JOSIAH AS A BANSHEE.
Wall, Martin said that he should probble be asked if he had visited the Giant’s Causeway, so he thought we had better proceed to it to once. So we went directly from Dublin to Port Rush. We stayed there all night, and the next day we all went out on the electric car, for Martin said that he wanted Adrian to go, for in futer years he would probble be asked if he had been there. Adrian wuz tired out and didn’t want to go—he wuz real cross about it.
Alice told her Pa that Adrian said that he wouldn’t look at anything if he went, but Martin said that it would be better for him to go, even if he didn’t see anything, for then he could say that he had been there. So we all sot off—the way we went wuz a perfect sight and wonder in itself, for what power do you spoze it wuz that rolled the wheels that took us onwards?
It wuz all done by a waterfall at Bush Mills, a few milds away. The water that poured down from the hills is harnessed, as you may say, and made to carry us along.
Queer, hain’t it? And shows that you never can tell what will happen to you in the futer.
Why, if anybody had told them little free, sparklin’ rivulets that leap along up in the hills, foamin’ and chatterin’ of liberty and freedom, and sech—if anybody had throwed it into their bright, sparklin’ faces that they wuz a-goin’ to be ketched and tackled up with some kind of riggin’ and carry Josiah Allen’s Wife and her pardner, and the world at large, them rivulets would have resented it—they would have laughed and gurgled and swept on indifferent and onbelievin’.
But so it wuz, they had to come to it.
And after they got broke in they didn’t seem to mind it, for they bore us on so smooth and easy and noiseless, that it wuz a perfect treat.
No steamin’, no smokin’—they learnt that up in the hills. It wuz a comfort to ride after ’em.
And we had nothin’ to hender us from thinkin’ of the Giants and talkin’ about ’em.
Josiah said that he had always approved of giants, and that he would love to see one or two of ’em.
Adrian didn’t git real reconciled to goin’ till after we got started, then he got real excited, and got the idee that we wuz goin’ to see Jack the Giant Killer, and asked me quite a number of questions about it.
Runnin’ sunthin’ like this—How big wuz the Giants, and where did they come from, and what wuz their names, and how long did it take ’em to build the Causeway, and—
“What is the Causeway made of?”
“Of rocks.”
“What are the rocks made of, and who made the rocks, and when were they made, and how, and what for?”
Good land! I wuz tuckered out, and told him I guessed I would look out of the winder a spell and take the air.
And then he wanted to know what air wuz made of, and who made it, and if there wuzn’t any air out of the winder if I could make some air.
He didn’t ask so many questions as a general thing—he seemed to be kinder fractious that day. Poor little creeter, he wuz tired out, and I knew it, and I encouraged him to kinder lean up aginst me and take all the rest and comfort he could.
Alice wuz real happy. She’d got some letters that mornin’, and two big ones wuz in one handwritin’—I knew it. She read ’em over two or three times in the train.
Al Faizi looked at her as she read ’em, and his face looked queer—he see the glow on her face, and I see that, like the sun, that bright light could cast a shadder. Sunshine and shadder, how they chase across the landscape of life! How clost they foller each other! What strange picters they make! What thoughts they give!
But to resoom—we got to the Causeway in pretty good season, and we found it wuz a sight, a sight.
It is made of high round columns, or pillows, and you can walk on it jest as you could on the walk Josiah made out to the hen-house out of bricks sot long end up.
But this Giants’ walk is fur, fur immenser than Josiah’s. It is so extremely big that they say the Giants built it. It runs out into the sea in a kind of a curous shape, and is a sight to behold.
I thought I wouldn’t go and see the caves that wuz nigh there. You had to go to ’em in a boat—and as I looked on that boat, and considered the size on’t, and then subtracted the size of it from the bigness of the Atlantic Ocean, I gin up that I wouldn’t tackle it.
I had done some of my multiplyin’ and subtractin’ out loud, onbeknown to me, and Josiah hearn me, and said he guessed he wouldn’t go. He looked round the Heavens and earth as if to find a suitable excuse, and finally he sez—
“It seems so kinder muggy to-day, I guess I won’t go, though I should enjoy the trip immensely if it wuzn’t for the clost atmosphere.”
Wall, I wuz glad to have him gin it up on any account.
Al Faizi didn’t seem to care about goin’, nor Alice, nor Adrian.
But Martin said that he wouldn’t want it to be said that he hadn’t visited the caves.
So he sot off with a couple of boatmen.
There wuz a dretful sort of a heavey look to the Atlantic, and I wuz glad that I didn’t venter, for I felt truly that the Giants, if they ever heard on’t, would make allowances for my feelin’s in not dastin’ to venter out on the Atlantic in a boat.
As it turned out, glad enough wuz I that there didn’t none of the rest on us go, for there come up a sudden squall right when Martin wuz in the cave, and they had to hurry out for their lives. The rough waves wuz a-washin’ the boat up aginst them hard pillows of stun, and they wuz in sech danger of their lives that the boatmen had to jump out on the rocks the best way they could, and haul Martin, more dead than alive, up over the rocks.
DRIPPIN’ WET WHEN HE COME BACK.
He wuz drippin’ wet when he come back to the hotel, and I sez, “Martin, how sorry I am you ventered out there!”
And he sez, with his teeth a-chatterin’ and the water a-drippin’ off of him, that he wasn’t sorry, for a friend of hisen, a very rich and very influential man, had been caught in jest the same way.
And he gin me to understand that he anticipated a great treat in talkin’ over the experience with him.
Wall, there is sunthin’ in that—there is comfort in talkin’ over past troubles and dangers, and I couldn’t dispute it.
But I sez: “For mercy sakes! do change your clothes and git dried off.”
But he hadn’t any other clothes with him, and the upshot of it wuz, he had to go to bed while his clothes wuz dryin’.
But Josiah wuz sorry for him, and blamed himself for not thinkin’ to bring along his dressin’-gown. Sez he, “I wouldn’t think of lendin’ it on a common occasion, but,” sez he, lookin’ round on sech big work as the Giants had done there, sez he, “I wouldn’t want to act small, and refuse to let Martin put it on for an hour or two.”
Wall, as soon as Martin wuz dried off, we sot sail back to Port Rush, and it wuz there that night that I had a severe trial and fright.
We had had a good supper, and Josiah had eat more than wuz good for him, I believe, and drinked too much coffee.
He is used to tea at night, but bein’ so wore out and kinder chilly, Martin ordered strong coffee.
And I believe that coffee wuz to the bottom of our trials that night.
Bein’ kinder fagged out, Martin had gone to his room early, and the rest had follered his example, and my pardner and I had also sought the seclusion of our quiet bedroom.
And I immegiately and to once begun my preperations for slumber.
I onfolded my nightgown and laid it over a chair and ondone my sheepshead night-cap, and mekanically went to sort of flutin’ the border between my fingers, as I sot there, and I begun to feel real drowsy.
But Josiah didn’t seem to be sleepy a mite. He had donned that dressin’-gown of hisen and tied the strings in a large bow-knot, that showed off the red tossels to the best advantage, and walked 2 and fro several times, and seemed to look and act real sentimental. He has sech spells—I guess all men do at times. And finally he leaned back in a big arm-chair and kinder hummed over some tunes—not sech tunes as I would approve of his singin’, but some songs—such as “Ben Bolt,” and “Lorena,” and “She’s all my Fancy painted Her.”
And finally he broke out quite loud a-singin’—
“‘I’ll chase the antelope over the plains,
The tiger’s cub I’ll’—
“What is it, Samantha, that he said he’d do to the tiger’s cub—‘with a chain’?”
Sez I, “Choke it, mebby—I presoom he’d be skairt enough to want to.”
“No; it wuz sunthin’ like harnessin’, Samantha. Do you know what it is? It comes right in the turn of the tune, and it hampers me to forgit it.”
And then he begun agin—
“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll tie with a chain—
I’ll tackle with a chain’—
“No, that hain’t it—‘tie’ hain’t the word—
“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll, folderol, with a chain.’”
He made the turn and went on to the next line—
“‘And the wild gazelle, with its silvery feet,
I’ll get thee for a playmate, sweet.’”
Sez he, “I’ve got it all but that one word, and that—that will come to me,” sez he.
Sez he, “I feel like singin’ to-night, Samantha.”
“Sing!” sez I in icy axents; “I’d call it singin’, if I wuz you.”
“Wall,” sez he, “if I dast to let my voice out, you’d hear singin’, but it would wake ’em all up. My voice is powerful, and I feel in full voice to-night.”
“Wall,” sez I, “I’m glad that sunthin’ holds you back.
“And,” sez I, “I am beat out and I am goin’ to bed.”
And so I got ready and went to bed.
The rest wuz all asleep, so I spozed.
Wall, I fell asleep most the first thing, and I d’no how long I’d slept, when I hearn a knockin’ at my door, and I got up, and Alice stood there, white and tremblin’.
ALICE STOOD THERE, WHITE AND TREMBLIN’.
“The Banshee!” sez she in tremblin’ tones; “I saw it myself, and heard it.”
Sez she, “You know this is the very part of Ireland where they have them.”
Sez I, “You’d been a-thinkin’ of ’em and imagined it.”
“No, indeed!” sez she; “I was just falling asleep when I heard those awful wails of distress, and I got up and went to father’s room, which is next to mine, and he got up and looked out of the window, and he saw it and heard it too.” Sez she, “You know the Banshee always appears before some dreadful trouble comes to a family, and it seems as if it is meant for us, for it is only a little ways off.” Sez she, “You and Uncle Josiah get up and come into my room, and you can see it for yourselves.”
At them words there seemed to come to me a realizin’ sense of my surroundin’s; bein’ jest waked up with news of a ghost, I’d overlooked the fact of my companion’s absence.
But I sez, “I will come, Alice. Your Uncle Josiah has probble heard it, and gone out to investigate.”
So I throwed on my flannel wrapper and slipped on my shoes and put my breakfast shawl round me and went into Alice’s room. There we found Martin wrapped in his Pegama, or whatever they call it.
Alice’s winder commanded a better view than hisen, and he stood motionless by the winder.
Al Faizi and Adrian wuz in the other side of the house, and so wuz the rest of the folks. These two rooms wuz kinder built out on the side by themselves.
Sez I, “Martin, you don’t believe anythin’ of this kind, do you?”
But Alice spoke up before he could answer, “Why, at Dunluce Castle that we saw to-day there is a Banshee that always foretells death to the family, and they have them all over Ireland.”
Sez I, advancin’ towards the winder, “You don’t believe anythin’ of this kind, do you, Martin?”
He answered evasively, “There is something dreadful queer-looking down there across the road—it is standing still now, but it has been giving the most blood-curdling sounds and wails that I ever heard.”
“Yes,” sez Alice, “the Banshee always gives those same terrific screeches and harrowing yells. I know it is a Banshee, and it is for us, father, for it appeared to us.”
And she commenced to cry. I guess her first thought was of somebody that wuz in her mind the hull of the time.
Sez I, “Hush up, Alice—I don’t believe anything of the kind.”
But as I looked out, follerin’ Martin’s solemn and silent pint, I did see a sight that made the cold chills run down my back in spite of myself, and goose pimples gathered freely down my shoulder blades.
I see a dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock that riz up there above the rest of the ground; it stood motionless, and, indeed, it looked skairful. And onbeknown to myself I sez—“For the land’s sake! what is it?”
A DARK FIGGER A-STANDIN’ UP ON A LITTLE ROCK.
My own voice wuz tremolous with fear, and Alice see it, and cried harder than ever. And Martin sez—
“You ought to have heard the terrific screams the thing gave if you want to be scared—seeing it isn’t nothing at all to hearing it.
“And,” sez he, “I’ll go and call up the hotel-keeper and find out what it is. Maybe it is a lunatic broken out of some asylum. I am going to know something about who and what it is.”
But jest at this minute the creeter broke out in one of its wild cries, and Martin and Alice shuddered, and sez he, “Did you ever in your life hear anything so awful?”
And Alice sez, “I cannot bear it, Aunt Samantha. It is too terrible.”
But there wuz to me sunthin’ familiar in the sound, and I lifted the sash, and the words come in plain—
“Bind with a chain!
The tiger’s cub I’ll bind with a chain
And the wild gazelle”—etc., etc.
Sez I, “It is my own pardner with his dressin’-gown on, and a-singin’.”
The words Martin said then I won’t never tell—no, indeed! besides the wickedness on ’em, it wuz too humiliatin’ to hear ’em applied to my own pardner. “Fool” wuz the last one of the three, and “The” wuz the first one, but I will not tell the middle word—you can’t make me.
Alice went to laughin’ (partly hysterics); she felt dretful relieved, and as the figger seemed now to be aproachin’ the house, I went back into my room, into which it soon entered in a gay and jaunty manner.
He had been enjoyin’ himself first-rate, and sez he—
“Wall, Samantha, I’ve found the word, and I’ve been a-singin’;” sez he, “I sung the verse all over, and it sounded beautiful, and then I stood still a spell, and all of a sudden the right word come to me. It wuz ‘bind,’” sez he.
Sez I coldly, “You’ve skairt a woman almost into fits and made a church-member and a relation swear like a pirate.” Sez I, “I’ve seen you took for lots of things, Josiah Allen, from first to last, but I never thought I should ever live to see the day to see you took for a ghost—a Banshee. A common ghost would sound as good agin as that.” And I went on and related the facts. He acted mad and puggilistic like, and sez he—“I can’t help folks from makin’ dum fools of themselves.”
Sez I, “I wish you’d kep’ yourself from it.”
Sez he, “It is a pity if a man can’t sing a little durin’ the evenin’ without his folks actin’ like perfect fools!”
“Sing!” sez I; “I wonder how many more episodes you’ll have to go through without your learnin’ the truth about what you call your singin’.” Sez I, “You can’t sing, Josiah Allen, any more than a cow can play on the melodian, and I’ve told you so often enough for you to believe it.”
“Wall, wall,” sez he, “it’s time to go to bed. When a man is a-travellin’ with a hull crew of loonaticks and fools, it stands him in hand to git what little rest he can, nights.”
That man wuz ashamed of his conduct, and I knew it.
Mortification works out sometimes in jest that way. It gaulded him to be took for a Banshee, for I hearn him mutter the word two or three times scornfully, as he wuz a-ondressin’.
Sez he, “A Banshee!!! Dum fools!!! I’d love to be one a spell—I’d show ’em some screechin’!”
He didn’t mean me to overhear him, but I did, and I sez calmly from my piller—
“You needn’t blame yourself, Josiah Allen; there hain’t a Banshee in Ireland but what would be proud to mate with you after hearin’ you to-night—there hain’t one on ’em that could outdo you.”
“Keep on your aggravatin’,” sez he, and he didn’t say another word for as much as three minutes, when he begun to complain of bein’ chilly.
And I took alarm to once, and made him some hot lemonade—I had the ingregiences, and a alcohol lamp with me.
And I folded up my woollen shawl, and tucked him all up in it, and spoke real soothin’ to him, and affectionate. For sech is the mystery of human love, though pardners may mortify you, or anger you, yet their sufferin’ or danger shows how strong are the ties that bind two lovin’ hearts—nothin’ can break it. He answered me back in the same affectionate way, though terse, but showin’ the tender regard he had for my welfare. Sez he—
“For mercy sake, do come to bed! your feet will be as cold as ice suckles.”
And so sweet peace havin’ descended down onto us, we wuz both soon wropped in slumber.
Wall, Martin concluded that we would go as soon as we could to Glasgow, “For,” sez he, “I feel that we have seen everything that there is to see in Ireland, and gone to the bottom, as you may say, of the ‘Irish Question.’ So we might just as well go to Scotland as soon as might be.”
So we proceeded to Glasgow, partly by train and partly by steamboat.
Martin talked comfortably agin, on the train, of havin’ seen everything in Ireland, and of havin’ gone to the bottom of the “Irish Question.” “For,” sez he, “the land is governed admirably—splendid standing army, admirable police force, and as for the people,” sez he, “in good seasons, statistics show that there is half a ton of potatoes to each person. More than I consume,” sez he complacently, leanin’ back with his fingers in his vest pockets.
Sez I, “Mebby you’d consume more potatoes if you didn’t consume nothin’ else.” Sez I, “You take out your fowls, and fish, and beef, and lamb, and puddin’s, and pastry, etc., etc., etc., and eat nothin’ but clear potatoes, and how many do you spoze you’d consume, and how much comfort do you spoze you’d take consumin’ ’em?”
He looked lofty, and sez he: “That isn’t a parallel case.”
“And,” sez I, “when the potato crop failed, what then?”
Agin he sez, “That isn’t a parallel case.”
Sez I, “Parallel to what?”
And he said, “Don’t you want the window shut awhile? Let me put your shawl round you; it is a little chilly.”
And then he went on talkin’ to Alice as fast as he could about the seenery, and I wuz too well bread to say anything more.
But I see that Al Faizi had took out his little book with the jewelled cross on it, and he wuz writin’ in it.
And from the way the light from above fell on it as he held it, the rays streamed out from the jewelled cross some like the flashin’ rays from a sword.
He had spoke to me before about the wretchedness and beggary of the people, and expressed wonder that one or two men should own hundreds of thousands of acres and keep it for idle pleasure grounds, while all round were men who couldn’t, no matter how sober and industrious they might be, buy enough land to build a shed on.
He had looked dreamy and strange while he talked it over, but, as his usual way wuz, he didn’t blame nothin’ nor nobody—that wuz the difference between me and him.
He would seem to ask about and find out about things, and then jest write ’em down in that book of hisen. His face a-lookin’ calm a most all the time, but dretful earnest and deep and sorrowful, a good part of the time. His writin’ wuzn’t nothin’ hard, I don’t believe, but comparin’ the doin’s here with the things in his own land, I spoze.
I had noticed that he had wrote down quite a good deal after he had hearn this conversation on Home Rule, and how for hundreds of years a brave people had tried to git the rule of their own land. Not always makin’ wise efforts, I spoze, but brave ones every time, and how the grand old man in England had stood up for ’em aginst his own folks.
I see Al Faizi had writ down quite a considerable, a-praisin’ Gladstone, for all I know. He never told what he writ down or drawed our attention to it, no more than the sun duz as it photographs the pictures of the bendin’ trees and the flowers on the earth beneath. Jest duz it, and that’s all.
The sun and Al Faizi did. That’s where I differed some—I talked more. Wimmen do have to talk once in a while—they’re made so, I guess, onbeknown to ’em. And I said quite a good deal aloud and found considerable fault, though I meant not to be too hard on either side.
There’s always two sides to every story. Ireland hain’t always right, I don’t spoze, no more’n England. When two men git to fightin’ back and forth, there must be some fault on both sides before they git through, anyway, sech as swearin’, kickin’, etc., etc., etc.
I hain’t got nothin’ agin Queen Victoria, and she knows I hain’t. The Widder Albert is a good woman and a good calculator, and has brung up her children well, and has laid up for ’em.
And if ever any woman wuz a mourner for a pardner, she’s been and is now.
But I can’t think she duz jest right in this case, not to let the Irish people rule their own country. It stands to reason that Josiah and I wouldn’t want Deacon Gowdy to rule our house and farm, though he’s a real likely man and a brother in the same meetin’ house, and a good calculator.
But even if we didn’t do quite so well, we would ruther tend to our own house and affairs—everybody would. And I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject the first time I had a real set-down visit with her.
I LAID OUT TO TALK TO VICTORIA ON THE SUBJECT.
And then if Deacon Gowdy took all the money he could rake and scrape out of us, and spent it all on his own place, that would mad us, too.
And like as not if he kep’ Josiah and me down so poor that we wuz most starved, and he should try to turn us out of our own house, and use that dear place, sacred to us, and the door-yard and orchard, for a home for his dogs and fightin’ roosters and sech, why, I d’no if Josiah see me barefooted and hungry, a-beggin’ Deacon Gowdy not to turn me out of the house I wuz born in, and on an empty stumick, too, I d’no but he’d knock him down and jump on him.
And that would make trouble—Miss Gowdy wouldn’t like that, but if she should come to me with it, I should say to her, “Let him tend to his own business, then, and let us alone.”
And if she should uphold him and say we hadn’t no jedgment, and wuz shiftless, and we couldn’t take care of our land, and they had to do it because we wuz too indolent, and slack, and sech—I’d tell her agin that it wuz none of her business. Sez I, “If we run through with our own property we can go to our own poor-house, can’t we?
“But,” I’d say, “you needn’t worry; what encouragement do we have to work and git things ahead when we know you’d take all the profits of our labor? You go off and tend to your own business, and we’ll work hard enough, and lay up.”
And then, after freein’ my mind to her, if old Gowdy wuz too bad off, I dare presoom to say I should offer him some wormwood to make a poultice of to show him that I didn’t have no malice towards him, only jest wantin’ to have my rights and be let alone. But to resoom.
We arrove in Glasgow with no fatal results a-flowin’ from our voyage, and we put up at a good sizable tarvern, where we had plenty of things for our comfort and luxury.
Amongst the things of luxury, I counted the water that I drinked from day to day, for I found that it wuz water brung from Loch Katrine.
And when you remember Ellen’s Isle, as described by Sir Walter Scott, is right there in Loch Katrine—you may perhaps imagine the height and depth of my emotions.
Why, the very water I sipped, and wet my front hair with mornings before my lookin’-glass, may have gurgled and murmured round the very isle where Ellen Douglas dwelt in her father’s hidden lodge, covered with ivy and Idien vines.
“The rocky isle with copsewood bound,
Where weeping birch and willow round
With their long fibres swept the ground.”
Where she dwelt and roamed, dreaming of Malcolm Graeme, and where she met the King of Scotland, onbeknown to her.
Poor feller, poor young king! he thought more of Ellen than wuz good for him, but he acted like a perfect gentleman through it all, and that is better than bein’ a king.
Or ruther it is bein’ a king.
He forgive her Pa, who had been rambellous, and with that gold chain of hisen, that he might have hung him with, he bound the girl he loved to another man forever. Good, generous creeter!
But we are wanderin’ too fur back into the realm of poesy, accompanied by noble Warriors and Ladys of the Lake, and to come out into the hard-beat track of reality agin, and to resoom.
Martin sot a great deal of store on visitin’ the great public buildin’s and the Cathedral, which is nine hundred years old, and the University, big enough for over a thousand scholars—I guess a thousand and a half.
But I myself took more interest in visitin’ the Necropolous, as they call their buryin’ ground, and seein’ the monument riz up to John Knox. It towers up towards the sky dretful high; but not so high as John’s principles loomed up—not nigh.
And I wuz dretful interested while in the city in lookin’ at the statutes of Sir Walter Scott, and James Watts, and David Livingstone, and Robert Burns.
And seein’ the place where Sir John Moore wuz born.
It wuzn’t any better place than Elder Minkley wuz born in, to Jonesville, or Deacon Blodgett up in Zoar.
And as I looked onto the onpretentious walls I methought how it wuzn’t likely at all when he wuz a baby, his Pa a-puttin’ up pills and powders at the time, his Ma a-holdin’ his little helpless, dimpled form to her bosom, that he would grow up to be sech a hero and die fur from her, over in Spain, and “be buried darkly at dead of night.”
And be left there cold and still, fur from kindred and loved ones—“Alone in his glory.”
Wall, here in this city I had a great and welcome surprise—Martin made me a present of a Paisley shawl; they wuz manafectered in a place nigh here, and Martin got me and Alice one.
Men don’t realize sech things, but I knew, and Alice knew, that she wouldn’t be old enough to wear hern for twenty years yet. But then, as I told her, she would grow up to it in time.
But she kinder laid out, as I could see, on coverin’ a lounge with it in her boodore, which means her private settin’-room.
I seldom use foreign languages, but when I do, I don’t think it is any more ’n right to translate it for
