The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 3

Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and Nancy, and of the beautiful valley in which this worthy speculator had his residence, I shall next proceed to introduce him to the village circle, which, during the long winter nights, might be found in front of Ned's kitchen-fire of blazing turf, whose light was given back in ruddy reflection from the bright pewter plates, that were ranged upon the white and well-scoured dresser in just and gradual order, from the small egg-plate to the large and capacious dish, whereon, at Christmas and Easter, the substantial round of corned beef used to rear itself so proudly over the more ign.o.ble joints at the lower end of the table.

Seated in this clear-obscure of domestic light--which, after all, gives the heart a finer and more touching notion of enjoyment than the glitter of the theatre or the blaze of the saloon--might be found first, Andy Morrow,* the juryman of the quarter-sessions, sage and important in the consciousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictatorial withal in its application to such knotty points as arose out of the subjects of their nocturnal debates. Secondly, Bob Gott, who filled the foreign and military departments, and related the wonderful history of the ghost which appeared to him on the night after the battle of Bunker's-hill. To him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little asthmatic anecdotarian of half the country,--remarkable for chuckling at his own stories. Then came old M'Kinny, poacher and horse-jockey; little, squeaking, thin-faced Alick M'Kinley, a facetious farmer of substance; and Shane Fadh, who handed down, traditions and fairy tales. Enthroned on one hob sat Pat Frayne, the schoolmaster with the short arm, who read and explained the newspaper for "old Square Colwell," and was looked upon as premier to the aforesaid cabinet; Ned himself filled the opposite seat of honor.

One night, a little before the Christmas holidays in the year 18--, the personages just described were seated around Ned's fire, some with their chirping pints of ale or porter, and others with their quantum of _Hugh Traynor_, or mountain-dew, and all with good humor, and a strong tendency to happiness, visible in their faces. The night was dark, close, and misty; so dark, indeed, that, as Nancy said, "you could hardly see your finger before you." Ned himself was full of fun, with a pint of porter beside him, and a pipe in his mouth, just in his glory for the night. Opposite to him was Pat Frayne, with an old newspaper on his knee, which he had just perused for the edification of his audience; beside him was, Nancy, busily employed in knitting a pair of sheep's-grey stockings for Ned; the remaining personages formed a semicircular ring about the hearth. Behind, on the kitchen-table sat Paddy Smith, the servant-man, with three or four of the _gorsoons_ of the village about him, engaged in an under-plot of their own. On the other, a little removed from the light, sat Ned's two nieces, Biddy and Bessy Connolly, former with Atty Johnson's mouth within whisper-reach of her ear, and the latter seated close to her professed admirer, Billy Fulton, her uncle's shopman.* This group; was completely abstracted from the entertainment which was going forward in the circle round the fire.

* Each pair have been since married, and live not more happily than I wish them. Fulton still lives in Ned's house at the Cross-roads.

"I wondher," said Andy Morrow, "what makes Joe M'Crea throw down that fine ould castle of his, in Aughentain?"

"I'm tould," said M'Roarkin, "that he expects money; for they say there's a lot of it buried somewhere about the same building."

"Jist as much as there's in my wig," replied Shane Fadh, "and there's ne'er a pocket to it yet. Why, bless your sowl, how could there be money in it, whin the last man of the Grameses that owned it--I mane of the ould stock, afore it went into Lord Mountjoy's hands--sould it out, ran through the money, and died begging afther'? Did none of you ever hear of--

'---- ---- ---- ---- Ould John Grame, That swally'd the castle of Aughentain?'"

"That was long afore my time," said the poacher; "but I know that the rabbit-burrow between that and Jack Appleden's garden will soon be run out."

"Your time!" responded Shane Fadh, with contempt; "ay, and your father's afore you: my father doesn't remimber more nor seeing his funeral, and a merry one it was; for my grandfather, and some of them that had a respect for the family and his forbarers, if they hadn't it for himself, made up as much money among them as berried him dacently any how,--ay, and gave him a rousin' wake into the bargain, with lashins of whiskey, stout beer, and ale; for in them times--G.o.d be with them every farmer brewed his own ale and beer;--more betoken, that one pint of it was worth a keg of this wash of yours, Ned."

"Wasn't it he that used to _appear?_" inquired M'Roarkin.

"Sure enough he did, Tom."

"Lord save us," said Nancy, "what could trouble him, I dunna?"

"Why," continued Shane Fadh, "some said one thing, and some another; but the upshot of it was this: when the last of the Grameses sould the estate, castle, and all, it seems he didn't resave all the purchase money; so, afther he had spint what he got, he applied to the purchaser for the remainder--him that the Mountjoy family bought it from; but it seems he didn't draw up writings, or sell it according to law, so that the thief o' the world baffled him from day to day, and wouldn't give him a penny--bekase he knew, the blaggard, that the Square was then as poor as a church mouse, and hadn't money enough to thry it at law with him; but the Square was always a simple asy-going man. One day he went to this fellow, riding on an ould garran, with a shoe loose--the only baste he had in the world--and axed him, for G.o.d's sake, to give him of what he owed him, if it was ever so little; 'for,' says he, 'I huve not as much money betune me and death as will get a set of shoes for my horse.'"

"'Well,' says the nager, 'if-you're not able to keep your horse shod, I would jist recommend you to sell him, and thin his shoes won't cost you any thing,' says he.

"The ould Square went away with tears in his eyes,--for he loved the poor brute, bekase they wor the two last branches of the ould stock."

"Why," inquired M'Kinley, in his small squeaking voice, "was the horse related to the family?"

"I didn't say he was related to the fam----

"Get out, you _shingaun!_" (* Fairy-like, or connected to the fairies) returned the old man, perceiving by the laugh that now went round, the sly tendency of the question--"no, nor to your family either, for he had nothing of the a.s.s in him--eh? will you put that in your pocket, my little _skinadhre_ (* A thin, fleshless, stunted person.)--ha! ha! ha!"

The laugh was now turned against M'Kinley.

Shane Fadh proceeded: "The ould Square, as I was tellin yez, cried to find himself an' the poor baste so dissolute; but when he had gone a bit from the fellow, he comes back to the vagabone--'Now,' says he, 'mind my words--if you happen to live afther me, you need never expect a night's pace; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long as my property's in your possession, or in any of your seed, breed, or gineration's, I'll never give over hauntin' you an' them, till you'll rue to the back-bone your dishonesty an' chathery to me an' this poor baste, that hasn't a shoe to his foot.'

"'Well,' says the nager, 'I'll take chance of that, any way.'"

"I'm tould, Shane," observed the poacher, "that the Square was a fine man in his time, that wouldn't put up with sich treatment from anybody."

"Ay, but he was ould now," Shane replied, "and too wakely to fight.--A fine man, Bill!--he was the finest man, 'cepting ould Square Storey, that ever was in this counthry. I hard my granfather often say that he was six feet four, and made in proportion--a handsome, black-a-vis'd man, with great dark whiskers. Well! he spent money like sklates, and so he died miserable--but had a merry birrel, as I said."

"But," inquired Nancy, "did he ever appear to the rogue that chated him?"

"Every night in the year, Nancy, exceptin' Sundays; and what was more, the horse along with him--for he used to come ridin' at midnight upon the same garran; and it was no matther what place or company the other 'ud be in, the ould Square would come reglarly, and crave him for what he owed him."

"So it appears that horses have sowls," observed M'Roarkin, philosophically, giving, at the same time, a cynical chuckle at the sarcasm contained in his own conceit.

"Whether they have sowls or bodies," replied the narrator, "what I'm tellin' you is truth; every night in the year the ould chap would come for what was indue him; find as the two went along, the noise of the loose shoe upon the horse would be hard rattlin', and seen knockin' the fire out of the stones, by the neighbors and the thief that chated him, even before the Square would appeal at all at all."

"Oh, wurrah!" exclaimed Nancy, shuddering with terror. "I wouldn't take anything and be out now on the _Drumfarrar road_*, and n.o.body with me but myself."

*A lonely mountain-road, said to have been haunted. It is on this road that the coffin scenes mentioned in the Party fight and Funeral is laid.

"I think if you wor," said M'Kinley, "the light weights and short measures would be comin' acra.s.s your conscience."

"No, in troth, Alick, wouldn't they; but may be if you wor, the promise you broke to Sally Mitch.e.l.l might trouble you a bit: at any rate, I've a prayer, and if I only repated it wanst, I mightn't be afeard of all the divils in h.e.l.l."

"Throth, but it's worth havin', Nancy: where did you get it?" asked M'Kinley.

"Hould your wicked tongue, you thief of a heretic," said Nancy, laughing, "when will _you_ larn anything that's good? I got it from one that wouldn't have it if it _wasn't_ good--Darby M'Murt, the pilgrim, since you must know."

"Whisht!" said Frayne: "upon my word, I blieve the old Square's comin'

to pay tis a visit; does any of yez hear a horse trottin' with a shoe loose?"

"I sartinly hear it," observed Andy Morrow.

"And I," said Ned himself.

There was now a general pause, and in the silence a horse, proceeding from the moors in the direction of the house, was distinctly heard; and nothing could be less problematical than that one of his shoes was loose.

"Boys, take care of yourselves," said Shane Fadh, "if the Square comes, he won't be a pleasant customer--he was a terrible fellow in his day: I'll hould goold to silver that he'll have the smell of brimstone about him."

"Nancy, where's your prayer now?" said M'Kinley, with a grin: "I think you had betther out with it, and thry if it keeps this old brimstone Square on the wrong side of the house."

"Behave yourself, Alick; it's a shame for you to be sich a hardened crathur: upon my sannies, I blieve your afeard of neither G.o.d nor the divil--the Lord purtect and guard us from the dirty baste!"

"You mane particklarly them that uses short measures and light weights,"

rejoined M'Kinley.

There was another pause, for the horseman was within a few perches of the crossroads. At this moment an unusual gust of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, burst against the house with a violence that made its ribs creak; and the stranger's horse, the shoe still clanking, was distinctly heard to turn in from the road to Ned's door, where it stopped, and the next moment a loud knocking intimated the horseman's intention to enter. The company now looked at each other, as if uncertain what to do. Nancy herself grew pale, and, in the agitation of the moment, forgot to think of her protecting prayer. Biddy and Bessy Connolly started from the settle on which they had been sitting with their sweethearts, and sprung beside their uncle, on the hob. The stranger was still knocking with great violence, yet there was no disposition among the company to admit him, notwithstanding the severity of the night--blowing, as it really did, a perfect hurricane. At length a sheet of lightning flashed through the house, followed by an amazing loud clap of thunder; while, with a sudden push from without, the door gave way, and in stalked a personage Whose stature was at least six feet four, with dark eyes and complexion, and coal-black whiskers of an enormous size, the very image of the Squire they had been describing. He was dressed in a long black surtout, which him appear even taller than he actually was, had a pair of heavy boots upon and carried a tremendous whip, large enough to fell an ox. He was in a rage on entering; and the heavy, dark, close-knit-brows, from beneath which a pair of eyes, equally black, shot actual fire, whilst the Turk-like whiskers, which curled themselves up, as it were, in sympathy with his fury, joined to his towering height, gave him altogether, when we consider the frame of mind in which he found the company, an appalling and almost supernatural appearance.

"Confound you, for a knot of lazy scoundrels," exclaimed the stranger, "why do you sit here so calmly, while any being craves admittance on such a night as this? Here, you lubber in the corner, with a pipe in your mouth, come and put up this horse of mine until the night settles."

"May the blessed mother purtect us!" exclaimed Nancy, in a whisper, to Andy Morrow, "if I blieve he's a right thing!--would it be the ould Square? Did you ever set your eyes upon sich a"--

"Will you bestir yourself, you boor, and' not keep my horse and saddle out under such a torrent?" he cried, "otherwise I must only bring him into the house, and then you may say for once that you've had the devil under your roof."

"Paddy Smith, you lazy spalpeen," said Nancy, winking at Ned to have nothing to do with the horse, "why don't you fly and put up the gintleman's horse? And you, Atty, avourneen, jist go out with him, and hould the candle while he's doin' it: be quick now, and I'll give you gla.s.ses a-piece when you come in."

"Let them put him up quickly; but I say, you Caliban," added the stranger, addressing Smith, "don't be rash about him except you can bear fire and brimstone; get him, at all events, a good feed of oats. Poor Satan!" he continued, patting the horse's head, which was now within the door, "you've had a hard night of it, my poor Satan, as well as myself.

That's my dark spirit--my brave chuck, that fears neither man nor devil."