The House by the Church-yard

Front matter

The Night os the I i A NOVEL. BY J. SHERIDAN LE FANU, AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILAS," "GUY DEVERELL," &C. TTcfo drbition. Lilias' Reverie. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 18CG. BY J. SHEBIDAN LE FANTJ, AUTHOE OF 'UUCLE SILAS,' 'GUT DEVEBEL1,' ETC. NEW EDITION. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1866. [The Right of Translation is reserved.'] TO PERCY FITZ-GEEALD, ESQ., IN MEMORY OF TEAES OF PLEASANT INTEECOUESE AND FEIENDSHIP, AND IN WAEM ADMIEATION OP HIS WEITINGS, ft Iris ftak is $nsaiM BY THE AUTHOR. A PROLOGUE— BEING A DISH OF VILLAGE CHAT. "We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of what was going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years, to be sure, is a good while ; but though fashions have changed, some old phrases dropped out, and new ones come in ; and snuff and hair powder, and sacques and solitaires quite passed away — yet men and women were men and women, all the same — as elderly fedows, dke your humble servant, who have seen and talked with rearward strag glers of that generation — now all and long marched off — can testify', if they will.

In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of the outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. The poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed a glimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined the banks of the river and the vadey of the Liffey, with a lively sort of richness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steep roofs and many coloured had-doors. The jody old inn, just beyond the turnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by the mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the sign of the Phœnix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with " the great and good King William," in his robe, garter, periwig, and sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimney-piece, and confronting the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils, and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of Skinner' s-alley — a club of the "true blue " dye, as old as the Jacobite wars of the previous century — tho corporation of Shoemakers, or of Tadors, or the Freemasons, or tho musical clubs, loved to dine at the stately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and wisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening.

Alas ! the inn is as clean gone as the guests — a dream of the shadow of smoke. Lately, too, came down the old " Salmon House" — so called from the blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board — at the other end of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right angles from the line of the broad street, and directly confronting the passenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the character of a square, and just left room for the high road and Martin' s-row to slip between its flank and the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well ! it is gone. I blame nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that the rats would soon have throwrn up their lease of it ; and that it was taken down, in short, chiefly, as one of the players said of ' Old Drury,' to prevent the inconvenience of its coining down of itself.

Chapter I. The Rector's Night-walk To His Church

A.D. 1767— in the beginning of the month of May— I mention it because, as I said, I write from memoranda, an awfully dark night came down on Chapelizod and all the country round. I believe there was no moon, and the stars had been quite put out under the wet 'blanket of the night,' which impenetrable muffler overspread the sky with a funereal darkness. There was a tittle of that sheet-lightning early in the evening, which betokens sultry weather. The clouds, column after column, came up sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling themselves from one horizon to the other into one black dome of vapour, their slow but steady motion contrasting with the awful stillness of the air. There was a weight in the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little town, as if unseen crime or danger — some mystery of iniquity — was stealing into the heart of it, and the disap proving heavens scowled a melancholy warning.

That morning old Sally, the rector's housekeeper, was disquieted. She had dreamed of making the great four-post, state bed, with the dark green damask curtains — a dream that betokened some coming trouble — it might, to be sure, be ever so small — (it had once come with no worse result than Dr. Walsingham's dropping his purse, con taining something under a guinea in silver, over the side of the ferry boat) — but again it might be tremendous. The omen hung over them doubtful. A large square letter, with a great round seal, as big as a crown piece, addressed to the Rev. Hugh Walsingham, Doctor of Divinity, at his house, by the bridge, in Chapelizod, had reached him in the morning, and plainly troubled him. He kept the messenger a good hour awaiting his answer ; and, just at two o'clock, the same messenger returned with a second letter — but this time a note sufficed for reply. ' 'Twiti seem ungracious,' said the doctor, knitting his brows over his closed fodo in the study ; ' but I cannot choose but walk clear in my catiing before the Lord.

How can I honestly pronounce hope, when in my mind there is nothing but fear — let another do it if he see his way — I do enough in being present, as 'tis right I should.' It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night — a rush and down-pour of rain ! The doctor stood just under the porch of the stout brick house — of King William's date, which was then the residence of the worthy rector of Chapelizod— with his great surtout and cape on — his leggings buttoned up — and his capacious leather 'overalls' pulled up and strapped over these — and his broad-leafed hat tied down over his wig and ears with a mighty silk kerchief. I dare say he looked absurd enough — but it was the women's doing — who always, upon emergen cies, took the doctor's wardrobe in hands. Old Sady, with her kind, mild, grave face, and grey locks, stood modestly behind in the had ; and pretty Lilias, his only child, gave him her parting kiss, and her last grand charge about his shoes and other exterior toggery, in the porch ; and he patted her cheek with a tittle fond laugh, taking old John Tracy's, the butler's, arm.

John carried a handsome horn lantern, which flashed now on a roadside bush — now on the dis coloured battlements of the bridge — and now on a streaming window. They stepped out — there were no umbrellas in those days — splashing among the wide and widening pools ; while Sally and Lilias stood in the porch, holding candles for full five minutes after the doctor and his ' Jack-o'-the-lantern,' as he caded honest John, whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night excursions, had got round the corner. Through the back bow-window of the Phœnix, there pealed forth — faint in the distance and rain — a solemn royal ditty, piped by the tuneful Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and neither unmusical nor somehow uncongenial with the darkness, and the melancholy object of the doctor's walk, the chant being rather monastic, wdd, and dirge like.

It was a quarter past ten, and no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was stirring. If secrecy were an object, it was well secured by the sable sky, and the steady torrent which roded down with electric weight and perpendicularity, making all nature resound with one long hush — sh — sh — sh — sh — deluging the broad street, and turning the channels and gutters into mimic mill-streams, which snorted and hurtled headlong through their uneven beds, and round the corners towards the turbid Liffey, which, battered all over with rain, muddy, and sullen, reeled its way towards the sea, rolling up to the heavens an aspect black as their own. As they passed by the Phœnix, (a little rivulet, by-the-bye, was spouting down from the corner of the sign ; and indeed the night was such as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon all .thoughts of self-incremation, and submit to an unprecedented death by drowning), there was no idle officer, or lounging waiter upon the threshold.

Military and civilians were all snug in their quarters that night ; and the inn, except for the ' Aldermen ' in the back parlour, was doing no business. The door was nearly closed, and only let out THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH YARD. a tad, narrow slice of candle-dght upon the lake of mud, over every inch of which the rain was drumming. The doctor's lantern glided by — and then across the street — and so leisurely along the foot-way, by the range of tightless hall doors towards the Salmon House, also dark ; and so, sharp round the corner, and up to the church-yard gate, which stood a little open, as also the church door beyond, as was evidenced by the feeble glow of a lantern from within. I dare say old Bob Martin, the sexton, and grave Mr. Irons, the clerk, were reassured when they heard the cheery voice of the rector hailing them by name.

There were now three candles in church ; but the edifice looked unpleasantly dim, and went off at the far end into total darkness. Zekiel Irons was a lean, reserved fedow, with a black wig and blue chin, and something shy and sinister in his phiz. I don't think he had entertained honest Bob with much conversation from those thin lips of his during their grizzly tete-a-tete among the black windows and the mural tablets that overhung the aisle. But the rector had lots to say — though deliberately and gravely, still the voice was genial and inspiring — and exorcised the shadows that had been gathering stealthily around the lesser church function aries. Mrs. Irons' tooth, he learned, was stiti bad ; but she was no longer troubled with 'that sour humour in her stomach.' There were sour humours, alas ! still remaining — enough, and to spare, as the clerk knew to his cost.

Bob Martin thanked his reverence ; ' the cold rheumatism in his hip was better.' Irons, the clerk, replied, ' he had brought two prayer-books.' Bob averred ' he could not be mistaken ; the old lady was buried in the near vault ; though it was forty years before, he remembered it like last night. They changed her into her lead coffin in the vault — he and the undertaker together — her own servants would not put a hand to her. She was buried in white satin, and with her rings on her fingers. It was her fancy, and so ordered in her wid. They said she was mad. He'd know her face again if he saw her. She had a long hooked nose ; and her eyes were open. For, as he was told, she died in her sleep, and was quite cold and stiff when they found her in the morning. He went down and saw the coffin to-day, half an hour after meeting his Reverence.' The rector consulted his great warming-pan of a watch.

It was drawing near eleven. He fed into a reverie, and rambled slowly up and down the aisle, with his hands behind his back, and his dripping hat in them, swinging nearly to the flags— now lost in the darkness — now emerging again, dim, nebulous, in the foggy tight of the lanterns. When this clerical portrait came near, he was looking down, with gathered brows, upon the flags, moving his lips and nodding, as if counting them, as was his way. The doctor was thinking all the time upon the one text : — Why should this livid memorial of two great crimes be now disturbed, after an obscurity of twenty-one years, as if to jog the memory of scandal, and set the great throat of the monster baying once more at the old midnight horror ? And as for that old house at Ballyfermot, why any one could have looked after it as wed as he. ' Stiti he must live somewhere, and certainly this tittle town is quieter than the city, and the people, on the whole, very kindly, and by no means curious.' This latter was a mistake of the doctor's, who, like other simple persons, was fond of regarding others as harmless repetitions of himself. ' And his sojourn will be,' he says, ' but a matter of weeks ; ' and the doctor's mind wandered back again to the dead, and forward to the remoter conse quences of his guilt, so he heaved a heavy, honest sigh, and lifted up his head and slackened his pace for a little prayer, and with that there came the rumble of wheels to the church door.

Chapter II. The Nameless Coffin

Three vehicles with flambeaux, and the clang and snorting of horses came close to the church porch, and there appeared suddenly, standing within the disk of candle-light at the church door, before one would have thought there was time, a tad, very pale, and peculiar looking young man, with very large, melancholy eyes, and a certain cast of evil pride in his handsome face. John Tracy dghted the wax candles which he had brought, and Bob Martin stuck them in the sockets at either side of the cushion, on the ledge of the pew, beside the aisle, where the prayer-book lay open at ' the burial of the dead,' and the rest of the party drew about the door, while the doctor was shaking hands very ceremoniously with that tall young man, who had now stepped into the circle of light, with a short, black mantle on, and his black curls uncovered, and a certain air of high breeding kin his movements. ' He reminded me painfully of him who is gone, whom we name not,' said the doctor to pretty Lilias, when he got home ; ' he has his pale, delicately-formed features, with a shadow of his evil passions, too, and his mother's large, sad eyes.' And an elderly clergyman, in surplice, band, and white wig, with THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH- YARD. a hard, yedow, furrowed face, hovered in, like a white bird of night, from the darkness behind, and was introduced to Dr. Walsingham, and whispered for a while to Mr. Irons, and then to Bob Martin, who had two short forms placed transversely in the aisle to receive what was coming, and a shovel sud of earth — ad ready.

So, whde the angular clergyman ruffled into the front of the pew, with Irons on one side, a tittle in the rear, both books open ; the plump tittle under taker, diffusing a steam from his moist garments, making a prismatic halo round the candles and lanterns, as he moved successively by them, whispered a word or two to the young gentleman [Mr. Mervyn, the doctor caded him], and Mr. Mervyn disappeared. Dr. Walsingham and John Tracy got into contiguous seats, and Bob Martin went out to lend a hand. Then came the shuffling of feet, and the sound of hard-tugging respiration, and the suppressed, energetic mutual directions of the undertaker's men, who supported the ponderous coffin. How much heavier, it always seems to me", that sort of load than any other of the same size ! A great oak shed : the lid was outside in the porch, Mr. Tressels was unwilling to screw it down, having heard that the entrance to the vault was so narrow, and apprehending it might be necessary to take the coffin out.

So it lay its length with a dull weight on the two forms. The lead coffin inside, with its dusty black velvet, was plainly much older. There was a plate on it with two bold capitals, and a sud stop after each, thus : — R. D. obtit May 11th, A.D. 1746. ætat 38. And above this plain, oval plate was a tittle bit of an ornament no bigger than a sixpence. John Tracy took it for a star, Bob Martin said he knew it to be a Freemason's order, and Mr. Tressels, who almost overlooked it, thought it was nothing better than a fourpenny cherub. But Mr. Irons, the clerk, knew that it was a coronet ; and when he heard the other theories thrown out, being a man of few words, he let them have it their own way, and with his thin lips closed, with their changeless and unpleasant character of an imperfect smile, he coldly kept this little bit of knowledge to himself.

Earth to earth (rumble), dust to dust (tumble), ashes to ashes (rattle). And now the coffin must go out again, and down to its final abode. The flag that closed the entrance of the vault had been removed. But the descent of Avernus was not facde, the steps being steep and broken, and the roof so low. Young Mervyn had gone down the steps to see it duly placed ; a murky, fiery Ught came up, against which the descending figures looked black and cyclopean. Dr. Walsingham offered his brother-clergyman his hospitalities ; but somehow that cleric preferred returning to town for his supper and his bed. Mervyn also excused himself. It was late, and he meant to stay that night at the Phœnix, and to-morrow designed to make his compliments in person to Dr. Walsingham.

So the bilious clergyman from town climbed into the vehicle in which he had come, and the undertaker and his troop got into the hearse and the mourning coach and drove off demurely through the town ; but once a hundred yards or so beyond the turnpike, at such a pace that they overtook the rolicking cortege of the Alderman of Skinner's Alley upon the Dublin road, all singing and hallooing, and crowing and shouting scraps of banter at one another, in which recreations these professional mourners forthwith joined them ; and they cracked screaming jokes, and drove wild chariot races the whole way into town, to the terror of the divine, whose presence they forgot, and whom, though he shrieked from the window, they never heard, until getting out, when the coach came to a stand-still, he gave Mr. Tressels a piece of his mind, and that in so alarming a sort, that the jolly undertaker, expressing a funereal concern at the accident, was obliged to explain that all the noise came from the scandalous party they had so unfortunately overtaken, and that ' the drunken blackguards had lashed and frightened his horses to a runaway pace, singing and hallooing in the filthy way he heard, it being a standing joke among such roisters to put quiet tradesmen of his melancholy profession into a false and ridiculous position.' He did not convince, but only half-puzzled the ecclesiastic, who, muttering, ' credat Judæus,' turned his back upon Mr. Tressels, with an angry whisk, without bidding him good night.

Dr. Walsingham, with the aid. of his guide, in the meantime, had reached the tittle garden in front of the old house, and the gay tinkle of a harpsichord and the notes of a sweet contralto suddenly ceased as he did so ; and he said — smiling in the dark, in a pleasant soltioquy, for he did not mind John Tracy — old John was not in the way — ' She always hears my step — always — tittle Lily, no matter how she's employed,' and the had-door opened, and a voice that was gentle, and yet somehow very spirited and sweet, cried a loying and playful welcome to the old man.

Chapter III. Mr

MERVYN IN HIS INN. The morning was fine — the sun shone out with a yellow splendour — ad nature was refreshed — a pleasant smed rose up from tree, and flower, and earth. The now dry pavement and ad the row of village windows were glittering merrdy — the sparrows twittered their lively morning gossip among the thick ivy of the old church tower — here and there the village cock challenged his neighbour with high and vaunting crow, and the bugle notes soared sweetly into the air from the artdlery ground beside the river. Moore, the barber, was already busy making his morning circuit, serving-men and maids were dropping in and out at the baker's, and old Poll Delany, in her weather-stained red hood, and neat little Kitty Lane, with her bright, young, careful face and white basket, were calling at the doors of their customers with new-laid eggs.

Through half-opened had-doors you might see the powdered servant. or the sprightly maid in her mob-cap in hot haste steaming away with the red japanned 'tea kitchen' into the parlour. The town of Chapelizod, in short, was just sitting down to its breakfast. Mervyn, in the meantime, had had his solitary meal in the famous back parlour of the Phœnix, where the newspapers lay, and ad comers were welcome. He was by no means a bad hero to look at, if such a thing were needed. His face was pale, melancholy, statuesque — and his large enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a secret — perhaps a horror. Most men, had they known ad, would have wondered with good Doctor "Walsingham, why, of ad places in the world, he should have chosen the tittle town where he now stood for even a temporary residence.

It was not a perversity, but rather a fascination. His whole life had been a flight and a pursuit — a vain endeavour to escape from the evil spirit that pursued him — and a chase of a chimera. He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as another man might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant air, and ad the medowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad and dreadful reverie, when in bounced dttle red-faced, bustling Dr. Toole — the joke and the chuckle with which he had just requited the fat old bar maid stdl ringing in the passage — ' Stay there, sweetheart,' addressed to a dog squeezing by him, and which screeched out as he kicked it neatly round the door-post. ' Hey, your most obedient, sir,' cried the doctor, with a short but grand bow, affecting surprise, though his chief object in visiting the back parlour at that moment was precisely to make a personal inspection of the stranger. ' Pray, don't mind me, sir — your — ho !

Breakfast ended, eh ? Coffee not so bad, sir ; rather good coffee, I hold it. at the Phœnix. Cream very choice, sir ? — I don't tell 'em so though (a wink) ; it might not improve it, you know. I hope they gave you — eh ? (he peeped into the cream-ewer, which he turned towards the tight, with a whisk). And no disputing the eggs — forty-eight hens in the poultry yard, and ninety ducks in Tresham's tittle garden, next door to Sturks. They make a precious noise, I can tell you, when it showers. Sturk threatens to shoot 'em. He's the artiticry surgeon here ; and Tom Larkin said, last night, it's because they only dabble and quack — and two of a trade, you know — ha ! ha ! ha ! And what a night we had — dark as Erebus — pouring like pumps, by Jove. I'll remember it, I warrant you. Out on business — a medical man, you know, can't always choose — and near meeting a bad accident, too.

Anything in the paper, eh ? ho ! I see, sir — haven't read it. Well, and what do you think — a queer night for the purpose, eh ? you'll say — we had a funeral in the town last night, sir — some one from Dublin. It was Tressel's men came out. The turnpike rogue, just round the corner there — one of the talkingest gossips in the town — ■ and a confounded prying, tattling place it is, I can tell you — knows the driver ! and Bob Martin — the sexton, you know — tells me there were two parsons, no less — hey ! Cauliflowers in season, by Jove ! Old Dr. Walsingham, our rector — a pious man, sir, and does a world of good — that's to say, relieves half the blackguards in the parish — ha ! ha ! when we're on the point of getting rid of them — but means well, only he's a tittle bit lazy, and queer, you know ; and that rancid, raw-boned parson, Gitiespie — how the plague did they pick him up ? — one of the mutes told Bob 'twas he.

He's from Donegal ; I know ad about him ; the sourest dog I ever broke bread with — and mason, if you please, by Jove — a prince pelican ! He supped at the Grand Lodge, after labour, one niglrt — you're not a mason, I see ; tipt you the sign — and his face was so pinched, and so yellow, by Jupiter, I was near squeezing it into the punch-bowl for a lemon — ha ! ha ! hey?' Mervyn's large eyes expressed a well-bred surprise. Dr. Toolo paused for nearly a minute, as if expecting something in return ; but it did not come. So the doctor started afresh, never caring for Mervyn's somewhat dangerous looks. ' Mighty pretty prospects about here, sir. The painters come out by dozens in the summer, with their books and pencils , and scratch away tike so many Scotchmen. Ha ! ha ! ha ! If you draw, sir, there's one prospect up the river, by the mids — upon my conscience — but you don't draw ?' No answer. ' A little, sir, maybe ?

Just for a maggot, I'll wager — tike my good lady, Mrs. Toole.' A nearer glance at his dress had satisfied Toole that he was too much of a maeearoni for an artist, and he was thinking of placing him upon the Lord Lieutenant's staff. ' We've capital horses here, if you want to go on to Leixtip,' (where — this between ourselves and the reader — during the summer months His Excedency and Lady Townshend resided, and where, the old newspapers ted us, they ' kept a public day every Monday,' and he ' had a levee, as usual, every Thursday.') But this had no better success. ' If you design to stay over the day, and care for shooting, we'll have some ball practice on Palmerstown fair-green to-day. Seven baronies to shoot for ten and five guineas. One o'clock — hey ?' At this moment entered Major O'Neill, of the Royal Irish Artillery, a smad man, ver}' neatly got up, and with a decidedly Mdesian cast of countenance, who said tittle, but smiled agreeably — ' Gentlemen, your most obedient.

Ha, doctor ; how goes it ? — any thing new — anything on the Freeman ?' Toole had scanned that paper, and hummed out, as he rumpled it over, ' nothing — very — particular. Here's Lady Moira's ball : fancy dresses — ad Irish ; no masks ; a numerous appearance of the nobility and gentry — upwards of five hundred persons. A good many of your corps there, Major ?' ' Ay, Lord Blackwater, of course, and the General, and Devereux, and little Puddock, and' ' Sturk wasn't,' with a grin, interrupted Toole, who bore that practitioner no good-will. ' A gentleman robbed, by two foot-pads, on Chapelizod-road, on Wednesday night, of his watch and money, together with his hat, wig, and cane, and lies now in a dangerous state, having been much abused ; one of them dressed in an old tight coloured coat, wore a wig.

By Jupiter, Major, if I was in General Chattesworth's place, with two hundred strapping fedows at un orders, I'd got a commission from Government to clear that road. It's too bad, sir, we can't go in and out of town, unless in a body, after nightfad, but at the risk of our lives. [The convivial doctor felt this public scandal acutely.] The bloody-minded miscreants I'd catch every living soul of them, and burn them alive in tar barrels. By Jove ! here's old Joe Napper, of Dirty-lane's dead. Plenty of dry eyes after him. And stay, here's another row." And so he read on. In the meantime, stout, tightly-braced Captain Cluffe of the same corps, and tittle dark, hard-faced, and solemn Mr. Nutter, of the Mills, Lord Castlemallard's agents, came in, and half a dozen more, chiefly members of the club, which met by night in the front parlour on the left, opposite the bar, where they entertained themselves with agreeable conversation, cards, backgammon, draughts, and an occasional song by Dr. Toole, who was a florid tenor, and used to give them, ' While gentlefolks strut in silver and satins,' or ' A maiden of late had a merry design,' or some other such ditty-, with a recitation by plump little stage-stricken Ensign Puddock, who, in ' thpite of hith tithp,' gave rather spirited imitations of some of tbe players — Mossop, Sheridan, Macklin, Barry, and the rest.