Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

“Isn’t it a beautiful place, Misther Charles? And this little room, doesn’t it remind you of the blue bed-room in O’Malley Castle, barrin’ the elegant view out upon the Shannon, and the mountain of Scariff?”

Nothing short of Mike’s patriotism could forgive such a comparison; but, however, I did not contradict him as he ran on: —

“Faith, I knew well there was luck in store for us this evening; and ye see the handful of prayers I threw away outside wasn’t lost. José’s making the beasts comfortable in the stable, and I’m thinking we’ll none of us complain of our quarters. But you’re not eating your supper; and the beautiful hare-pie that I stole this morning, won’t you taste it? Well, a glass of Malaga? Not a glass of Malaga? Oh, mother of Moses! what’s this for?”

Unfortunately, the fever produced by the long and toilsome journey had gained considerably on me, and except copious libations of cold water, I could touch nothing; my arm, too, was much more painful than before. Mike soon perceived that rest and quietness were most important to me at the moment, and having with difficulty been prevailed upon to swallow a few hurried mouthfuls, the poor fellow disposed cushions around me in every imaginable form for comfort; and then, placing my wounded limb in its easiest position, he extinguished the lamp, and sat silently down beside the hearth, without speaking another word.

Fatigue and exhaustion, more powerful than pain, soon produced their effects upon me, and I fell asleep; but it was no refreshing slumber which visited my heavy eyelids; the slow fever of suffering had been hour by hour increasing, and my dreams presented nothing but scenes of agony and torture. Now I thought that, unhorsed and wounded, I was trampled beneath the clanging hoofs of charging cavalry; now I felt the sharp steel piercing my flesh, and heard the loud cry of a victorious enemy; then, methought, I was stretched upon a litter, covered by gore and mangled by a grape-shot. I thought I saw my brother officers approach and look sadly upon me, while one, whose face I could not remember, muttered: “I should not have known him.” The dreadful hospital of Talavera, and all its scenes of agony, came up before me, and I thought that I lay waiting my turn for amputation. This last impression, more horrible to me than all the rest, made me spring from my couch, and I awoke. The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my brow, my mouth was parched and open, and my temples throbbed so that I could count their beatings; for some seconds I could not throw off the frightful illusion I labored under, and it was only by degrees I recovered consciousness and remembered where I was. Before me, and on one side of the bright wood-fire, sat Mike, who, apparently deep in thought, gazed fixedly at the blaze. The start I gave on awaking had not attracted his attention, and I could see, as the flickering glare fell upon his features, that he was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips moved rapidly, as if in prayer, and his locked hands were pressed firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually distinguish, and at length heard the following muttered sentences: —

“Oh, mother of mercy! So far from his home and his people, and so young to die in a strange land – There it is again.” Here he appeared listening to some sounds from without. “Oh, wirra, wirra, I know it well! – the winding-sheet, the winding-sheet! There it is; my own eyes saw it!” The tears coursed fast upon his pale cheeks, and his voice grew almost inaudible, as rocking to and fro, for some time he seemed in a very stupor of grief; when at last, in a faint, subdued tone, he broke into one of those sad and plaintive airs of his country, which only need the moment of depression to make them wring the very heart in agony.

His song was that to which Moore has appended the beautiful lines, “Come rest on this bosom.” The following imperfect translation may serve to convey some impression of the words, which in Mike’s version were Irish: —

“The day was declining,The dark night drew near,And the old lord grew sadderAnd paler with fear:‘Come listen, my daughter,Come nearer, oh, near!Is’t the wind or the waterThat sighs in my ear?’“Not the wind nor the waterNow stirred the night air,But a warning far sadder, – .The Banshee was there!Now rising, now swelling,On the night wind it boreOne cadence, still telling,‘I want thee, Rossmore!’“And then fast came his breath,And more fixed grew his eye;And the shadow of deathTold his hour was nigh.Ere the dawn of that morningThe struggle was o’er,For when thrice came the warningA corpse was Rossmore!”

The plaintive air to which these words were sung fell heavily upon my heart, and it needed but the low and nervous condition I was in to make me feel their application to myself. But so it is; the very superstition your reason rejects and your sense spurns, has, from old association, from habit, and from mere nationality too, a hold upon your hopes and fears that demands more firmness and courage than a sick-bed possesses to combat with success; and I now listened with an eager ear to mark if the Banshee cried, rather than sought to fortify myself by any recurrence to my own convictions. Meanwhile Mike’s attitude became one of listening attention. Not a finger moved; he scarce seemed even to breathe; the state of suspense I suffered from was maddening; and at last, unable to bear it longer, I was about to speak, when suddenly, from the floor beneath us, one long-sustained note swelled upon the air and died away again, and immediately after, to the cheerful sounds of a guitar, we heard the husky voice of our Portuguese guide indulging himself in a love-ditty.

Ashamed of myself for my fears, I kept silent; but Mike, who felt only one sensation, – that of unmixed satisfaction at his mistake, – rubbed his hands pleasantly, filled up his glass, drank it, and refilled; while with an accent of reassured courage, he briefly remarked, —

“Well, Mr. José, if that be singing, upon my conscience I wonder what crying is like!”

I could not forbear a laugh at the criticism; and in a moment, the poor fellow, who up to that moment believed me sleeping, was beside me. I saw from his manner that he dreaded lest I had been listening to his melancholy song, and had overheard any of his gloomy forebodings; and as he cheered my spirits and spoke encouragingly, I could remark that he made more than usual endeavors to appear light-hearted and at ease. Determined, however, not to let him escape so easily, I questioned him about his belief in ghosts and spirits, at which he endeavored, as he ever did when the subject was an unpleasing one, to avoid the discussion; but rather perceiving that I indulged in no irreverent disrespect of these matters, he grew gradually more open, treating the affair with that strange mixture of credulity and mockery which formed his estimate of most things, – now seeming to suppose that any palpable rejection of them might entail sad consequences in future, now half ashamed to go the whole length in his credulity.

“And so, Mike, you never saw a ghost yourself? – that you acknowledge?”

“No, sir, I never saw a real ghost; but sure there’s many a thing I never saw; but Mrs. Moore, the housekeeper, seen two. And your grandfather that’s gone – the Lord be good to him! – used to walk once a year in Lurra Abbey; and sure you know the story about Tim Clinchy that was seen every Saturday night coming out of the cellar with a candle and a mug of wine and a pipe in his mouth, till Mr. Barry laid him. It cost his honor your uncle ten pounds in Masses to make him easy; not to speak of a new lock and two bolts on the cellar door.”

“I have heard all about that; but as you never yourself saw any of these things – ”

“But sure my father did, and that’s the same any day. My father seen the greatest ghost that ever was seen in the county Cork, and spent the evening with him, that’s more.”

“Spent the evening with him! – what do you mean?”

“Just that, devil a more nor less. If your honor wasn’t so weak, and the story wasn’t a trying one, I’d like to tell it to you.”

“Out with it by all means, Mike; I am not disposed to sleep; and now that we are upon these matters, my curiosity is strongly excited by your worthy father’s experience.”

Thus encouraged, having trimmed the fire and reseated himself beside the blaze, Mike began; but as a ghost is no every-day personage in our history, I must give him a chapter to himself.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GHOST

“Well, I believe your honor heard me tell long ago how my father left the army, and the way that he took to another line of life that was more to his liking. And so it was, he was happy as the day was long; he drove a hearse for Mr. Callaghan of Cork for many years, and a pleasant place it was; for ye see, my father was a ‘cute man, and knew something of the world; and though he was a droll devil, and could sing a funny song when he was among the boys, no sooner had he the big black cloak on him and the weepers, and he seated on the high box with the six long-tailed blacks before him, you’d really think it was his own mother was inside, he looked so melancholy and miserable. The sexton and gravedigger was nothing to my father; and he had a look about his eye – to be sure there was a reason for it – that you’d think he was up all night crying; though it’s little indulgence he took that way.

“Well, of all Mr. Callaghan’s men, there was none so great a favorite as my father. The neighbors were all fond of him.

“‘A kind crayture, every inch of him!’ the women would say. ‘Did ye see his face at Mrs. Delany’s funeral?’

“‘True for you,’ another would remark; ‘he mistook the road with grief, and stopped at a shebeen house instead of Kilmurry church.’

“I need say no more, only one thing, – that it was principally among the farmers and the country people my father was liked so much. The great people and the quality – ax your pardon; but sure isn’t it true, Mister Charles? – they don’t fret so much after their fathers and brothers, and they care little who’s driving them, whether it was a decent, respectable man like my father, or a chap with a grin on him like a rat-trap. And so it happened that my father used to travel half the county; going here and there wherever there was trade stirring; and faix, a man didn’t think himself rightly buried if my father wasn’t there; for ye see, he knew all about it: he could tell to a quart of spirits what would be wanting for a wake; he knew all the good criers for miles round; and I’ve heard it was a beautiful sight to see him standing on a hill, arranging the procession as they walked into the churchyard, and giving the word like a captain, —

“‘Come on, the stiff; now the friends of the stiff; now the pop’lace.’

“That’s what he used to say, and troth he was always repeating it, when he was a little gone in drink, – for that’s the time his spirits would rise, and he’d think he was burying half Munster.

“And sure it was a real pleasure and a pride to be buried in them times; for av it was only a small farmer with a potato garden, my father would come down with the black cloak on him, and three yards of crape behind his hat, and set all the children crying and yelling for half a mile round; and then the way he’d walk before them with a spade on his shoulder, and sticking it down in the ground, clap his hat on the top of it, to make it look like a chief mourner. It was a beautiful sight!”

“But Mike, if you indulge much longer in this flattering recollection of your father, I’m afraid we shall lose sight of the ghost entirely.”

“No fear in life, your honor; I’m coming to him now. Well, it was this way it happened: In the winter of the great frost, about forty-two or forty-three years ago, the ould priest of Tullonghmurray took ill and died. He was sixty years priest of the parish, and mightily beloved by all the people, and good reason for it; a pleasanter man, and a more social crayture never lived, – ‘twas himself was the life of the whole country-side. A wedding nor a christening wasn’t lucky av he wasn’t there, sitting at the top of the table, with may be his arm round the bride herself, or the baby on his lap, a smoking jug of punch before him, and as much kindness in his eye as would make the fortunes of twenty hypocrites if they had it among them. And then he was so good to the poor; the Priory was always so full of ould men and ould women sitting around the big fire in the kitchen that the cook could hardly get near it. There they were, eating their meals and burning their shins till they were speckled like a trout’s back, and grumbling all the time; but Father Dwyer liked them, and he would have them.

“‘Where have they to go,’ he’d say, ‘av it wasn’t to me? Give Molly Kinshela a lock of that bacon. Tim, it’s a could morning; will ye have a taste of the “dew?”’

“Ah, that’s the way he’d spake to them; but sure goodness is no warrant for living, any more than devilment, and so he got could in his feet at a station, and he rode home in the heavy snow without his big coat, – for he gave it away to a blind man on the road; in three days he was dead.

“I see you’re getting impatient, so I’ll not stop to say what grief was in the parish when it was known; but troth, there never was seen the like before, – not a crayture would lift a spade for two days, and there was more whiskey sold in that time than at the whole spring fair. Well, on the third day the funeral set out, and never was the equal of it in them parts: first, there was my father, – he came special from Cork with the six horses all in new black, and plumes like little poplar-trees, – then came Father Dwyer, followed by the two coadjutors in beautiful surplices, walking bare-headed, with the little boys of the Priory school, two-and-two.”

“Well, Mike, I’m sure it was very fine; but for Heaven’s sake, spare me all these descriptions, and get on to the ghost!”

“‘Faith, yer honor’s in a great hurry for the ghost, – may be ye won’t like him when ye have him; but I’ll go faster, if ye please. Well, Father Dwyer, ye see, was born at Aghan-lish, of an ould family, and he left it in his will that he was to be buried in the family vault; and as Aghan-lish was eighteen miles up the mountains, it was getting late when they drew near. By that time the great procession was all broke up and gone home. The coadjutors stopped to dine at the ‘Blue Bellows’ at the cross-roads; the little boys took to pelting snowballs; there was a fight or two on the way besides, – and in fact, except an ould deaf fellow that my father took to mind the horses, he was quite alone. Not that he minded that same; for when the crowd was gone, my father began to sing a droll song, and told the deaf chap that it was a lamentation. At last they came in sight of Aghan-lish. It was a lonesome, melancholy-looking place with nothing near it except two or three ould fir-trees and a small slated house with one window, where the sexton lived, and even that was shut up and a padlock on the door. Well, my father was not over much pleased at the look of matters; but as he was never hard put to what to do, he managed to get the coffin into the vestry, and then when he had unharnessed the horses, he sent the deaf fellow with them down to the village to tell the priest that the corpse was there, and to come up early in the morning and perform Mass. The next thing to do was to make himself comfortable for the night; and then he made a roaring fire on the ould hearth, – for there was plenty of bog-fir there, – closed the windows with the black cloaks, and wrapping two round himself, he sat down to cook a little supper he brought with him in case of need.

“Well, you may think it was melancholy enough to pass the night up there alone with a corpse, in an ould ruined church in the middle of the mountains, the wind howling about on every side, and the snowdrift beating against the walls; but as the fire burned brightly, and the little plate of rashers and eggs smoked temptingly before him, my father mixed a jug of the strongest punch, and sat down as happy as a king. As long as he was eating away he had no time to be thinking of anything else; but when all was done, and he looked about him, he began to feel very low and melancholy in his heart. There was the great black coffin on three chairs in one corner; and then the mourning cloaks that he had stuck up against the windows moved backward and forward like living things; and outside, the wild cry of the plover as he flew past, and the night-owl sitting in a nook of the old church. ‘I wish it was morning, anyhow,’ said my father, ‘for this is a lonesome place to be in; and faix, he’ll be a cunning fellow that catches me passing the night this way again.’ Now there was one thing distressed him most of all, – my father used always to make fun of the ghosts and sperits the neighbors would tell of, pretending there was no such thing; and now the thought came to him, ‘May be they’ll revenge themselves on me to-night when they have me up here alone;’ and with that he made another jug stronger than the first, and tried to remember a few prayers in case of need, but somehow his mind was not too clear, and he said afterwards he was always mixing up ould songs and toasts with the prayers, and when he thought he had just got hold of a beautiful psalm, it would turn out to be ‘Tatter Jack Walsh’ or ‘Limping James’ or something like that. The storm, meanwhile, was rising every moment, and parts of the old abbey were falling as the wind shook the ruin; and my father’s spirits, notwithstanding the punch, wore lower than ever.

“‘I made it too weak,’ said he, as he set to work on a new jorum; and troth, this time that was not the fault of it, for the first sup nearly choked him.

“‘Ah,’ said he, now, ‘I knew what it was; this is like the thing; and Mr. Free, you are beginning to feel easy and comfortable. Pass the jar. Your very good health and song. I’m a little hoarse, it’s true, but if the company will excuse – ’

“And then he began knocking on the table with his knuckles, as if there was a room full of people asking him to sing. In short, my father was drunk as a fiddler; the last brew finished him; and he began roaring away all kinds of droll songs, and telling all manner of stories as if he was at a great party.

“While he was capering this way about the room, he knocked down his hat, and with it a pack of cards he put into it before leaving home, for he was mighty fond of a game.

“‘Will ye take a hand, Mr. Free?’ said he, as he gathered them up and sat down beside the fire.

“‘I’m convanient,’ said he, and began dealing out as if there was a partner fornenst him.

“When my father used to get this far in the story, he became very confused. He says that once or twice he mistook the liquor, and took a pull at the bottle of poteen instead of the punch; and the last thing he remembers was asking poor Father Dwyer if he would draw near to the fire, and not be lying there near the door.

“With that he slipped down on the ground and fell fast asleep. How long he lay that way he could never tell. When he awoke and looked up, his hair nearly stood on an end with fright. What do you think he seen fornenst him, sitting at the other side of the fire, but Father Dwyer himself. There he was, divil a lie in it, wrapped up in one of the mourning cloaks, trying to warm his hands at the fire. “‘Salve hoc nomine patri!’ said my father, crossing himself, ‘av it’s your ghost, God presarve me!’

“‘Good-evening t’ye, Mr. Free,’ said the ghost; ‘and av I might be bould, what’s in the jug?’ – for ye see, my father had it under his arm fast, and never let it go when he was asleep.

“‘Pater noster qui es in, – poteen, sir,’ said my father; for the ghost didn’t look pleased at his talking Latin.

“‘Ye might have the politeness to ax if one had a mouth on him, then,’ says the ghost.

“‘Sure, I didn’t think the likes of you would taste sperits.’

“‘Try me,’ said the ghost; and with that he filled out a glass, and tossed it off like a Christian.

“‘Beamish!’ says the ghost, smacking his lips.

“‘The same,’ says my father; ‘and sure what’s happened you has not spoiled your taste.’

“‘If you’d mix a little hot,’ says the ghost, ‘I’m thinking it would be better, – the night is mighty sevare.’

“‘Anything that your reverance pleases,’ says my father, as he began to blow up a good fire to boil the water.

“‘And what news is stirring?’ says the ghost.

“‘Devil a word, your reverance, – your own funeral was the only thing doing last week. Times is bad; except the measles, there’s nothing in our parts.’

“‘And we’re quite dead hereabouts, too,’ says the ghost.

“‘There’s some of us so, anyhow, says my father, with a sly look. ‘Taste that, your reverance.’

“‘Pleasant and refreshing,’ says the ghost; ‘and now, Mr. Free, what do you say to a little “spoilt five,” or “beggar my neighbor”?’

“‘What will we play for? ‘says my father, for a thought just struck him, – ‘may be it’s some trick of the Devil to catch my soul.’

“‘A pint of Beamish,’ says the ghost.

“‘Done!’ says my father; ‘cut for deal. The ace of clubs, – you have it.’

“Now the whole time the ghost was dealing the cards, my father never took his eyes off of him, for he wasn’t quite aisy in his mind at all; but when he saw him turn up the trump, and take a strong drink afterwards, he got more at ease, and began the game.

“How long they played it was never rightly known; but one thing is sure, they drank a cruel deal of sperits. Three quart bottles my father brought with him were all finished, and by that time his brain was so confused with the liquor, and all he lost, – for somehow he never won a game, – that he was getting very quarrelsome.

“‘You have your own luck to it,’ says he, at last.

“‘True for you; and besides, we play a great deal where I come from.’

“‘I’ve heard so,’ says my father. ‘I lead the knave, sir; spades! Bad cess to it, lost again!’

“Now it was really very distressing; for by this time, though they only began for a pint of Beamish, my father went on betting till he lost the hearse and all the six horses, mourning cloaks, plumes, and everything.

“‘Are you tired, Mr. Free? May be you’d like to stop?’

“‘Stop! faith it’s a nice time to stop; of course not.’

“‘Well, what will ye play for now?’

“The way he said these woods brought a trembling all over my father, and his blood curdled in his heart. ‘Oh, murther!’ says he to himself, ‘it’s my sowl he’s wanting all the time.’

“‘I’ve mighty little left,’ says my father, looking at him keenly, while he kept shuffling the cards quick as lightning.

“‘Mighty little; no matter, we’ll give you plenty of time to pay, – and if you can’t do it, it shall never trouble you as long as you live.’

“‘Oh, you murthering devil!’ says my father, flying at him with a spade that he had behind his chair, ‘I’ve found you out.’

“With one blow he knocked him down, and now a terrible fight begun, for the ghost was very strong, too; but my father’s blood was up, and he’d have faced the Devil himself then. They rolled over each other several times, the broken bottles cutting them to pieces, and the chairs and tables crashing under them. At last the ghost took the bottle that lay on the hearth, and levelled my father to the ground with one blow. Down he fell, and the bottle and the whiskey were both dashed into the fire. That was the end of it, for the ghost disappeared that moment in a blue flame that nearly set fire to my father as he lay on the floor.

“Och, it was a cruel sight to see him next morning, with his cheek cut open and his hands all bloody, lying there by himself, – all the broken glass and the cards all round him, – the coffin, too, was knocked down off the chair, may be the ghost had trouble getting into it. However that was, the funeral was put off for a day, for my father couldn’t speak; and as for the sexton, it was a queer thing, but when they came to call him in the morning, he had two black eyes, and a gash over his ear, and he never knew how he got them. It was easy enough to know the ghost did it; but my father kept the secret, and never told it to any man, woman, or child in them parts.”

CHAPTER IX

LISBON

I have little power to trace the events which occupied the succeeding three weeks of my history. The lingering fever which attended my wound detained me during that time at the château; and when at last I did leave for Lisbon, the winter was already beginning, and it was upon a cold raw evening that I once more took possession of my old quarters at the Quay de Soderi.