“I’m a lady of honourWho live in the sea;Come down, Maurice Connor,And be married to me.“Silver plates and gold dishesYou shall have, and shall beThe king of the fishes,When you’re married to me.”
“I’m a lady of honourWho live in the sea;Come down, Maurice Connor,And be married to me.
“Silver plates and gold dishesYou shall have, and shall beThe king of the fishes,When you’re married to me.”
Drink was strong in Maurice’s head, and out he chaunted in return for her great civility. It is not every lady, may be, that would be after making such an offer to a blind piper; therefore ’twas only right in him to give her as good as she gave herself—so says Maurice,
“I’m obliged to you, madam:Off a gold dish or plate,If a king, and I had ’em,I could dine in great state.“With your own father’s daughterI’d be sure to agree;But to drink the salt waterWouldn’t do so with me!”
“I’m obliged to you, madam:Off a gold dish or plate,If a king, and I had ’em,I could dine in great state.
“With your own father’s daughterI’d be sure to agree;But to drink the salt waterWouldn’t do so with me!”
The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side to side like a great scholar, “Well,” says she, “Maurice, if you’re not a poet, where is poetry to be found?”
In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as their tongues. All the fish kept dancing too: Maurice heard the clatter, and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into their heads to do to him if they got vexed.
Well, the lady with the green hair kept on coaxing of Maurice with soft speeches, till at last she overpersuaded him to promise to marry her, and be king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well fitted to be their king, if they wanted one that could make them dance; and he surely would drink, barring the salt water, with any fish of them all.
When Maurice’s mother saw him, with that unnatural thing in the form of a green-haired lady as his guide, and he and she dancing down together so lovingly to the water’s edge through the thick of the fishes, she called out after him to stop and come back. “Oh then,” says she, “as if I was not widow enough before, there he is going away from me to be married to that scaly woman. And who knows but ’tis grandmother I may be to a hake or a cod—Lord help and pity me, but ’tis a mighty unnatural thing!—and may be ’tis boiling and eating my own grandchild I’ll be, with a bit of salt butter, and I not knowing it!—Oh Maurice, Maurice, if there’s any love or nature left in you, come back to your ownouldmother, who reared you like a decent Christian!”
Then the poor woman began to cry and ullagoane so finely that it would do any one good to hear her.
Maurice was not long getting to the rim of the water; there he kept playing and dancing on as if nothing was the matter, and a great thundering wave coming in towards himready to swallow him up alive; but as he could not see it, he did not fear it. His mother it was who saw it plainly through the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks; and though she saw it, and her heart was aching as much as ever mother’s heart ached for a son, she kept dancing, dancing, all the time for the bare life of her. Certain it was she could not help it, for Maurice never stopped playing that wonderful tune of his.
He only turned the bothered ear to the sound of his mother’s voice, fearing it might put him out in his steps, and all the answer he made back was—
“Whisht with you, mother—sure I’m going to be king over the fishes down in the sea, and for a token of luck, and a sign that I am alive and well, I’ll send you in, every twelvemonth on this day, a piece of burned wood to Trafraska.” Maurice had not the power to say a word more, for the strange lady with the green hair, seeing the wave just upon them, covered him up with herself in a thing like a cloak with a big hood to it, and the wave curling over twice as high as their heads, burst upon the strand, with a rush and a roar that might be heard as far as Cape Clear.
That day twelvemonth the piece of burned wood came ashore in Trafraska. It was a queer thing for Maurice to think of sending all the way from the bottom of the sea. A gown or a pair of shoes would have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had said it, and he kept his word. The bit of burned wood regularly came ashore on the appointed day for as good, ay, and better than a hundred years. The day is now forgotten, and may be that is the reason why people say how Maurice Connor has stopped sending the luck-token to his mother. Poor woman, she did not live to get as much as one of them; for what through the loss of Maurice, and the fear of eating her own grandchildren, she died in three weeks after the dance—some say it was the fatigue that killed her, but whichever it was, Mrs. Connor was decently buried with her own people.
Seafaring men have often heard off the coast of Kerry, on a still night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, who have had good ears, could plainlydistinguish Maurice Connor’s voice singing these words to his pipes:—
Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;Never would I have parted from theeBut for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
Beautiful shore, with thy spreading strand,Thy crystal water, and diamond sand;Never would I have parted from theeBut for the sake of my fair ladie.[21]
The IrishMerrowanswers exactly to the English Mermaid. It is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and CornishMorhuch, to which it evidently bears analogy.The romantic historians of Ireland describe theSuireas playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage to that Island.
The IrishMerrowanswers exactly to the English Mermaid. It is also used to express a sea-monster, like the Armorick and CornishMorhuch, to which it evidently bears analogy.
The romantic historians of Ireland describe theSuireas playing round the ships of the Milesians when on their passage to that Island.
THE DULLAHAN.
“Then wonder not atheadless folk,Since every day you greet ’em;Nor treat old stories as a joke,When fools you daily meet ’em.”—The Legendary.
“Then wonder not atheadless folk,Since every day you greet ’em;Nor treat old stories as a joke,When fools you daily meet ’em.”
—The Legendary.
“Says the friar, ’tis strange headless horses should trot.”Old Song.
“Says the friar, ’tis strange headless horses should trot.”
Old Song.
In a pleasant and not unpicturesque valley of the White Knight’s country, at the foot of the Galtee mountains, lived Larry Dodd and his wife Nancy. They rented a cabin and a few acres of land, which they cultivated with great care, and its crops rewarded their industry. They were independent and respected by their neighbours; they loved each other in a marriageable sort of way, and few couples had altogether more the appearance of comfort about them.
Larry was a hard working, and, occasionally, a harddrinking, Dutch-built, little man, with a fiddle head and a round stern; a steady-going straight-forward fellow, barring when he carried too much whisky, which, it must be confessed, might occasionally prevent his walking the chalked line with perfect philomathical accuracy. He had a moist, ruddy countenance, rather inclined to an expression of gravity, and particularly so in the morning; but, taken all together he was generally looked upon as a marvellously proper person, notwithstanding he had, every day in the year, a sort of unholy dew upon his face, even in the coldest weather, which gave rise to a supposition (amongst censorious persons, of course,) that Larry was apt to indulge in strong and frequent potations. However, all men of talents have their faults,—indeed, who is without them?—and as Larry, setting aside his domestic virtues and skill in farming, was decidedly the most distinguished breaker of horses for forty miles round, he must be in some degree excused, considering the inducements of “the stirrup cup,” and the fox-hunting society in which he mixed, if he had also been the greatest drunkard in the county: but, in truth, this was not the case.
Larry was a man of mixed habits, as well in his mode of life and his drink, as in his costume. His dress accorded well with his character—a sort of half-and-half between farmer and horse-jockey. He wore a blue coat of coarse cloth, with short skirts, and a stand-up collar; his waistcoat was red, and his lower habiliments were made of leather, which in course of time had shrunk so much, that they fitted like a second skin; and long use had absorbed their moisture to such a degree, that they made a strange sort of crackling noise as he walked along. A hat covered with oil-skin; a cutting-whip, all worn and jagged at the end; a pair of second-hand, or, to speak more correctly second-footed, greasy top boots, that seemed never to have imbibed a refreshing draught of Warren’s blacking of matchless lustre!—and one spur without a rowel, completed the every-day dress of Larry Dodd.
Thus equipped was Larry returning from Cashel, mounted on a rough-coated and wall-eyed nag, though, notwithstanding these and a few other trifling blemishes, a well-built animal; having just purchased the said nag, with afancy that he could make his own money again of his bargain, and, may be, turn an odd penny more by it at the ensuing Kildorrery fair. Well pleased with himself, he trotted fair and easy along the road in the delicious and lingering twilight of a lovely June evening, thinking of nothing at all, only whistling, and wondering would horses always be so low. “If they go at this rate,” said he to himself, “for half nothing, and that paid in butter buyer’s notes, who would be the fool to walk?” This very thought, indeed, was passing in his mind, when his attention was roused by a woman pacing quickly by the side of his horse and hurrying on as if endeavouring to reach her destination before the night closed in. Her figure, considering the long strides she took, appeared to be under the common size—rather of the dumpy order; but farther, as to whether the damsel was young or old, fair or brown, pretty or ugly, Larry could form no precise notion, from her wearing a large cloak (the usual garb of the female Irish peasant,) the hood of which was turned up, and completely concealed every feature.
Enveloped in this mass of dark and concealing drapery, the strange woman, without much exertion, contrived to keep up with Larry Dodd’s steed for some time, when his master very civilly offered her a lift behind him, as far as he was going her way. “Civility begets civility,” they say; however he received no answer; and thinking that the lady’s silence proceeded only from bashfulness, like a man of true gallantry, not a word more said Larry until he pulled up by the side of a gap, and then says he, “Ma colleen beg,[22]just jump up behind me, without a word more, though never a one have you spoke, and I’ll take you safe and sound through the lonesome bit of road that is before us.”
She jumped at the offer, sure enough, and up with her on the back of the horse as light as a feather. In an instant there she was seated up behind Larry, with her hand and arm buckled round his waist holding on.
“I hope you’re comfortable there, my dear,” said Larry, in his own good-humoured way; but there was no answer;and on they went—trot, trot, trot—along the road; and all was so still and so quiet, that you might have heard the sound of the hoofs on the limestone a mile off; for that matter there was nothing else to hear except the moaning of a distant stream, that kept up a continuedcronane,[23]like a nursehushoing. Larry, who had a keen ear, did not, however, require so profound a silence to detect the click of one of the shoes. “’Tis only loose the shoe is,” said he to his companion, as they were just entering on the lonesome bit of road of which he had before spoken. Some old trees, with huge trunks, all covered, and irregular branches festooned with ivy, grew over a dark pool of water, which had been formed as a drinking-place for cattle; and in the distance was seen the majestic head of Gaultee-more. Here the horse, as if in grateful recognition, made a dead halt; and Larry, not knowing what vicious tricks his new purchase might have, and unwilling that through any odd chance the young woman should getspiltin the water, dismounted, thinking to lead the horse quietly by the pool.
“By the piper’s luck, that always found what he wanted,” said Larry, recollecting himself, “I’ve a nail in my pocket: ’tis not the first time I’ve put on a shoe, and may be it won’t be the last; for here is no want of paving-stones to make hammers in plenty.”
No sooner was Larry off, than off with a spring came the young woman just at his side. Her feet touched the ground without making the least noise in life, and away she bounded like an ill-mannered wench, as she was, without saying, “by your leave,” or no matter what else. She seemed to glide rather than run, not along the road, but across a field, up towards the old ivy-covered walls of Kilnaslattery church—and a pretty church it was.
“Not so fast, if you please, young woman—not so fast,” cried Larry, calling after her: but away she ran, and Larry followed, his leathern garment, already described, crack, crick, crackling at every step he took. “Where’s my wages?” said Larry: “Thorum pog, ma colleen oge,[24]—sureI’ve earned a kiss from your pair of pretty lips—and I’ll have it too!” But she went on faster and faster, regardless of these and other flattering speeches from her pursuer; at last she came to the churchyard wall, and then over with her in an instant.
“Well, she’s a mighty smart creature any how. To be sure, how neat she steps upon her pasterns! Did any one ever see the like of that before;—but I’ll not be balked by any woman that ever wore a head, or any ditch either,” exclaimed Larry, as with a desperate bound he vaulted, scrambled, and tumbled over the wall into the churchyard. Up he got from the elastic sod of a newly-made grave in which Tade Leary that morning was buried—rest his soul!—and on went Larry, stumbling over headstones, and foot-stones, over old graves and new graves, pieces of coffins, and the skulls and bones of dead men—the Lord save us!—that were scattered about there as plenty as paving-stones; floundering amidst great overgrown dock-leaves and brambles that, with their long prickly arms, tangled round his limbs, and held him back with a fearful grasp. Mean time the merry wench in the cloak moved through all these obstructions as evenly and as gaily as if the churchyard, crowded up as it was with graves and grave-stones (for people came to be buried there from far and near,) had been the floor of a dancing-room. Round and round the walls of the old church she went. “I’ll just wait,” said Larry, seeing this, and thinking it all nothing but a trick to frighten him; “when she comes round again, if I don’t take the kiss, I won’t, that’s all,—and here she is!” Larry Dodd sprang forward with open arms, and clasped in them—a woman, it is true—but a woman without any lips to kiss, by reason of her having no head.
“Murder!” cried he. “Well, that accounts for her not speaking.” Having uttered these words, Larry himself became dumb with fear and astonishment; his blood seemed turned to ice, and a dizziness came over him; and, staggering like a drunken man, he rolled against the broken window of the ruin, horrified at the conviction that he had actually held a Dullahan in his embrace!
When he recovered to something like a feeling of consciousness,he slowly opened his eyes, and then, indeed, a scene of wonder burst upon him. In the midst of the ruin stood an old wheel of torture, ornamented with heads, like Cork gaol, when the heads of Murty Sullivan and other gentlemen were stuck upon it. This was plainly visible in the strange light which spread itself around. It was fearful to behold, but Larry could not choose but look, for his limbs were powerless through the wonder and the fear. Useless as it was, he would have called for help, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and not one word could he say. In short, there was Larry, gazing through a shattered window of the old church, with eyes bleared and almost starting from their sockets; his breast resting on the thickness of the wall, over which, on one side, his head and outstretched neck projected, and on the other, although one toe touched the ground, it derived no support from thence: terror, as it were, kept him balanced. Strange noises assailed his ears, until at last they tingled painfully to the sharp clatter of little bells, which kept up a continued ding—ding—ding—ding: marrowless bones rattled and clanked, and the deep and solemn sound of a great bell came booming on the night wind.
’Twas a spectre rungThat bell when it swung—Swing-swang!And the chain it squeaked,And the pulley creaked,Swing-swang!And with every rollOf the deep death tollDing-dong!The hollow vault rangAs the clapper went bang,Ding-dong!
’Twas a spectre rungThat bell when it swung—Swing-swang!And the chain it squeaked,And the pulley creaked,Swing-swang!
And with every rollOf the deep death tollDing-dong!The hollow vault rangAs the clapper went bang,Ding-dong!
It was strange music to dance by; nevertheless, moving to it, round and round the wheel set with skulls, were well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and soldiers and sailors, and priests and publicans, and jockeys and jennys, but all without their heads. Some poor skeletons, whose bleached bones were ill covered by moth-eaten palls, and who werenot admitted into the ring, amused themselves by bowling their brainless noddles at one another, which seemed to enjoy the sport beyond measure.
Larry did not know what to think; his brains were all in a mist; and losing the balance which he had so long maintained, he fell head foremost into the midst of the company of Dullahans.
“I’m done for and lost for ever,” roared Larry, with his heels turned towards the stars, and souse down he came.
“Welcome, Larry Dodd, welcome,” cried every head, bobbing up and down in the air. “A drink for Larry Dodd,” shouted they, as with one voice, that quavered like a shake on the bagpipes. No sooner said than done, for a player at heads, catching his own as it was bowled at him, for fear of its going astray, jumped up, put the head, without a word, under his left arm, and, with the right stretched out, presented a brimming cup to Larry, who, to show his manners, drank it off like a man.
“’Tis capital stuff,” he would have said, which surely it was, but he got no farther than cap, when decapitated was he, and his head began dancing over his shoulders like those of the rest of the party. Larry, however, was not the first man who lost his head through the temptation of looking at the bottom of a brimming cup. Nothing more did he remember clearly,—for it seems body and head being parted is not very favourable to thought—but a great hurry scurry with the noise of carriages and the cracking of whips.
When his senses returned, his first act was to put up his hand to where his head formerly grew, and to his great joy there he found it still. He then shook it gently, but his head remained firm enough, and somewhat assured at this, he proceeded to open his eyes and look around him. It was broad daylight, and in the old church of Kilnaslattery he found himself lying, with that head, the loss of which he had anticipated, quietly resting, poor youth, “upon the lap of earth.” Could it have been an ugly dream? “Oh no,” said Larry, “a dream could never have brought me here, stretched on the flat of my back, with that death’s head and cross marrow bones forenenting meon the fine old tombstone there that wasfacedby Pat Kearney[25]of Kilcrea—but where is the horse?” He got up slowly, every joint aching with pain from the bruises he had received, and went to the pool of water, but no horse was there. “’Tis home I must go,” said Larry, with a rueful countenance; “but how will I face Nancy?—what will I tell her about the horse, and the seven I. O. U.’s that he cost me?—’Tis them Dullahans that have made their own of him from me—the horse-stealing robbers of the world, that have no fear of the gallows!—but what’s gone is gone, that’s a clear case!”—so saying, he turned his steps homewards, and arrived at his cabin about noon without encountering any farther adventures. There he found Nancy, who, as he expected, looked as black as a thundercloud at him for being out all night. She listened to the marvellous relation which he gave with exclamations of astonishment, and, when he had concluded, of grief, at the loss of the horse that he had paid for like an honest man with seven I. O. U.’s, three of which she knew to be as good as gold.
“But what took you up to the old church at all, out of the road, and at that time of the night, Larry?” inquired his wife.
Larry looked like a criminal for whom there was no reprieve; he scratched his head for an excuse, but not one could he muster up, so he knew not what to say.
“Oh! Larry, Larry,” muttered Nancy, after waiting some time for his answer, her jealous fears during the pause rising like barm; “’tis the very same way with you as with any other man—you are all alike for that matter—I’ve no pity for you—but, confess the truth.”
Larry shuddered at the tempest which he perceived was about to break upon his devoted head.
“Nancy,” said he, “I do confess:—it was a young woman without any head that——”
His wife heard no more. “A woman I knew it was,” cried she; “but a woman without a head, Larry!—well, it is long before Nancy Gollagher ever thought it would come to that with her!—that she would be left dissolute and alone here by herbasteof a husband, for a womanwithout a head!—O father, father! and O mother, mother! it is well you are low to-day!—that you don’t see this affliction and disgrace to your daughter that you reared decent and tender.
“O Larry, you villain, you’ll be the death of your lawful wife going after such O—O—O—”
“Well,” says Larry, putting his hands in his coat-pockets, “least said is soonest mended. Of the young woman I know no more than I do of Moll Flanders: but this I know, that a woman without a head may well be called a Good Woman, because she has no tongue!”
How this remark operated on the matrimonial dispute history does not inform us. It is, however, reported that the lady had the last word.
One fine summer’s evening Michael Noonan went over to Jack Brien’s, the shoemaker, at Ballyduff, for the pair of brogues which Jack was mending for him. It was a pretty walk the way he took, but very lonesome; all along by the river-side, down under the oak-wood, till he came to Hanlon’s mill, that used to be, but that had gone to ruin many a long year ago.
Melancholy enough the walls of that same mill looked; the great old wheel, black with age, all covered over with moss and ferns, and the bushes all hanging down about it. There it stood silent and motionless; and a sad contrast it was to its former busy clack, with the stream which once gave it use rippling idly along.
Old Hanlon was a man that had great knowledge of all sorts; there was not an herb that grew in the field but he could tell the name of it and its use, out of a big book he had written, every word of it in the real Irishkaracter. He kept a school once, and could teach the Latin; that surely is a blessed tongue all over the wide world; and I hear tellas how “the great Burke” went to school to him. Master Edmund lived up at the old house there, which was then in the family, and it was the Nagles that got it afterwards, but they sold it.
But it was Michael Noonan’s walk I was about speaking of. It was fairly between lights, the day was clean gone, and the moon was not yet up, when Mick was walking smartly across the Inch. Well, he heard, coming down out of the wood, such blowing of horns and hallooing, and the cry of all the hounds in the world, and he thought they were coming after him; and the galloping of the horses, and the voice of the whipper-in, and he shouting out, just like the fine old song,
“Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;”
“Hallo Piper, Lilly, agus Finder;”
and the echo over from the gray rock across the river giving back every word as plainly as it was spoken. But nothing could Mick see, and the shouting and hallooing following him every step of the way till he got up to Jack Brien’s door; and he was certain, too, he heard the clack of old Hanlon’s mill going, through all the clatter. To be sure, he ran as fast as fear and his legs could carry him, and never once looked behind him, well knowing that the Duhallow hounds were out in quite another quarter that day, and that nothing good could come out of the noise of Hanlon’s mill.
Well, Michael Noonan got his brogues, and well heeled they were, and well pleased was he with them; when who should be seated at Jack Brien’s before him, but a gossip of his, one Darby Haynes, a mighty decent man, that had a horse and car of his own, and that used to be travelling with it, taking loads like the royal mail coach between Cork and Limerick; and when he was at home, Darby was a near neighbour of Michael Noonan’s.
“Is it home you’re going with the brogues this blessed night?” said Darby to him.
“Where else would it be?” replied Mick: “but, by my word, ’tis not across the Inch back again I’m going, after all I heard coming here; ’tis to no good that old Hanlon’s mill is busy again.”
“True, for you,” said Darby; “and may be you’d takethe horse and car home for me, Mick, by way of company, as ’tis along the road you go. I’m waiting here to see a sister’s son of mine that I expect from Kilcoleman.” “That same I’ll do,” answered Mick, “with a thousand welcomes.” So Mick drove the car fair and easy, knowing that the poor beast had come off a long journey; and Mick—God reward him for it—was always tender-hearted and good to the dumb creatures.
The night was a beautiful one; the moon was better than a quarter old; and Mick, looking up at her, could not help bestowing a blessing on her beautiful face, shining down so sweetly upon the gentle Awbeg. He had now got out of the open road, and had come to where the trees grew on each side of it: he proceeded for some space in the chequered light which the moon gave through them. At one time, when a big old tree got between him and the moon, it was so dark, that he could hardly see the horse’s head; then, as he passed on, the moonbeams would stream through the open boughs and variegate the road with light and shade. Mick was lying down in the car at his ease, having got clear of the plantation, and was watching the bright piece of a moon in a little pool at the road-side, when he saw it disappear all of a sudden as if a great cloud came over the sky. He turned round on his elbow to see if it was so; but how was Mick astonished at finding, close alongside of the car, a great high black coach drawn by six black horses, with long black tails reaching almost down to the ground, and a coachman dressed all in black sitting up on the box. But what surprised Mick the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the regular step of his gossip Darby’s horse, and the squeaking of the gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a little grease.
Poor Mick’s heart almost died within him, but he said nothing, only looked on; and the black coach swept awayand was soon lost among some distant trees. Mick saw nothing more of it, or, indeed, of any thing else. He got home just as the moon was going down behind Mount Hillery—took the tackling off the horse, turned the beast out in the field for the night, and got to his bed.
Next morning, early, he was standing at the road-side, thinking of all that had happened the night before, when he saw Dan Madden, that was Mr. Wrixon’s huntsman, coming on the master’s best horse down the hill, as hard as ever he went at the tail of the hounds. Mick’s mind instantly misgave him that all was not right, so he stood out in the very middle of the road, and caught hold of Dan’s bridle when he came up.
“Mick, dear—for the love of heaven! don’t stop me,” cried Dan.
“Why, what’s the hurry?” said Mick.
“Oh, the master!—he’s off,—he’s off—he’ll never cross a horse again till the day of judgment!”
“Why, what would ail his honour?” said Mick; “sure it is no later than yesterday morning that I was talking to him, and he stout and hearty; and says he to me, Mick, says he—”
“Stout and hearty was he?” answered Madden; “and was he not out with me in the kennel last night, when I was feeding the dogs; and didn’t he come out to the stable, and give a ball to Peg Pullaway with his own hand, and tell me he’d ride the old General to-day; and sure,” said Dan, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, “who’d have thought that the first thing I’d see this morning was the mistress standing at my bed-side, and bidding me get up and ride off like fire for Doctor Galway; for the master had got a fit, and”—poor Dan’s grief choked his voice—“oh, Mick! if you have a heart in you, run over yourself, or send the gossoon for Kate Finnigan, the midwife; she’s a cruel skilful woman, and may be she might save the master, till I get the doctor.”
Dan struck his spurs into the hunter, and Michael Noonan flung off his newly-mended brogues, and cut across the fields to Kate Finnigan’s; but neither the doctor nor Katty was of any avail, and the next night’s moonsaw Ballygibblin—and more’s the pity—a house of mourning.
’Tis midnight!—how gloomy and dark!By Jupiter there’s not a star!—’Tis fearful!—’tis awful!—and hark!What sound is that comes from afar?Still rolling and rumbling, that soundMakes nearer and nearer approach;Do I tremble, or is it the ground?—Lord save us!—what is it?—a coach!—A coach!—but that coach has no head;And the horses are headless as it:Of the driver the same may be said,And the passengers inside who sit.See the wheels! how they fly o’er the stones!And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:Their spokes are of dead men’s thigh bones,And the pole is the spine of the back!The hammer-cloth, shabby display,Is a pall rather mildew’d by damps;And to light this strange coach on its way,Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!From the gloom of Rathcooney churchyard,They dash down the hill of Glanmire;Pass Lota in gallop as hardAs if horses were never to tire!With people thus headless ’tis funTo drive in such furious career;Sinceheadlongtheir horses can’t run,Nor coachman beheadyfrom beer.Very steep is the Tivoli lane,But up-hill to them is as down;Nor the charms of Woodhill can detainThese Dullahans rushing to town.Could they feel as I’ve felt—in a song—A spell that forbade them depart;They’d a lingering visit prolong,And after their head lose their heart!No matter!—’tis past twelve o’clock;Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,And, taking the road to Blackrock,Cork city is soon left behind.Should they hurry thus reckless along,To supper instead of to bed,The landlord will surely be wrong,If he charge it at so much a head!Yet mine host may suppose them too poorTo bring to his wealth an increase;As till now, all who drove to his door,Possess’d at leastone crowna-piece.Up the Deadwoman’s hill they are roll’d;Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;Ballintemple they reach, and behold!At its churchyard they stop and alight.“Who’s there?” said a voice from the ground,“We’ve no room, for the place is quite full.”“O! room must be speedily found,For we come from the parish of Skull.“Though Murphys and Crowleys appearOn headstones of deep-letter’d pride;Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;“Yet here for the night we lie down,To-morrow we speed on the gale;For having no heads of our own,We seek the Old Head of Kinsale.”
’Tis midnight!—how gloomy and dark!By Jupiter there’s not a star!—’Tis fearful!—’tis awful!—and hark!What sound is that comes from afar?
Still rolling and rumbling, that soundMakes nearer and nearer approach;Do I tremble, or is it the ground?—Lord save us!—what is it?—a coach!—
A coach!—but that coach has no head;And the horses are headless as it:Of the driver the same may be said,And the passengers inside who sit.
See the wheels! how they fly o’er the stones!And whirl, as the whip it goes crack:Their spokes are of dead men’s thigh bones,And the pole is the spine of the back!
The hammer-cloth, shabby display,Is a pall rather mildew’d by damps;
And to light this strange coach on its way,Two hollow skulls hang up for lamps!
From the gloom of Rathcooney churchyard,They dash down the hill of Glanmire;Pass Lota in gallop as hardAs if horses were never to tire!
With people thus headless ’tis funTo drive in such furious career;Sinceheadlongtheir horses can’t run,Nor coachman beheadyfrom beer.
Very steep is the Tivoli lane,But up-hill to them is as down;Nor the charms of Woodhill can detainThese Dullahans rushing to town.
Could they feel as I’ve felt—in a song—A spell that forbade them depart;They’d a lingering visit prolong,And after their head lose their heart!
No matter!—’tis past twelve o’clock;Through the streets they sweep on like the wind,And, taking the road to Blackrock,Cork city is soon left behind.
Should they hurry thus reckless along,To supper instead of to bed,The landlord will surely be wrong,If he charge it at so much a head!
Yet mine host may suppose them too poorTo bring to his wealth an increase;As till now, all who drove to his door,Possess’d at leastone crowna-piece.
Up the Deadwoman’s hill they are roll’d;Boreenmannah is quite out of sight;Ballintemple they reach, and behold!At its churchyard they stop and alight.
“Who’s there?” said a voice from the ground,“We’ve no room, for the place is quite full.”“O! room must be speedily found,For we come from the parish of Skull.
“Though Murphys and Crowleys appearOn headstones of deep-letter’d pride;Though Scannels and Murleys lie here,Fitzgeralds and Toonies beside;
“Yet here for the night we lie down,To-morrow we speed on the gale;For having no heads of our own,We seek the Old Head of Kinsale.”
“God speed you, and a safe journey this night to you, Charley,” ejaculated the master of the little sheebeen house at Ballyhooley after his old friend and good customer, Charley Culnane, who at length had turned his face homewards, with the prospect of as dreary a ride and as dark a night as ever fell upon the Blackwater, along the banks of which he was about to journey.
Charley Culnane knew the country well, and, moreover, was as bold a rider as any Mallow-boy that everrattleda four-year-old upon Drumrue race-course. He had gone to Fermoy in the morning, as well for the purpose of purchasingsome ingredients required for the Christmas dinner by his wife, as to gratify his own vanity by having new reins fitted to his snaffle, in which he intended showing off the old mare at the approaching St. Stephen’s day hunt.
Charley did not get out of Fermoy until late; for although he was not one of your “nasty particular sort of fellows” in any thing that related to the common occurrences of life, yet in all the appointments connected with hunting, riding, leaping, in short, in whatever was connected with the old mare, “Charley,” the saddlers said, “was the devil toplase.” An illustration of this fastidiousness was afforded by his going such a distance for his snaffle bridle. Mallow was full twelve miles nearer “Charley’s farm” (which lay just three quarters of a mile below Carrick) than Fermoy; but Charley had quarrelled with all the Mallow saddlers, from hard-working and hard-drinking Tim Clancey, up to Mr. Ryan, who wrote himself “Saddler to the Duhallow Hunt;” and no one could content him in all particulars but honest Michael Twomey of Fermoy, who used to assert—and who will doubt it—that he could stitch a saddle better than the lord-lieutenant, although they made him all as one as king over Ireland.
This delay in the arrangement of the snaffle bridle did not allow Charley Culnane to pay so long a visit as he had at first intended to his old friend and gossip, Con Buckley, of the “Harp of Erin.” Con, however, knew the value of time, and insisted upon Charley making good use of what he had to spare. “I won’t bother you waiting for water, Charley, because I think you’ll have enough of that same before you get home; so drink off your liquor, man. It’s as goodparliamentas ever a gentleman tasted, ay, and holy church too, for it will bear ‘xwaters,’ and carry the bead after that, may be.”
Charley, it must be confessed, nothing loath, drank success to Con, and success to the jolly “Harp of Erin,” with its head of beauty and its strings of the hair of gold, and to their better acquaintance, and so on, from the bottom of his soul, until the bottom of the bottle reminded him that Carrick was at the bottom of the hill on the otherside of Castletown Roche, and that he had got no farther on his journey than his gossip’s at Ballyhooley, close to the big gate of Convamore. Catching hold of his oil-skin hat, therefore, whilst Con Buckley went to the cupboard for another bottle of the “real stuff,” he regularly, as it is termed, bolted from his friend’s hospitality, darted to the stable, tightened his girths, and put the old mare into a canter towards home.
The road from Ballyhooley to Carrick follows pretty nearly the course of the Blackwater, occasionally diverging from the river and passing through rather wild scenery, when contrasted with the beautiful seats that adorn its banks. Charley cantered gaily, regardless of the rain, which, as his friend Con had anticipated, fell in torrents: the good woman’s currants and raisins were carefully packed between the folds of his yeomanry cloak, which Charley, who was proud of showing that he belonged to the “Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers,” always strapped to the saddle before him, and took care never to destroy the military effect of by putting it on.—Away he went singing like a thrush—
“Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,Breaking windows—(hiccup!)—sinking,Ever raking—never thinking,Live the rakes of Mallow.“Spending faster than it comes,Beating—(hiccup, hic,) and duns,Duhallow’s true-begotten sons,Live the rakes of Mallow.”
“Sporting, belleing, dancing, drinking,Breaking windows—(hiccup!)—sinking,Ever raking—never thinking,Live the rakes of Mallow.
“Spending faster than it comes,Beating—(hiccup, hic,) and duns,Duhallow’s true-begotten sons,Live the rakes of Mallow.”
Notwithstanding that the visit to the jolly “Harp of Erin” had a little increased the natural complacency of his mind, the drenching of the new snaffle reins began to disturb him; and then followed a train of more anxious thoughts than even were occasioned by the dreaded defeat of the pride of his long-anticipatedturn outon St. Stephen’s day. In an hour of good fellowship, when his heart was warm, and his head not over cool, Charley had backed the old mare against Mr. Jephson’s bay filly Desdemona for a neat hundred, and he now felt sore misgivingsas to the prudence of the match. In a less gay tone he continued—
“Living short, but merry lives,Going where the devil drives,Keeping——”
“Living short, but merry lives,Going where the devil drives,Keeping——”
“Keeping” he muttered, as the old mare had reduced her canter to a trot at the bottom of Kilcummer Hill. Charley’s eye fell on the old walls that belonged, in former times, to the Templars: but the silent gloom of the ruin was broken only by the heavy rain which splashed and pattered on the grave-stones. He then looked up at the sky, to see if there was, among the clouds, any hopes for mercy on his new snaffle reins; and no sooner were his eyes lowered, than his attention was arrested by an object so extraordinary as almost led him to doubt the evidence of his senses. The head, apparently, of a white horse, with short cropped ears, large open nostrils and immense eyes, seemed rapidly to follow him. No connexion with body, legs, or rider, could possibly be traced—the head advanced—Charley’s old mare, too, was moved at this unnatural sight, and snorting violently, increased her trot up the hill. The head moved forward, and passed on: Charley, pursuing it with astonished gaze, and wondering by what means, and for what purpose, this detached head thus proceeded through the air, did not perceive the corresponding body until he was suddenly startled by finding it close at his side. Charley turned to examine what was thus so sociably jogging on with him, when a most unexampled apparition presented itself to his view. A figure, whose height (judging as well as the obscurity of the night would permit him) he computed to be at least eight feet, was seated on the body and legs of a white horse full eighteen hands and a half high. In this measurement Charley could not be mistaken, for his own mare was exactly fifteen hands, and the body that thus jogged alongside he could at once determine, from his practice in horseflesh, was at least three hands and a half higher.
After the first feeling of astonishment, which found vent in the exclamation “I’m sold now for ever!” wasover, the attention of Charley, being a keen sportsman, was naturally directed to this extraordinary body; and having examined it with the eye of a connoisseur, he proceeded to reconnoitre the figure so unusually mounted, who had hitherto remained perfectly mute. Wishing to see whether his companion’s silence proceeded from bad temper, want of conversational powers, or from a distaste to water, and the fear that the opening of his mouth might subject him to have it filled by the rain, which was then drifting in violent gusts against them, Charley endeavoured to catch a sight of his companion’s face, in order to form an opinion on that point. But his vision failed in carrying him farther than the top of the collar of the figure’s coat, which was a scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining buttons at about a yard distance behind. “I ought to see farther than this, too,” thought Charley, “although he is mounted on his high horse, like my cousin Darby, who was made barony constable last week, unless ’tis Con’s whiskey that has blinded me entirely.” However, see farther he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, “By the big bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!”
“Look again, Charley Culnane,” said a hoarse voice, that seemed to proceed from under the right arm of the figure.
Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a large cream cheese hung round with black puddings; no speck of colour enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange and irregular motion, flashed like meteors upon Charley, and to complete all, a mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless blackness. This head, which the figure had evidentlyhitherto concealed from Charley’s eyes, now burst upon his view in all its hideousness. Charley, although a lad of proverbial courage in the county of Cork, yet could not but feel his nerves a little shaken by this unexpected visit from the headless horseman, whom he considered his fellow-traveller must be. The cropped-eared head of the gigantic horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at a trot by Charley’s side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. The ground shook under the weight of its supernatural burden, and the water in the pools became agitated into waves as he trotted by them.
On they went—heads without bodies, and bodies without heads.—The deadly silence of night was broken only by the fearful clattering of hoofs, and the distant sound of thunder, which rumbled above the mystic hill of Cecaune a Mona Finnea. Charley, who was naturally a merry-hearted, and rather a talkative fellow, had hitherto felt tongue-tied by apprehension, but finding his companion showed no evil disposition towards him, and having become somewhat more reconciled to the Patagonian dimensions of the horseman and his headless steed, plucked up all his courage, and thus addressed the stranger:—
“Why, then, your honour rides mighty well without the stirrups!”
“Humph,” growled the head from under the horseman’s right arm.
“’Tis not an over civil answer,” thought Charley; “but no matter, he was taught in one of them riding-houses, may be, and thinks nothing at all about bumping his leather breeches at the rate of ten miles an hour. I’ll try him on the other track. Ahem!” said Charley, clearing his throat, and feeling at the same time rather daunted at this second attempt to establish a conversation. “Ahem! that’s a mighty neat coat of your honour’s, although ’tis a little too long in the waist for the present cut.”
“Humph,” growled again the head.
This second humph was a terrible thump in the face to poor Charley, who was fairly bothered to know what subject he could start that would prove more agreeable. “’Tis a sensible head,” thought Charley, “although an ugly one, for ’tis plain enough the man does not like flattery.” A third attempt, however, Charley was determined to make, and having failed in his observations as to the riding and coat of his fellow-traveller, thought he would just drop a trifling allusion to the wonderful headless horse, that was jogging on so sociably beside his old mare; and as Charley was considered about Carrick to be very knowing in horses, besides, being a full private in the Royal Mallow Light Horse Volunteers, which were every one of them mounted like real Hessians, he felt rather sanguine as to the result of his third attempt.
“To be sure, that’s a brave horse your honour rides,” recommenced the persevering Charley.
“You may say that, with your own ugly mouth,” growled the head.
Charley, though not much flattered by the compliment, nevertheless chuckled at his success in obtaining an answer, and thus continued:—
“May be your honour wouldn’t be after riding him across the country?”
“Will you try me, Charley?” said the head, with an inexpressible look of ghastly delight.
“Faith, and that’s what I’d do,” responded Charley, “only I’m afraid, the night being so dark, of laming the old mare, and I’ve every halfpenny of a hundred pounds on her heels.”
This was true enough; Charley’s courage was nothing dashed at the headless horseman’s proposal; and there never was a steeple-chase, nor a fox-chase, riding or leaping in the country, that Charley Culnane was not at it, and foremost in it.
“Will you take my word,” said the man who carried his head so snugly under his right arm, “for the safety of your mare?”
“Done,” said Charley; and away they started, helterskelter, over every thing, ditch and wall, pop, pop, the old mare never went in such style, even in broad daylight: and Charley had just the start of his companion, when the hoarse voice called out, “Charley Culnane, Charley, man, stop for your life, stop!”
Charley pulled up hard. “Ay,” said he, “you may beat me by the head, because it always goes so much before you; but if the bet was neck-and-neck, and that’s the go between the old mare and Desdemona, I’d win it hollow!”
It appeared as if the stranger was well aware of what was passing in Charley’s mind, for he suddenly broke out quite loquacious.
“Charley Culnane,” says he, “you have a stout soul in you, and are every inch of you a good rider. I’ve tried you, and I ought to know; and that’s the sort of man for my money. A hundred years it is since my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me, and never found one before. Keep, as you have always done, at the tail of the hounds, never balk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone wall, and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare.”
Charley, in amazement, looked towards the stranger’s right arm, for the purpose of seeing in his face whether or not he was in earnest, but behold! the head was snugly lodged in the huge pocket of the horseman’s scarlet hunting-coat. The horse’s head had ascended perpendicularly above them, and his extraordinary companion, rising quickly after his avant-coureur, vanished from the astonished gaze of Charley Culnane.
Charley, as may be supposed, was lost in wonder, delight, and perplexity; the pelting rain, the wife’s pudding, the new snaffle—even the match against squire Jephson—all were forgotten; nothing could he think of, nothing could he talk of, but the headless horseman. He told it, directly that he got home, to Judy; he told it the following morning to all the neighbours; and he told it to the hunt on St. Stephen’s day: but what provoked him after all the pains he took in describing the head, the horse, and the man, was that one and all attributed the creation of theheadless horseman to his friend Con Buckley’s “X water parliament.” This, however, should be told, that Charley’s old mare beat Mr. Jephson’s bay filly, Desdemona, by Diamond, and Charley pocketed his cool hundred; and if he didn’t win by means of the headless horseman, I am sure I don’t know any other reason for his doing so.