Great Irish Short Stories (4 page)

William Carleton

CARNMORE, one of those small villages that are to be found in the outskirts of many parishes in Ireland, whose distinct boundaries are lost in the contiguous mountain wastes, was situated at the foot of a deep gorge, or pass, overhung by two bleak hills, from the naked sides of which the storm swept over it without discomposing the peaceful little nook of cabins that stood below. About a furlong farther down were two or three farmhouses, inhabited by a family named Cassidy, men of simple, inoffensive manners and considerable wealth. They were, however, acute and wise in their generation; intelligent cattle dealers, on whom it would have been a matter of some difficulty to impose an unsound horse, or a cow older than was intimated by her horn-rings, even when conscientiously dressed up for sale by the ingenious aid of the file or burning-iron. Between their houses and the hamlet rose a conical pile of rocks, loosely heaped together, from which the place took its name of Carnmore.

About three years before the time of this story there came two men with their families to reside in the upper village, and the house which they chose as a residence was one at some distance from those which composed the little group we have just been describing. They said their name was Meehan, although the general report went that this was not true; that the name was an assumed one, and that some dark mystery, which none could penetrate, shrouded their history and character. They were certainly remarkable men. The elder, named Anthony, was a dark, black-browed person, stern in his manner, and atrociously cruel in his disposition. His form was herculean, his bones strong and hard as iron, and his sinews stood out in undeniable evidence of a life hitherto spent in severe toil and exertion, to bear which he appeared to an amazing degree capable. His brother Denis was a small man, less savage and daring in his character, and consequently more vacillating and cautious than Anthony; for the points in which he resembled him were superinduced upon his natural disposition by the close connection that subsisted between them, and by the identity of their former pursuits in life, which, beyond doubt, had been such as could not bear investigation.

The old proverb of “birds of a feather flock together” is certainly a true one, and in this case it was once more verified. Before the arrival of these men in the village there had been five or six bad characters in the neighbourhood, whose delinquencies were pretty well-known. With these persons the strangers, by that sympathy which assimilates with congenial good or evil, soon became acquainted; and although their intimacy was as secret and cautious as possible, still it had been observed and was known; for they had frequently been seen skulking together at daybreak or in the dusk of evening.

It is unnecessary to say that Meehan and his brother did not mingle much in the society of Carnmore. In fact, the villagers and they mutually avoided each other. A mere return of the common phrases of salutation was generally the most that passed between them: they never entered into that familiarity which leads to mutual intercourse and justifies one neighbour in freely entering the cabin of another, to spend a winter’s night or a summer’s evening in amusing conversation. Few had ever been in the house of the Meehans since it became theirs. Nor were the means of their subsistence known. They led an idle life, had no scarcity of food, were decently clothed, and never wanted money—circumstances which occasioned no small degree of conjecture in Carnmore and its vicinity.

Some said they lived by theft; others, that they were coiners; and there were many who imagined, from the diabolical countenance of the elder brother, that he had sold himself to the devil, who, they affirmed, set his mark upon him, and was his paymaster. Upon this hypothesis several were ready to prove that he had neither breath nor shadow: they had seen him, they said, standing under a hedgerow of elder—that unholy tree which furnished wood for the cross, and on which Judas hanged himself—yet, although it was noonday in the month of July, his person threw out no shadow. Worthy souls! because the man stood in the shade at the time. But with these simple explanations Superstition had nothing to do, although we are bound, in justice to the reverend old lady, to affirm that she was kept exceedingly busy in Carnmore. If a man had a sick cow, she was elf-shot; if his child became consumptive, it had been overlooked, or received a blast from the fairies; if the whooping cough was rife, all the afflicted children were put three times under an ass; or when they happened to have the “mumps,” were led before sunrise to a south-running stream, with a halter hanging about their necks, under an obligation of silence during the ceremony. In short, there could not possibly be a more superstitious spot than that which these men of mystery had selected for their residence. Another circumstance which caused the people to look upon them with additional dread was their neglect of mass on Sundays and holidays, though they avowed themselves Roman Catholics. They did not, it is true, join in the dances, drinking matches, football, and other sports with which the Carnmore folk celebrated the Lord’s Day; but they scrupled not, on the other hand, to mend their garden ditch or mold a row of cabbages on the Sabbath—a circumstance for which two or three of the Carnmore boys were, one Sunday evening when tipsy, well-nigh chastising them. Their usual manner, however, of spending that day was by sauntering lazily about the fields, or stretching themselves supinely on the sunny side of the hedges, their arms folded into their bosoms, and their hats lying over their faces to keep off the sun.

In the meantime, loss of property was becoming quite common in the neighbourhood. Sheep were stolen from the farmers, and cows and horses from the more extensive graziers in the parish. The complaints against the authors of these depredations were loud and incessant. Watches were set, combinations for mutual security formed, and subscriptions to a considerable amount entered into, with a hope of being able, by the temptation of a large reward, to work upon the weakness or cupidity of some accomplice to betray the gang of villains who infested the neighbourhood. All, however, was in vain: every week brought some new act of plunder to light, perpetrated upon such unsuspecting persons as had hitherto escaped the notice of the robbers; but no trace could be discovered of the perpetrators. Although theft had from time to time been committed upon a small scale before the arrival of the Meehans in the village, yet it was undeniable that since that period the instances not only multiplied, but became of a more daring and extensive description. They arose in a gradual scale from the hen-roost to the stable; and with such ability were they planned and executed, that the people, who in every instance identified Meehan and his brother with them, began to believe and hint that, in consequence of their compact with the devil, they had power to render themselves invisible. Common fame, who can best treat such subjects, took up this and never laid it aside until, by narrating several exploits which Meehan the elder was said to have performed in other parts of the kingdom, she wound it up by roundly informing the Carnmorians that having been once taken prisoner for murder, he was caught by the leg when half through a hedge, but that being most wickedly determined to save his neck, he left the leg with the officer who took him, shouting out that it was a new species of legbail; and yet he moved away with surprising speed upon two of as good legs as any man in his Majesty’s dominions might wish to walk off upon from the insinuating advances of a bailiff or a constable!

The family of the Meehans consisted of their wives, and three children, two boys and a girl—the former were the offspring of the younger brother, and the latter of Anthony. It has been observed, with truth and justice, that there is no man, how hardened and diabolical soever in his natural temper, who does not exhibit to some particular object a peculiar species of affection. Such a man was Anthony Meehan. That sullen hatred which he bore to human society, and that inherent depravity of heart which left the trail of vice and crime upon his footsteps, were flung off his character when he addressed his daughter Anne. To him her voice was like music. To her he was not the reckless villain, treacherous and cruel, which the helpless and unsuspecting found him, but a parent kind and indulgent as ever pressed an only and beloved daughter to his bosom. Anne was handsome: had she been born and educated in an elevated rank in society, she would have been softened by the polish and luxury of life into perfect beauty; she was, however, utterly without education. As Anne experienced from her father no unnatural cruelty, no harshness, nor even indifference, she consequently loved him in return; for she knew that tenderness from such a man was a proof of parental love rarely to be found in life. Perhaps she loved not her father the less on perceiving that he was proscribed by the world—a circumstance which might also have enhanced in his eyes the affection she bore him. When Meehan came to Carnmore she was sixteen; and as that was three years before the incident occurred on which we have founded this narrative, the reader may now suppose her to be about nineteen; an interesting country girl as to person, but with a mind completely neglected, yet remarkable for an uncommon stock of good nature and credulity.

About the hour of eleven o’clock one winter’s night in the beginning of December, Meehan and his brother sat moodily at their hearth. The fire was of peat which had recently been put down, and from between the turf the ruddy blaze was shooting out in those little tongues and gusts of sober light which throw around the rural hearth one of those charms which make up the felicity of domestic life. The night was stormy, and the wind moaned and howled along the dark hills beneath which the cottage stood. Every object in the house was shrouded in a mellow shade, which afforded to the eye no clear outline, except around the hearth alone, where the light brightened into a golden hue, giving the idea of calmness and peace. Anthony Meehan sat on one side of it, and his daughter opposite him, knitting. Before the fire sat Denis, drawing shapes in the ashes for his own amusement.

“Bless me,” said he, “how sthrange it is!”

“What is?” inquired Anthony, in his deep and grating tones.

“Why, thin, it is sthrange!” continued the other, who, despite of the severity of his brother, was remarkably superstitious—“a coffin I made in the ashes three times runnin’! Isn’t it very quare, Anne?” he added, addressing the niece.

“Sthrange enough, of a sartinty,” she replied, being unwilling to express before her father the alarm which the incident, slight as it was, created in her mind; for she, like the uncle, was subject to such ridiculous influences. “How did it happen, uncle?”

“Why, thin, no way in life, Anne; only, as I was thryin’ to make a shoe, it turned out a coffin on my hands. I thin smoothed the ashes, and began agin, an’ sorra bit of it but was a coffin still. Well, says I, I’ll give you another chance—here goes once more; an’, as sure as a gun’s iron, it was a coffin the third time! Heaven be about us, it’s odd enough!”

“It would be little matther you were nailed down in a coffin,” replied Anthony fiercely; “the world would have little loss. What a pitiful, cowardly rascal you are—afraid o’ your own shadow afther the sun goes down, except I’m at your elbow! Can’t you dhrive all them palavers out o’ your head? Didn’t the sargint tell us, an’ prove to us, the time we broke the guardhouse, an’ took Frinch lave o’ the ridgment for good, that the whole o’ that, an’ more along wid it, is all priestcraft?”

“I remimber he did, sure enough. I dunna where the same sargint is now, Tony? About no good, anyway, I’ll be bail. Howsomever, in regard o’ that, why doesn’t yourself give up fastin’ from the mate of a Friday?”

“Do you want me to sthretch you on the hearth?” replied the savage, whilst his eyes kindled into fury, and his grim visage darkened into a Satanic expression. “I’ll tache you to be puttin’ me through my catechiz about atin’ mate. I may manage that as I plase; it comes at first cost, anyhow; but no cross-questions to me about it, if you regard your health!”

“I must say for you,” replied Denis reproachfully,“that you’re a good warrant to put the health astray upon us of an odd start: we’re not come to this time o’ day widout carryin’ somethin’ to remimber you by. For my own part, Tony, I don’t like such tokens; an’ moreover, I wish you had resaved a thrifle o’ larnin’, espishily in the writin’ line; for whenever we have any difference you’re so ready to prove your opinion by settin’ your mark upon me, that I’d rather, fifty times over, you could write it with pen an’ ink.”

“My father will give that up, uncle,” said the niece. “It’s bad for anybody to be fightin’, but worst of all for brothers, that ought to live in peace and kindness. Won’t you, father?”

“Maybe I will, dear, some o’ these days, on your account, Anne; but you must get this creature of an uncle of yours to let me alone, an’ not be aggravatin’ me with his folly. As for your mother, she’s worse; her tongue’s sharp enough to skin a flint, and a batin’ a day has little effect on her.”

Anne sighed, for she knew how low an irreligious life, and the infamous society with which, as her father’s wife, her mother was compelled to mingle, had degraded her.

“Well, but, Father, you don’t set her a good example yourself,” said Anne; “and if she scolds and drinks now, you know she was a different woman when you got her. You allow this yourself; and the crathur, the dhrunkest time she is, doesn’t she cry bittherly, remimberin’ what she has been. Instead of one batin’ a day, Father, thry no batin’ a day, an’ maybe it’ll turn out betther than thumpin’ an’ smashin’ her, as you do.”

“Why, thin, there’s thruth an’ sinse in what the girl says, Tony,” observed Denis.

“Come,” replied Anthony, “whatever she may say, I’ll suffer none of your interference. Go an’ get us the black bottle from the place: it’ll soon be time to move. I hope they won’t stay too long.”

Denis obeyed this command with great readiness, for whisky in some degree blunted the fierce passions of his brother and deadened his cruelty, or, rather, diverted it from minor objects to those which occurred in the lawless perpetration of his villainy.