Part 25

Her child--it was a boy--grew up, got married, and did well, until about the time of his turning the awkward corner of fifty; then it was that his wife, who was three or four years younger than himself,--as wives should be, you know,--fell sick, and died away suddenly. No man could well grieve much more for the loss of his wife, than ould Ileen the Meal-woman's son did for his: he wouldn't allow her to be carried away up the country, and buried among her own kin, but insisted that she should be laid in his father's grave; so that, one day or other, his own remains might be placed by her side.

If you reckon the age of his son, and remember how soon after his marriage he died, you'll find that Ileen the Meal-woman's husband, at the time his daughter-in-law departed this life, must have been buried hard upon half a century. When the grave was opened, his coffin crumbled beneath the pickaxe some of his dry bones were carelessly shovelled up by the digger, and there they lay among the earth, which so long had covered him. Ileen knew nothing of this: she had heard of the death of her son's wife, and made all the haste she could away from a distant part, where she was buying wheat, or selling meal, I don't know which, so as to be at the funeral. When she got near home, two or three people tould her that her husband's grave had been opened, to receive the body of her daughter-in-law; but she wouldn't believe them: for all that though, she quickened her horse's pace, and made direct for the spot. The memory of her husband was still fresh within her, long as she'd lost him,--for her heart had never known a second affection. She didn't remember and so see him, in her waking dreams, a poor, broken-down, grey-headed old man, tottering gradually under a load of infirmities, to death's door, with his temper soured by time and pain, and his affections froze up by age: but whenever his form came across her mind,--and it's often she looked back to the two short years of happiness, she'd passed with him,--he started up to her thoughts in all the pride of his manhood,--handsome, high-spirited, and affectionate, as he was a week before she parted from him for ever.

The people were just going to lower the coffin of the Meal-woman's daughter-in-law into the earth, when Ileen reached the outer circle of them that came to the funeral. Without spaking a word she made a lane for herself through the crowd, and at that awful moment, she suddenly appeared, speechless with fury, at the head of the grave. Her son shrunk from her terrible glance; and every one within view of her, stood without motion, gaping in fear and wonder at the tall, gaunt figure of Ileen, and the features of her, distorted as they were by the grief---the rage--the horror--the agony she felt,--and wondered what was going to be the matter. After some little time, during which not a word was spoke, and nobody scarcely dared breathe, Ileen began to tremble from head to foot; big tears gushed out of her eyes; and says she:--“Is that you I see there, Patrick?--Are you my son?--And is this your father's grave?”

“Mother,” says Patrick, “what, in the name of the holy Saints, ails you?--Don't you see it's me?--And ar'nt you sure it's my poor father's last home?--Where else would I bury my wife?”

“Your wife!--And was it to bury your wife, that you broke open my husband's grave?”

“Of course it is, mother what harm?--Go on, friends.”

“Stand back!” cried Ileen, in a loud and determined tone, placing herself betuxt the coffin and the brink of the grave;--“I'd like to see the man who dare pollute the dust of my husband, with that of a strange woman! I am the wife of him whose grave is here--of him, and of none but him: I lay in his bosom when he was alive--and do you think, any of you, I'll stand by, while there's a drop of blood left in my veins, to see another be put in my place, now that he's dead? Have I lived for fifty long years with the hope of one day being united in death to the joy of my life, to have another laid by his side at last?--Who broke this holy earth?--What accursed wretch was it?--Where is he?--Shew him to me--that I may grip him by the throat?”

“Mother, mother!” said Patrick, “for the sake of him you spake of, be not so violent! If I've done wrong--”

“_If_ you've done wrong?--Thank God, Patrick, it wasn't your own hand did this!”

“Well! I'm sorry now that any hand did it: but it's too late to waste time in words: and I _must_ have the remains of my wife respected.”

“Wretched--unnatural child!--what respect have you shown to those of my husband--my husband, and your father, Patrick?--Oh! this earth which covered him,” continued Ileen, stooping to pick up a handful of the mould she stood upon,--and at that moment, for the first time, she saw the bones!--She shrieked out at the sight, and no tongue could describe the look of agony which she cast at her son.

Patrick, however, who'd more love for the wife he'd lived thirty years with, than the father he couldn't remember, much as he was grieved at the sorrow and anger of his mother, resolved that the corpse shouldn't be treated with a shew of insult: so says he to those about him, “Come, let us make an end of this; I will set you an example.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when Ileen snatched up one of her husband's bones, and gave her son so violent a blow with it on his head, that he staggered and fell nearly senseless into the grave.

His friends got Patrick out again as quick as they could: but before he recovered, Ileen had carefully gathered up the bones, folded them in a kerchief, which she tore off her bosom, dropped them into the grave, and proceeded to throw in the earth again with her hands. No one attempted to hinder her--but it was only when she had made the ground level, and cast herself, moaning, upon it, that the people persuaded her son to let them carry his wife's coffin away, and bury it elsewhere.

Just such a one as Ileen the Meal-woman, in temper and heart, is her grand-daughter Ileen, the second wife of Malachi Roe: he'd a son by his first; but has had no children by Ileen. If Malachi's boy was a fool all his young days,--and he's not so now he's grown up--it wasn't Ileen's fault; for she behaved like a mother to him, and tried all she could to make him know a duck from a drawbridge, but in vain. At last, when he was about eighteen, Malachi got him a place in my lady's stables, under the grooms and coachmen she'd just had down with fine horses and new liveries from Dublin--_why_, nobody could guess, except that she was going to give up being a widow.

The first day Malachi's boy got into the stables, the grooms and postillions persuaded him they were much finer dentists than his father; and, to convince him, they tied a piece of whipcord round one of his teeth, and fastened the other end of it to a stall-post: then one of them came and threatened the end of his nose with the prong of a pitchfork, so that the stripling drew back his head with a jerk, and out came the tooth. This, and two or three other of the usual jokes that boys gets played in a stable, put young Malachi on his mettle; so that, after awhile, his father, and even ould Ileen herself, began to glory in him;--thanks to the dentist whose only instrument was the prong of a pitchfork.

THE MUSHROOM.

About six o'clock, or, may be, a quarter less, on a wet summer's evening, all of a sudden the sun peeped out from behind a cloud,--as Corney Carolan said,--looking half ashamed to shew his face, after his bad behaviour all day,--and just cast a glance across the bog, to see who was that so merry and musical in Luke Fogarty's car, bating the garron that dragged it along, with his wooden leg in lieu of a whip. Who was it, then, but the piper of Drogheda, Coraey Carolan himself, coming from a wedding, away somewhere in the hills, where he'd been drinking whiskey galore, and playing his pipes, night and morning, for the biggest half of a week! Luke Fogarty had sent his son Rory with the car that morning, to bring home the piper, dead or alive; for it was whispered by many, that great things would be doing in a day or two at our place here; who by, or why for, nobody well knew; but there was to be drinking and dancing:--and what would drinking or dancing be without himself?--I mane Corney the piper.

The sun drew in his horns again,--if you'd believe Carolan,--as soon as he saw it was his ould friend the piper; but he shone quite long enough for Corney to discover that the big mile-stone, put up at the edge of the bog, by mad Henniker, years ago, to judge by the shadow it cast across the road, wasn't anything like its ordinary shape. Corney couldn't make out at all what it meant, or why it was; but, as the car got nearer the mile-stone, the piper perceived that it carried an umbrella.

“Well, to be sure, it's rainy enough, so it is,” says Corney; “but mile-stones, I thought, was made to stand wind and weather. Is that any one's umbrella there on Henniker's mile-stone?--Be-kase if it's nobody's, why, then, I'll get it.”

The umbrella began to move, and presently Corney discovered that a gentleman and his dog was beneath it. There they sat, shivering, dirty, and making themselves as little as possible, on the top of the stone; and barely able, the one to keep his tail, and the other the skirts of his coat, and the lower part of his legs, out of the water; which, after it rained unusually hard,--as it did that day,--got together in a pool round the stone, and sometimes rose over it entirely.

“Come out o' that,” said Corney to the gentleman; “come away at once, sir; and don't be sitting that way on Henniker's folly all night! May be you're Henniker himself, though,--and then, no wonder.”

The gentleman replied, as well as his shivering would let him, that Corney was mistaken.

“Then why stay there, sir?” says Corney, “when we've room on the car for you, and the garron impatient to be going!”

“Look at the water,” said the gentleman; “how am I to wade through it?”

“Is it wade?--Faith! then, you'll have to swim soon! But take your choice, sir:--I won't persuade you one way or another.”

“Where _am_ I?” says the gentleman.

“Where _are_ you!--Why, then, look at the side of the stone, and you'll see, cut in legible letters,'_nine miles from anywhere_ and no mile-stone in the world ever spoke truer. Was it to gratify impertinent curiosity, do you think, that Henniker put up the stone?--Not himself, then!--Mad as he was, he knew that it would be quite enough to make any man move on to be tould he was nine miles from anywhere!--What more did you want? Would you have him keep a horse ready saddled, waiting 'till you'd come?”

“My mare has thrown me and ran away,” said the gentleman; “and I merely got on the stone, so that I might shelter myself and my dog, from head to foot, until some one came by, or the rain ceased.”

“Ceased!” exclaimed Corney, bursting into a laugh; “if you waited for that, sir, you'd stay till the crows removed you as a nuisance to the frogs in the slush there behind. Does it ever cease?--Divil a bit, then, for three miles round, morning, noon, or night,--summer or winter,--but keeps pelting and pattering away, at all times and in all seasons, as it has for hundreds of years, and will for ever and ever except once in a twelvemonth, sometimes, and that's the fifteenth day of the month of July, when St. Swithin is too busy raining down upon the other parts of the world, to mind this which is his watery worship's home. It's fine weather here, if, with three coats on your back, you don't get wet to the skin in forty minutes. I wouldn't insult the Saint, by carrying an umbrella, for Damer's estate! Bad luck and ill chance is the best I'd expect, and so may you; for it's raining now just worse than ever I knew it but once. Had you no idea, then, where you were, sir?”

“I had,” says the gentleman; “but I wasn't sure. I never came by this road to The Beg before; and I asked the boy that's with you where I was, when I met him hereabouts, full two hours ago; but he grinned in my face.”

“Is it yourself that bate him, bekase he couldn't understand English?”

“I certainly did lay my whip over his shoulders,” says the gentleman; “and the young villain then began to pelt me and my mare with stones, so that the animal feared to approach near enough to permit of my beating him again; and at last she got unmanageable, ran away, and threw me off,--that is, I mean--threw me off, and ran away.”

“Rory was right, then, and so I said while ago, when he tould me part of the story; for you'd no business to bate him,--had you, now?--But what makes you wait, sir? If you don't come at once, why, then, good night!--For it's not agreeable to be houlding a conversation such weather as this, with one on a mile-stone under a big umbrella.--Is it coming you are?”

The gentleman talked of borrowing a boat, or backing the car into the pool: but Corney said he couldn't get the one, and wouldn't do the other; and, moreover, that the umbrella must be sacrificed to St. Swithin, for he wasn't reprobate enough to ride in its company. After many more words, the gentleman got down from the mile-stone, with his dog under his arm, and walked through the water like a cat through a puddle. At first he insisted on being allowed his umbrella; but Corney was resolute; and away it wint, at last, scudding over the bog,--frightening up thousands of birds, which flew screaming after it,--until it suddenly sunk in what's called “The Saint's Piggin.” The gentleman wasn't well seated on the car, before Corney thrust a bottle of whiskey into his hand, and threatened him with a quantity of discipline from his wooden leg, if he didn't take a good pull at it.

“It's merry we'll be, as whiskey and good stories can make us,” said the piper: “I don't care a bawbee for St. Swithin, while I've a cork, or even a thumb left, to keep him out of my bottle. But I'll not be disrespectful to the Saint, though, any way why should I?--He does me no more harm than my betters; and if I offended him, mightn't he follow me, far and near, and rain on me wherever I went? May be, you never heard how he served the little nation that lived here long ago how should you, that didn't know where you were, and you sitting on Henniker's folly? Why, then, I'll tell you:--Once upon a time--long ago it was, in the days of our forefathers--this place was peopled by Mathawns, and one King Ounshough reigned over them, and he and his subjects were all believers in blarney. Well, who should come to the king one day, but a man that said, if he got the weight of what he could ate during nine days, in gold, and had his own people to wait on him, he'd make all the spiders grow so big, that the ladies might wear their webs by the way of veils; and after that, may be, for more gold, he'd carry his invention to such a pitch, that the insects should weave fishing-nets, strong enough to catch whales themselves,--to say nothing of salmon and smaller fish.--Well, while he was at work, along comes another, who sould them a secret for planting trees in such a way, that they'd grow of themselves into ships: and, says he, 'for a trifle, I'll teach you how to sow hemp and flax, in little pots, on their branches, so that they may shoot up into ready-made sails and rigging; and all by philosophy, without a morsel of magic.'--Wasn't this more than men could wish? The boobies bit at the bait,--high and low; and thinks they to themselves, 'what fine fellows we'll be, to catch whales and conquer the world by philosophy!'--While the trees were growing, and the spiders were spinning, there comes another man, and says he, 'Don't you know me, any of you?'--And some suspected they did; and others was almost sure he was related to them by their mother's side; but nobody owned him. So then, says he, 'I'll tell you who I am: that moon yonder, that lights you, is my property; you've had the use of it for years, but I've been too generous. I'm grown poor, and can't be liberal any longer:--you sha'n't have the light of my moon gratis; so pay five hundred a year, or I'll put it out: and then what'll you do?'--Well, what they'd do, sure enough, they didn't know; but before they'd done debating upon it, up comes a smart little man--a foreigner--who advised them to pay what was asked for the present, and if they'd subscribe for him, he'd get up an opposition moon, that should shine better, and be full all the year round, for half the expense of the ould one. Wasn't that too good an offer to be rejected?--It was; and the Mathawns bit at that too. But this wasn't all:--before the new moon was made, or the trees grown into ships, or the spiders' webs big enough for veils, the people was persuaded by a traveller to let him build them an umbrella, that should be large enough to keep the rain off every inch of the country; and it was to be so contrived that they could let it down by machinery, if the land wanted water, and put it up when they'd just as much wet as they liked. Now this was so great an insult to St. Swithin, that he began raining at once, and before they could put up their umbrella, dispersed the whole people;--making the country a bog, as you see it; and never ceasing to pelt away with his little pellets of water, from that day to this. But though they were scattered, the boobies wasn't destroyed. You may find some of their descendants in every corner of the world, who are as staunch believers in blarney, as ever their forefathers were in the days of ould Ounshough the king.--Isn't that a fine story for you, now, such a murdering wet evening as this?”

“Bathershin, man!” says the gentleman, with a sneer of contempt; “call it a lie, and give me the bottle, for I'm cold after it.”

“Don't you believe it, then?”

“How could I,” says the gentleman, “when it's lies, and you know it?”

“Then sorrow the sup out of my bottle you get, sir, and sorrow the step goes the garron, until you believe it. Arrah! Rory,--pturr-r!”

“Pturr-r!” roared Rory, at the top of his voice, and stock-still stood the horse, as in duty bound.

“Is it quite mad you are, you dirty blackguard?” says the gentleman.

“Blackguard your betters!” says Corney: “Musha! then, if the likes o' you was rolled in the bog, what harm?--You couldn't be worse than you were; for it's dirt itself you are!--I'll say that for you, since you put me up.”

“Ar'n't you an impertinent ould scoundrel?”

“No doubt I am; but the garron don't stir one of his four pegs till you believe what I tould you, while ago, for all that. I won't ride with a man if there's such a difference of opinion betuxt us.”

“Don't you see the rain how it pours?”

“Do you think I'm blind?--or that I can't feel the water running in channels down the wet back o' me?--But I'd weather the rain like a duck, in a good cause; and it's promoting concord I am, betwxt myself and one that's ungrateful and don't mind me, at this moment.”

The piper was obstinate; and after awhile, the gentleman was obliged to say he did'nt think the story a lie. It was then, only, that he got a sup of the whiskey; and Corney gave the garron a hint with his wooden leg, to be going.

“Now,” says Corney, “as we've made friends,--and I don't think I ever had an enemy but one, a whole day,--I'll entertain you with some of my music: but, before I begin, I'll just remind you, that I said while ago, there was boobies everywhere,--didn't I?--I did, that's true enough, and Rory's one o'them. May be you've been tould of one o' the Fogarty family, who ties a lanthorn to the horse's head, so that the crature may find out his grass in the dark?--This is the boy that does it:--as though the Will-o'-Wisps, and Jack-Lanterns of the bog, wouldn't do what was wanted o' them in that way, for a horse?--Do you believe that now, or don't you?”

“Is it a fool you take me for?” says the gentleman.

“Yea or nay, just as you plaize. Arrah! Rory,--pturr-r!”

“Pturr-r!” says Rory again; and the garron stopped so suddenly, that the piper himself was like to have been pitched over his head.

“Go on, and good luck to you!” cried the gentleman; “go on, and there's nothing you'll say but what I'll believe; for it's killed with the cold I am entirely!”

“Oh, fie! and the whiskey here at your elbow!”

The piper lifted his leg, and away wint the garron again. After much more talk, and two or three stoppages, Carolan at last says to the gentleman, “Now I'd like to know, sir,--may be you won't tell me, though;--but why shouldn't you?--”

“Ask me no impertinent questions, and behave yourself in every respect, or you'll wish you hadn't a tongue in your head this journey, when you come to know me,--as perhaps you may.”

“Perhaps I won't, though;--for I've no great opinion of you. Perhaps, I won't know you to plaize you. But you'll own I'm right in not riding another step with one that won't tell me which way he'd be going.”

“Don't stop the horse again, and you shall know at least where I'm bound to:--indeed, I tould you long ago, it was to The Beg.”

“Is it The Beg?--and so you did, now I remember. May be you're a new butler?--No?--A bailiff, then?--Yet why should you? There's nobody there now that's in debt. And if you ar'n't either the one or the other, what can you be?--But it's bad manners in me to be bothering my brains with guessing who you are, when I don't care about knowing. You won't go to The Beg though, anyhow, to-night it's a long three miles from where we stop a bad road and up-hill entirely, too.”

“Can I get a bed, think you?”

“Why, then, Luke Fogarty's is the state cabin o' the whole place, and he'd give up his own bed any day to a stranger, though he hasn't the best of characters; and Ramilies, his pig--”

“His what?”

“Ramilies, his pig;--they say she's a witch: she farrows nineteen, four or five times a year; and she has tushes like ram's horns, only they're straight. She goes miles away by the sea-side and walks into the water, like a Christian, to nuzzle up crabs among the rocks. It's often I've seen her scrunching them: they nips her--trust them for that--with their claws; but I'm inclined to believe, the pinches she gets on her tongue serves by way of a fillip or sauce to the feast, by the same ride that donkeys like thistles that's prickly, and we ourselves mustard with pork. If I'd a house to pull down to-morrow, I wouldn't wish a better workman than Ramilies, if she hadn't her dinner, and there was fish inside, and the doors barred. They say, she drinks whiskey when she can get it:--but what need have you to be afraid? Won't I be there with you?--Sure I will.--Ramilies has no ear for music, and one blow of my bagpipes drives her. As to Luke,--why, if Luke shouldn't behave himself, it won't be the first time I've poked my wooden leg in the face of him, and broke his ugly deaf head, with the big hollow bull's-hom he has for an ear-pipe, into the bargain. Corney Carolan is well able for him, or any one else, if he's only awake.”

“I'm afraid your friend's cabin won't afford much accommodation for a gentleman.”