The Bunsby Papers (second series): Irish Echoes

It was some time before he was able to leave his bed, but when at last he was pronounced convalescent, he quitted the hospital, with the firm determination never again, under any circumstance whatsoever, even to place his hand within the pocket from whence he had hitherto drawn his resources. As a further security against the probability of temptation, he took a strong needle and thread, and sewed up the opening tightly.

"There," he cried, with an accent of relief, "bad luck to the toe of me can get in there now. Oh! how I wish to gracious it had always been so, and I wouldn't be the miserable, homeless, houseless, wife and childless vagabone that I am at this minnit."

As he was debating in his own mind what he should turn to in order to obtain a living – for so great a disgust had he taken to the pipes, to which he attributed all his wretchedness, that he had determined to give up his productive but precarious profession of piper, and abandoning the dissolute crowd who rejoiced in his performances, betake himself to some more useful and reputable employment – it suddenly occurred to him to visit the scene of his fairy adventure, in the hope that he might get rid of the dangerous gift his cupidity had obtained for him.

No sooner had he conceived the idea than he instantly set forward to put it in execution. The night was favorable for his purpose, and he arrived at the identical place in the mountain, without the slightest interruption or accident. He found it just as he had left it, a scene of the wildest desolation. No sound fell on his ear save the mournful shrieking of the wind as it tore itself against the harsh branches of the dead pine trees. He climbed the rugged side of the hill and looked into the black lake that filled the dark chasm at its summit. It seemed to be as solid as a sheet of lead. He flung a pebble into the gulf; it was eagerly sucked up, and sunk without a ripple, as though dropped into a mass of burning pitch. One heavy bubble swelled to the surface, broke into a sullen flame that flashed lazily for an instant, and then went out. A small, but intensely black puff of smoke rose above the spot; so dense was the diminutive cloud that it was rejected by the shadowy atmosphere, which refused to receive it within its bosom. Reluctantly it seemed to hang upon the surface of the lake, then slowly mounted, careering backwards and forwards with each passing breeze.

The singular phenomenon attracted Terry's attention, and he watched, with increasing interest, the gyrations of the cloud, until at length it took a steady direction towards the spot where he stood. It was not long before it floated up to him, and he stepped aside to let it pass by, but as he moved, so did the ball of smoke. He stooped, and it followed his movement; he turned and ran – just as swiftly it sped with him. He now saw there was something supernatural in it, and his heart beat with apprehension.

"There's no use in kickin' agin fate," he said, "so, with a blessin', I'll just stop where I am, an' see what will come of it; worse off I can't be, an' that's a comfort any way."

So saying, Terry stood still, and patiently waited the result. To his great surprise the cloud of smoke, after making the circuit of his head two or three times, settled on his right shoulder, and on casting his eye round, he perceived that it had changed into a living form, but still as black as a coal.

"Bedad I'm among them agin, sure enough," said Terry, now much more easy in his mind; "I wondher who this little divil is that's roostin' so comfortably on my showldher."

"Wondher no longer, Misther Terry Magra," grunted a frog-like voice into his ear; "by what magic means, oh! presumptuous mortal, did you discover the charmed stone which compelled the spirit of yonder sulphurous lake to quit his warm quarters, thus to shiver in the uncongenial air? Of all the myriad pebbles that are scattered around, that was the only one which possessed the power to call me forth."

"Faix, an' it was a lucky chance that made me stumble on it, sir," said Terry.

"That's as it may turn out," replied the spirit. "Do you know who and what I am? but why should you, ignorant creature as you are? Listen, and be enlightened. I am the chief guardian of yon bituminous prison, within whose murky depths lie groaning all of fairy kind, who have by their imprudence forfeited their brilliant station.

"You don't tell me that, sir? By goxty, an' I wouldn't like to change places with them," said Terry, with a great effort at familiarity.

"There's no knowing when you may share their fate," replied the spirit. "The soul of many an unhappy mortal, who has abused a fairy-gift, lies there, as well."

Terry shivered to his very marrow as he heard those words, for full well he knew, that amongst all such, none deserved punishment more than he; he was only wondering how his immortal part could be extracted from its living tenement, when, as though the spirit knew his very thoughts, it uttered:

"I have but to breathe within your ear a word of power, and with that word the current of your life would cease."

Terry instinctively stretched his neck to its fullest extent, as he said to himself, "I'll keep my lug out of your reach if I can, my boy." But the spirit either knew his thought or guessed it from the movement.

"Foolish piper," it said, "I could reach it did I so incline, were it as high as Cashel Tower." And to prove that the assertion was not a mere boast, the little fellow made a jump, and perched upon the bridge of Terry's nose, and sat there astride; and as it was of the retroussé order, a very comfortable seat it had; light as a feather, it rested there, peering alternately into each of Terry's eyes, who squinted at the intruder, brimful of awe and amazement.

"I give in," said he. "It's less nor nothin' that I am in your hands; but if it's just as convainient for you, I'd be much obliged to you if you'd lave that, for its fairly tearin' the eyes out of me head that you are, while I'm thryin' to look straight at you."

"It's all the same to me entirely," replied the spirit; "and now that you have come to a full sense of my power, I'll take up my position at a more agreeable distance."

So saying, the spirit bounded off of Terry's nose, and alighted on a branch of the same tree on which the legion of little pipers had before assembled, while Terry wiped his relieved eyes with the sleeve of his coat, and sat upon the piece of rock that stood beside.

"And now, Masther Magra," said the spirit, "we'll proceed to business. Had you picked up any other stone but the one you did, or had you refrained from obstructing the lake in any way, your soul would have been mine for ever. You see what a small chance you had. But inasmuch as your good luck pointed out the talismanic pebble, you have yet the privilege of making another wish which I must gratify whatsoever it may be; think well, however, ere you ask it; let no scruples bound your desires. The wealth of the world is in my distribution."

Terry's nerves thrilled again, as his mind conjured up images of purchased delights. But for an instant only did he hesitate what course he should pursue.

"The temptation is wonderful," said he. "But no: I've endured enough of misery from what I've had already."

"What can I do for you?" said the spirit, sharply. "Don't keep a poor devil all night in the cold."

"Well, then, sir, I'll tell you," replied the other. "I suppose you know already – for you seem to be mighty knowledgeable – that some years back I kotch a leprechaun on this very spot; and though he towld me that it would be the desthroyin' of him out an' out, I meanly chose to make myself rich, as I thought, by taking a fairy-gift from him, rather than lettin' him go free an' unharmed. It was a dirty an' selfish thransaction on my part, an' it's with salt tears that I've repinted of that same. Now, if that leprechaun is sufferin' on my account, and you can give the creather any comfort, it's my wish that you'll manage it for me – ay, even though I was to bear his punishment myself."

"You have spoken well and wisely," said the spirit; "and your reward will be beyond your hope."

Simultaneously with those words, Terry was still more astonished at beholding a gradual but complete change taking place in the neighborhood: the blasted trees shot forth fresh branches, the branches, in their turn, pushed out new leaves, thick verdure overspread the rugged sides of the mountain; while gushing joyously from an adjacent hollow, a little rill danced merrily through the shining pebbles, singing its song of gratitude, as though exulting in the new-found liberty; unnumbered birds began to fill the air with their delicious melody, the rifted and calcined rocks concealed their charred fronts beneath festoons of flowering parasites, the murky lake sank slowly into the abyss, while in its place a tufted, daisy-spangled field appeared, to which the meadow-lark descended lovingly, and fluttering a short space amidst the dewy grass, sprang up again, with loud, reverberating note.

The primeval change, when the beautiful new world emerged from chaos, was not more glorious than was the aspect now presented to the rapt beholder. He felt within himself the exhilarating effect of all this vast and unexpected wonder, the free, fresh blood cast off its sluggishness, and once more bounded through his veins, the flush of vigor and excitement bedewed his brow, the flaccid muscles hardened into renewed strength, elasticity and suppleness pervaded every limb, stiffened and racked ere-while with keen rheumatic pains; it was not, however, until attracted by the pure limpid stream that filtered into a sandy hollow near him, he stooped down to carry the refreshing draught up to his lips, that he was aware of the greatest change of all; for, instead of the sunken cheeks and wrinkled brow, the bloodshot eyes and thin, grey hairs that he had brought with him, the ruddy, health-embrowned and joy-lit features of years long gone, laughed up at him from the glassy surface.

And now a merry little chuckle tinkled in his ear, and on looking around, he discovered that the black spirit had vanished, and in its place sat the identical leprechaun, about whose melancholy fate he was so concerned.

"By the piper that played before Moses, but it's glad I am to see you once more, my haro; have they let you out?" inquired Terry, with considerable anxiety.

"I have never been imprisoned," replied the little fellow, gaily.

"Why, then, tear an nounthers," said Terry. "You haven't been gostherin' me all the time, an' the heart of me fairly burstin' wid the thought of them weeshee gams of yours strikin' out among the pitch that was beyant."

"It was that very feeling of humanity, which I knew yet lingered in your heart, that saved you," replied the leprechaun.

"As how, sir, might I ax?"

"How long is it since you saw me before?"

"Don't mention it," cried Terry, with an abashed look, "a weary life-time a'most has passed since then."

"And what a life-time," observed the leprechaun, reproachfully.

"Indeed, an' you may say that," replied the other. "There's no one knows betther nor I do how sinfully that life was wasted, how useless it has been to me an' to every one else, how foolishly I flung away the means that might have comforted those who looked up to me, among heartless, conscienceless vagabones, who laughed at me while I fed their brutish appetites, and fled from me as though I were infectious when ill-health and poverty fell upon my head."

"Then the fairy gift did not bring you happiness?"

"Happiness!" replied Terry, with a groan, "it changed me from a man into a beast, it brought distress and misery upon those nearest and dearest to me, it made my whole worldly existence one continued reproach, and God help me, I'm afeared it has shut the gates of heaven against my sowl hereafter."

"Then I suppose you have the grace to be sorry this time that you didn't behave more generously in my case," said the fairy.

"True darlin'; if I wasn't, I wouldn't be here now," replied Terry. "It was to thry and find you out that I took this journey, an' a sore one it is to a man wid the weight of years that's on my back."

"Oh, I forgot that you were such an ould creather intirely," said the little fellow, with a merry whistle, "but what the mischief makes you bend your back into an apperciand, and hide your ears on your showlders, as if the cowld was bitin' them."

"Faix, an' it's just because I'm afeered to sthraighten myself out, that murdherin thief rheumatism has screwed the muscles of my back so tight."

"You can't stand up then, eh Terry?"

"Not for this many a long day, sir, more is the pity," replied the other, with a heavy sigh.

"You don't tell me that," said the leprechaun, with a queer expression of sympathy. "There could be no harm thryin', any way."

"If I thought there would be any use in it, it's only too glad that I'd be," said Terry.

"There's no knowin' what a man can do, until he makes the effort."

Encouraged by these words, Terry commenced very gingerly to lift his head from its long sunken position; to his infinite delight he found the movement unaccompanied by the slightest twinge, and so, with a heart brim full of overflowing joy, he drew himself up to his full height without an ache or a pain; tall, muscular, and as straight as a tailor's yard.

The hurroo! that Terry sent forth from his invigorated lungs, when he felt the entire consciousness of his return to youth and its attendant freshness and strength, startled the echoes of the mountain, like the scream of a grey eagle.

"And now, Misther Terry Magra," said the leprechaun, "I may as well tell you the exact period of time that has transpired since I first had the pleasure of a conversation with you; it is now exactly, by my watch," and he pulled out a mite of a time-keeper from his fob – "there's nothing like being particular in matters of chronology – jist fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds, or to be more explicit, in another minute it will be precisely a quarter of an hour."

"Oh, murdher alive, only to think!" cried Terry, gasping for breath. "An' the wife an' childher, and the drunkenness and misery I scattered around me."

"Served but to show you, as in a vision, the sure consequences which would have resulted had you really been in possession of the coveted gift you merely dreamed that you had obtained; the life of wretchedness which you passed through, in so short a space of time, is but one of many equally unfortunate, some leading even to a more terrible close. There are a few, however, I am bound to say, on whom earthly joys appear to shed a constant ray; but we, to whom their inmost thoughts are open as the gates of morning to the sun, know that those very thoughts are black as everlasting night."

"What say you now, Terry? Will you generously give up your power over me, and by leading a life of industry and temperance, insure for you and yours contentment, happiness, and comfort, or will you, to the quelling of my fairy existence and its boundless joys, risk the possession of so dangerous though dazzling a gift as I am compelled to bestow upon you, should you insist on my compliance with such a wish?"

It must be confessed that Terry's heart swelled again at the renewed prospect of sudden wealth, and inasmuch as he exhibited, by the puzzled expression of his countenance, the hidden thoughts that swayed, alternately, his good and evil impulses, the leprechaun continued —

"Take time to consider – do nothing rashly; but weigh well the consequences of each line of conduct, before you decide irrevocably and for ever."

"More power to you for givin' me that chance, any way," said Terry. "It wouldn't take me long to make my mind up, if it wasn't for what I've gone through; but, 'the burnt child,' you know, 'keeps away from the fire.' Might I ax, sir, how far you could go in the way of money? for, av I incline that way at all, bedad it won't be a peddlin' shillin' that I'll be satisfied with."

"Do you know Squire Moriarty?" said the fairy.

"Is it Black Pether? who doesn't know the dirty thief of the world? Why, ould Bluebeard was a suckin' babby compared to him, in the regard of cruelty."

"How rich is he?"

"Be gorra, an' they say there's no countin' it, it's so thremendous. Isn't he the gripinest an' most stony-hearted landlord in the barony, as many a poor farmer knows, when rent day's to the fore?" said Terry.

"And how did he get his money?" inquired the leprechaun.

"Indeed, an' I b'lieve there's no tellin' exactly. Some says this way, an' others that. I've heard say that he was a slave marchint early in life, or a pirate, or something aiqually ginteel an' profitable," replied Terry.

"They lie, all of them," the little fellow went on. "He got it as you did yours, by a fairy gift, and see what it has made of him. In his early days, there was not a finer-hearted fellow to be found anywhere; everybody liked, courted, and loved him."

"That's thrue enough," said Terry, "and now there ain't a dog on his estates will wag a tail at him."

"Well, you may be as rich as he is, if you like, Terry," said the fairy.

"May I?" cried Terry, his eyes flashing fire at the idea.

"He turned his poor old mother out of doors, the other day," observed the leprechaun, quietly.

Terry's bright thoughts vanished in an instant, and indignation took their place; for filial reverence is the first of Irish virtues. "The murdherin' Turk!" he exclaimed, angrily, "if I had a howld of him now, I'd squeeze the sowl out of his vagabone carcass, for disgracin' the counthry that's cursed with such an unnatural reprobate."

"It was the money that made him do it," said the fairy.

"You don't tell me that, sir!"

"Indeed but I do, Terry. When the love of that takes possession of a man's heart, there's no room there for any other thought. The nearest and dearest ties of blood, of friendship, and of kin, are loosed and cast away as worthless things. You have a mother, Terry?"

"I have, I have; may all good angels guard and keep her out of harm's way," cried Terry, earnestly, while the large tears gushed forth from his eyes. "Don't say another word," he went on, rapidly; "if it was goold mines that you could plant under every step I took, or that you could rain dimonds into my hat, an' there was the smallest chance of my heart's love sthrayin' from her, even the length of a fly's shadow, it's to the divil I'd pitch the whole bilin', soon an' suddent. So you can keep your grand gifts, an' yer fairy liberty, an' take my blessin' into the bargain, for showin' me the right road."

"You're right, Terry," said the leprechaun, joyously, "an' I'd be proud to shake hands with you if my fist was big enough. You have withstood temptation manfully, and sufficiently proved the kindliness of your disposition. I know that this night's experience will not be lost on you, but that you will henceforth abandon the wild companionship in the midst of which you have hitherto wasted time and energy, forgetful of the great record yet to come, when each misused moment will stand registered against you."

"And now, Terry," he continued, "I'll leave you to take a little rest; after all you have gone through you must sorely need it." So saying, the leprechaun waved a slip of osier across Terry's eyelids, when they instantly closed with a snap, down he dropped all of a heap upon the springy moss, and slept as solid as a toad in a rock.

When Terry awoke, the morning was far advanced, and the sun was shining full in his face, so that the first impression that filled his mind was, that he was gazing upon a world of fire. He soon mastered that thought, however, and then, sitting down upon the famous stone, began to collect his somewhat entangled faculties into an intelligible focus. Slowly the events of the night passed before him; the locality of each phase in his adventures was plainly distinguishable from where he sat. There, close to him, was the identical branch on which had perched the legion of little pipers; a short distance from him was the mazy hollow through which he had so singularly forced his way; half hoping to find some evidence of the apparently vivid facts that he had witnessed, he put his hand into his breeches pocket, but only fished out a piece of pig-tail tobacco.

As he ran over every well-remembered circumstance, he became still more puzzled. It was clear enough that he had been asleep, as he had but just woke up; but then he was equally certain that he was wide awake when the leprechaun touched his eyelids with the osier. Indeed, he looked round in the expectation of seeing it lying somewhere about; but there was no trace of such a thing.

The conclusion he came to was a characteristic one. "By the mortial," said he, as, taking up his pipes, he sauntered down the mountain-road, "there's somethin' quare in it, sure enough; but it's beyant my comprehendin'. The divil a use is there in botherin' my brains about it; all I know is, that there's a mighty extensive hive o' bees singin' songs inside of my hat this blessed mornin'. I must put some whisky in an' drownd out the noisy varmints."

The chronicler of this veracious history regrets exceedingly that he cannot, with any regard to the strict truth, bring it to a conclusion in the usual moral-pointing style, except in its general tendency, which he humbly considers to be wholesome and suggestive; but the hero of the tale – the good-for-nothing, wild roysterer, Terry, who ought, of course, to have profited by the lesson he had received and to have become a sober, steady, useful, somewhat bilious, but in every way respectable, member of society, dressed in solemn black, and petted religiously by extatical elderly ladies, did not assist the conventional denouement in the remotest degree. With grief I am compelled to record the humiliating fact, that Terry waxed wilder than ever, drank deeper, frolicked longer, and kicked up more promiscuous shindies than before, and invariably wound up the account of his fairy adventures, which in process of time he believed in most implicitly, by exclaiming:

"What a murdherin' fool I was not to take the money."