the cheery voice of the rector hailing
them by name. There were now three candles in church; but the edifice
looked unpleasantly dim, and went off at the far end into total
darkness. Zekiel Irons was a lean, reserved fellow, with a black wig and
blue chin, and something shy and sinister in his phiz. I don't think he
had entertained honest Bob with much conversation from those thin lips
of his during their grizzly _tête-à-tête_ among the black windows and
the mural tablets that overhung the aisle.
But the rector had lots to say--though deliberately and gravely, still
the voice was genial and inspiring--and exorcised the shadows that had
been gathering stealthily around the lesser Church functionaries. Mrs.
Irons's tooth, he learned, was still bad; but she was no longer troubled
with 'that sour humour in her stomach.' There were sour humours, alas!
still remaining--enough, and to spare, as the clerk knew to his cost.
Bob Martin thanked his reverence; the cold rheumatism in his hip was
better.' Irons, the clerk, replied, 'he had brought two prayer-books.'
Bob averred 'he could not be mistaken; the old lady was buried in the
near-vault; though it was forty years before, he remembered it like last
night. They changed her into her lead coffin in the vault--he and the
undertaker together--her own servants would not put a hand to her. She
was buried in white satin, and with her rings on her fingers. It was her
fancy, and so ordered in her will. They said she was mad. He'd know her
face again if he saw her. She had a long hooked nose; and her eyes were
open. For, as he was told, she died in her sleep, and was quite cold and
stiff when they found her in the morning. He went down and saw the
coffin to-day, half an hour after meeting his reverence.'
The rector consulted his great warming-pan of a watch. It was drawing
near eleven. He fell into a reverie, and rambled slowly up and down the
aisle, with his hands behind his back, and his dripping hat in them,
swinging nearly to the flags,--now lost in the darkness--now emerging
again, dim, nebulous, in the foggy light of the lanterns. When this
clerical portrait came near, he was looking down, with gathered brows,
upon the flags, moving his lips and nodding, as if counting them, as was
his way. The doctor was thinking all the time upon the one text:--Why
should this livid memorial of two great crimes be now disturbed, after
an obscurity of twenty-one years, as if to jog the memory of scandal,
and set the great throat of the monster baying once more at the old
midnight horror?
And as for that old house at Ballyfermot, why any one could have looked
after it as well as he. 'Still he must live somewhere, and certainly
this little town is quieter than the city, and the people, on the whole,
very kindly, and by no means curious.' This latter was a mistake of the
doctor's, who, like other simple persons, was fond of regarding others
as harmless repetitions of himself. 'And his sojourn will be,' he says,
'but a matter of weeks; and the doctors mind wandered back again to the
dead, and forward to the remoter consequences of his guilt, so he heaved
a heavy, honest sigh, and lifted up his head and slackened his pace for
a little prayer, and with that there came the rumble of wheels to the
church door.