Handy Andy Volume I Part 17

Quite unconscious of the presence of her darling Andy was the widow Rooney, as she returned from the potato ridge into her cabin; depositing a _skeough_ of the newly dug esculent at the door, and replacing the spade in its own corner of the cabin. At the same moment Oonah returned, after disposing of her eggs, and handed the three pence she had received for them to her aunt, who dropped them into the deep pocket of blue striped tick which hung at her side.

"Take the pail, Oonah, _ma chree_, and run to the well for some wather to wash the pratees, while I get the pot ready for bilin' them; it wants scourin', for the pig was atin' his dinner out iv it, the craythur!"

Off went Oonah with her pail, which she soon filled from the clear spring; and placing the vessel on her head, walked back to the cabin with that beautiful erect form, free step, and graceful swaying of the figure, so peculiar to the women of Ireland and the East, from their habit of carrying weights upon the head. The potatoes were soon washed; and as they got their last dash of water in the _skeough_, whose open wicker-work let the moisture drain from them, up came Larry Hogan, who, being what is called a "civil-spoken man," addressed Mrs. Rooney in the following agreeable manner:--

"Them's purty pratees, Mrs. Rooney; G.o.d save you, ma'am!"

"'Deed an' they are--thank you kindly, Mr. Hogan; G.o.d save you and yours too! And how would the woman that owns you be?"

"Hearty, thank you."

"Will you step in?"

"No, I'm obleeged to you--I must be aff home wid me; but I'll just get a coal for my pipe, for it wint out on me awhile agone with the fright."

"Well, I've heer'd quare things, Larry Hogan," said Oonah, laughing and showing her white teeth; "but I never heer'd so quare a thing as a pipe goin' out with the fright."

"Oh, how sharp you are!--takin' one up afore they're down."

"Not afore they're down, Larry; for you said it."

"Well, if I was down, you were down _on_ me; so you are down too, you see. Ha, ha! And afther all now, Oonah, a pipe is like a Christian in many ways: sure it's made o' clay like a Christian, and has the spark o' life in it, and while the breath is in it the spark is alive; but when the breath is out of it the spark dies, and then it grows cowld like a Christian; and isn't it a pleasant companion like a Christian?"

"Faix, some Christians isn't pleasant companions at all!" chimed in Mrs. Rooney, sententiously.

"Well, but they ought to be," said Larry; "and isn't a pipe sometimes cracked like a Christian, and isn't it sometimes choked liked a Christian?"

"Oh, choke you and your pipe together, Larry! will you never have done?" said the widow.

"The most improvinist thing in the world is smokin'," said Larry, who had now relit his pipe, and squatted himself on a three-legged stool beside the widow's fire. "The most improvinist in the world"--(paugh!)--and a parenthetical whiff of tobacco-smoke curled out of the corner of Larry's mouth--"is smokin': for the smoke shows you, as it were, the life o' man pa.s.sin' away like a puff--(paugh!)--just like that; and the tibakky turns to ashes like his poor perishable body; for, as the song says--

"'Tibakky is an Indian weed, Alive at morn and dead at eve; It lives but an hour, Is cut down like a flower, Think o' this when you're smoking tiba-akky!'"

And Larry sung the ditty as he crammed some of the weed into the bowl of his pipe with his little finger.

"Why, you're as good as a sarmint this evenin', Larry," said the widow, as she lifted the iron pot on the fire.

"There's worse sarmints nor that, I can tell you," rejoined Larry, who took up the old song again--

"'A pipe it larns us all this thing-- 'T is fair without and foul within, Just like a sowl begrim'd with sin.

Think o' this when you're smoking tiba-akky!'"

Larry puffed away silently for a few minutes, and when Oonah had placed a few sods of turf round the pot in an upright position, that the flame might curl upward round them, and so hasten the boiling, she drew a stool near the fire, and asked Larry to explain about the fright.

"Why I was coming up by the cross-road there, when what should I see but a ghost----"

"A ghost!!!" exclaimed the widow and Oonah, with suppressed voices and distended mouth and eyes.

"To all appearance," said Larry; "but it was only a thing was stuck in the hedge to freken whoever was pa.s.sin' by; and as I kem up to it there was a groan, so I started, and looked at it for a minit, or thereaway; but I seen what it was, and threwn a stone at it, for fear I'd be mistaken: and I heer'd t.i.ttherin' inside the hedge, and then I knew 't was only devilment of some one."

"And what was it?" asked Oonah.

"'T was a horse's head, in throth, with an owld hat on the top of it, and two buck-briars stuck out at each side, and some rags hanging on them, and an owld breeches shakin' undher the head; 't was just altogether like a long pale-faced man, with high shouldhers and no body, and very long arms and short legs:--faith, it frightened me at first."

"And no wondher," said Oonah. "Dear, but I think I'd lose my life if I seen the like?"

"But sure," said the widow, "wouldn't you know that ghosts never appears by day?"

"Ay, but I hadn't time to think o' that, bein' taken short wid the fright--more betoken, 't was the place the murdher happened in long ago."

"Sure enough," said the widow. "G.o.d betune us and harm!" and she marked herself with the sign of the cross as she spoke; "and a terrible murdher it was," added she.

"How was it?" inquired Oonah, drawing her seat closer to her aunt and Larry.

"'T was a schoolmaster, dear, that was found dead on the road one mornin', with his head full of fractions," said the widow.

"All in jommethry,"[3] said Larry.

[3] Anything very badly broken is said by the Irish peasantry to be in "jommethry."

"And some said he fell off the horse," said the widow.

"And more say the horse fell on him," said Larry.

"And again, there was some said the horse kicked him in the head," said the widow.

"And there was talk of shoe-aside," said Larry.

"The horse's shoe was it?" asked Oonah.

"No, _alanna_," said Larry; "shoe-aside is Latin for cutting your throat."

"But he didn't cut his throat," said the widow.

"But sure it's all one whether he done it wid a razhir on his throat, or a hammer on his head; it's shoe-aside all the same."

"But there was no hammer found, was there?" said the widow.

"No," said Larry, "but some people thought he might have hid the hammer afther he done it, to take off the disgrace of the shoe-aside."

"But wasn't there any life in him when he was found?"

"Not a taste. The crowner's jury sot on him, and he never said a word agin it, and if he was alive he would."

"And didn't they find anything at all?" said Oonah.

"Nothing but the vardict," said Larry.

"And was that what killed him?" said Oonah.