CASTLE CONNOR.ByMona B. Bickerstaffe,Author of “Begin Well, End Well;” “Araki, the Damio,” &c.
ByMona B. Bickerstaffe,Author of “Begin Well, End Well;” “Araki, the Damio,” &c.
Christmas was always a merry season at Castle Connor, and not less merry than usual was the Christmas time of which I am going to tell you. The house was as full as it could hold, and added to the usual number of guests were three English cousins, who had come over to pay their first visit to their Irish relatives. At the public school from which they came, they were known as Max, Major, and Minor, and so we shall name them here. Max (whose real name was Dick Lindsaye) was in his seventeenth year, and only famous at K⸺ for being the biggest dunce, the biggest bully, and the biggest boaster in the school; for, while careful to avoid every kind of danger, he was prone to forge Falstaffian tales of the dangers he had surmounted, when no one was there to see him. Tom and Harold Cunliffe were his step-brothers; the former was a soft-faced boy, about thirteen years of age, with curly, brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a countenance beaming with good nature and good temper, but evidently a being more capable of enjoying thedolce far nientethan any state of life in which he might be expected to be an active or energetic member of society. Yes, a quiet, easy-going youth was Tom, very different from the twelve-year-old Harry, a wiry, springyyoung fellow, who, while living in great awe of his big brother, was always laying plots for fun at his expense.
Major and Minor were great favourites wherever they went, while no one could endure Max’s snobbish conceit and self-importance. To have a speck of mud upon his highly polished boots, or a grain of dust upon his ever-glossy clothes, was to spoil his pleasure for the day, while his young brothers, unfortunately, went off to the opposite extreme, and were only too regardless of their personal appearance.
The family at Castle Connor consisted of the father, mother, two daughters, and three sons. The latter were manly, warm-hearted youths, quick-tempered and quick-witted, first rate horsemen, masters of all field sports, but not very polished in their manners. They had never been to any school, but were brought up at home, under the care of a tutor, whom they managed just as they pleased, and who found himself in too snug a berth at Castle Connor, to venture to make it less agreeable by complaints that his pupils too often preferred sporting to Latin. He (Mr. Moriarty) was at Christmas time always absent, enjoying the holidays at his own home, so the youths were then left entirely to their own devices, which generally led them to play tricks of all kinds upon the rest of the household.
Directly they saw Max, they (as Major said) “twigged him at once,” and came to the conclusion that he was fair game for fun. He soon adopted a patronizing manner to Dennis Connor, most aggravating to that high-spirited youth, who cast about in his very fertile mind as to how he might, once for all, humble the self-conceit of his lofty cousin; and finding that his father was to be away from home for a day or two, he laidhis plans accordingly. They were standing together in the drawing-room, waiting for dinner, when he turned abruptly to Max, and asked him if he had seen the dungeons of Castle Connor?
“The dungeons! no. I never knew there were any.”
Mrs. Connor did not appear to know it either, for she looked up in astonishment, but a look from her son silenced her.
“Don’t say anything now,” said Dennis, mysteriously; “I’ll tell you all about it after dinner.”
After dinner, accordingly, Dennis took him aside, and told him that he never mentioned the dungeons before his father or mother, for “fact is,” said he, “they are a great source of annoyance and discomfort to them, and all of us. Dark deeds have been done down there, in the times of the fights between the O’Connors and the Condons. Weird sounds come from them in the night time, especially on certain nights, when one Con Condon, the headless, is said to come to look for his head, which centuries ago was taken from him by our ancestor, Modha O’Connor, who married a daughter of Oilioll Olum,[3]King of Munster. Oilioll had carried off a beautiful lady, Modweena Condon, but somehow she contrived to escape from the place where he had locked her up, and seeing him sleeping, she in revenge bit off his ear while he slept, whereon Oilioll, roused by the pain, seized a spear, and thrust it through her with such force that he flattened the point against a stone in the wall. Drawing forth the spear, regardless of his victim’s agonies, he tried to straighten the point with his teeth, but it had been poisoned, and from that moment his teeth became jetblack. I only tell you this in case you should notice the dark colour of father’s teeth, for the blackness still runs in the family; but, as I was saying, Modha O’Connor took the Condon prisoner, brought him to his castle here, shut him up in the dungeon, and coolly cut off his head. When the clan heard of it, they assembled in great force, stormed the castle, broke into the dungeons, and found the body of their chief, but nowhere could they find his head. The body was buried with all funeral honours, when the earth fell over it, wild unearthly voices sang theDahtan Da mort,Augustha Cadine; but the spirit of Con can never rest easy until the head is found. The circumstance I have told you occurred in the second century, so, of course, the head must now be a skull, but though we have, generation after generation, sought for it, it has never been found. Well, some time ago an old crone passed this way (she was for all the world like a banshee), and, pointing up at the house, she said she would come again soon after the arrival of a certain youth, of whom it has been predicted thathe alonecan find Con Condon’s head. They say she has been seen about the place to-day. Have you seen her, Major?”
“Look!” said Minor. “Isn’t there something dark sitting under the great arbutus tree? Yes; surely there is. Look, Max.”
Max looked, and while he did so, the moon, breaking through a cloud, lighted up the carriage drive in front of the house; while its rays, falling upon an arbutus tree, distinctly revealed a dark figure crouched beside it. It seemed to be a very old woman, sitting, Irish fashion, with her chin resting on her knees, while she rocked herself to and fro, and crooned out a wailing Irish keen. Her face (which was very dark coloured) was turned towards the boys, and her large features and longgrey hair gave her a very uncanny appearance. Seeing Dennis, she beckoned to him. “Come with me, Max,” said he; “I’m awfully frightened.” “I’ll go, too,” said Harry. “And I.” “And I.” So they all stepped through the open window, and were soon standing round the old crone.
“Save ye,” said Dennis.
“Saveyou, kindly,” said she.
“Are you the grana?” asked Dennis.
“Yes, I’m grana, grana, of Carrigogunnel. I’m come from St. Patrick’s purgatory, an’ there I left Con Condon the headless; an’ says he, ‘Grana,’ says he, ‘I’ve been here this tousandh year and more, an’ I’m tired of it entirely; but Ican’t git out,’ says he, ‘till I find my head, which that thafe, Modha O’Connor, tuck from me. Good grana,’ says he, ‘go to Castle Connor an’ find it for me; for it is written,’ says he, ‘that there is wan there now that is Irish, an’ Scotch, an’ Sassenach, all in one, an’ ’tis he alone that can find me head.’ This is the message of Con Condon the headless; an’you,” shrieked the hag, pointing her bony finger at Max, “you, whose mother was a Connor, yer father a Scotchman, an’ yerself a Sassenach, come with me an’ find Con Condon’s head!”
“Mercy,” said Max, aside, to Dennis; “what must I do; where must I go? I daren’t go a step with that terrible old woman.”
“Terrible old woman!” screamed the hag. “Yes, I’m terrible; I’m grana of Carrigogunnel, sister to the mighty Finn. Don’t cross me, young man, or ’twill be worse for ye.”
“What must I do?” pleaded Max, in real agony, and trembling in every limb. “Dennis, speak to her.”
Dennis spoke to the woman, and then turned to Max: “She insists that you go with her to the dungeons, but says we may go, too, as far as the door; so we shall be near you, and, perhaps, you won’t see Con the headless; being a Sassenach may break the spell.”
“See him,” said Max; “I should think not,Idon’t believe such superstitions as you Irish do.”
“Oh, very well,” said Dennis; “that being the case we can go on immediately.”
“Yes, come on,” said the hag, and she slowly rose from her crouching posture, and, to Max’s great horror, stood before him, nearly six feet five in height. “Come on,” she cried, “come on!” and on she went with long strides, while Max, frightenedout of his seventeen senses, followed her, and the others came close behind. Suddenly the hag stopped: “Dennis O’Connor,” said she, “you lade the way until we come to the foot of the steps, thin the Sassenach must go on wid me alone.”
Well, on they went, round by the back door, through the kitchens (where, strange to say, not a servant was to be seen), until they came to the top of a flight of steep stone steps, to all appearances cut out of the solid rock.
“Bring a light,” said the hag; “bring two lights.”
Indeed even two lights failed to throw much light on the subject, only serving to show the horrors of the darkness before them, for here and there in the wall were narrow passages or crevices, and certain projections which cast deep shadows, and had a very fearful effect. The light emitted from two small tallow candles did not much improve the matter, for, though the shadows became less, the crevices remained as dark and darker than ever.
“Oh, I can’t go on,” said Max, turning very white, and looking as if he were going to faint.
“Here,” said the hag, drawing a flask from her bosom (very like a railway flask, but perhaps they use them in St. Patrick’s purgatory), “drink this,” said she; “’tis good an’ old, for ’tis it that sperrited Brien Boru when he fought that mighty battle, when meself saw 3,000 Danes lying dead together.”
“Drink,” said Dennis; “I’ll take a pull at it, too; ’twill keep your courage up, man.”
“Oh, ’tisn’t that I’m afraid,” said Max, but he drank at the flask, and finding it good, tried it again, and the colour came to his face, and down the stone steps he followed the grana, until they stood at a heavy oaken door.
“The kay,” said the grana, and Dennis handed her an ancient clumsy-looking key. She turned it in the lock, and pushed open the door with such force that it went back with a tremendous crash, causing a sudden gust of cold air that put out both the candles. But they were not in the dark! No; for there was a faint and ghastly light, just enough to show them that they were in a huge chamber hewn out of the rock. Max’s face became livid. He looked at his companions; their faces were livid too, and as for the grana, her countenance was something unearthly.
Presently there was a sound like the clanking of a heavy chain, and far away, somewhere in the depths of the vault, were alternately heard heavy despairing groans and a wailing cry, like “My head! my head!”
“That’shim,” said the grana. “Out, every mother’s son of ye, save the Sassenach an’ me. Quick, or the spell will be broken;” and seizing Max tight by the wrist, she pulled him on into the vault.
“Sassenach,” said she, “have ye iver read the Bratheim-hadth, the book of sacred judgment? Ye havn’t, more’s the pity, for from that book
‘The priest, the prince, the bard, the man of art,An’ you, too, in this vault might larn yer part.’
‘The priest, the prince, the bard, the man of art,An’ you, too, in this vault might larn yer part.’
‘The priest, the prince, the bard, the man of art,An’ you, too, in this vault might larn yer part.’
‘The priest, the prince, the bard, the man of art,
An’ you, too, in this vault might larn yer part.’
Howsomiver, as yer ignorant of mystheries, ye must mind what I tell ye, an’ the firstwhitething ye sees on the ground grab it up quick, afore the evil wan hides it agin. Whisht—”
She might well say “whisht,” for nearer and nearer, from the depths of the vault, came the clanking chain, and the hollow voice, crying, “My head, my head! ullagone, ullagone!”
Max, not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, allowed himself to be dragged on by the grana. The faint blue light was becoming fainter and fainter; the wailing “ullagone” was drawing nearer and nearer, when his foot stumbled against something; he stooped to look at it—it was white; he took it up—it was a skull! Max fainted.
When he returned to consciousness, he found himself in a vault indeed, but neither skulls nor groans, nor ghastly blue lights shed their weird influence round him, but a cheerful glow, as of many candles, lighted up the place; and as he looked round he saw, not headless Con, but more than one hogshead, for the vault was, in fact, a spacious cellar, contrived with much care by Master Dennis Connor’s grandfather, for the accommodation of those choice wines from Burgundy and elsewhere, which he had “loved, not wisely, but too well.”
Max sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked about him: “Where am I,” said he; “and how did I come here?” Then, as memory returned, he asked, anxiously, “Where is she?”
“She’s here!” and before him stood Grana of Carrigogunnel, who, tearing off her long grey horsehair locks and the rest of her costume, appeared in the proper character of his decidedly gaunt, but not at all horrible, cousin Ned.
“Here I am, Max; I’ll wash off the walnut juice by-and-bye.”
“Serve you right if it won’t come off,” said his mother. “It was too bad of you all to frighten this poor fellow nearly out of his life. It is well for you your father is not at home.”
“’Tis so,” said the butler, who all the while had been privy to the joke; “they a’most kilt him intirely with fright. Niver mind ’em in there; ’twas only the skull of the ould white cowthat ye tuck up! Ha, ha, ha! he, he, he!” and in spite of all their pity for the victim, Mrs. Connor and the girls could not help laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing.
“You see, mother,” said Dennis (to whom Mrs. Connor was administering a private lecture on practical jokes), “we’d never have done it, only he was such an awfully conceited chap. We told him some stories the other day, and he tossed up his nose and talked about Irish ignorance and superstition. I knew he was a hollow sham all the while; and you see, directly he heard the hag’s story he was carried away by his fright, and never stopped to reason about anything. He’ll never lord it over Major and Minor again, that’s one comfort; the former has twice his sense, and Harry’s a plucky little fellow, and will be sure, if he tries it, to give him a reminder about Con Condon the headless, and the white cow’s skull.”
[3]Oilioll Olum was king of Munster in the second century. He was a ferocious and powerful monarch. The story here told of him is recorded in the ancient annals of Ireland.
[3]Oilioll Olum was king of Munster in the second century. He was a ferocious and powerful monarch. The story here told of him is recorded in the ancient annals of Ireland.
[3]Oilioll Olum was king of Munster in the second century. He was a ferocious and powerful monarch. The story here told of him is recorded in the ancient annals of Ireland.