Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 7

My eyes were still fixed upon them when suddenly Mike, whose devotion seemed of the briefest, sprang to his legs, and with a spirit of levity but little in accordance with his late proceedings, commenced a series of kicking, rapping, and knocking at a small oak postern sufficient to have aroused a whole convent from their cells. "House there! Good people within!"--bang, bang, bang; but the echoes alone responded to his call, and the sounds died away at length in the distant streets, leaving all as silent and dreary as before.

Our Portuguese friend, who by this time had finished his orisons, now began a vigorous attack upon the small door, and with the a.s.sistance of Mike, armed with a fragment of granite about the size of a man's head, at length separated the frame from the hinges, and sent the whole ma.s.s prostrate before us.

The moon was just rising as we entered the little park, where gravelled walks, neatly kept and well-trimmed, bespoke recent care and attention; following a handsome alley of lime-trees, we reached a little _jet d'eau_, whose sparkling fountain shone diamond-like in the moonbeams, and escaping from the edge of a vast sh.e.l.l, ran murmuring amidst mossy stones and water-lilies that, however naturally they seemed thrown around, bespoke also the hand of taste in their position. On turning from the spot, we came directly in front of an old but handsome chateau, before which stretched a terrace of considerable extent. Its bal.u.s.traded parapet lined with orange-trees, now in full blossom, scented the still air with delicious odor; marble statues peeped here and there amidst the foliage, while a rich acacia, loaded with flowers, covered the walls of the building, and hung in vast ma.s.ses of variegated blossom across the tall windows.

As leaning on Mike's arm I slowly ascended the steps of the terrace, I was more than ever struck with the silence and death-like stillness around; except the gentle plash of the fountain, all was at rest; the very plants seemed to sleep in the yellow moonlight, and not a trace of any living thing was there.

The ma.s.sive door lay open as we entered the s.p.a.cious hall flagged with marble and surrounded with armorial bearings. We advanced farther and came to a broad and handsome stair, which led us to a long gallery, from which a suit of rooms opened, looking towards the front part of the building.

Wherever we went, the furniture appeared perfectly untouched; nothing was removed; the very chairs were grouped around the windows and the tables; books, as if suddenly dropped from their readers' hands, were scattered upon the sofas and the ottomans; and in one small apartment, whose blue satin walls and damask drapery bespoke a boudoir, a rich mantilla of black velvet and a silk glove were thrown upon a chair. It was clear the desertion had been most recent, and everything indicated that no time had been given to the fugitives to prepare for flight. What a sad picture of war was there! To think of those whose home was endeared to them by all the refinements of cultivated life and all the a.s.sociations of years of happiness sent out upon the wide world wanderers and houseless, while their hearth, sacred by every tie that binds us to our kindred, was to be desecrated by the ruthless and savage hands of a ruffian soldiery. I thought of them,--perhaps at that very hour their thoughts were clinging round the old walls, remembering each well-beloved spot, while they took their lonely path through mountain and through valley,--and felt ashamed and abashed at my own intrusion there. While thus my revery ran on, I had not perceived that Mike, whose views were very practical upon all occasions, had lighted a most cheerful fire upon the hearth, and disposing a large sofa before it, had carefully closed the curtains; and was, in fact, making himself and his master as much at home as though he had spent his life there.

"Isn't it a beautiful place, Misther Charles? And this little room, doesn't it remind you of the blue bed-room in O'Malley Castle, barrin' the elegant view out upon the Shannon, and the mountain of Scariff?"

Nothing short of Mike's patriotism could forgive such a comparison; but, however, I did not contradict him as he ran on:--

"Faith, I knew well there was luck in store for us this evening; and ye see the handful of prayers I threw away outside wasn't lost. Jose's making the beasts comfortable in the stable, and I'm thinking we'll none of us complain of our quarters. But you're not eating your supper; and the beautiful hare-pie that I stole this morning, won't you taste it? Well, a gla.s.s of Malaga? Not a gla.s.s of Malaga? Oh, mother of Moses! what's this for?"

Unfortunately, the fever produced by the long and toilsome journey had gained considerably on me, and except copious libations of cold water, I could touch nothing; my arm, too, was much more painful than before. Mike soon perceived that rest and quietness were most important to me at the moment, and having with difficulty been prevailed upon to swallow a few hurried mouthfuls, the poor fellow disposed cushions around me in every imaginable form for comfort; and then, placing my wounded limb in its easiest position, he extinguished the lamp, and sat silently down beside the hearth, without speaking another word.

Fatigue and exhaustion, more powerful than pain, soon produced their effects upon me, and I fell asleep; but it was no refreshing slumber which visited my heavy eyelids; the slow fever of suffering had been hour by hour increasing, and my dreams presented nothing but scenes of agony and torture. Now I thought that, unhorsed and wounded, I was trampled beneath the clanging hoofs of charging cavalry; now I felt the sharp steel piercing my flesh, and heard the loud cry of a victorious enemy; then, methought, I was stretched upon a litter, covered by gore and mangled by a grape-shot.

I thought I saw my brother officers approach and look sadly upon me, while one, whose face I could not remember, muttered: "I should not have known him." The dreadful hospital of Talavera, and all its scenes of agony, came up before me, and I thought that I lay waiting my turn for amputation. This last impression, more horrible to me than all the rest, made me spring from my couch, and I awoke. The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my brow, my mouth was parched and open, and my temples throbbed so that I could count their beatings; for some seconds I could not throw off the frightful illusion I labored under, and it was only by degrees I recovered consciousness and remembered where I was. Before me, and on one side of the bright wood-fire, sat Mike, who, apparently deep in thought, gazed fixedly at the blaze. The start I gave on awaking had not attracted his attention, and I could see, as the flickering glare fell upon his features, that he was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips moved rapidly, as if in prayer, and his locked hands were pressed firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually distinguish, and at length heard the following muttered sentences:--

"Oh, mother of mercy! So far from his home and his people, and so young to die in a strange land--There it is again." Here he appeared listening to some sounds from without. "Oh, wirra, wirra, I know it well!--the winding-sheet, the winding-sheet! There it is; my own eyes saw it!"

The tears coursed fast upon his pale cheeks, and his voice grew almost inaudible, as rocking to and fro, for some time he seemed in a very stupor of grief; when at last, in a faint, subdued tone, he broke into one of those sad and plaintive airs of his country, which only need the moment of depression to make them wring the very heart in agony.

His song was that to which Moore has appended the beautiful lines, "Come rest on this bosom." The following imperfect translation may serve to convey some impression of the words, which in Mike's version were Irish:--

"The day was declining, The dark night drew near, And the old lord grew sadder And paler with fear: 'Come listen, my daughter, Come nearer, oh, near!

Is't the wind or the water That sighs in my ear?'

"Not the wind nor the water Now stirred the night air, But a warning far sadder,--.

The Banshee was there!

Now rising, now swelling, On the night wind it bore One cadence, still telling, 'I want thee, Rossmore!'

"And then fast came his breath, And more fixed grew his eye; And the shadow of death Told his hour was nigh.

Ere the dawn of that morning The struggle was o'er, For when thrice came the warning A corpse was Rossmore!"

The plaintive air to which these words were sung fell heavily upon my heart, and it needed but the low and nervous condition I was in to make me feel their application to myself. But so it is; the very superst.i.tion your reason rejects and your sense spurns, has, from old a.s.sociation, from habit, and from mere nationality too, a hold upon your hopes and fears that demands more firmness and courage than a sick-bed possesses to combat with success; and I now listened with an eager ear to mark if the Banshee cried, rather than sought to fortify myself by any recurrence to my own convictions. Meanwhile Mike's att.i.tude became one of listening attention.

Not a finger moved; he scarce seemed even to breathe; the state of suspense I suffered from was maddening; and at last, unable to bear it longer, I was about to speak, when suddenly, from the floor beneath us, one long-sustained note swelled upon the air and died away again, and immediately after, to the cheerful sounds of a guitar, we heard the husky voice of our Portuguese guide indulging himself in a love-ditty.

Ashamed of myself for my fears, I kept silent; but Mike, who felt only one sensation,--that of unmixed satisfaction at his mistake,--rubbed his hands pleasantly, filled up his gla.s.s, drank it, and refilled; while with an accent of rea.s.sured courage, he briefly remarked,--

"Well, Mr. Jose, if that be singing, upon my conscience I wonder what crying is like!"

I could not forbear a laugh at the criticism; and in a moment, the poor fellow, who up to that moment believed me sleeping, was beside me. I saw from his manner that he dreaded lest I had been listening to his melancholy song, and had overheard any of his gloomy forebodings; and as he cheered my spirits and spoke encouragingly, I could remark that he made more than usual endeavors to appear light-hearted and at ease. Determined, however, not to let him escape so easily, I questioned him about his belief in ghosts and spirits, at which he endeavored, as he ever did when the subject was an unpleasing one, to avoid the discussion; but rather perceiving that I indulged in no irreverent disrespect of these matters, he grew gradually more open, treating the affair with that strange mixture of credulity and mockery which formed his estimate of most things,--now seeming to suppose that any palpable rejection of them might entail sad consequences in future, now half ashamed to go the whole length in his credulity.

"And so, Mike, you never saw a ghost yourself?--that you acknowledge?"

"No, sir, I never saw a real ghost; but sure there's many a thing I never saw; but Mrs. Moore, the housekeeper, seen two. And your grandfather that's gone--the Lord be good to him!--used to walk once a year in Lurra Abbey; and sure you know the story about Tim Clinchy that was seen every Sat.u.r.day night coming out of the cellar with a candle and a mug of wine and a pipe in his mouth, till Mr. Barry laid him. It cost his honor your uncle ten pounds in Ma.s.ses to make him easy; not to speak of a new lock and two bolts on the cellar door."

"I have heard all about that; but as you never yourself saw any of these things--"

"But sure my father did, and that's the same any day. My father seen the greatest ghost that ever was seen in the county Cork, and spent the evening with him, that's more."

"Spent the evening with him!--what do you mean?"

"Just that, devil a more nor less. If your honor wasn't so weak, and the story wasn't a trying one, I'd like to tell it to you."

"Out with it by all means, Mike; I am not disposed to sleep; and now that we are upon these matters, my curiosity is strongly excited by your worthy father's experience."

Thus encouraged, having trimmed the fire and reseated himself beside the blaze, Mike began; but as a ghost is no every-day personage in our history, I must give him a chapter to himself.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GHOST.

"Well, I believe your honor heard me tell long ago how my father left the army, and the way that he took to another line of life that was more to his liking. And so it was, he was happy as the day was long; he drove a hea.r.s.e for Mr. Callaghan of Cork for many years, and a pleasant place it was; for ye see, my father was a 'cute man, and knew something of the world; and though he was a droll devil, and could sing a funny song when he was among the boys, no sooner had he the big black cloak on him and the weepers, and he seated on the high box with the six long-tailed blacks before him, you'd really think it was his own mother was inside, he looked so melancholy and miserable. The s.e.xton and gravedigger was nothing to my father; and he had a look about his eye--to be sure there was a reason for it--that you'd think he was up all night crying; though it's little indulgence he took that way.

"Well, of all Mr. Callaghan's men, there was none so great a favorite as my father. The neighbors were all fond of him.

"'A kind crayture, every inch of him!' the women would say. 'Did ye see his face at Mrs. Delany's funeral?'

"'True for you,' another would remark; 'he mistook the road with grief, and stopped at a shebeen house instead of Kilmurry church.'

"I need say no more, only one thing,--that it was princ.i.p.ally among the farmers and the country people my father was liked so much. The great people and the quality--ax your pardon; but sure isn't it true, Mister Charles?--they don't fret so much after their fathers and brothers, and they care little who's driving them, whether it was a decent, respectable man like my father, or a chap with a grin on him like a rat-trap. And so it happened that my father used to travel half the county; going here and there wherever there was trade stirring; and faix, a man didn't think himself rightly buried if my father wasn't there; for ye see, he knew all about it: he could tell to a quart of spirits what would be wanting for a wake; he knew all the good criers for miles round; and I've heard it was a beautiful sight to see him standing on a hill, arranging the procession as they walked into the churchyard, and giving the word like a captain,--

"'Come on, the stiff; now the friends of the stiff; now the pop'lace.'

"That's what he used to say, and troth he was always repeating it, when he was a little gone in drink,--for that's the time his spirits would rise, and he'd think he was burying half Munster.

"And sure it was a real pleasure and a pride to be buried in them times; for av it was only a small farmer with a potato garden, my father would come down with the black cloak on him, and three yards of c.r.a.pe behind his hat, and set all the children crying and yelling for half a mile round; and then the way he'd walk before them with a spade on his shoulder, and sticking it down in the ground, clap his hat on the top of it, to make it look like a chief mourner. It was a beautiful sight!"

"But Mike, if you indulge much longer in this flattering recollection of your father, I'm afraid we shall lose sight of the ghost entirely."

"No fear in life, your honor; I'm coming to him now. Well, it was this way it happened: In the winter of the great frost, about forty-two or forty-three years ago, the ould priest of Tullonghmurray took ill and died.

He was sixty years priest of the parish, and mightily beloved by all the people, and good reason for it; a pleasanter man, and a more social crayture never lived,--'twas himself was the life of the whole country-side. A wedding nor a christening wasn't lucky av he wasn't there, sitting at the top of the table, with may be his arm round the bride herself, or the baby on his lap, a smoking jug of punch before him, and as much kindness in his eye as would make the fortunes of twenty hypocrites if they had it among them. And then he was so good to the poor; the Priory was always so full of ould men and ould women sitting around the big fire in the kitchen that the cook could hardly get near it. There they were, eating their meals and burning their shins till they were speckled like a trout's back, and grumbling all the time; but Father Dwyer liked them, and he would have them.

"'Where have they to go,' he'd say, 'av it wasn't to me? Give Molly Kinshela a lock of that bacon. Tim, it's a could morning; will ye have a taste of the "dew?"'

"Ah, that's the way he'd spake to them; but sure goodness is no warrant for living, any more than devilment, and so he got could in his feet at a station, and he rode home in the heavy snow without his big coat,--for he gave it away to a blind man on the road; in three days he was dead.

"I see you're getting impatient, so I'll not stop to say what grief was in the parish when it was known; but troth, there never was seen the like before,--not a crayture would lift a spade for two days, and there was more whiskey sold in that time than at the whole spring fair. Well, on the third day the funeral set out, and never was the equal of it in them parts: first, there was my father,--he came special from Cork with the six horses all in new black, and plumes like little poplar-trees,--then came Father Dwyer, followed by the two coadjutors in beautiful surplices, walking bare-headed, with the little boys of the Priory school, two-and-two."

"Well, Mike, I'm sure it was very fine; but for Heaven's sake, spare me all these descriptions, and get on to the ghost!"