"Faith, the major keeps me in too strict order for that at present," he said; "I don"t know what I should do if I hadn"t his eye upon me, but I"ll acknowledge I have no wish to become a brute beast, as some of them are."
My first day at home was over. I felt less happy than I had expected.
My father"s melancholy condition,--my mother"s sorrow, which she in vain tried to conceal,--and the fallen fortunes of the family, damped my spirits. My brothers-in-law were fine young fellows, but not altogether what I liked; and my sisters were graver than they used to be.
Everything about the house looked in a dilapidated condition. My mother and sisters wore old dresses; the furniture was faded; the servants, if not ragged, were but poorly habited. Had it not been for the major, the family, I suspect, would long ere this have been turned out of house and home. I must not spend much time in describing my life at Castle Ballinahone. I soon got tired of it, and began to wish myself at sea again, for I knew that my only chance of promotion was to keep afloat.
I told the major. He said that he perfectly agreed with me, and that he would at once write to Captain Macnamara, who was in London, and to two or three other friends, and ask them to try and get me appointed to a ship without delay. After I had been at home a few days, Fitzgerald and Daley invited me to accompany them to the fair at Mullyspeleen, where they wished to dispose of some horses they had bred on my father"s property. Larry begged that he might come, just to see the fun. I observed, as he mounted, that he had strapped his fiddle-case on his back. My journey had made me as much at home as ever on horseback, so that I was enabled to keep up with my brothers. The distance we had to go was about fifteen miles, through beautiful country, with a range of hills in the distance, below which is situated the old castle of Tullinhoe, once the seat of a powerful family, many of the descendants of whom were now probably selling pigs at the fair. We met people wending their way towards the place of meeting, some on foot, some on horseback, others in cars and carts of primitive construction, all grinning and shouting in high glee at the thoughts of the fun to be enjoyed. What that fun was we were soon to witness. Not only were there men, but women and children, down to small babies in arms,--the men with frieze coats, with shillelahs in hands, the women in cloaks and hoods, and caps under them. Others had gaily-coloured handkerchiefs tied over their heads. As we got near the fair the crowd increased, till we sometimes had a difficulty in making our way among the people.
As we pushed them aside, however, they were in no way offended, but good-humouredly saluted us with jokes of all sorts. There were tents and booths of various descriptions, the most common among them being formed of wattles,--that is, young saplings cut from some neighbouring estate, the thick ends stuck in the ground some distance apart, and the thin ends bent down till they met, when they were fastened together with haybands. Some twenty or thirty of such arches having been formed, and further secured by a long pole at the top, were covered over with blankets, sheets, and quilts, borrowed from the nearest cottages, occasionally eked out with petticoats and cloaks of varied hue; the quilts, being of every variety of pattern, and of all the colours of the rainbow, had a very gay appearance. The tables were composed of doors carried off from farm buildings and cottages, elevated on hillocks of clay dug from underneath. The benches on either side generally consisted of doors cut longitudinally in two or three parts, and to be nailed together again when done with. Outside several of the tents were huge turf fires, on which pots were boiling, some containing lumps of salt beef and cabbage, while fried herrings were sending up a fragrant odour attractive to hungry visitors. There were cold viands also displayed, to tempt those disposed for a snack, rounds or rumps of beef, hams, bread and cheese, and whisky enough to make every soul in the fair moderately drunk if equally divided. Here and there were booths containing toys and trinkets; but the great object of the fair was for the sale of horses, cows, pigs, and poultry. Besides these were the more pretentious booths of the frieze merchants, who were likely to run a good trade to supply the place of the garments which would be torn into shreds before the fair was over. In other booths, earthenware, knives, and agricultural implements were to be procured. My brothers-in-law having disposed of their horses at a good price,-- especially good to them, as the animals had cost them nothing since they were foals,--we agreed to ride round the fair and see the fun, which had now been going on for some time, while, as the eating and drinking booths had been constantly filled and emptied, a large portion of the visitors were already in a hilarious condition. We were pa.s.sing a booth, when a man came out, who, taking off his long frieze coat, which he trailed along behind him on the ground, at the same time flourishing his shillelah, shouted out--
"Who"d be after daring to put a foot on that, I should like to know?"
He hadn"t gone far, when from another tent out sprang a stout fellow, holding a cudgel big enough to fell an ox with. Rapidly whirling it in the air, he exclaimed--
"That"s what I"ll dare to do!" and he made a fierce blow at the head of the owner of the coat, which would have felled him in a moment, had he not been prepared to defend himself with his shillelah. A clatter of blows succeeded, when the owner of the coat fell, stunned, to the ground.
At the same instant numbers of fellows in frieze coats, brogues, and battered hats, rushed forth from the various tents, flourishing their shillelahs, and shouting at the tops of their voices, some siding with the fallen man, others with the victor, till a hundred or more were ranged on either side, all battering away, as fast as they could move their arms, at each other"s heads. Now one party would scamper off as if in flight; then they would meet again, and begin cudgelling each other, apparently with the most savage fury, while the women and children stood around, the latter forming a squalling orchestra, which kept time to the blows. When matters were becoming serious, a number of the women, handing their babies to their companions, sprang into the fight, shrieking out, "Come out o" that, Pat!"
"Come out o" that, Tim!" and dragged their husbands, or sons, or lovers, away from each other.
The men mostly, however, endeavoured to release themselves by leaving their coats in the women"s hands, exclaiming--
"Let me get at them, Biddy. I"ll not be held back!"
The women succeeded in dragging but a very few out of the fray, and again the combatants went at it, till one after the other was stretched on the ground.
At length a priest arrived, and exhorted those who were of his flock to desist; and, rushing in among them, where words were ineffectual, dealt them pretty hard blows with his own cudgel. I was inclined to go and a.s.sist his reverence, but Fitzgerald advised me to do nothing of the sort.
"They treat him with some sort of respect," he observed, "but they would treat you with none, and a broken head would be the consequence."
The tumult and uproar had made our horses restive; and as a party of the combatants, with loud shrieks and clashing of shillelahs, came rushing against mine, he began to kick and plunge, and at length bolted with me, scattering the people in his course right and left.
Shouts and imprecations followed me, but though I pulled at the rein with all my might, I could not stop him. On he went, upsetting a booth of crockery and scattering the contents; he dashed in among a herd of pigs, which scampered off in all directions; when finally, attempting to leap over a tent in our course, he went through one side of it, pitching me before him, and down he came on to the middle of the table, with his hind legs under the bench, and very nearly on the top of me.
I scrambled out of the way, bruised and scratched, receiving no very friendly greeting from the owner of the booth. Larry, who had seen what was going on, followed, and a.s.sisted to extricate my steed as well as me.
Its knees were cut and hind legs sprained, and I felt as if every bone in my body was broken, though I managed to get on my feet, and, giving myself a shake, had the satisfaction of discovering that nothing of the sort had occurred.
My brothers-in-law, coming up, paid the men for the damage done to the crockery booth and the tent my steed had upset, out of the proceeds of their sale; and I, to show that I was not daunted, remounted my horse.
"Have you sufficiently enjoyed the humours of the fair, Terence?" asked Fitzgerald.
"Faith, indeed I have, and sufficient to last me a mighty long time," I answered.
In one place there were a dozen fellows piled up, one upon another, struggling and kicking, with their heads cut and their noses bleeding; but few of them had lost their voices, and not one of them was mortally wounded.
I had charged Larry not to join in any of the fights; and though he confessed that he had been sorely tempted, he had become too well disciplined at sea to disobey me. He came out of the fair, therefore, with a whole skin, having employed himself for a good portion of the time in amusing the boys and girls with some tunes on his fiddle. I took care to see him clear of the fair, and free from danger, before we put our horses into a trot.
The whole scene gave me some idea of the state of my native country, to become still more unhappy before many more years were over, owing to the misguiding of hot-headed men, and the cruel treatment of a Government whose only notion of ruling was by stern suppression and terrorism.
We rode too fast to allow of Larry playing his fiddle, so he was obliged to put it in its case, and trot after us.
I felt dreadfully stiff for several days after this adventure, and but little inclined to ride, though I managed to walk about.
Denis begged me to go with him to fish in a stream which ran into the Shannon three or four miles from the house. I agreed, for the sake of having his society, although no adept in the art of throwing a fly.
Larry accompanied us, to carry our baskets, and the fish we intended to bring home. We started later in the day than we had intended, so that the best part of it had gone by before we could reach the stream.
I was more successful than I had expected, and succeeded in hooking and landing a brace of tolerably-sized salmon,--Denis having caught twice as many. This encouraged us to go on, and the shades of evening had already begun to spread over the beautiful landscape before we thought of giving in. At length Larry came up to me.
"I wouldn"t be after wishing to frighten you, Mr Terence," he said in a whisper, "but I have just now seen something I don"t like."
"What is it, Larry?" I asked. "Is it in human shape, or with four legs, a couple of horns, and a tail?"
"Don"t be laughing at it, Mr Terence. I"m thinking you don"t know where we are, or you wouldn"t be after doing that," he whispered.
"We are fishing in the stream of Corregan," I said.
"But does your honour know what happened here?" he asked, in a low voice. "It"s his ghost I"ve seen, as sure as I"m a living man, just behind yon clump of trees there hanging over the water; and I"m thinking he"ll be showing himself again if we stop here longer."
"I shall be very happy to make his acquaintance, whoever he is," I said.
"Does Mr Denis know anything about him?"
"Master Denis would be only laughing at me if I were to speak to him about it," said Larry.
I called to Denis, and said that I was ready to put up my rod, as I wished to make the acquaintance of a suspicious individual who was said to be lurking about the stream. He replied that he would be ready to come as soon as he had landed a salmon he had lately hooked.
"Come, Larry, tell me all about this ghost, or spirit, or whatever it was, you fancy you saw just now," I said, while engaged in winding up my line.
"Hish! your honour; we mustn"t speak loud about him, if you plaise, and I"ll tell you," he answered. "It"s just this, your honour: while we were away in foreign parts, there was a broth of a boy,--I knew him well,--Dominic Brian. Well, Nick was one evening going home from reaping, along this very part of the stream, when what did he do but cut his own head off. Why he did it no one to this day can tell; but certain sure his body was found on the bank, with his b.l.o.o.d.y scythe beside him, but his head was gone. They say he comes every evening at the same hour to look out for his head, since he doesn"t rest quiet in his grave without it. When they told me about it I laughed, thinking it couldn"t be true; but seeing"s believing, and as sure as I"m a living man, I saw Dominic Brian this very evening with his head under his arm."
"I thought you said that he always came to look for his head?" I observed.
"Shure so I did, Mr Terence; but the ghost I saw had his head tucked under his arm, just as if it had been a keg of potheen."
"Whether he has his head under his arm or has got it on at all, I"ll rout him out," I exclaimed.
"Oh, don"t, Mr Terence, don"t!" cried Larry. "No one can tell what he"ll be after doing to you. Shure it will be safer for us to be away from this as fast as our legs can carry us. Just shout to Master Denis to make haste, or we don"t know what will be happening."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
A GHOST AND A WEDDING.
Laughing at Larry"s fears, I, having just finished winding up my line and disconnecting my rod, bade him take up the fish, while I walked towards the clump of trees where he had seen the headless ghost.
I didn"t feel altogether sure that something would not appear. I had not gone many paces before I caught sight of a white object. Larry saw it also, and my gallant follower, who would have tackled a dozen Frenchmen with a cutla.s.s in his hand, fairly turned tail and scampered away, shouting out--
"The ghost! the ghost! It"s Nick Brian himself, barring his head. Run, Mr Terence! Run, Mr Denis! or he"ll be taking hold of us, and carrying us off into the river to help him to look for it."
In spite of Larry"s shouts, I still went on, although not feeling over comfortable, when, as I got nearer, out flew, with a loud hiss, a large white swan, whose nest was probably thereabouts. Though I might have defended myself with the end of my rod, I thought it prudent to beat a retreat and leave her in quiet possession of the locality. On seeing this she also returned to her nest. When I overtook Larry,--who, finding that I was not following him, had halted,--I a.s.sured him that the ghost was only a swan. He, however, still remained incredulous, declaring that it might have appeared like a swan to me in the gloom of the evening, but he felt sure it was Nick Brian, and no one else. In vain I endeavoured to induce him to return with me.