Stories by English Authors: Ireland Part 14

Some years ago there dwelt in the vicinity of Mountrath, in the Queen's County, a farmer, whose name for obvious reasons we shall not at present disclose. He never was married, and his only domestics were a servant-boy and an old woman, a housekeeper, who had long been a follower or dependent of the family. He was born and educated in the Roman Catholic Church, but on arriving at manhood, for reasons best known to himself, he abjured the tenets of that creed and conformed to the doctrines of Protestantism. However, in after years he seemed to waver, and refused going to church, and by his manner of living seemed to favour the dogmas of infidelity or atheism.

He was rather dark and reserved in his manner, and oftentimes sullen and gloomy in his temper; and this, joined with his well-known disregard of religion, served to render him somewhat unpopular amongst his neighbours and acquaintances. However, he was in general respected, and was never insulted or annoyed. He was considered as an honest, inoffensive man, and as he was well supplied with firearms and ammunition,--in the use of which he was well practised, having, in his early days, served several years in a yeomanry corps,--few liked to disturb him, even had they been so disposed.

He was well educated, and decidedly hostile to every species of superst.i.tion, and was constantly jeering his old housekeeper, who was extremely superst.i.tious, and pretended to be entirely conversant with every matter connected with witchcraft and the fairy world.

He seldom darkened a neighbour's door, and scarcely ever asked any one to enter his, but generally spent his leisure hours in reading, of which he was extremely fond, or in furbishing his firearms, to which he was still more attached, or in listening to and laughing at the wild and blood-curdling stories of old Moya, with which her memory abounded. Thus he spent his time until the period at which our tale commences, when he was about fifty years of age, and old Moya, the housekeeper, had become extremely feeble, stooped, and of very ugly and forbidding exterior. One morning in the month of November, A.D. 1818, this man arose before daylight, and on coming out of the apartment where he slept he was surprised at finding old Moya in the kitchen, sitting over the raked-up fire, and smoking her tobacco-pipe in a very serious and meditative mood.

"Arrah, Moya," said he, "what brings you out of your bed so early?"

"Och musha, I dunna," replied the old woman; "I was so uneasy all night that I could not sleep a wink, and I got up to smoke a blast, thinkin' that it might drive away the weight that's on my heart."

"And what ails you, Moya? Are you sick, or what came over you?"

"No, the Lord be praised! I am not sick, but my heart is sore, and there's a load on my spirits that would kill a hundred."

"Maybe you were dreaming, or something that way," said the man, in a bantering tone, and suspecting, from the old woman's grave manner, that she was labouring under some mental delusion.

"Dreaming!" reechoed Moya, with a bitter sneer; "ay, dreaming.

Och, I wish to G.o.d I was ONLY DREAMING; but I am very much afraid it is worse than that, and that there is trouble and misfortune hanging over uz."

"And what makes you think so, Moya?" asked he, with a half-suppressed smile.

Moya, aware of his well-known hostility to every species of superst.i.tion, remained silent, biting her lips and shaking her gray head prophetically.

"Why don't you answer me, Moya?" again asked the man.

"Och," said Moya, "I am heart-scalded to have it to tell you, and I know you will laugh at me; but, say what you will, there is something bad over uz, for the banshee was about the house all night, and she has me almost frightened out of my wits with her shouting and bawling."

The man was aware of the banshee's having been long supposed to haunt his family, but often scouted that supposition; yet, as it was some years since he had last heard of her visiting the place, he was not prepared for the freezing announcement of old Moya.

He turned as pale as a corpse, and trembled excessively; at last, recollecting himself, he said, with a forced smile:

"And how do you know it was the banshee, Moya?"

"How do I know?" reiterated Moya, tauntingly. "Didn't I see and hear her several times during the night? and more than that, didn't I hear the dead-coach rattling round the house, and through the yard, every night at midnight this week back, as if it would tear the house out of the foundation?"

The man smiled faintly; he was frightened, yet was ashamed to appear so. He again said:

"And did you ever see the banshee before, Moya?"

"Yes," replied Moya, "often. Didn't I see her when your mother died? Didn't I see her when your brother was drowned? and sure, there wasn't one of the family that went these sixty years that I did not both see and hear her."

"And where did you see her, and what way did she look to-night?"

"I saw her at the little window over my bed; a kind of reddish light shone round the house; I looked up, and there I saw her old, pale face and gla.s.sy eyes looking in, and she rocking herself to and fro, and clapping her little, withered hands, and crying as if her very heart would break."

"Well, Moya, it's all imagination; go, now, and prepare my breakfast, as I want to go to Maryborough to-day, and I must be home early."

Moya trembled; she looked at him imploringly and said: "For Heaven's sake, John, don't go to-day; stay till some other day, and G.o.d bless you; for if you go to-day I would give my oath there will something cross you that's bad."

"Nonsense, woman!" said he; "make haste and get me my breakfast."

Moya, with tears in her eyes, set about getting the breakfast ready; and whilst she was so employed John was engaged in making preparations for his journey.

Having now completed his other arrangements, he sat down to breakfast, and, having concluded it, he arose to depart.

Moya ran to the door, crying loudly; she flung herself on her knees, and said: "John, John, be advised. Don't go to-day; take my advice; I know more of the world than you do, and I see plainly that if you go you will never enter this door again with your life."

Ashamed to be influenced by the drivellings of an old cullough, he pushed her away with his hand, and, going out to the stable, mounted his horse and departed. Moya followed him with her eyes whilst in sight; and when she could no longer see him, she sat down at the fire and wept bitterly.

It was a bitter cold day, and the farmer, having finished his business in town, feeling himself chilly, went into a public-house to have a tumbler of punch and feed his horse; there he met an old friend, who would not part with him until he would have another gla.s.s with him and a little conversation, as it was many years since they had met before. One gla.s.s brought another, and it was almost duskish ere John thought of returning, and, having nearly ten miles to travel, it would be dark night before he could get home. Still his friend would not permit him to go, but called for more liquor, and it was far advanced in the night before they parted. John, however, had a good horse, and, having had him well fed, he did not spare whip or spur, but dashed along at a rapid pace through the gloom and silence of the winter's night, and had already distanced the town upward of five miles, when, on arriving at a very desolate part of the road, a gunshot, fired from behind the bushes, put an end to his mortal existence. Two strange men, who had been at the same public-house in Maryborough drinking, observing that he had money and learning the road that he was to travel, conspired to rob and murder him, and waylaid him in this lonely spot for that horrid purpose.

Poor Moya did not go to bed that night, but sat at the fire, every moment impatiently expecting his return. Often did she listen at the door to try if she could hear the tramp of the horse's footsteps approaching. But in vain; no sound met her ear except the sad wail of the night wind, moaning fitfully through the tall bushes which surrounded the ancient dwelling, or the sullen roar of a little dark river, which wound its way through the lowlands at a small distance from where she stood. Tired with watching, at length she fell asleep on the hearth-stone; but that sleep was disturbed and broken, and frightful and appalling dreams incessantly haunted her imagination.

At length the darksome morning appeared struggling through the wintry clouds, and Moya again opened the door to look out. But what was her dismay when she found the horse standing at the stable door without his rider, and the saddle all besmeared with clotted blood. She raised the death-cry; the neighbours thronged round, and it was at once declared that the hapless man was robbed and murdered. A party on horseback immediately set forward to seek him, and on arriving at the fatal spot he was found stretched on his back in the ditch, his head perforated with shot and slugs, and his body literally immersed in a pool of blood. On examining him it was found that his money was gone, and a valuable gold watch and appendages abstracted from his pocket. His remains were conveyed home, and, after having been waked the customary time, were committed to the grave of his ancestors in the little green churchyard of the village.

Having no legitimate children, the nearest heir to his property was a brother, a cabinet-maker, who resided in London. A letter was accordingly despatched to the brother announcing the sad catastrophe, and calling on him to come and take possession of the property; and two men were appointed to guard the place until he should arrive.

The two men delegated to act as guardians, or, as they are technically termed, "keepers," were old friends and comrades of the deceased, and had served with him in the same yeomanry corps. Jack O'Malley was a Roman Catholic--a square, stout-built, and handsome fellow, with a pleasant word for every one, and full of that gaiety, vivacity, and nonchalance for which the Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland are so particularly distinguished. He was now about forty-five years of age, sternly attached to the dogmas of his religion, and always remarkable for his revolutionary and anti-British principles. He was brave as a lion, and never quailed before a man; but, though caring so little for a LIVING man, he was extremely afraid of a DEAD one, and would go ten miles out of his road at night to avoid pa.s.sing a "rath," or "haunted bush." Harry Taylor, on the other hand, was a staunch Protestant; a tall, genteel-looking man, of proud and imperious aspect, and full of reserve and hauteur--the natural consequence of a consciousness of political and religious ascendency and superiority of intelligence and education, which so conspicuously marked the demeanour of the Protestant peasantry of those days. Harry, too, loved his gla.s.s as well as Jack, but was of a more peaceful disposition, and as he was well educated and intelligent, he was utterly opposed to superst.i.tion, and laughed to scorn the mere idea of ghosts, goblins, and fairies. Thus Jack and Harry were diametrically opposed to each other in every point except their love of the cruiskeen, yet they never failed to seize every opportunity of being together; and, although they often blackened each other's eyes in their political and religious disputes, yet their quarrels were always amicably settled, and they never found themselves happy but in each other's society.

It was now the sixth or seventh night that Jack and Harry, as usual, kept their lonely watch in the kitchen of the murdered man. A large turf fire blazed brightly on the hearth, and on a bed of straw in the ample chimney-corner was stretched old Moya in a profound sleep. On the hearthstone, between the two friends, stood a small oak table, on which was placed a large decanter of whisky, a jug of boiled water, and a bowl of sugar; and, as if to add an idea of security to that of comfort, on one end of the table were placed in saltier a formidable-looking blunderbuss and a brace of large bra.s.s pistols. Jack and his comrade perpetually renewed their acquaintance with the whisky-bottle, and laughed and chatted and recounted the adventures of their young days with as much hilarity as if the house which now witnessed their mirth never echoed to the cry of death or blood. In the course of conversation Jack mentioned the incident of the strange appearance of the banshee, and expressed a hope that she would not come that night to disturb their carouse.

"Banshee the devil!" shouted Harry; "how superst.i.tious you papists are! I would like to see the phiz of any man, dead or alive, who dare make his appearance here to-night." And, seizing the blunderbuss, and looking wickedly at Jack, he vociferated, "By Hercules, I would drive the contents of this through their sowls who dare annoy us."

"Better for you to shoot your mother than fire at the banshee, anyhow," remarked Jack.

"Psha!" said Harry, looking contemptuously at his companion. "I would think no more of riddling the old jade's hide than I would of throwing off this tumbler;" and, to suit the action to the word, he drained off another b.u.mper of whisky-punch.

"Jack," says Harry, "now that we are in such prime humour, will you give us a song?"

"With all the veins of my heart," says Jack. "What will it be?"

"Anything you please; your will must be my pleasure," answered Harry.

Jack, after coughing and clearing his pipes, chanted forth, in a bold and musical voice, a rude rigmarole called "The Royal Blackbird,"

which, although of no intrinsic merit, yet, as it expressed sentiments hostile to British connection and British government and favourable to the house of Stewart, was very popular amongst the Catholic peasantry of Ireland, whilst, on the contrary, it was looked upon by the Protestants as highly offensive and disloyal. Harry, however, wished his companion too well to oppose the song, and he quietly awaited its conclusion.

"Bravo, Jack," said Harry, as soon as the song was ended; "that you may never lose your wind."

"In the king's name now I board you for another song," says Jack.

Harry, without hesitation, recognised his friend's right to demand a return, and he instantly trolled forth, in a deep, sweet, and sonorous voice, the following:

SONG.

"Ho, boys, I have a song divine!

Come, let us now in concert join, And toast the bonny banks of Boyne--The Boyne of 'Glorious Memory.'

"On Boyne's famed banks our fathers bled; Boyne's surges with their blood ran red; And from the Boyne our foemen fled--Intolerance, chains, and slavery.

"Dark superst.i.tion's blood-stained sons Pressed on, but 'crack' went William's guns, And soon the gloomy monster runs--Fell, hydra-headed bigotry.