The Cuckoo Clock

"Do you think that I will ever marry a black cat?" cried Eileen, fixing her eyes with a look of horror on his face.

"Eileen, take care!" exclaimed the knight sternly. "Take care how you anger me, or it will be the worse for you."

"The worse for me! Do you think I am afraid of you?" said Eileen with her eyes all flashing, for she had a high enough spirit, and was not going to allow herself to be forced to marry a black cat, let the knight say what he would. She rose from her couch and would have sprung to the ground, if all at once the knight had not bent forward and taken her by her hand.

"Eileen," said the knight, holding her fast and looking into her face, "Eileen, will you be my wife?"

"I would sooner die!" cried Eileen.

"Eileen," cried the knight passionately, "I love you! Do not break your promise to me. Forget what you have seen. I am a powerful magician. I will make you happy. I will give you all you want. Be my wife."

"Never!" cried Eileen.

"Then you have sealed your fate!" exclaimed the knight fiercely; and suddenly he rose and extended his arms, and said some strange words that Eileen did not understand; and all at once it appeared to her as if some thick white pall were spreading over her, and her eyelids began to close, and involuntarily she sank back.

Once more, but as if in a dream, she heard the knight's voice.

"If you do not become my wife," he said, "you shall never be the wife of any living man. The black cat can hold his own. Sleep here till another lover comes to woo you."

A mocking laugh rang through the room – and then Eileen heard no more. It seemed to her that her life was passing away. A strange feeling came to her, as if she were sinking through the air; there was a sound in her ears of rushing water; and then all recollection and all consciousness ceased.

Some travelers passing that evening by the lough gazed at the spot on which the castle had stood, and rubbed their eyes in wild surprise, for there was no castle there, but only a bare tract of desolate, waste ground. The prophecy had been fulfilled; the castle had been lifted up from its foundation and sunk in the waters of the lough.

This was the story that Dermot used to listen to as he sat in his father's hall on winter nights – a wild old story, very strange, and sweet too, as well as strange. For they were living still, the legend always said – the chief and his household, and beautiful Eileen; not dead at all, but only sleeping an enchanted sleep, till some one of the M'Swynes should come and kill the black cat who guarded them, and set them free. Under those dark, deep waters, asleep for three hundred years, lay Eileen, with all her massive ornaments on her neck and arms, and red-gold Irish hair. How often did the boy think of her, and picture to himself the motionless face, with its closed, waiting eyes, and yearn to see it. Asleep there for three hundred years! His heart used to burn at the imagination. In all these centuries had no M'Swyne been found bold enough to find the black cat and kill him? Could it be so hard a thing to kill a black cat? the little fellow thought.

"I'd kill him myself if only I had the chance," he said one day; and when he said that his father laughed.

"Ay, my lad, you might kill him if you had the chance – but how would you get the chance?" he asked him. "Do you think the magician would be fool enough to leave his watch over the lough and put himself in your way? Kill him? Yes, we could any of us kill him if we could catch him; but three hundred years have passed away and nobody has ever caught him yet."

"Well, I may do it some day, when I am grown a man," Dermot said.

So he went on dreaming over the old legend, and weaving out of his own brain an ending to it. What if it should be, indeed, his lot to awake Eileen from her enchanted sleep? He used to wander often by the shores of the dark little lough and gaze into the shadowy waters. Many a time, too, he would sail across them, leaning down over his boat's side, to try in vain to catch some glimpse of the buried castle's walls or towers. Once or twice – it might have been mere fancy – it seemed to him as if he saw some dark thing below the surface, and he would cry aloud, "The cat! I see the black cat!" But they only laughed at him when he returned home and said this. "It was only a big fish at the bottom of the water, my boy," his father would reply.

When he was a boy he talked of this story often and was never weary of asking questions concerning it; but presently, as he grew older, he grew more reserved and shy, and when he spoke about Eileen the color used to come into his cheek. "Why, boy, are you falling in love with her?" his father said to him one day. "Are there not unbewitched maidens enough to please you on the face of the earth, but you must take a fancy to a bewitched one lying asleep at the bottom of the lough?" and he laughed aloud at him. After that day Dermot never spoke of Eileen in his father's hearing. But although he ceased to speak of her, yet only the more did he think and dream about her; and the older he grew, the less did he seem to care for any of those unbewitched maidens of whom his father had talked; and the only maiden of whom he thought with love and longing was this one who lay asleep in the enchanted castle in the lough.

So the years passed on, and in time Dermot's father died, and the young man became chieftain of his clan. He was straight and tall, with blue, clear eyes, and a frank, fair face. Some of the M'Swynes, who were a rough, burly race, looked scornfully on him and said that he was fitter to make love to ladies than to head men on a battle-field; but they wronged him when they said that, for no braver soldier than Dermot had ever led their clan. He was both brave and gentle too, and courteous, and tender, and kind; and as for being only fit to make love to ladies – why, making love to ladies was almost the only thing he never did.

"Are you not going to bring home a wife to the old house, my son?" said his foster-mother, an old woman who had lived with him all her life. "Before I die I'd love to dandle a child of yours upon my knee."

But Dermot only shook his head. "My wife, I fear, will be hard to win. I may have to wait for her all my days." And then, after a little while, when the old woman still went on talking to him, "How can I marry when my love has been asleep these three hundred years?"

This was the first time that he had spoken about Eileen for many a day, and the old nurse had thought, like everybody else, that he had forgotten that old legend and all the foolish fancies of his youth.

She was sitting at her spinning-wheel, but she dropped the thread and folded her hands sadly on her knees.

"My son, why think on her that's as good as dead? Even if you could win her, would you take a bewitched maiden to be your wife?"

It was a summer's day, and Dermot stood looking far away through the sunshine toward where, though he could not see it, the enchanted castle lay. He had stood in that same place a thousand times, looking toward it, dreaming over the old tale.

For several minutes he made no answer to what the old woman had said; then all at once he turned round to her.

"Nurse," he said passionately, "I have adored her for twenty years. Ever since I first stood at your knees, and you told me of her, she has been the one love of my heart. Unless I can marry her, I will never marry any woman in this world." He came to the old woman's side, and though he was a full-grown man, he put his arms about her neck. "Nurse, you have a keen woman's wit; cannot you help me with it?" he said. "I have wandered round the lough by day and night and challenged the magician to come and try his power against me, but he does not hear me, or he will not come. How can I reach him through those dark, cruel waters and force him to come out of them and fight with me?"

"Foolish lad!" the old woman said. She was a wise old woman, but she believed as much as everybody else did in the legend of the castle in the lough. "What has he to gain that he need come up and fight with you? Do you think the black cat's such a fool as to heed your ranting and your challenging?"

"But what else can I do?"

The old woman took her thread into her hands again, and sat spinning for two or three minutes without answering a word. She was a sensible old woman, and it seemed to her a sad pity that a fine young man like her foster-son should waste his life in pining for the love of a maiden who had lain asleep and enchanted for three hundred years. Yet the nurse loved him so dearly that she could not bear to cross him in anything, or to refuse to do anything that he asked. So she sat spinning and thinking for a little while, and then said:

"It was a mouse that made him show himself in his own shape first, and it's few mice he can be catching, I guess, down in the bottom of the lough. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you half a dozen mice in a bag tomorrow, and you can let them loose when you get to the water side, and see if that will bring him up."

Well, Dermot did not think very much of this plan; but still, as he had asked the old woman to help him, he felt that he could not avoid taking her advice, and so the next morning his nurse gave him a bag with half a dozen mice in it, and he carried it with him to the lough. But, alas! as soon as ever he had opened the bag, all the six mice rushed away like lightning and were out of sight in a moment.

"That chance is soon ended," Dermot said mournfully to himself; so he took back the empty bag to his nurse, and told her what had happened.

"You goose, why didn't you let them out one by one?" inquired she. "Sure they would run when you opened the bag. You should have made play with them."

"To be sure, so I should; but I never thought of that. I'll do better next time."

So next day the woman brought him the bag again, filled this time with fat rats, and he took it to the lough, and laid it down at the water side, and opened the mouth of it just wide enough for one of the rats to put out his nose; and then he sat and watched, and watched, letting the rats run away one by one; but though he sat watching for the whole day, not a sign did he ever see of the black cat. At last he came disconsolately home again with the empty bag on his shoulder.

"Never mind, my son, we'll try something else to-morrow," said nurse cheerfully. So next morning she brought him a fishing-rod, and a large piece of toasted cheese. "Take this to the lough and bait your hook with it," she said, "and see if the black cat won't come up and take a bite. All cats like cheese."

Dermot went immediately to the lough, baited his hook, and threw the line out into the water. After a few minutes his heart gave a great jump, for he felt a sudden pull at the line. He drew it in softly and cautiously; but when he got it to the water's edge there was nothing on his hook but a large flat fish – and the toasted cheese had all broken away and was gone.

"What a foolish old woman, to give me toasted cheese to put into water!" he said to himself; then he heaved a sigh, threw the fish into his bag, and once more went sadly away.

"I dare say the villain of a cat has breakfasted nicely off the toasted cheese without the trouble of coming for it," he said bitterly, when he got home.

"Never mind; we'll maybe have better luck to-morrow," replied the nurse. "I dreamed a dream, and in the dream I thought of something else to do."

So early next morning she brought a fat black pig.

"What in the world am I to do with this?" said Dermot sharply.

"Ah, now, be easy, my dear," said the old woman coaxingly. "Just take it down to the lough and roast it there, and sure when the cat smells the fine smell of it he'll come up for a taste."

Now Dermot was getting rather tired of doing all these odd things; and though he had readily gone to the lough with the mice and the rats and the toasted cheese, yet he did not at all relish the notion of carrying a live pig across the country with him for two or three miles. However, he was very good-natured, and so, although he did not himself think that any good would come of it, after a little while he let his nurse persuade him to take the pig. The old woman tied a string about its leg, and he took it to the lough, and as soon as he got there he collected some sticks and peat together and, building up a good big pile, set light to it. Then he killed the pig with his hunting-knife and hung it up before the fire to roast. Presently a most savory smell began to fill the air.

Dermot withdrew a little way, sat down behind a jutting piece of rock, and watched, his eyes never leaving the smooth surface of the lough; but minute after minute passed and not the slightest movement stirred it. From time to time he made up his fire afresh, and turned his pig from side to side. The whole air around grew full of the smell of roasting meat, so savory that, being hungry, it made Dermot's own mouth water; but still – there lay the lough, quiet and smooth, and undisturbed as glass, with only the dark shadows of the silent rocks lying across it.

At last the pig was cooked and ready, and Dermot rose and drew it from the fire.

"I may as well make my own dinner off it," he thought sorrowfully to himself, "for nobody else will come to have a share of it." So he took his knife and cut himself a juicy slice, and sat down again, concealing himself behind the rock, with his bow and arrow by his side, and had just lifted the first morsel to his lips, when —

Down fell the untasted meat upon the ground, and his heart leaped to his lips, for surely something at last was stirring the waters! The oily surface had broken into circles; there was a movement, a little splash, a sudden vision of something black. A moment or two he sat breathlessly gazing; and then – was he asleep, or was he waking, and really saw it? – he saw above the water a black cat's head. Black head, black paws put out to swim, black back, black tail.

Dermot took his bow up in his hand, and tried to fit an arrow to it; but his hand shook, and for a few moments he could not draw. Slowly the creature swam to the water's edge, and, reaching it, planted its feet upon the earth, and looked warily, with green, watchful eye, all round; then, shaking itself – and the water seemed to glide off its black fur as off a duck's back – it licked its lips, and, giving one great sweep into the air, it bounded forward to where the roasted pig was smoking on the ground. For a moment Dermot saw it, with its tail high in the air and its tongue stretched out to lick the crackling; and then, sharp and sure, whiz! went an arrow from his bow; and the next moment, stretched flat upon the ground, after one great dismal howl, lay the man-cat, or cat-man, with an arrow in his heart.

Dermot sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the creature's side, caught him by the throat; but he was dead already; only the great, wide-opened, green, fierce eyes seemed to shoot out an almost human look of hatred and despair, before they closed forever. The young chieftain took up the beast, looked at it, and with all his might flung it from him into the lough; then turning round, he stretched his arms out passionately.

"Eileen! Eileen!" he cried aloud; and as though that word had broken the spell, all at once – oh, wonderful sight! – the enchanted castle began to rise. Higher it rose and higher; one little turret first; then pinnacles and tower and roof; then strong stone walls; until, complete, it stood upon the surface of the lough like a strange floating ship. And then slowly and gently it drifted to the shore and, rising at the water's edge, glided a little through the air, and sank at last upon the earth, fixing itself firmly down once more where it had stood of old, as if its foundations never had been stirred through the whole of those three hundred years.

With his heart beating fast, Dermot stood gazing as if he could never cease to gaze. It was a lovely summer day, and all the landscape round him was bathed in sunlight. The radiance shone all over the gray castle walls and made each leaf on every tree a golden glory. It shone on bright flowers blooming in the castle garden; it shone on human figures that began to live and move. Breathless and motionless, Dermot watched them. He was not close to them, but near enough to see them in their strange quaint dresses, passing to and fro, like figures that had started from some painted picture of a by-gone age. The place grew full of them. They poured out from the castle gates; they gathered into groups; they spread themselves abroad; they streamed out from the castle right and left. Did they know that they had been asleep? Apparently not, for each man went on with his natural occupation, as if he had but paused over it a minute to take breath. A hum of voices filled the air; Dermot heard strange accents, almost like those of an unknown tongue, mingled with the sound of laughter. Three hundred years had passed away, and yet they did not seem to know it; busily they went about their sports or labors – as calmly and unconsciously as if they never had been interrupted for an hour.

And, in the midst of all, where was Eileen? The young chieftain stood looking at the strange scene before him, with his heart beating high and fast. He had killed the cat, he had broken the enchantment, he had awakened the castle from its sleep, but what was to come next? Did the prophecy, which said that a M'Swyne should do this, say also that, for doing it, he should be given a reward?

Nay, it said nothing more. The rest was all a blank. But was there, then, to be no reward for him? Dermot stood suddenly erect and crushed down a certain faintness that had been rising in his heart. The prophecy, indeed, said nothing, but he would carve out the rest of his destiny for himself.

And so he carved it out. He went straight through the unknown people to the castle garden and found – was it what he sought? He found a lady gathering flowers – a lady in a rich dress, with golden armlets, bracelets, and head-ornaments – such as are now only discovered in tombs. But she was not dead; she was alive and young. For she turned round, and, after his life's patient waiting, Dermot saw Eileen's face.

And then – what more? Well, need I tell the rest? What ending could the story have but one? Of course he made her love him, and they married, and lived, and died. That was the whole. They were probably happy – I do not know. You may see the little lough still in that wild country of Donegal, and the deep dark waters that hid the enchanted castle beneath them for so many years. As for the castle itself – that, I think, has crumbled away; and the whole story is only a story legend – one of the pretty, foolish legends of the old times.

THE END