Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 8

"'Faith, yer honor's in a great hurry for the ghost,--may be ye won't like him when ye have him; but I'll go faster, if ye please. Well, Father Dwyer, ye see, was born at Aghan-lish, of an ould family, and he left it in his will that he was to be buried in the family vault; and as Aghan-lish was eighteen miles up the mountains, it was getting late when they drew near.

By that time the great procession was all broke up and gone home. The coadjutors stopped to dine at the 'Blue Bellows' at the cross-roads; the little boys took to pelting s...o...b..a.l.l.s; there was a fight or two on the way besides,--and in fact, except an ould deaf fellow that my father took to mind the horses, he was quite alone. Not that he minded that same; for when the crowd was gone, my father began to sing a droll song, and told the deaf chap that it was a lamentation. At last they came in sight of Aghan-lish.

It was a lonesome, melancholy-looking place with nothing near it except two or three ould fir-trees and a small slated house with one window, where the s.e.xton lived, and even that was shut up and a padlock on the door. Well, my father was not over much pleased at the look of matters; but as he was never hard put to what to do, he managed to get the coffin into the vestry, and then when he had unharnessed the horses, he sent the deaf fellow with them down to the village to tell the priest that the corpse was there, and to come up early in the morning and perform Ma.s.s. The next thing to do was to make himself comfortable for the night; and then he made a roaring fire on the ould hearth,--for there was plenty of bog-fir there,--closed the windows with the black cloaks, and wrapping two round himself, he sat down to cook a little supper he brought with him in case of need.

"Well, you may think it was melancholy enough to pa.s.s the night up there alone with a corpse, in an ould ruined church in the middle of the mountains, the wind howling about on every side, and the snowdrift beating against the walls; but as the fire burned brightly, and the little plate of rashers and eggs smoked temptingly before him, my father mixed a jug of the strongest punch, and sat down as happy as a king. As long as he was eating away he had no time to be thinking of anything else; but when all was done, and he looked about him, he began to feel very low and melancholy in his heart. There was the great black coffin on three chairs in one corner; and then the mourning cloaks that he had stuck up against the windows moved backward and forward like living things; and outside, the wild cry of the plover as he flew past, and the night-owl sitting in a nook of the old church. 'I wish it was morning, anyhow,' said my father, 'for this is a lonesome place to be in; and faix, he'll be a cunning fellow that catches me pa.s.sing the night this way again.' Now there was one thing distressed him most of all,--my father used always to make fun of the ghosts and sperits the neighbors would tell of, pretending there was no such thing; and now the thought came to him, 'May be they'll revenge themselves on me to-night when they have me up here alone;' and with that he made another jug stronger than the first, and tried to remember a few prayers in case of need, but somehow his mind was not too clear, and he said afterwards he was always mixing up ould songs and toasts with the prayers, and when he thought he had just got hold of a beautiful psalm, it would turn out to be 'Tatter Jack Walsh' or 'Limping James' or something like that. The storm, meanwhile, was rising every moment, and parts of the old abbey were falling as the wind shook the ruin; and my father's spirits, notwithstanding the punch, wore lower than ever.

"'I made it too weak,' said he, as he set to work on a new jorum; and troth, this time that was not the fault of it, for the first sup nearly choked him.

"'Ah,' said he, now, 'I knew what it was; this is like the thing; and Mr.

Free, you are beginning to feel easy and comfortable. Pa.s.s the jar. Your very good health and song. I'm a little hoa.r.s.e, it's true, but if the company will excuse--'

"And then he began knocking on the table with his knuckles, as if there was a room full of people asking him to sing. In short, my father was drunk as a fiddler; the last brew finished him; and he began roaring away all kinds of droll songs, and telling all manner of stories as if he was at a great party.

"While he was capering this way about the room, he knocked down his hat, and with it a pack of cards he put into it before leaving home, for he was mighty fond of a game.

"'Will ye take a hand, Mr. Free?' said he, as he gathered them up and sat down beside the fire.

"'I'm convanient,' said he, and began dealing out as if there was a partner fornenst him.

"When my father used to get this far in the story, he became very confused.

He says that once or twice he mistook the liquor, and took a pull at the bottle of poteen instead of the punch; and the last thing he remembers was asking poor Father Dwyer if he would draw near to the fire, and not be lying there near the door.

"With that he slipped down on the ground and fell fast asleep. How long he lay that way he could never tell. When he awoke and looked up, his hair nearly stood on an end with fright. What do you think he seen fornenst him, sitting at the other side of the fire, but Father Dwyer himself. There he was, divil a lie in it, wrapped up in one of the mourning cloaks, trying to warm his hands at the fire. "'_Salve hoc nomine patri!_' said my father, crossing himself, 'av it's your ghost, G.o.d presarve me!'

"'Good-evening t'ye, Mr. Free,' said the ghost; 'and av I might be bould, what's in the jug?'--for ye see, my father had it under his arm fast, and never let it go when he was asleep.

"'_Pater noster qui es in_,--poteen, sir,' said my father; for the ghost didn't look pleased at his talking Latin.

"'Ye might have the politeness to ax if one had a mouth on him, then,' says the ghost.

"'Sure, I didn't think the likes of you would taste sperits.'

"'Try me,' said the ghost; and with that he filled out a gla.s.s, and tossed it off like a Christian.

"'Beamish!' says the ghost, smacking his lips.

"'The same,' says my father; 'and sure what's happened you has not spoiled your taste.'

"'If you'd mix a little hot,' says the ghost, 'I'm thinking it would be better,--the night is mighty sevare.'

"'Anything that your reverance pleases,' says my father, as he began to blow up a good fire to boil the water.

"'And what news is stirring?' says the ghost.

"'Devil a word, your reverance,--your own funeral was the only thing doing last week. Times is bad; except the measles, there's nothing in our parts.'

"'And we're quite dead hereabouts, too,' says the ghost.

"'There's some of us so, anyhow, says my father, with a sly look. 'Taste that, your reverance.'

"'Pleasant and refreshing,' says the ghost; 'and now, Mr. Free, what do you say to a little "spoilt five," or "beggar my neighbor"?'

"'What will we play for? 'says my father, for a thought just struck him,--'may be it's some trick of the Devil to catch my soul.'

"'A pint of Beamish,' says the ghost.

"'Done!' says my father; 'cut for deal. The ace of clubs,--you have it.'

"Now the whole time the ghost was dealing the cards, my father never took his eyes off of him, for he wasn't quite aisy in his mind at all; but when he saw him turn up the trump, and take a strong drink afterwards, he got more at ease, and began the game.

"How long they played it was never rightly known; but one thing is sure, they drank a cruel deal of sperits. Three quart bottles my father brought with him were all finished, and by that time his brain was so confused with the liquor, and all he lost,--for somehow he never won a game,--that he was getting very quarrelsome.

"'You have your own luck to it,' says he, at last.

"'True for you; and besides, we play a great deal where I come from.'

"'I've heard so,' says my father. 'I lead the knave, sir; spades! Bad cess to it, lost again!'

"Now it was really very distressing; for by this time, though they only began for a pint of Beamish, my father went on betting till he lost the hea.r.s.e and all the six horses, mourning cloaks, plumes, and everything.

"'Are you tired, Mr. Free? May be you'd like to stop?'

"'Stop! faith it's a nice time to stop; of course not.'

"'Well, what will ye play for now?'

"The way he said these woods brought a trembling all over my father, and his blood curdled in his heart. 'Oh, murther!' says he to himself, 'it's my sowl he's wanting all the time.'

"'I've mighty little left,' says my father, looking at him keenly, while he kept shuffling the cards quick as lightning.

"'Mighty little; no matter, we'll give you plenty of time to pay,--and if you can't do it, it shall never trouble you as long as you live.'

"'Oh, you murthering devil!' says my father, flying at him with a spade that he had behind his chair, 'I've found you out.'

"With one blow he knocked him down, and now a terrible fight begun, for the ghost was very strong, too; but my father's blood was up, and he'd have faced the Devil himself then. They rolled over each other several times, the broken bottles cutting them to pieces, and the chairs and tables crashing under them. At last the ghost took the bottle that lay on the hearth, and levelled my father to the ground with one blow. Down he fell, and the bottle and the whiskey were both dashed into the fire. That was the end of it, for the ghost disappeared that moment in a blue flame that nearly set fire to my father as he lay on the floor.

"Och, it was a cruel sight to see him next morning, with his cheek cut open and his hands all b.l.o.o.d.y, lying there by himself,--all the broken gla.s.s and the cards all round him,--the coffin, too, was knocked down off the chair, may be the ghost had trouble getting into it. However that was, the funeral was put off for a day, for my father couldn't speak; and as for the s.e.xton, it was a queer thing, but when they came to call him in the morning, he had two black eyes, and a gash over his ear, and he never knew how he got them.

It was easy enough to know the ghost did it; but my father kept the secret, and never told it to any man, woman, or child in them parts."

CHAPTER IX.

LISBON.

I have little power to trace the events which occupied the succeeding three weeks of my history. The lingering fever which attended my wound detained me during that time at the chateau; and when at last I did leave for Lisbon, the winter was already beginning, and it was upon a cold raw evening that I once more took possession of my old quarters at the Quay de Soderi.

My eagerness and anxiety to learn something of the campaign was ever uppermost, and no sooner had I reached my destination than I despatched Mike to the quartermaster's office to pick up some news, and hear which of my friends and brother officers were then at Lisbon. I was sitting in a state of nervous impatience watching for his return, when at length I heard footsteps approaching my room, and the next moment Mike's voice, saying, "The ould room, sir, where he was before." The door suddenly opened, and my friend Power stood before me.