 | Seven stories, with basement and attic |  |
FIRST STORY:
WET DAY AT AN IRISH INN.
ON the 24th of December, 18—, I woke up at
half past five in the old town of Armagh, near
the north-east coast of Ireland. The day was lowery,
the inn at which I was quartered, dirty and unattractive;
my lonely breakfast in the coffee-room upon half-cooked
chops and cold muffins—dismal in the extreme;
so that I determined to brave all chances of the weather,
and book myself for an outside place (all the insides being
taken from Dungannon) on the coach for Drogheda.
This left me, however, a spare half hour in which to
ramble over the dreary old cathedral of Armagh, which
my usher assured me “all the gintlemen allowed to be
the oldest in the kingdom;” and another half hour, for
an examination of the unfinished arches of the new
would be “the foinest building in all Europe.”
I hope it is finished before this, and that under its
roof, my Irish cicerone may have repented of his sins
of exaggeration.
The Drogheda mail-coach in those days passed
through the towns of Newry and Dundalk; and long
before we had reached the first of these, which we did
at about eleven of the forenoon, the cold mists had given
way to a pelting rain, and I had determined to give up
my fare, and risk such hospitality as an Irish inn would
afford. Black's coach tavern in Newry did not promise
large cheer; the front was dingy; the street narrow;
the entrance hall low and begrimed with dirt and smoke.
Patrick took my portmanteau to number six, and I begged
for a private parlor with fire, where I might dry my
wet clothes at my leisure. A gaunt woman in black,
not uncommunicative, and who appeared to unite in
herself the three-fold offices of landlady, maid, and
waiter, showed me presently to the “Wellington” on
the second floor; and Patrick was directed to kindle a
fire in the rusty grate.
The apartment was not such an one as I would have
chosen for a merry Christmas eve. For furniture, there
was a faded and draggled carpet, a few cumbrous old
chairs set off with tattered brocade, an ancient piano in
the corner, a round dining table) whose damask cover
Mail” of the last week, and a County Gazetteer. The
solitary window was hung with sombre curtains of
woollen stuff, and by great good fortune looked directly
upon the main street of Newry. At least then, I might
count upon the solace of studying the passers by, and
possibly my opposite neighbors.
The first object, however, was to dry my wet
clothes; nor was this easy; the coals were damp and
did not burn freely; the chimney was foul, and there
was a strong bituminous aroma presently floating
through the room. But I met the situation courageously,
thrust an old chair fairly between the jams, sat
myself bestride it, unfolded the yellow “Dublin Mail”
over the back, and entered valorously upon a conquest
of the twenty-four hours, which lay between me and the
next up-coach for Drogheda. The “Dublin Mail” was
dull; there was a long discussion of the Maynooth College
and its regimen; but who cared for Maynooth?
There was “important news from Calcutta,” but I had
read it in Liverpool a week before: there was a column
upon American affairs, in the course of which a careful
consideration of the military career of General Fillmore—this
was interesting, but short. There was a
murder or two mentioned in retired country districts, of
landlords, or bailiffs, neither of which possessed much
novelty; there was a warm editorial, ending with a
poem in a corner, written to the air of “Eirie go
bragh.” I lay down the “Mail” and took up the
Gazetteer. I read, and felt my coat; and read again—
sometimes thumbing the sweaty leaves backward, sometimes
forward—in such unceasing way, however, that
before my clothes were fairly dry, I could have passed
an examination upon the condition and prospects of
Newry, and Armagh, and Portadown.
After this recreation by the grate, I betook myself
to the window. The rain was still falling in torrents.
Over opposite was a watch-maker's shop, with a curiously-faced
clock over the door-way, which I am sure
must have hung there a score of years, and I venture to
say, it is hanging there yet. Within the window of this
shop, which was full of gewgaws, I caught glimpses of
an old “Heriot,” with a magnifier thrust into the socket
of his eye, and squinting curiously over a medley of
brazen cog-wheels; he looked, for all the world, as a
watch-maker might do, in a country-town of New England;
and I dare say, if I had stepped over to him with
my watch to mend, he would have popped it open in the
same unvarying way—glanced at the trade-mark—
squinted at the cogs, and thrust in some long steel feeler,
and closed it with a pop, and removed his one-horned
eye, and hung the watch at the end of a row of invalid
watches, and promised it on Saturday, and had it ready
on the Thursday following.
A little farther down the street, was the establishment
of an Irish milliner; its lower windows so bedizened
with bonnets and haberdashery, that I could see
nothing beside—except once a pair of black eyes peeping
out after a carriage that whirled by in the rain.
On the other side of the goldsmith's, was the shop of a
baker and pastry cook, which was decked prettily with
evergreens, and within which I saw a stout woman
with arms akimbo, staring out as gloomily as myself at
the rain.
Over the goldsmith's shop was a window, at which
I saw from time to time a pair of little rosy-faced girls,
who may have been seven or eight; and between them,
and seemingly on most familiar terms, a tall Newfoundland
dog, who appeared as much interested as themselves,
in occasional, furtive glances upon the reeking
street. Once or twice too, a simply dressed young
woman of uncertain age, who may have been the mother
of the children, showed herself at the same window.
After making these observations, and pacing up the
parlor once or twice, I betook myself again to the
Gazetteer. Twelve, one, two,—sounded from the clock
over the mantel: two hours yet to my dinner.
Again I turned to the street for relief: a little girl,
in close hood, was stepping out of the door-way beside
the jeweller's shop, and, with her, the dog I had seen
above stairs, with a basket in his mouth; away they
this at least was an incident for me; and I sat myself
composedly down to watch for their return. The little
girl's mate in the window opposite, seemed bent upon
the same object. After twenty minutes perhaps, dog
and child came trotting back, thoroughly drenched;—the
dog still carrying the basket, now apparently weighty
with some burthen. And the servant happening in at
the moment to look after my fire, I called her attention
to the drenched couple, as they entered the door-way
opposite.
“Oh, aye, surr, it's a good baste, is that; he keeps
by the poor little craythurs night and day; it's very
poor they must be, and their mither's a lone woman;
she's been opposite a matter of three months now in a
little room she's rinted o' the gold-bater; it's not much
in the way of niddle-work she'll be foinding; the Lord
knows how the poor craythur lives.”
By this time the pair had returned to their chamber,
as I judged by the movements of the little girl who
had been stationed at the window. Very likely she was
dancing over the contents of the basket.
“Perhaps the dog has brought them their Christmas
dinner,” said I.
“And shure, surr, I hope he may: but it's a sorry
dinner they have most days.”
A sudden thought struck me. I was out of all reach
to turn a few pennies to the cheer of my little neighbors
over the way? A charitable thought is best closed
with at once: it is too apt to balk us, if we wait: so I
pulled out a five shilling piece, and said, “My good
woman, you see the cake-shop yonder?”
“And shure I do, surr.”
“Would you be good enough to step over and buy
a couple of little Christmas cakes, with a sprig of holly
in each of them, and take them over to the two poor
girls opposite, and tell them that a stranger who is rain-bound
in the opposite inn, wishes them a merry Christmas
for to-morrow?”
“Shure I will, surr; and the Lord bless you for't.”
There was something in the manner of the gaunt
waiting woman, that forbade my doubting her: still I
watched—saw her brave the rain—saw her appear with
the package, saw her enter the low passage opposite,
and presently the two little girls came romping to the
window, and kissed their hands to me; while the mother
appears for a moment with a modest bow of acknowledgment.
I think the fire burned more cheerfully after this;
the room seemed to wear a new aspect; my clothes
were thoroughly dry; my appetite was ripening for dinner;
and I read the little poem in the corner of the
“Dublin Mail” to the air of “Eirie go bragh” with a
good deal of kindliness.
The waiting woman, with grateful messages, had
come and gone, and I was deep in Maynooth again,
when my attention was called by the rattle of a carriage
in the street. It had apparently come to a stop near by.
I strolled to the window to see how it might be. Sure
enough, over opposite was an Irish jaunting car all
mud-bespattered, two portmanteaus upon it, and a stout,
ruddy-faced man in mackintosh, and in close-fitting
skull cap, just alighting. He stepped into the goldsmith's
shop, apparently to make some inquiries—seemed
satisfied on the instant—returned to the car, ordered
off the portmanteaus, and pulled out his purse—a well-filled
one I judged—to pay the driver. The little girls
I noticed were pressing their faces against the glass
and gazing down—once or twice looking back as if to
summon their mother to the scene. She also appeared
presently (it was just as the drenched traveller had paid
his fare, and had raised his face), and looking earnestly
for a moment—drooped away, and fell, beside the window.
There could be no doubt that the woman had
fainted; there was terror in the faces of the children.
I rang the bell hastily, and stepping to the door as
the waitress came, I said, “My good woman, there's
trouble over the way; the mother of those children has
just swooned by the window, and there's no one to care
for her.”
She came forward to look out, with true womanly
actual trouble might be. There was a vain glance at
the opposite chamber, then her eye fastened on the
newly-arrived traveller, who was busy yet with his
portmanteaus.
“Good God,” said she, in consternation, “it's
Moike Carlingford! Yes, by the powers, it's Moike,”
and she clasped her hands together, in what I thought a
most melodramatic way for a woman of her age, and
presence.
“It's naught but Moike,” said she again, as if appealing
to me. “He was niver a bit lost then, and it's
he, as shure as iver I live.”
“And pray who may Mike Carlingford be?” said
I, thinking the matter was getting a touch of humor;
but her answer brought me to a dead pause.
“Moike? why Moike is a murderer! It's not for
me to say it, but it's the law; and I knew him as well
as iver I knew my brither before he wint away, and
fell to bad ways; and he wint down by Belfast, and
there was an old gintleman that lived there—it's near
eight years agone—and Moike would marry his daughter
or his niece, and the gintleman wouldn't hearken,
and Moike bate the old gintleman a bit roughly, and
Moike dropped his badge in the bush, where they
found the old gint's body, and he got away, and they
followed him to Cork, and he took ship, and the ship
again yonder, and he'll be caught, and be hung; and
I'm sorry for Moike!”
There was a good swift Irish current in her story,
and at the end of it, she rushed away to spread the
news below stairs. Meantime the newly arrived personage
opposite had passed in with his luggage: there
was nothing more to be observed at the window over
the goldsmith's shop: children, dog, and mother had
alike disappeared. I fancied I heard from time to time,
an exciting discussion going on below stairs in the inn;
but who were the parties to it, or what was the burden,
I could not determine.
The “Dublin Mail” and the Gazetteer had now
lost their interest: Mike the murderer had even driven
the fainting woman opposite, wholly out of my mind.
I could not for a moment doubt that there was some
connection between the two parties of which the talkative
landlady was ignorant. But was the mother's
emotion the result of fear? Had this stout Mike reappeared
to commit new crimes? I cannot say that I
had the least apprehension: the jolly face of the newcomer,
with the iron-gray whiskers, and the sun-burnt
cheeks, could no more be associated with the idea of
murder, than the Christmas season. The good woman
of the inn must be laboring under some strange mistake.
Yet what right after all, had I—a passing traveller—to
doubt her earnest assertion?
My wet day at the Irish inn was gaining an interest
that I could not have believed possible. Time and
again I looked over the way, but no living creature appeared
at the window. Presently I observed the stumpy
figure of my landlord moving across the street, where
he entered the shop of the watch-maker, and opened an
earnest conference; at least I judged as much by his
extraordinary gesticulations, and by the nervous rapidity
with which the old Heriot pushed aside his cog-wheels,
and came fairly around his little counter to talk
more freely with the visitor. I inferred from what I
had seen thus far, that Mike Carlingford was a character
at one time well known hereabout, that an evident mystery
of some kind attached to his history, and that the
host had taken over the suspicions of the mistress to
compare with the observations of the old shop-keeper;
I inferred farther from the resolute shakings of the
head of this latter (which I plainly saw through his
glass door) that the watch-mender had either not observed
closely the features of the new-comer (a thing
scarcely possible), or that he doubted wholly the suspicions
of the acting landlady.
My host came back in an apparently disturbed and
thoughtful mood. It still lacked an hour to my dinner,
and the rain was unabated; a walk about the old town,
which I should have been charmed to take, was not to
be thought of. What if I were to make some excuse
in a little talk, that might throw some light on my
opposite neighbors? No sooner thought, than done.
The stumpy little man was abundantly communicative.
He had been engaged in the tap, and had not seen the
“car” drive up. “Meesus Flaherty, she that okerpies
persition as landleddy since that Mistress O'Donohue—
that's me wife, Surr, that was—is dade, has a good
mimory, and thinks that it's Moike that has come back
to life. Loike enuff; if it's indade Moike, he'll be hung.
Maybe it's Moike, and again maybe it's not Moike;
it's not for the like o' me to jist say. Mister Rafferty,
it's he that minnds the watches in a very pertikeler manner,
and has been my neighbor for a score o' years,
says, by all the powers, that it's not Moike Carlingford
at all, and he's not for disturbin the darlints above
stairs, if so be they're to have a merry Christmas
among 'em.”
I venture to ask after the murder, with which Carlingford's
name had been associated.
“It's seven or eight years gone now,” said the
host—“indade it's a good bit better than that, it must
be ten or or twelve since Moike that lived hereabouts
goes down nigh to Belfast, and they say fell into bad
company there; and he was one of the younkers that
took to wearin' o' badges, and the elictions were coming
off, and plenty o' shindies they had. And an old gintleman—Dormont
Belfast, was a tirrible politician, and was a magistrate
too; it's he was murdered. He had clapped some of
the badge-boys into prison, and they threatened him;
and sure enough by and by they found the poor gintleman
with his skull cracked, lying in a bit of brush, at
his gate. They found him in the morning, with a
young pup, that he had, nosing about him, and playing
with a bit o' ribbon, which, when they came to examine,
was Moike Carlingford's badge, with his name in
full to't.”
“And was this all the evidence?” I asked.
“This started the scent, as it were: but it came out
at the inquest that Moike had been seen hanging about
the place night after night, and what's more he was in
love with the gintleman's daughter or niece, and Dormont
had forbid him the house, and threatened Moike;
which Moike wasn't the man to bear, without his speech
back; and there were them that heard it. But what
was worst of all, he wasn't to be found for the trile:
they traced him to Cork, where he went aboard the
Londonderry that sailed for a place in Rushy, which
was lost at sea and niver a man found; which, if ye
plase, looks a good deal as if it's niver Moike; though
to be shure, the Flaherty has an iligant mimory.”
“And what became of the poor girl?” said I.
“And shure, that's the worst of it: she wint from
was a little baby one day, which she said that she was
married, but would niver tell who was her husband,
which looked uncommon suspicious; and her father
wouldn't take her in, and there was a story I heard
from a North of England man, where her father lived,
that she went to the workus and died there.”
This finished the report of the landlord, and I sauntered
up again to the Wellington parlor, where the Flaherty,
in a clean cap and ribbons, was just then laying
the cloth.
The bustle of some new arrival called her away for
a few moments; she re-appeared, however, shortly after—begging
my “pardin—but there's an Inglish gintleman
just come in, and the coffee-room is not over tidy
for visitors, tho' she had spoken to Mister O'Donohue
times enough—and would I be so good as to allow the
Inglish gintleman to share the Wellington parlor with
me?”
“Of course,” I said, “I shall be delighted; and if
the gentleman don't think the hour too early, perhaps
we can take a cut off the same joint.”
The Flaherty was most gracious in her thanks.
Presently the new visitor came up the stairs, attended
by the landlord.
“It's near to Armagh, you tell me?” I overheard
him say.
“A matter of three miles the hither side,” returned
the landlord.
“You're sure of the name,—Bonneford?”
“As shure as I am of me own.”
“Very good,” returned the Englishman, “have me
a `fly' at the door at seven; we'll put two horses to the
road; two hours there and two back: will you have a
bed for me at midnight if I come?”
“Wheniver you loike,” said the host; and the Englishman
came bustling in—a tall sandy-haired man of
sixty perhaps, full of restiveness, and of the condition,
I should judge, of a moderately well-to-do English
farmer. He wore a snuff colored coat, and over it a
Mackintosh,—yellow leathern gaiters, splashed with
mud, and a broad-brimmed drab hat.
He thanked me for my civility in a short, sharp
way, and after a very brief toilet, disposed himself for
the dinner which was now smoking on the table.
“And Mary,” said he turning to the gaunt landlady,
“please bring me a pint o' sherry, and let Boots
clean up my galoshes, and let him have the `fly' at the
door at seven to a minute; and Mary—
“Mistress Flaherty, surr!”—with a curtsy, said
the woman.
“Oh, eh, I beg pardon Mistress Flaherty; and will
Mistress Flaherty see that the sheets have a good airing
for me, against midnight or thereabout,—there's a good
woman?”
“The house niver gives damp sheets, surr.”
“Its a igh feather these Irish maids wear in their
caps,” said he as the landlady disappeared.
We fell presently to discussion of the mutton, and to
the relative merits of the Southdowns and of the little
moor-fed sheep one meets with in Ireland, in which I
found he was as thoroughly English in his tastes, as in
his appearance. We talked of the bog, of the potatoe
disease, of the poor-rates; an hour passed thus, and
finally we came back to the weather and the Christmas
season;—“not just the season,” I observed, “that an
Englishman usually chooses to while away in a damp
inn.”
“Quite right,” said he, as he went on compounding
a punch from a few fragrant materials brought up from
the tap; “quite right as you say, and a damp ride on
such a night as this, is worse than the inn and the
punch.”
This latter cheered him, and invited a more personal
chat than he had yet indulged in.
“It is to Armagh you are going to night?” said I.
“Thereabout,” said he; “and I may tell you, now
that we've tasted the punch together—your good 'elth,
sir—that if I find the man I'm in search of, and if he's
the man I take him for, this will be the merriest Christmas
eve I've passed in twenty years' time.”
“Indeed,” said I, rather startled by a certain pathos
old friend, perhaps?”
“Not a bit of it—not one bit; never saw him in
my life. The oddest thing in the world.”
This was said rather to himself than to me, and he
relapsed into a musing mood, which I did not feel at
liberty for a time to interrupt.
“It's not the first mystery that's perplexed me to-day,”
said I, half laughingly, as the stranger lifted his
head again.
“Ah, indeed—and pray, if I may be so bold, what's
the other?”
“Come to the window and perhaps I can show you”
said I. The December evenings in the North of
Ireland are terribly long. Our own candles had been
lighted since three of the afternoon; and as I pulled
aside the curtain, the street lamps and shop fronts were
all cheerfully ablaze. Over the watch-makers, in the
window where my chief observation of the morning had
centered there was no lamp burning, but there was a
ruddy glow in the room, such as a well lighted grate-full
of coals might throw out.
“Do you see?” said I, “over the way? There's a
dog lying before the fire.”
“Aye, aye,—I see.”
“And there 's a woman in the shadow by the
hearth.”
“Quite right, I can make out her figure.”
And there's a pair of children; you see how the
fire-light reddens up their faces?”
“Aye, aye, chubby rogues—God bless me, I had
such once. And that's the father I suppose, from the
way they lean upon him and tug at his waistcoat?”
“There's the mystery,” says I.
“Oho!”
“Does he look like a murderer?” said I.
“Bless my soul! murderer! What do you mean?”
I dropped the curtains, and when we had taken our
places again before the fire, I detailed to him the incidents
of the morning. He seemed to enjoy immensely
the oddity of the whole thing, and chiefly the assurance
of the gaunt old Flaherty, who brought up a murderer
from the bottom of the North Sea to drive straight into
town on such a dreary December day.
“But whose was this murder?” says my companion,
with a sudden, thoughtful check to his hilarity.
“Dormont, was the name I think.”
The man gave a sudden start. “Bless me! Ben
Dormont! I began to suspect as much. Why do you
know I knew him like a brother; in fact he was my
wife 's brother; and lived away here in the North of
Ireland; aye, Ben Dormont; he was murdered true
enough; but its not our friend over yonder that did it.
There was a story I know that some young Belfast-man
fellow, went down in—the Londonderry—sure enough
—the very ship; they're right there. But the man
who killed Dormont was Pat Eagan, who died in Ingy
three years gone. My son you must know, is sergeant
in Her Majesty's forty-third, and Pat was one of his
men—enlisted in Ingy. He fell sick of the fever there,
and at the last wanted a priest, and a magistrate, and
made a clean breast of it. My boy sent home copies
of all the papers; if the Flaherty wants them to clear
up the name of her drowned friend, she shall have
them.”
I must confess to a strong feeling of relief at this
revelation; for in spite of myself I was beginning to
feel a warm interest in the people over the way, and
had been oppressed with an uncomfortable sense of the
Flaherty's earnestness, and of her “iligant mimory.”
But there was another little episode connected with
the story of the murder, as the landlord had detailed it,
which perhaps my English companion might throw
light upon; indeed, I had my suspicions, that he had
purposely waived all allusion to it. But my curiosity
overbore, for the time, all sense of delicacy.
“If I remember rightly,” said I, carelessly, “there
was a young woman associated in some way with the
story of this Dormont murder?”
The old gentleman's face quivered; for a moment
then he broke out in a tone of passionate bitterness:
“Aye sir, you've heard it; you've heard she was
a wanton, and I fear it was God's truth; you've heard
her father shut his door upon her, and I wish my hand
had withered before I did it. You've heard she died
in the workus—God forgive me;—my daughter, sir;
my poor, wretched Jane!”
Patrick tapped at the door and said the `fly' was
ready.
The old gentleman sat by the fire leaning forward,
and with his face buried in his hands. Presently
he rose, with his composure partly restored again.
“You know now,” said he, approaching me, “why
I've had many a weary Christmas; but I've a faint
hope left; and I'm in chase of it to-night. I told you
my boy heard of the confession of Pat Eagan, and
went to see him before he died. He told him who he
was, and asked if he could tell him the truth about
Jane. `Is she alive or dead?' said Pat. `Dead,'
said my boy. `I don't know all the truth,' said Pat,
`but there's a man in Ingy can right her name if he
will; and his name is James Bonneford.' And my boy
wrote me that he hunted that man through the country,
as he would have hunted a deer: now he heard of him,
now he didnt hear of him. There were two years or
more of this, when he wrote me (and the letter only
on his way to Ameriky; and that he might be heard
of about Armagh. That's my errand to night.”
“God help you,” said I.
And he drew on his galoshes, buttoned up his mackintosh,
bade me good evening, and presently I heard
the fly rattling away up the street.
I stirred the fire, drew my chair before it, and was
meditating another attack upon the county Gazetteer,
when Patrick appeared with a slip of paper which he
handed me, and says—“It's a man below steers, as
would loike a worrd with the gintleman in the Wellington
parlor.”
I turned the paper to the light—“James Bonneford,”
in a full, bold hand was written on it. It was
my English companion of the dinner, doubtless, the man
was in search of; but how on earth could he have got
wind of his arrival? The mysteries of the day were
thickening on me.
As I walked leisurely down the stairs, I overheard
violent and excited talk from the tap-room; and from
the chance words that caught my ear, I saw that
Mistress Flaherty's suspicions of the morning were
meeting active discussion. Mr. Bonneford could wait
surely, until I learned what course the altercation was
taking. A half dozen of the neighbors had strolled in,
and among them, with a terribly excited face, I saw
the object of suspicion himself.
“And who is it says Mike Carlingford's come
home?” says he, challenging the company with a defiant
air.
“Its Meestress Flaherty,” says one.
“Flaherty be d—!” said the man. “Didn't Mike
Carlingford go down with the Londonderry, eight years
ago?”
“Moike, Moike,” said the Flaherty pressing forward,
“don't forswear yourself, if ye did rap the old
man on the head. It's Moike ye are; and if I was
hanged for it, I'd say it, and may the Lord have mercy
on ye!”
There was an earnestness, and directness in the old
woman's tones that carried conviction to the neighbors.
The man saw it only too clearly, and his jaw drooped;
the color left his face; I thought he would have
fallen; but he rallied, and said in a subdued tone—all
his defiance gone—“it's not you'll be hanged, Mistress
Flaherty: it's me they'd be afther hanging. They
chased me out of Ireland, and only the Lord saved me
when the Londonderry went down, and I thought shure
He would have made it right before long; but he hasn't.
For I'm as innocent of that murder as the babe that's
unborn.”
“I belave ye, Moike,” said the Flaherty; “now I
look at yer and hear ye say it—by my sowl and I belave
ye, Moike.”
“You are quite right, I think, my good woman,”
said I. And thereupon I detailed to them the particulars
which I had learned from the Englishman above
stairs; and I think I never made a little speech which
was more approved.
“Thank God—thank God!” said Mike, while a
half dozen, and the Flaherty foremost, crowded about
him to give his hand a shake.
“Now, for the little woman!” said Mike, springing
away.
“He was married then,” said a voice.
“Aye,” said Mike starting back, “who dares to say
she wasn't? Married a fortnight before the cursed
murder; 'twas that took me so often to the house; and
the very night, Janey pulls away my badge, and says
Mike don't be afther wearing these ribbons—they'll get
you in trouble; and she threw it to Touser that was
lying under the table, and the dog followed me out that
night, and there, near to the gate, he found the old man,
and hung by him. But Touser has made the bad job
good to me; there's niver a man or woman in Ireland
or England, not excepting her own father, that's been
so kind to the children, ever since they were born, as
that dog.”
“Children!” says Flaherty, “and by my sowl, I
consated it long ago;—them girrls is twins!”
“A brace of them,” says Mike, “and I never saw
have an honest name to carry: it's this that's borne so
hard upon the little woman: for at the very last I said
to her,—“Janey, whatever befals, mind ye wait till God
clears it up, before you do the naming: it's better a
child should have none, than a murderer's.” And with
that, and shouting merry Christmas to all of them,
Mike dashed out, and across the street again.
Of course I had forgotten all about Mr. Bonneford;
I suspected who he must be; Patrick made the matter
clear—“And shure its Moike, hisself; isn't it written—
Moike?” (looking at the slip of paper in my hand.)
“He said he'd be jist afther thanking the gintleman that
sent over the cakes the mornin'.”
“All right, Patrick; and now Patrick put some
fresh coals on the fire in the “Wellington,” and ask the
Flaherty to bring me two or three sheets of paper, inkstand
and pens.”
I had been writing an hour or two perhaps, when I
heard the rattle of a fly below, and remembered that
my dinner friend must be nearly due, on his return. In
he came presently, thoroughly fagged, heart-sick, and
moody.
“I am afraid you've been unsuccessful,” I said.
“My boy has been deceived,” said he. “The only
Bonnefords about Armagh, are a quiet family, that I
went blundering upon with a story about Ingy, and
I'm not far from it, God knows!”
“Cheer up my good friend” said I, “a visitor has
been in since you left, about whom you'll be glad to
hear;” and I tossed the strip of paper toward him.
The old gentleman took out his spectacles, and spelled
it letter by letter,—“James Bonneford!—what does all
this mean?” says he in a maze.
“It means this,” said I, “that James Bonneford is
only the name that Mike Carlingford wore in India to
escape suspicion and pursuit; and this Mike Carlingford
is the legal husband of your daughter Jane (the old
man's face lighted here with the gladdest smile I ever
saw) and they are both now over the way, with their
children (here the old man's face grew fairly radiant)
and I daresay, if they knew you were here, they would
invite you to pass Christmas eve with them.”
There was dead silence for a moment.
—“No they wouldnt—no they wouldn't,” fairly
blubbered the old man; then turning upon me, with
something of his former manner, “You're not playing
me unfair? It's all true you are telling me?”
“As true as that you are sitting before me.”
The old gentleman leaped from his chair, and made
a dash into the hall—turned again, came back with his
broad-brim drawn far over his brow—his lips twitching
nervously, and muttering “I've treated her like a brute
—like a brute—indeed I have.”
“I know you have, my good friend,” said I, “and
its quite time you began to treat her like a woman and
a daughter.”
“That's what I will,” said he, taking courage and
moving away.
“One moment;”
I wrote upon a slip of paper;—Christmas eve is
a good time to forgive injuries.—I folded it, and
begged him to take it across the street, with the compliments
of the season from the Wellington parlor: “There
was a little gift for the girls in the morning,” said I,
“and this is for the Papa.”
I hope it may have had its effect: it is quite certain
that something did; for I saw no more of my dinner
companion that night; and when I looked out of my
chamber window at eight o'clock next morning, who
should I see upon the sunny side of the street (it had
cleared over-night), but the same old gentleman, beaming
with smiles, leading a little grandchild by each
hand, and the dog “Touser” following after, with a
very mystified air.
And when I took the coach for Drogheda, as I did
at nine, a rosy cheeked little girl came running over
with a merry Christmas for me (which I met with a
kiss), and a sprig of Holly tied with white ribbon, which
I placed in my button hole and kept there through all
that lonely ride. At night, I transferred it to my note
still, that I have fanned this little story of an Irish-Christmas
into shape.
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