Humours of Irish Life Part 9

M'Carthy of Connacht.

_From "Folk Tales of Breffny."_

BY B. HUNT.

There was a fine young gentleman the name of M'Carthy. He had a most beautiful countenance, and for strength and prowess there was none to equal him in the baronies of Connacht. But he began to dwine away, and no person knew what ailed him. He used no food at all and he became greatly reduced, the way he was not able to rise from his bed and he letting horrid groans and lamentations out of him. His father sent for three skilled doctors to come and find out what sort of disease it might be, and a big reward was promised for the cure.

Three noted doctors came on the one day and they searched every vein in young M'Carthy's body, but they could put no name on the sickness nor think of a remedy to relieve it. They came down from the room and reported that the disease had them baffled entirely.

"Am I to be at the loss of a son who is the finest boy in all Ireland?"

says the father.

Now one of the doctors had a man with him who was a very soft-spoken person, and he up and says:

"Maybe your honours would be giving me permission to visit the young gentleman. I have a tongue on me is that sweet I do be drawing the secrets of the world out of men and women and little children."

Well, they brought him up to the room and they left him alone with M'Carthy. He sat down beside the bed and began for to flatter him. The like of such conversation was never heard before.

At long last he says, "Let your Lordship's honour be telling--What is it ails you at all?"

"You will never let on to a living soul?" asks M'Carthy.

"Is it that I'd be lodging an information against a n.o.ble person like yourself?" says the man.

With that, the young gentleman began telling the secrets of his heart.

"It is no disease is on me," says he, "but a terrible misfortune."

"'Tis heart scalded I am that you have either a sorrow or a sickness, and you grand to look on and better to listen to," says the other.

"It is in love I am," says M'Carthy.

"And how would that be a misfortune to a fine lad like yourself?" asks the man.

"Let you never let on!" says M'Carthy. "The way of it is this: I am lamenting for no lady who is walking the world, nor for one who is dead that I could be following to the grave. I have a little statue which has the most beautiful countenance on it that was ever seen, and it is destroyed with grief I am that it will never be speaking to me at all."

With that he brought the image out from under his pillow, and the loveliness of it made the man lep off the chair.

"I'd be stealing the wee statue from your honour if I stopped in this place," says he. "But let you take valour into your heart, for that is the likeness of a lady who is living in the world, and you will be finding her surely."

With that he went down to the three doctors and the old man who were waiting below. For all his promises to young M'Carthy, he told the lot of them all he was after hearing. The doctors allowed that if the gentleman's life was to be saved he must be got out of his bed and sent away on his travels.

"For a time he will be hopeful of finding her," says the oldest doctor.

"Then the whole notion will pa.s.s off him, and he seeing strange lands and great wonders to divert him."

The father was that anxious for the son's recovery that he agreed to sell the place and give him a big handful of money for the journey.

"It is little I'll be needing for myself from this out, and I an old man near ripe for the grave," says he.

So they all went up to the room and told young M'Carthy to rise from his bed and eat a good dinner, for the grandest arrangements out were made for his future and he'd surely meet the lady. When he seen that no person was mocking him he got into the best of humour, and he came down and feasted with them.

Not a long time afterwards he took the big handful of money and set out on his travels, bringing the statue with him. He went over the provinces of Ireland, then he took sea to England, and wandered it entirely, away to France with him next, and from that to every art and part of the world. He had the strangest adventures, and he seen more wonders than could ever be told or remembered. At the latter end he came back to the old country again, with no more nor a coin or two left of the whole great fortune of money. The whole time he never seen a lady who was the least like the wee statue; and the words of the old doctor were only a deceit for he didn't quit thinking of her at all. M'Carthy was a handsome young gentleman, and if it was small heed he had for any person he met it was great notice was taken of him. Sure it was a queen, no less, and five or six princesses were thinking long thoughts on himself.

The hope was near dead in his heart, and the sickness of grief was on him again when he came home to Ireland. Soon after he landed from the ship he chanced to come on a gentleman's place, and it a fine, big house he never had seen before. He went up and inquired of the servants if he would get leave to rest there. He was given a most honourable reception, and the master of the house was well pleased to be entertaining such an agreeable guest. Now himself happened to be a Jew, and that is the why he did not ask M'Carthy to eat at his table, but had his dinner set out for him in a separate room. The servants remarked on the small share of food he was using, it was scarcely what would keep the life in a young child; but he asked them not to make any observation of the sort. At first they obeyed him, yet when he used no meat at all on the third day, didn't they speak with their master.

"What is the cause of it at all?" he says to M'Carthy. "Is the food in this place not to your liking? Let you name any dish you have a craving for, and the cook will prepare it."

"There was never better refreshment set before an emperor," says M'Carthy.

"It is civility makes you that flattering," answers the Jew. "How would you be satisfied with the meat which is set before you when you are not able to use any portion of it at all?"

"I doubt I have a sickness on me will be the means of my death," says M'Carthy. "I had best be moving on from this place, the way I'll not be rewarding your kindness with the botheration of a corpse."

With that the master of the house began for to speak in praise of a doctor who was in those parts.

"I see I must be telling you what is in it," says M'Carthy. "Doctors have no relief for the sort of tribulation is destroying me."

He brought out the statue, and he went over the whole story from start to finish. How he set off on his travels and was hopeful for a while; and how despair got hold of him again.

"Let you be rejoicing now," says the Jew, "for it is near that lady you are this day. She comes down to a stream which is convenient to this place, and six waiting maids along with her, bringing a rod and line for to fish. And it is always at the one hour she is in it."

Well, M'Carthy was lepping wild with delight to hear tell of the lady.

"Let you do all I'm saying," the Jew advises him. "I'll provide you with the best of fishing tackle, and do you go down to the stream for to fish in it, too. Whatever comes to your line let you give to the lady. But say nothing which might scare her at all, and don't follow after her if she turns to go home."

The next day M'Carthy went out for to fish; not a long time was he at the stream before the lady came down and the six waiting maids along with her. Sure enough she was the picture of the statue, and she had the loveliest golden hair ever seen.

M'Carthy had the luck to catch a n.o.ble trout, and he took it off the hook, rolled it in leaves, and brought it to the lady, according to the advice of the Jew. She was pleased to accept the gift of it, but didn't she turn home at once and the six waiting maids along with her. When she went into her own house she took the fish to her father.

"There was a n.o.ble person at the stream this day," she says, "and he made me a present of the trout."

Next morning M'Carthy went to fish again, and he seen the lady coming and her six waiting maids walking behind her. He caught a splendid fine trout and brought it over to her; with that she turned home at once.

"Father," says she, when she went in, "the gentleman is after giving me a fish which is bigger and better nor the one I brought back yesterday.

If the like happens at the next time I go to the stream I will be inviting the n.o.ble person to partake of refreshment in this place."

"Let you do as best pleases yourself," says her father.

Well, sure enough, M'Carthy got the biggest trout of all the third time.

The lady was in the height of humour, and she asked would he go up to the house with her that day. She walked with M'Carthy beside her, and the six waiting maids behind them. They conversed very pleasantly together, and at last he found courage for to tell her of how he travelled the world to seek no person less than herself.

"I'm fearing you'll need to set out on a second journey, the way you will be coming in with some other one," says she. "I have an old father who is after refusing two score of suitors who were asking me off him. I do be thinking I'll not be joining the world at all, unless a king would be persuading himself of the advancement there is in having a son-in-law wearing a golden crown upon his head. The whole time it is great freedom I have, and I walking where it pleases me with six waiting maids along with me. The old man has a notion they'd inform him if I was up to any diversion, but that is not the way of it at all."

"It is funning you are, surely," says M'Carthy. "If himself is that uneasy about you how would it be possible you'd bring me to the house to be speaking with him?"