The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 19

"I wonder Sally didn't think of-that," said Nancy--"sure she might know that no living crathur would be out lamenting under such a night as that was."

"She did think of that," said Tom; "but as no Banshee ever followed _her own_* family, didn't suppose that it could be such a thing; but she forgot that it might follow Larry's. I, myself, heard his brother Tom say, afterwards, that a Banshee used always to be heard before any of them died."

* The Banshee in Ireland is, or rather was, said to follow only particular families--princ.i.p.ally the Old Milesians. It appeared or was heard before the death of any member of the family. Its form was always that of a female--weeping, wailing, wringing its hands, and uttering the national keene, or lamentation for the dead. Banshee signifies gentle woman.

"Did his brother hear it?" Ned inquired.

"He did," said Tom, "and his wife along with him, and knew, at once, that some death would happen in the family--but it wasn't long till he suspected who it came for; for, as he was going to bed that night, on looking towards his own hearth, he thought he saw his brother standing at the fire, with a very sorrowful face upon him. 'Why, Larry,' says he, 'how did you get in, after me barring the door?--or did you turn back from helping them with the corn? You surely hadn't time to go half the way since.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 713-- 'Why, Larry,' says he, 'how did you get in']

"Larry, however, made him no answer; and, on looking for him again, there was no Larry there for him. 'Nelly,' says he to his wife, 'did you see any sight of Larry since, he went to the still-house?'

'Arrah, no indeed, Tom,' says she; 'what's coming over you to spake to the man that's near Drum-furrar by this time?' 'G.o.d keep him from harm!'

said Tom;--'poor fellow, I wish nothing ill may happen him this night!

I'm afeard, Nelly, that I saw his _fetch_;* and if I did, he hasn't long to live; for when one's fetch is seen at this time of night, their lase of life, let them be sick or in health, is always short.'

* This in the North of Ireland is called wraith, as in Scotland. The Fetch is a spirit that a.s.sumes the likeness of a particular person. It does not appear to the individual himself whose resemblance it a.s.sumes, but to some of his friends. If it is seen in the morning, it betokens long life; if after sunset, approaching death; after nightfall, immediate death.

"'Hut, Tom aroon!' says Nelly, 'it was the shadow of the jamb or yourself you saw in the light of the candle, or the shadow of the bed-post.'

"The next morning they were all up, hoping that he would drop in to them. Sally got a creel of turf, notwithstanding her condition, and put down a good fire to warm him; but the morning pa.s.sed, and no sign of him. She now got very unasy, and mintioned to his brother what she felt, and Tom went up to the still-house to know if he was there, or to try if he could get any tidings of him. But, by the laws! when he heard that he had left that for home the night before, and he in a state of liquor, putting this, and what he had heard and seen in his house together, Tom knew that something must have happened him. He went home again, and on his way had his eye about him, thinking that it would be no miracle, if he'd meet him lying head-foremost in a ditch; however, he did not, but went on, expecting to find him at home before him.

"In the mane time, the neighbors had been all raised to search for him; and, indeed, the hills were alive with people. It was the second day after, that Sally was standing, looking out at her own door towards the mountains, expecting that every man with a blue coat upon him might be Larry, when she saw a crowd of people coming down the hills. Her heart leaped to her mouth, and she sent d.i.c.k, the eldest of the sons, to meet them, and run back with word to her if he was among them. d.i.c.k went away; but he hadn't gone far when he met his uncle Tom, coming on before the rest.

"'Uncle,' says d.i.c.k, 'did you get my father? for I must fly back with word to my mother, like lightning.'

"'Come here, d.i.c.k,' says Tom; 'G.o.d help you, my poor bouchal (*

boy)--Come here, and walk alongside of me, for you can't go back to your mother, till I see her first--G.o.d help you, my poor bouchal, it's you that's to be pitied, this blessed and sorrowful day;' and the poor fellow could by no means keep in the tears. But he was saved the trouble of breaking the dismal tidings to poor Sally; for as she stood watching the crowd, she saw a door carried upon their shoulders, with something like a man stretched upon it. She turned in, feeling as if a bullet had gone through her head, and sat down with her back to the door, for fraid she might see the thruth, for she couldn't be quite sure, they we're at such a distance. At last she ventured to take another look out, for she couldn't bear what she felt within her, and just as she rose and came to the door, the first thing she saw coming down the hill a little above the house, was the body of her husband stretched on a door--dead. At that minute, her brother-in-law, Tom, just entered, in time to prevent her and the child she had in her arms from falling on the flure. She had seen enough, G.o.d help her!--for she took labor that instant, and, in about two hours, afterwards, was stretched a corpse beside her husband, with her heart-broken and desolate orphans in an uproar of outher misery about them. That was the end of Larry M'Farland and Sally Lowry; two that might have done well in the world, had they taken care of themselves--avoided, fairs and markets--except when they had business there--not given themselves idle fashions by drinking, or going to dances, and wrought as well for themselves as they did for others."

"But how did he lose his life, at all at all?" inquired Nancy.

"Why, they found his hat in a bog-hole upon the water, and on searching the hole itself poor Larry was fished up from the bottom of it."

"Well, that's a murdhering sorrowful story," said Shane Fadh: "but you won't be after pa.s.sing that on us for the wake, ainy how."

"Well, you must learn patience, Shane," said the narrator, "for you know patience is a virtue."

"I'll warrant you that Tom and his wife made a better hand of themselves," said Alick M'Kinley, "than Larry and Sally did."

"Ah! I wouldn't fear, Alick," said Tom, "but you would come at the truth--'tis you that may say they did; there wasn't two in the parish more comfortable than the same two, at the very time that Larry and Sally came by their deaths. It would do you good to look at their hagyard--the corn stacks were so nately roped and trimmed, and the walls so well made up, that a bird could scarcely get into it. Their barn and cowhouse, too, and dwelling-house, were all comfortably thatched, and the windies all glazed, with not a broken pane in them. Altogether they had come on wondherfully; sould a good dale of male and praties every year; so that in a short time they were able to lay by a little money to help to fortune off their little girls, that were growing up fine colleens, all out."

"And you may add, I suppose," said Andy Morrow, "that they lost no time going to fairs and dances, or other foolish divarsions. I'll engage they never were at a dance in the Squire's kitchen; that they never went about losing their time working for others, when their own business was going at sixes and sevens, for want of hands; nor spent their money drinking and thrating a parcel of friends that only laugh at them for their pains, and wouldn't, maybe, put one foot past the other to sarve them; nor never fought and abused one another for what they both were guilty of."

"Well," says Tom, "you have saved me some trouble, Mr. Morrow, for you just said, to a hair, what they were. But I mustn't forget to mintion one thing that I saw the morning of the berril. We were,--about a dozen neighbors of us, talking in the street, just before the door; both the hagyards were forninst us--Tom's snug and nate--but Charley Lawdher had to go over from where we stood to drive the pig out of poor Larry's.

There was one of the stacks with the side out of it, just as he had drawn away the sheaves from time to time; for the stack leaned to one side, and he pulled sheaves out of the other side to keep it straight.

Now, Mr. Morrow, wasn't he an unfortunate man? for whoever would go down to Squire d.i.c.kson's hagyard, would see the same Larry's handiwork so beautiful and illegant, though his own was in such _brutheen_.* Even his barn to wrack; and he was obliged to thrash his oats in the open air when ther would be a frost, and he used to lose one-third of it; and if there came a thaw, 'twould almost brake the crathur."

* Brutheen is potatoes champed with b.u.t.ter. Anything in a loose, broken, and irregular state, is said to be in brutheen--that is in disorder and contusion.

"G.o.d knows," said Nancy, looking over at Ned very significantly, "and Larry's not alone in neglecting his business; that is, if certain people were allowed to take their own way; but the truth of it is, that he met with a bad woman. If he had a careful, sober, industrious wife of his own, that would take care of the house and place--(_Biddy, will you hand me over that other dew out of the windy-stool there till I finish this stocking for Ned_)--the story would have another ending any how."

"In throth," said Tom, "that's no more than thruth, Nancy; but he had not, and everything went to the bad with them entirely."

"It's a thousand pities he hadn't yourself, Nancy," said Alick, grinning; "if he had, I haven't the laste doubt at all, but he'd die worth money."

"Go on, Alick--go on, Avick; I will give you lave to have your joke, any way; for it's you that's the patthern to any man that would wish to thrive in the world."

"If Ned dies, Nancy, I don't know a woman I'd prefer; I'm now a widdy'

these five years; and I feel, somehow, particularly since I began to spend my evenings here, that I'm disremembering very much the old proverb--a burnt child, dreads the fire.'"

* The peasantry of a great portion of Ireland use this word as applicable to both s.e.xes.

"Thank you, Alick; you think I swallow that; but as for Ned, the never a fear of him; except that an increasing stomach is a sign of something; or what's the best chance of all, Alick, for you and me, that he should meet Larry's fate in some of his drunken fits."

"Now, Nancy," says Ned, "there's no use in talking that way; it's only last Thursday, Mr. Morrow, that, in presence of her own brother, Jemmy Connolly, the breeches-maker, and Billy M'Kinny, there, that I put my two five fingers acra.s.s, and swore solemnly by them five crosses, that, except my mind changed, I'd never drink more nor one-half pint of spirits and three pints of porther in a day."

"Oh, hould your tongue, Ned--hould your tongue, and don't make me spake," said Nancy; "G.o.d help you! many a time you've put the same fingers acra.s.s, and many a time your mind has changed; but I'll say no more now--wait till we see how you'll keep it."

"Healths a-piece, your sowls," said Ned, winking at the company.

"Well, Tom," said Andy Morrow, "about the wake?"

"Och, och! that was the merry wake, Mr. Morrow. From that day to this I remarked, that, living or dead, them that won't respect themselves, or take care of their families, won't be respected: and sure enough, I saw full proof of that same at poor Larry's wake. Many a time afterwards I pitied the childher, for if they had seen better, they wouldn't turn out as they did--all but the two youngest, that their uncle took to himself, and reared afterwards; but they had no one to look afther them, and how could it be expected from what they seen, that good could come of them?

Squire d.i.c.kson gave Tom the other seven acres, although he could have got a higher rint from others; but he was an industrious man that desarved encouragement, and he got it."

"I suppose Tom was at the expense of Larry's berrin, as well as of his marriage," said Alick.

"In troth and he was," said Tom, "although he didn't desarve it from him when he was alive;* seeing he neglected many a good advice that Tom and his dacent woman of a wife often gave him; for all that, blood is thicker than wather--and it's he that waked and berried him dacently; by the same token that there was both full and plenty of the best over him: and everything, as far as Tom was consarned, dacint and creditable about the place."

* The genuine blunders of the Irish--not those studied for them by men ignorant of their modes of expression and habits of life--are always significant, clear, and full of strong sense and moral truth.

"He did it for his own sake, of coorse," said Nancy, "bekase one wouldn't wish, if--they had it at all, to see any one belonging to them worse off than another at their wake or berrin."

"Thrue for you, Nancy," said M'Roarkin, "and, indeed, Tom was well spoken of by the neighbors for his kindness to his brother after his death; and luck and grace attended him for it, and the world flowed upon him before it came to his own turn."

"Well, when a body dies even a natural death, it's wondherful how soon it goes about; but when they come to an untimely one, it spreads like fire on a dry mountain."

"Was there no inquest?" asked Andy Morrow.

"The sorra inquist, not making you an ill answer, sir--the people weren't so exact in them days: but any how the man was dead, and what good could an inquist do him? The only thing that grieved them was, that they both died without the priest; and well it might, for it's an awful thing entirely to die without having the clargy's hands over a body.

I tould you that the news of his death spread over all the counthry in less than no time. Accordingly, in the coorse of the day, their relations began to come to the place; but, any way, messengers had been sent especially for them.

"The squire very kindly lent sheets for them both to be laid out in, and mould candle-sticks to hould the lights; and, G.o.d he knows, 'twas a grievous sight to see the father and mother both stretched beside one another in their poor place, and their little orphans about them; the gorsoons,--them that had sense enough to know their loss,--breaking their hearts, the craythurs, and so hoa.r.s.e, that they weren't able to cry or spake. But, indeed, it was worse to see the two young things going over, and wanting to get acra.s.s to waken their daddy and mammy, poor desolit childher!

"When the corpses were washed and dressed, they looked uncommonly well, consitherin'. Larry, indeed, didn't bear death so well as Sally; but you couldn't meet a purtier corpse than she was in a day's travelling.

I say, when they were washed and dressed, their friends and neighbors knelt down around them, and offered up a Pather and Ave a-piece, for the good of their sowls: when this was done, they all raised the keena, stooping over them at a half bend, clapping their hands, and praising them, as far as they could say anything good of them; and indeed, the craythurs, they were never any one's enemy but their own, so that n.o.body could say an ill word of either of them. Bad luck to it for potteen-work every day it rises! only for it, that couple's poor orphans wouldn't be left without father or mother as they were; nor poor Hurrish go the gray gate he did, if he had his father living, may be; but having n.o.body to bridle him in, he took to horse riding for the squire, and then to staling them for himself. He was hanged afterwards, along with Peter Doraghy Crolly, that shot Ned Wilson's uncle of the Black Hills.

"After the first keening, the friends and neighbors took their sates about the corpse. In a short time, whiskey, pipes, snuff, and tobacco came, and every one about the place got a gla.s.s and a fresh pipe. Tom, when he held his gla.s.s in his hand, looking at his dead brother, filled up to the eyes, and couldn't for some time get out a word; at last, when he was able to spake--'Poor Larry,'says he, 'you're lying there low before me, and many a happy day we spint with one another. When we were childher,' said he, turning to the rest, 'we were never asunder; he was oulder nor me by two years, and can I ever forget the leathering he gave d.i.c.k Rafferty long ago, for hitting me with the rotten egg--although d.i.c.k was a great dale bigger than either of us. G.o.d knows, although you didn't thrive in life, either of you, as you might and could have done, there wasn't a more neighborly or friendly couple in the parish they lived in; and now, G.o.d help them both, and their poor orphans over them!

Larry, acushla, your health, and Sally, yours; and may G.o.d Almighty have marcy on both your sowls.'