At the Rising of the Moon. Irish stories and studies, etc

Front matter

By the same Author. FATHER MATHEW; HIS LIFE AND TIMES. Some press ©pinions. "A well-written biography. Mr. Frank Mathew's book is bright, interesting and judiciously anecdotic." — The Graphic. " This calm dispassionate study of Father Mathew's life-work evinces much culture, observation and painstaking care on the part of the writer." — The Month. ''A biography which written by a skilled and kindly hand none can study with other than feelings of pleasure. We cordially commend it to general study." — Irish Times. " Mr. Mathew's book is exceedingly interesting, and is written throughout attractively and gracefully, with every evident wish to be accurate in all details." — Freeman's Journal. " Mr. Frank Mathew has given us a very graphic portrait of this very lovable man." — Manchester Examiner.

" This work is an excellent one from every point of view." The Tablet. '•Mr. Frank Mathew's account is bright and scholarly, and contains many facts drawn from the family archives which are new." — Daily Graphic. " We can recommend the book as a piece of careful and vivid portraiture. The notices appended are unanimous in attesting to the biographer's fair and impartial treatment of his subject. The 'Glasgow Herald' praises the writer's admirable literary style." — Literary Opinion. AT THE RISING OF THE MOON IRISH STORIES ANT) STUDIES BY FRANK MATHEW ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRED PF.GRAM \N!> A. S. BO YD LONDON McCLURE & CO. 33 redford street, covent garden SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KF.NT & CO., Ltd STATIONERS' FIAI.L COl'RT, E.C. IS93 To MY FRIEND fEROME K. JEROME CONTENTS PAGE

Prologue

— SHAMROCKS xiii THE REVEREND PETER FLANNERY I A CONNEMARA MIRACLE 1 4 SHANE DESMOND 23 "THE OTHER COUNTRY'' 35 BY THE DEVIL'S MOTHER 44 COLONEL HERCULES DESMOND 57 THE WHITE WITCH OF MOHER 70 THEIR LAST RACE 86 THE SNIPE'S LUCK IOI AT THE RISING OF THE MOON ' . 1 14 THE DARK MAN I30 AILEEN DESMOND I47 A PRODIGAL CONTENTS X PAGE A PRODIGAL'S RETURN 169 THE HEROISM OF LARRY* RONAN 1 76 IN THE BLACK VALLEY' 1 89 THE LEENAUN SHEE 197 BISHOP O'HALLORAN 208 "A LETTER FOR IRELAND" 211 CONSTABLE COY'NE 21 7 EPILOGUE— TREASURE TROVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE At the Rising of the Moon (Frontispiece) . The Reverend Peter Flannery . Fred Pegram i Pathricius, ego te baptiso . When we went a-gipsying The laziest man in Connemara 9 *3 A. S. Boyd H We'll bear God's will together Dan was too late 22 Fred Pegram A. S. Boyd -7 Wasn't it on this table ye were waked ?

Give me a penny, fine gentleman ! Larry Ronan said that men had been 39 Fred Pegram 53 shot for less J. Stafford 6i Dark Andy and the Headless Man The White Witch of Moher Fred Pegram 65 7i Long Mat Murnane By the black cross A Moonlighter 90 95 101 I believe them while I'm sure they're lying m LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Leadin' th' ould mare .... Fred Pegram 116 He knocks at the door „ 121 Peter screwed up his courage ... ,, 136 On the Cliffs of Moher .... „ 139 He seemed turned to a ranting preacher ,, 161 He stopped under Kate's window . . „ 171 I surrenther „ 185 A night-ride „ 199 Going to Mass . . . . . . A. S. Boyd 213 Guarding Moonlighters .... Fred Pegram 218 Upon a background of pale gold . . ,, 225

PROLOGUE.

SHAMROCKS As I was lately turning over some dusty papers here in my chambers in the Temple, I came on a dried weed. At first I wondered how it got here, and then saw that it was a bit of shamrock, and remembered gathering it — years ago now — on a moor by Liscannor. At the sight of it my thoughts went back to old times on the West Coast of Ireland, and to many friends of mine there — landlords, moonlighters and others ; and then I resolved to write out these stories, for fear that some day I should find my memory of my friends as faded as the shamrocks. THE REVEREND PETER FLANNERY My friend the Reverend Peter Flannery is the sternest looking and the gentlest of men. To look at him you would fancy he had spent a fierce life ; but the truth is that he has lived in a wilderness and that in his broad, parish of Moher there is not a mouse afraid of him.

I first met him in an hotel at 1 HE SANG IN HIS TURN Lisdoonvarna. One night there was singing, and a big, truculent old priest sang in his turn : "When we went a-gipsying, A long time ago." He was very serious and hoarse. With his grim face and white hair he looked the last man in the world to "go a-gipsying." Afterwards I came to know Peter, and spent many evenings with him in the little house where he lives with an old housekeeper of singular ugliness and a turbulent small boy known as Patrick Flannery. I found him absurdly simple, a man knowing nothing of the world and troubling himself little about anything beyond the borders of Moher ; but though he is so unpretending he has deep respect for his dignity as a parish-priest. On one of those evenings in his naked little parlour he told me the story of the only adventure of his life.

A small island with a ruined house on it lies near the shore of the most desolate part of the parish ; at high tide it is ringed with white jumping waves but at ebb it is set in a black rim of rocks. A miser was strangled there for his money by his daughter, seventy years ago, so the house is known for miles around as the " House of the Murder." Then it was a headland, but afterwards the encroaching sea cut it off from the coast. The Moher folk say the island is haunted by the ghost of an old man with a choked face and with purple foam on his lips, and is given up to the Evil Spirits. One stormy winter's night, nearly twelve years ago now, Peter Flannery was riding back from visiting a dying woman near Liscannor. It was raining, the wind was dead against him ; he had seldom been out on such a night though his life-work took him on many a wild lonely ride.

As he reached the Liscannor Cross-roads his horse stopped, and a heart-broken voice came from under the trees : " Remember the Dark Man ! For God's sake remember the Dark Man ! " He knew that it was Andy Lonergan, the '; Dark Man " — that is, the blind man — who haunted that place day and night. " Is that yourself, Andy ? " said he. " 'Tis so, your reverence, but 'tis the black night to be abroad, sure the Banshee is keenin' on th' island." " The Banshee, is it ? I know, I know, and manny's the time I've heard that same, Andy. There's never a rough night without her." "Is it the wind ye mane, father? I know the wind's cry if annyone, but 'twasn't only that on th' island to-night ; 'twas a woman's voice, sometimes 'twas like a child's. There'll be sore hearts in Moher the morn." " Ah well, Andy ! manny's the queer thing ye've heard in your time," said Peter, and he rode home wards, but Andy's words kept in his head.

Now, the blind man was half crazed, yet dared not lie about the Banshee ; perhaps there was some poor soul in trouble out on the island. At last he turned his horse ; as he rode back past the Cross-roads he called out, " Are ye there, Andy ? " but no answer came. The horse seemed to have strong objections to going seaward, and Peter himself had misgivings ; he is a Clare man, the son of a Ballyvaughan fisherman, and though of course he does not believe in the Banshee, yet woLild rather not have gone where there was any chance of meeting her. Then he thought — suppose Andy was fooling him ! He could fancy the blind man sitting hidden and grinning at him as he rode back past the Cross-roads. It would be a fine joke in Moher ; he flushed at such irreverence. Then he reached the shore, and dismounting fastened his horse to a wall, and walked down across the slipping shingle, crunching it under foot ; he was tripped by tangles of seaweed, and stumbled over a fishing coracle, could see scarcely a yard in front of him.

" 'Tis a blind man's holiday," he thouo'ht. " Faith, Dark Andy could see as much as I can, and why couldn't McCaura leave his coracle in a sensible place ? ' He went to the water's edge, the foam splashed over him, he could see nothing but the white flashes of breakers and was deafened by the noise. A few minutes of this was enough ; he turned back with a smile at the absurdity of his going out there at that time of night. " There's no fool like an old one," he said ; then stopped to listen again, and in a pause (when the wind seemed to be taking breath for a howl) heard a child's cry from the island. How could a baby be on the island in a hurricane, when there was not a soul for miles around would go there for love or money at any time ? His misgivings rushed back with uncanny legends of lost souls bound on the winds or imprisoned in the waves that always keep racing towards the land yet always break before reaching it.

This might be some Devil's trap. True, he could exorcise the Devil, but would rather not. He waited during the new howl of the wind — it seemed endless — then in the next pause heard the child's voice again, it was an unmistakably human squall. " 'Tis a child, sure enough," he said, " an' a strong one at that." The question for him was not how did the baby get on the island, but how was he to get it off? McCaura's cabin was a mile away across the bog. and on such a night no one would be out except Dark Andy, who would be worse than useless. The only thing was to go out to the island himself, so he groped his way to the coracle. Now a coracle is a sort of punt, a shallow frame covered with tarpaulin, a ticklish craft, but it can live in the wildest sea, though as Peter said — " 'Tis always on the look-out for a chance to drown ye."

He shouldered it as one to the manner born. Many a day and night had he spent afloat in the time when he was a fisher-boy ; he thought how often since then he had longed to put out to sea. only his mighty dignity as a parish-priest forbade it. His old bones were stiff, but he was as strong as ever. Well, to cut a long story short, he launched that coracle and reached the island, not without risky and hard work. Dragging the coracle ashore, he made his way to the ruined house ; the roof had fallen in, the windows were gone, only the walls were left. He could see nothing, but the child's cry guided him and then in a corner he found a woman lying huddled on a heap of fallen plaster and laths ; her face was to the wall, her left arm clutched .a tiny baby. He knelt down by her and touched her fore head — she was dead.

By her dress he knew she came from the Arran Islands. Perhaps she had been been brought to the " House of the Murder " to keep the birth secret ; or perhaps the fishers bringing her to the mainland had been caught by the gale, and could place her in no better shelter in the time of her trouble. Now the Arran folk were familiar to him. many were of his kindred ; he must have known this woman from her babyhood, and as a slip of a girl running barefoot on the hills. He turned her face to him, but could only see it dimly; it was much changed too, and half hidden by wet hair. Then the thought came that he had no right to pry into her secret ; he laid her head back reverently. She lay there with her face to the wall as if she had died in shame. He took the baby and chafed it, wrapping his woollen comforter round it ; he thought it was dying — his knowledge of babies was small — so he decided to baptise it at once.

There was no lack of water for the rain was still falling in torrents, so he filled a cup that was lying with some untasted food by the mother, and baptised that whining infant as reverently and solemnly as if he had been in a great cathedral. It must have been a strange scene in the " House of the Murder " — the gaunt old man dripping from the rain and the sea, holding the baby tenderly and awkwardly, with the body of the mother lying beside them. He gave the baby the name Patrick, the first that came to him, " Pathricivs, ego te laptiso," and so forth in his queer Latin brogue, and the small new Christian howled dismally, and the gale answering howled outside. Then he unbuttoned the breast of his greatcoat and fastened the baby inside — so that only its ridi culous red face could be seen — and started for home.

Crossing more easily this time, he found his old horse huddled in dumb resignation under the lee of the wall, and rode home through the storm at a good pace with a light heart. Every now and then the child cried to show that the life was in it, and then he tried to quiet it tenderly with " Be hushed now, vick machree, son of my heart! Ah! be sthill, Pathrick. Be aisy, ye cantankerous little cur ! " There was great work that night in the little house, when the old priest and his housekeeper welcomed their guest. And when the baby was cosily asleep, Peter got into his big armchair and mixed himself a steaming tumbler of punch — for no man values punch more, though of course in strict moderation — and he felt he deserved it to-night. " An' would ye believe it ? " and at this point of his story his voice shook with pathos — " would ye believe it, at th' instant when I was putting it to me lips the clock sthruck twelve, and so I couldn't taste a dhrop, not a single dhrop !

" For if he had tasted it after mid- "PATHRICIUS, EGO TE BAPTISO night he could not have said Mass. This was a lame ending to his one adventurous night. The baby was kept in the priest's house, and. when the gale went down, the mother's body was brought from the island and buried ; I think Father Peter found afterwards who she was, though her name never passed his lips. For nearly twelve years " Pathrick " has ruled the priest's house, thriving under the rough tenderness of Peter Flannery. Meanwhile Peter has led always the same life, rising in the early morning to say Mass in the cold chapel before a scanty congregation of women ; many of them pray aloud with shut eyes and entire disregard of their neighbours, and Patrick now serves him as clerk, looking very serious in his little white surplice like a Cupid in a monk's cowl.

Then he rides on his sick-calls, miles and miles away through the bogs and over the hills, for he goes at any hour of the day or night to any one who chooses to summon him ; or he walks down to the school — where he usually finds Patrick standing in the corner with his face to the wall, in disgrace — or he goes his rounds through the Village of Moher. Many a time have I seen him striding down the Village " like an executioner," and the dirty little ragged children running to meet him and snuggling AT THE RISING OF THE MOON 12 their smeared faces against his long coat. The first time babies see him they yell as if he was the Devil ; but the next time they would yell louder still if he forgot to fondle them. Many a time have I seen him standing in the street, beleaguered by a cluster of women, scowling nervously over them and looking to see if there is any chance of rescue ; while they all talk at once, quarrelling among themselves : " Ah !

Peggy Lonergan, dacint woman, be whisht, can't ye ? " "Mary Eonan. I take shame o' ye to be throublin' the holy priest so. Won't ye be lettin' me have a single word wid him ? " And now in the evenings he has something to dream about, and when he sits alone by the fire in his naked parlour, smoking his old pipe — with his tumbler of punch smoking too, to keep him company — he dreams of the great future of Patrick Flannery. He sees that urchin grow up a model, go to Maynooth and win prizes there, rise rapidly in the Church, and even become a Bishop. It is true Pat will have to change greatly before then, for it is a queer Bishop he would make now ; but time works wonders and Pat has a good heart. Peter hears him preaching the great sermons him self has never preached to the great congregations he has never seen.

And he thinks that " His Lordship Docthor Flannery" has a pleasing sound, that Bishop Flannery will be loved by all, that bles sings will go with him ; it is he that will have an eye for true w-orth and never let a plain man spend his life in a wilderness while smoother-tongued men have all they want. But at this point the dream breaks, for he knows in his heart that he would be sorry to leave his wilderness ; so when the clock strikes nine he slowly finishes ' WHEN' WE VVEiNT A-GIPSYING, A LONG TIME AGO his punch, knocks out the ashes from his pipe, and goes up the steep stairs to his bedroom, quavering in his hoarse voice, " When we went a-gipsying, A long time ago." Some said big John Murnanewas the laziest man in Connemara, others called him a surly dog ; but I always liked him. He had some excuse for his laziness and surliness.

When I knew him first he was active enough. He used then to begin the day in the brightest of tem pers, and if he had been let sit in T'HE LAZIEST MAN IN CONNEMAKA " peace and sunshine would have remained merry, but work undermined his cheerfulness. His farm lay high above Leenane at the head of the Killeries, a creek walled in by mountains, in the heart of the Irish Highlands. Two roads wind down to the creek, one lower by Finigan's shebeen, and one by Murnane's farm. In those days I half envied him ; he had a pretty little wife, a neat home, and three pigs, while I owned neither a pig nor a wife, he had no vain ambition and asked nothing better than to live and die at home in that wilderness. But when I visited Connemara again, years later, things had changed with him ; he had met with ill luck, and had lost heart.

A bank holding his little money had failed, his crops had failed too, his last pig had died ; everything had gone badly with him. He spent half his time at the shebeen, and had a dangerous look. To make matters worse, he was to be turned out of his farm — had quarrelled with his landlord ; for a true Galway-man always quarrels with the man best able to thrash him. Murnane was full of fight, his mother used to say of him that he was never at rest except when he was fighting, and of course he knew that some one else must be respon sible for his misfortunes, so he laid the blame at his landlord's door. His landlord was my friend Shane Desmond who in those days w-as always at war with his tenants. Here I thought were the makings of a tragedy — a lawless district, an unruly peasantry, and a hated landlord.

Well, that summer my stay in Connemara was brief, and soon after I left, Murnane came to the turning-point of his life. I have the story from his own lips. In November, when the days grew short and the nights dark, there was a rumour in the shebeens near Leenane that some of " the boys " were coming from Desmond's estate in Clare, a fishing boat would bring them from Liscannor to the Killeries and take them back without any one being the wiser, and their trip might mend matters. One boisterous evening, Murnane was standing at his window watching his wife trudging heavily up the mountain road. All day the wind had been hissing drearily through the mountains ; now it was snarling and yelping like fighting dogs. There was a veil of rain wavering on the grey crescent of sea. He had spent hours that day at the shebeen.

As he watched his wife he thought in a muddled way how pretty she was when she was young though now she was a plain little woman, he thought of the time when he first caught her in his arms, down yonder where the Owen-Erriff runs by the Devil's Mother Mountain — " I love ye, Molly Joyce ! tell me now, are ye listenin' to me, rnavourneen dheelish ! I love ye ! " — then of their life, of the careless years, of his losses and troubles, of the heavy evenings he spent smoking by the dull light of the turf-fire alone with her in this cabin, then of the loud nights in the shebeen, and of the dreary times at home after. She seemed to get so silent and dull, he was tired of her worried face, sick of her frightened way of watching him. Though he knew that she was a kind little woman, and that she loved him like a dog, he had grown hard and cold with her.

Only that evening he had told her roughly to stop making a hare of herself, moping and poking about doing nothing, and to get out of that and to spend the night at her father's ; and she, knowing the little use of speaking to him, had gone silently. He felt half sorry for his roughness as he watched her ; after all she was a good soul and they had been happy together once. But now that he was to lose his last belongings why should he keep her? how could he when he couldn't ? She must go back to her own folk who were well-to-do — for those parts — while he went out to try his luck in the world. 1: Then he walked up and down his cabin. It looked wretched ; the turf -fire on the hearth had smouldered, the whitewashed walls were blackened by smoke, they had little on them but a big crucifix, there was little furniture left.

He remembered it bright and homelike ; now it would be unroofed, he would be penniless and homeless unless Desmond was shot that night. For the boat had come from Liscannor, and when Desmond drove back from Carrala, "the boys "were to wait for him on the lower road. If he came by the upper road, Murnane would see him, and was to put a light in his window ; then they would change their ambush. At the best, Murnane's thoughts were not clear. Now he kept thinking, over and over again, sure 'twas no harm lighting a candle, 'twas no business of his whatever the boys below might do ; then, 'twas his chance of revenge, sure the man deserved to be killed ; then, if only he was going to hit Desmond himself 'twould be different, but 'twas cowardly just lighting a candle ; then, 'twas a black job after all.

Outside the twilight was fading ; the wind was working itself into a rage with uncanny cries. Was that the wind or the shriek of the Banshee ? It was said that lost souls were chained on the wind, surely there were human cries in it now : why were the dead abroad to-night ? The landscape was blotted out. Then the moon began to rise and the backs of the mountains rose out of the darkness. Then he saw their steep walls and the winding lane of slaty water between them. There was a glimmer of silver over Muilrea ; the moon floated into sight with milky-edged clouds round her ; a path of light crossed the water, and three streams glittered on the Blue Gable Mountain. The moon seemed to shine out with strange sudden ness ; the jagged top of Muilrea stood black against her, making her look as if a ragged piece had been torn from her.

He stared till the light dazzled him ; then turned away. The black crucifix on the wall opposite was shown plainly by the moonlight ; the face of its figure was bent forward as if watching him. He had prayed before it so often all his life. It had seen him a baby in the cradle, a child dandled by his mother, a man bringing home his bride. Here in this cabin, this one room where his life had been centred, the crucifix hung as a silent witness. He thought of his misery ; sure he had cause to hate the man. Still that sad face was watching him, he could not bear it, must take the crucifix down. Placing a bench under, he reached to the nail fastening the top and wrenched it out. The moon was covered. The cross leant forward in the darkness. He turned his head away to shun the bent face ; and groping, tugged out the nail at the foot.

The cross seemed as heavy as lead, he dared not look at it, placing it in the corner — face downward — he covered it with a cloth. Then he stood again at the window. The moon shone out, and the wind lurched drunkenly against the door, with an echo of singing from the shebeen, the chorus of " Cruiscin Lan " (The Little Full Jug) : " Is gradh mo croidhe a cuilin ban ban ban, Is gradh mo croidhe a cuilin ban." He could fancy the crowded smoky room, the glow ing turf-fire, and old Pat Finigan singing with a jolly flushed face ; and those other men listening too, crouching behind the low wall. There was a stain of rust on his right hand and he thought it was blood, rubbed it but it was dry, felt as if a curse had fallen on him. Then came a pause between the gusts, and he heard the ring of hoofs on the stony road.

At once he turned back to light the candle, took it with a shaky hand : then on the wall where the cross had been, saw a dazzling white cross. He staggered back with his eyes fixed on it : it was a miracle, a last warning. He dashed the candle on the ground, and crunched it under foot into the earthen floor. The moon was drowned by the clouds and left the cabin pitch dark. The wind crashed against the door again. He unlatched the door, it was dashed open — he could not breathe — tried to pull it to after him but could not, some unseen hand seemed drag ging it. The wind swirled through the cabin and flung the cloth from the prostrate crucifix. The next morning was calm, with a stainless sky. Molly came trudging down the mountain road from her father's farm, her heart heavy with foreboding. All that night she had been crying and praying.

The glory of the morning, the rare colouring of the mountains, the green crescent of sea, were nothing to her. As she reached the door of the cabin, she saw her man sitting by the hearth with his head bent forward on his hands. The crucifix was gone from its place. It had been fixed there when the walls had been shining with fresh whitewash, now they were blackened, but where it had hung the wall remained white in the shape of a cross. "Is it you, asthore ? " he said, came to meet her, put his hands on her shoulders, and drew her close to him. " It's a hard world 'tis, mavourneen, but we'll bear God's will together, Molly dear." Castle Desmond faces seaward, so when the long battlements show over the trees as you drive from Liscannor to Lisdoonvarna you see only the back, and they say in Moher Village, "the front of the Castle is behind it."

From the terrace in front you can see the Cliffs of Moher and the wastes of the Atlantic, and to the right the Arran Islands, with the dim Connemara Mountains beyond them. The Castle is a noble old house, with big panelled rooms, wide stairs, and dark corridors ; but when I stayed there first — years ago — it was dreary, because Shane Desmond was a pauper. He had a long rent-roll and got no rents. He used to drive about the country with loaded revolvers, and with a repeating rifle strapped on his dog-cart. We christened him "Shane" at school, when he was a patriot and was eloquent on Ireland's wrongs and the heroism of Shane O'Neill. But he ceased to be a patriot when he became a landlord. While Cornelius Desmond lived, Moher was merry ; few paid him rent, but that mattered little, as he never paid a debt.