The Lucky Guest
THE kitchen of some country houses in
Ireland presents in no ways a bad modern translation of the ancient feudal
hall. Traces of clanship still linger round its hearth in the numerous
depend-ants on "the master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and
other hangers on, are there as matter of right, while the strolling piper,
full of mirth and music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are
received with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.
An assembly, such as has been described,
had collected round the kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the
Galtee mountains, when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth
another; and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was
received with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of Coum an 'ir
morriv (the dead man's hollow), were listened to in breathless silence. A
pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on the narrator, an old
nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next the fireside. She was seated
in that peculiar position which the Irish name Currigguib, a
position generally assumed by a veteran and determined storyteller.. Her
haunches resting upon the ground, and her feet bundled under the body; her
arms folded across and supported by her knees, and the outstretched chin of
her hooded head pressing on. the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly
reduced the whole figure into a perfect triangle.
Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle
made no change. of attitude, while she. gravely asserted the truth of the
marvellous tale concerning the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked
countenance at the time receiving what painters term a fine chiaro obscuro
effect from the fire-light.
"I have told you," she said,
"what happened to my own people, the Butlers and the Doyle, in the old
times; but here is little Ellen Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to
what happened under her own father and mother's roof -the Lord be good to them
!"
Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about
sixteen, was employed in the dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of
health and rustic beauty; and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush
mantled over her countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public
speaking," she, without further hesitation or excuse, proceeded as
follows : -
"It was one May eve, about thirteen
years ago, and that is, as every body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve
months. It is the day above all other days," said Ellen, with her large
dark eyes cast down on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the
young boys and the young girls go looking after the "Drutheen, "to learn
from it rightly the name of their sweethearts.
"My father, and my mother, and my two
brothers, with two or three of the neighbours, were sitting round the turf
fire, and were talking of one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my
little sister, striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth
at the time, and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which
was threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to rain,
and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was pouring through
a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain stopped for a bit there was
a wind which kept up such a whistling and racket, that you would have thought
the sky and the earth were coming together. It blew and it blew as if it had a
mind to blow the roof off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard
for it to do, as the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the
rain began again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as
it came down through the big chimbley.
" ' God bless us,' says my mother,
'but 't is a dreadful night to be at sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that
we have a roof, bad as it is, to shelter us.'
"I don't, to be sure, recollect all
this, mistress Doyle, but only as my brothers told it to me, and other people,
and often have I heard it; for I was so little then, that they say I could
just go under the table without tipping my head. Anyway, it was in the very
height of the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at that
time. We' waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a' sound like an
old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble and weak. Tim bounced
up, with-out a word, to ask us whether we 'd like to let the old mam, or
whoever he was, in - having always a heart as soft as a mealy potato before
the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled back the bolt that did the door; in
marched a little bit of a shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet
and a half high.
"We were all watching to see who 'd
come in, for there was a wall between us and the door; but when the sound of
the undoing of the bolt stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and
instantly he bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either,
when. the little gentleman shuffled in after. him, without a God save all
here, or by your leave, or any other sort that of. thing that any decent body
might say. We all of one accord, scrambled over to the furthest end. of the
room, where we were, old and young, every one. trying who'd get nearest the
wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body we're stuck upon him,
but he didn't mind us no more than that frying-pan there does now. He walked
over to the fire, and squatting himself down like a frog, took the pipe that
my father dropped from his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and
then began to smoke so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
"We had plenty of time to observe him,
and my brothers say that he wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he
had a face as yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a washer-woman's hand,
little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his hair was quite grey and
lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing over the cape of a long scarlet
coat, which almost trailed the ground behind him, and the ends of which he
took up and planked on his knees to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had
smart corduroy breeches, and woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as
to hide the kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate,
if he hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape from the
room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last; so we huddled
ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My little gentleman never
minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly stirred himself, sitting quite
at his ease before the fire. The neighbours, the very instant minute they got
to the door, although it still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver
Cromwell himself was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, anyhow. It
was my father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would come out
of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the "labbig "["Labbig"
- bed, from "Leaba". - Vide O'Brien and O'Reilly] scarcely daring to
throw an eye at him as we passed the door. Never the wink of sleep could they
sleep that live-long night, though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not
knowing better, while they were talking and thinking of the little man.
"When they got up in the morning every
thing was as quiet and as tidy about the place as if nothing had happened, for
all that the chairs and stools were tumbled here, there, and everywhere, when
we saw the lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
but anyway, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I know for
certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly every night, and
used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 't was plain he did not like
to be observed. This sign was always made about eleven o'clock.; and then, if
we 'd look towards the door, there was a little hairy arm thrust. in through
the key-hole, which would not have been big enough, only there was a fresh
hole made near the. first one, and the bit of stick between them had been
broken away, and so 't was just fitting for the littIe arm.
" The Fir darrig continued his visits,
never missing a night, as long as we attended to the signal; smoking always
out of the pipe he made his own of; and warming himself till day dawned
before the fire, and then going no one living kows where: but there was not
the least mark of him to he found in the morning; and 't is as true, nurse
Doyle, and honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the
side of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this, we used
always look for the very moment to see when the arm would come, and then we'd
instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But before we found the luck, we
used sometimes sit still and not mind the arm, especially when a neighbour
would be with my father, or that two or three or four of them would have a
drop among them, and then they did not care for all the arms, hairy or not,
that ever were seen. No one, however, dared to speak to it or of it
insolently, except, indeed, one night that Davy Kennane - but he was drunk -
walked over and hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched
off like lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of such tricks
are ticklish things to do.
"As sure as the red man would put in
his arm for a sign through the hole in the door, and that we did not go and
open it to him, so sure some mishap befel the cattle: the cows were
elf-stoned, or overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One
night my brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the house, a
stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force, into two halves.
Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this hour as dead as my great
great-grandfather. It came whack-slap against the spade he had in his. hand,
and split at once in two pieces. He took them up and fitted them together and
they made a perfect heart. Some way or the other he lost it since, hut he
still has the one which was shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little
man came near us. Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of
the ace of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark-red colour, and polished
up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within.. When this did not kill
the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put the elf-stone
under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last stroking, and then made
her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she would thrive with you ever
after.
But, as I said, we were getting. on well
enough as long as we minded the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we
did sharp enough when we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as
glad to see the little red gentleman; and as ready to open the door to him, as
we used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at long
last we throve so well that the landlord - God forgive him -. took notice of
us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the penny he had, and
wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that was more than any Christian
ought to pay to another, seeing there was no making it. When my father - and
small blame to him for that - refused to lease the ground, he turned us off
the bit of land we had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide
and wicked world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was
not up to the roguery and the trickery that was practised upon him. He was
taken this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that were
working his downfall. And he used. to take bite and sup with them, and they
with him, free enough as long. as the money lasted; but when that was gone,
and he had not as much ground, that he could call his own, as would sod a
lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died not long after; and he now
knows whether he acted right or wrong in taking the house from over our heads.
"It is a bad thing for the heart to be
cast down, so we took another cabin, and looked out with great desire for the
Fir darrig to come to us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a
hole in the. door just the "moral" (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock !
- twelve o'clock ! -no, not a sign of him,: and every night we watched, but
all would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up the
hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the poor people
that no one could take it; and we carried away the very door off the hinges,
and we brought every thing with us that we thought the little man was in any
respect partial to, but he did not come, and we never saw him again.
"My father and my mother, and my young
sister, are since dead, and my two brothers, who could tell all about this
better than myself are both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to
the Cape of Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."
Here. young Ellen's voice became choked
with sorrow, and bursting into tears, she hid her face in her apron.
Ireland presents in no ways a bad modern translation of the ancient feudal
hall. Traces of clanship still linger round its hearth in the numerous
depend-ants on "the master's" bounty. Nurses, foster-brothers, and
other hangers on, are there as matter of right, while the strolling piper,
full of mirth and music, the benighted traveller, even the passing beggar, are
received with a hearty welcome, and each contributes planxty, song, or
superstitious tale, towards the evening's amusement.
An assembly, such as has been described,
had collected round the kitchen fire of Ballyrahenhouse, at the foot of the
Galtee mountains, when, as is ever the case, one tale of wonder called forth
another; and with the advance of the evening each succeeding story was
received with deep and deeper attention. The history of Cough na Looba's dance
with the black friar at Rahill, and the fearful tradition of Coum an 'ir
morriv (the dead man's hollow), were listened to in breathless silence. A
pause followed the last relation, and all eyes rested on the narrator, an old
nurse who occupied the post of honour, that next the fireside. She was seated
in that peculiar position which the Irish name Currigguib, a
position generally assumed by a veteran and determined storyteller.. Her
haunches resting upon the ground, and her feet bundled under the body; her
arms folded across and supported by her knees, and the outstretched chin of
her hooded head pressing on. the upper arm; which compact arrangement nearly
reduced the whole figure into a perfect triangle.
Unmoved by the general gaze, Bridget Doyle
made no change. of attitude, while she. gravely asserted the truth of the
marvellous tale concerning the Dead Man's Hollow; her strongly marked
countenance at the time receiving what painters term a fine chiaro obscuro
effect from the fire-light.
"I have told you," she said,
"what happened to my own people, the Butlers and the Doyle, in the old
times; but here is little Ellen Connell from the county Cork, who can speak to
what happened under her own father and mother's roof -the Lord be good to them
!"
Ellen, a young and blooming girl of about
sixteen, was employed in the dairy at Ballyrahen. She was the picture of
health and rustic beauty; and at this hint from nurse Doyle, a deep blush
mantled over her countenance; yet, although "unaccustomed to public
speaking," she, without further hesitation or excuse, proceeded as
follows : -
"It was one May eve, about thirteen
years ago, and that is, as every body knows, the airiest day in all the twelve
months. It is the day above all other days," said Ellen, with her large
dark eyes cast down on the ground, and drawing a deep sigh, "when the
young boys and the young girls go looking after the "Drutheen, "to learn
from it rightly the name of their sweethearts.
"My father, and my mother, and my two
brothers, with two or three of the neighbours, were sitting round the turf
fire, and were talking of one thing or another. My mother was hushoing my
little sister, striving to quieten her, for she was cutting her teeth
at the time, and was mighty uneasy through the means of them. The day, which
was threatening all along, now that it was coming on to dusk, began to rain,
and the rain increased and fell fast and faster, as if it was pouring through
a sieve out of the wide heavens; and when the rain stopped for a bit there was
a wind which kept up such a whistling and racket, that you would have thought
the sky and the earth were coming together. It blew and it blew as if it had a
mind to blow the roof off the cabin, and that would not have been very hard
for it to do, as the thatch was quite loose in two or three places. Then the
rain began again, and you could hear it spitting and hissing in the fire, as
it came down through the big chimbley.
" ' God bless us,' says my mother,
'but 't is a dreadful night to be at sea,' says she, 'and God be praised that
we have a roof, bad as it is, to shelter us.'
"I don't, to be sure, recollect all
this, mistress Doyle, but only as my brothers told it to me, and other people,
and often have I heard it; for I was so little then, that they say I could
just go under the table without tipping my head. Anyway, it was in the very
height of the pelting and whistling that we heard something speak outside the
door. My father and all of us listened, but there was no more noise at that
time. We' waited a little longer, and then we plainly heard a' sound like an
old man's voice, asking to be let in, but mighty feeble and weak. Tim bounced
up, with-out a word, to ask us whether we 'd like to let the old mam, or
whoever he was, in - having always a heart as soft as a mealy potato before
the voice of sorrow. When Tim pulled back the bolt that did the door; in
marched a little bit of a shrivelled, weather-beaten creature, about two feet
and a half high.
"We were all watching to see who 'd
come in, for there was a wall between us and the door; but when the sound of
the undoing of the bolt stopped, we heard Tim give a sort of a screech, and
instantly he bolted in to us. He had hardly time to say a word, or we either,
when. the little gentleman shuffled in after. him, without a God save all
here, or by your leave, or any other sort that of. thing that any decent body
might say. We all of one accord, scrambled over to the furthest end. of the
room, where we were, old and young, every one. trying who'd get nearest the
wall, and farthest from him. All the eyes of our body we're stuck upon him,
but he didn't mind us no more than that frying-pan there does now. He walked
over to the fire, and squatting himself down like a frog, took the pipe that
my father dropped from his mouth in the hurry, put it into his own, and
then began to smoke so hearty, that he soon filled the room of it.
"We had plenty of time to observe him,
and my brothers say that he wore a sugar-loaf hat that was as red as blood: he
had a face as yellow as a kite's claw, and as long as to-day and to-morrow put
together, with a mouth all screwed and puckered up like a washer-woman's hand,
little blue eyes, and rather a highish nose; his hair was quite grey and
lengthy, appearing under his hat, and flowing over the cape of a long scarlet
coat, which almost trailed the ground behind him, and the ends of which he
took up and planked on his knees to dry, as he sat facing the fire. He had
smart corduroy breeches, and woollen stockings drawn up over the knees, so as
to hide the kneebuckles, if he had the pride to have them; but, at any rate,
if he hadn't them in his knees he had buckles in his shoes, out before his
spindle legs. When we came to ourselves a little we thought to escape from the
room, but no one would go first, nor no one would stay last; so we huddled
ourselves together and made a dart out of the room. My little gentleman never
minded any thing of the scrambling, nor hardly stirred himself, sitting quite
at his ease before the fire. The neighbours, the very instant minute they got
to the door, although it still continued pelting rain, cut gutter as if Oliver
Cromwell himself was at their heels; and no blame to them for that, anyhow. It
was my father, and my mother, and my brothers, and myself, a little
hop-of-my-thumb midge as I was then, that were left to see what would come out
of this strange visit; so we all went quietly to the "labbig "["Labbig"
- bed, from "Leaba". - Vide O'Brien and O'Reilly] scarcely daring to
throw an eye at him as we passed the door. Never the wink of sleep could they
sleep that live-long night, though, to be sure, I slept like a top, not
knowing better, while they were talking and thinking of the little man.
"When they got up in the morning every
thing was as quiet and as tidy about the place as if nothing had happened, for
all that the chairs and stools were tumbled here, there, and everywhere, when
we saw the lad enter. Now, indeed, I forget whether he came next night or not,
but anyway, that was the first time we ever laid eye upon him. This I know for
certain, that, about a month after that he came regularly every night, and
used to give us a signal to be on the move, for 't was plain he did not like
to be observed. This sign was always made about eleven o'clock.; and then, if
we 'd look towards the door, there was a little hairy arm thrust. in through
the key-hole, which would not have been big enough, only there was a fresh
hole made near the. first one, and the bit of stick between them had been
broken away, and so 't was just fitting for the littIe arm.
" The Fir darrig continued his visits,
never missing a night, as long as we attended to the signal; smoking always
out of the pipe he made his own of; and warming himself till day dawned
before the fire, and then going no one living kows where: but there was not
the least mark of him to he found in the morning; and 't is as true, nurse
Doyle, and honest people, as you are all here sitting before me and by the
side of me, that the family continued thriving, and my father and brothers
rising in the world while ever he came to us. When we observed this, we used
always look for the very moment to see when the arm would come, and then we'd
instantly fly off with ourselves to our rest. But before we found the luck, we
used sometimes sit still and not mind the arm, especially when a neighbour
would be with my father, or that two or three or four of them would have a
drop among them, and then they did not care for all the arms, hairy or not,
that ever were seen. No one, however, dared to speak to it or of it
insolently, except, indeed, one night that Davy Kennane - but he was drunk -
walked over and hit it a rap on the back of the wrist: the hand was snatched
off like lightning; but every one knows that Davy did not live a month after
this happened, though he was only about ten days sick. The like of such tricks
are ticklish things to do.
"As sure as the red man would put in
his arm for a sign through the hole in the door, and that we did not go and
open it to him, so sure some mishap befel the cattle: the cows were
elf-stoned, or overlooked, or something or another went wrong with them. One
night my brother Dan refused to go at the signal, and the next day, as he was
cutting turf in Crogh-na-drimina bog, within a mile and a half of the house, a
stone was thrown at him which broke fairly, with the force, into two halves.
Now, if that had happened to hit him he'd be at this hour as dead as my great
great-grandfather. It came whack-slap against the spade he had in his. hand,
and split at once in two pieces. He took them up and fitted them together and
they made a perfect heart. Some way or the other he lost it since, hut he
still has the one which was shot at the spotted milch cow, before the little
man came near us. Many and many a time I saw that same; 'tis just the shape of
the ace of hearts on the cards, only it is of a dark-red colour, and polished
up like the grate that is in the grand parlour within.. When this did not kill
the cow on the spot, she swelled up; but if you took and put the elf-stone
under her udder, and milked her upon it to the last stroking, and then made
her drink the milk, it would cure her, and she would thrive with you ever
after.
But, as I said, we were getting. on well
enough as long as we minded the door and watched for the hairy arm, which we
did sharp enough when we found it was bringing luck to us, and we were now as
glad to see the little red gentleman; and as ready to open the door to him, as
we used to dread his coming at first and be frightened of him. But at long
last we throve so well that the landlord - God forgive him -. took notice of
us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the penny he had, and
wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that was more than any Christian
ought to pay to another, seeing there was no making it. When my father - and
small blame to him for that - refused to lease the ground, he turned us off
the bit of land we had, and out of the house and all, and left us in a wide
and wicked world, where my father, for he was a soft innocent man, was
not up to the roguery and the trickery that was practised upon him. He was
taken this way by one and that way by another, and he treating them that were
working his downfall. And he used. to take bite and sup with them, and they
with him, free enough as long. as the money lasted; but when that was gone,
and he had not as much ground, that he could call his own, as would sod a
lark, they soon shabbed him off. The landlord died not long after; and he now
knows whether he acted right or wrong in taking the house from over our heads.
"It is a bad thing for the heart to be
cast down, so we took another cabin, and looked out with great desire for the
Fir darrig to come to us. But ten o'clock came and no arm, although we cut a
hole in the. door just the "moral" (model) of the other. Eleven o'clock !
- twelve o'clock ! -no, not a sign of him,: and every night we watched, but
all would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up the
hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the poor people
that no one could take it; and we carried away the very door off the hinges,
and we brought every thing with us that we thought the little man was in any
respect partial to, but he did not come, and we never saw him again.
"My father and my mother, and my young
sister, are since dead, and my two brothers, who could tell all about this
better than myself are both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to
the Cape of Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin."
Here. young Ellen's voice became choked
with sorrow, and bursting into tears, she hid her face in her apron.
