Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  I had become interested in the adventure which had occurred in the very scenery which had so greatly attracted me, and my new acquaintance, the little hunchback, was easily entreated to tell me the story, and spoke thus, so soon as we had each resumed his seat:

  “It was a fine estate when Sir Dominick came into it; and grand doings there was entirely, feasting and fiddling, free quarters for all the pipers in the counthry round, and a welcome for every one that liked to come. There was wine, by the hogshead, for the quality; and potteen enough to set a town a-fire, and beer and cidher enough to float a navy, for the boys and girls, and the likes o’ me. It was kep’ up the best part of a month, till the weather broke, and the rain spoilt the sod for the moneen jigs, and the fair of Allybally Killudeen comin’ on they wor obliged to give over their divarsion, and attind to the pigs.

  But Sir Dominick was only beginnin’ when they wor lavin’ off. There was no way of gettin’ rid of his money and estates he did not try — what with drinkin’, dicin’, racin’, cards, and all soarts, it was not many years before the estates wor in debt, and Sir Dominick a distressed man. He showed a bold front to the world as long as he could; and then he sould off his dogs, and most of his horses, and gev out he was going to thravel in France, and the like; and so off with him for awhile; and no one in these parts heard tale or tidings of him for two or three years. Till at last quite unexpected, one night there comes a rapping at the big kitchen window. It was past ten o’clock, and old Connor Hanlon, the butler, my grandfather, was sittin’ by the fire alone, warming his shins over it. There was keen east wind blowing along the mountains that night, and whistling cowld enough, through the tops of the trees, and soundin’ lonesome through the long chimneys.

  (And the story-teller glanced up at the nearest stack visible from his seat.)

  So he wasn’t quite sure of the knockin’ at the window, and up he gets, and sees his master’s face.

  My grandfather was glad to see him safe, for it was a long time since there was any news of him; but he was sorry, too, for it was a changed place and only himself and old Juggy Broadrick in charge of the house, and a man in the stables, and it was a poor thing to see him comin’ back to his own like that.

  He shook Con by the hand, and says he:

  “I came here to say a word to you. I left my horse with Dick in the stable; I may want him again before morning, or I may never want him.”

  And with that he turns into the big kitchen, and draws a stool, and sits down to take an air of the fire.

  “Sit down, Connor, opposite me, and listen to what I tell you, and don’t be afeard to say what you think.”

  He spoke all the time lookin’ into the fire, with his hands stretched over it, and a tired man he looked.

  “An’ why should I be afeard, Masther Dominick?” says my grandfather. “Yourself was a good masther to me, and so was your father, rest his sould, before you, and I’ll say the truth, and dar’ the devil, and more than that, for any Sarsfield of Dunoran, much less yourself, and a good right I’d have.”

  “It’s all over with me, Con,” says Sir Dominick.

  “Heaven forbid!” says my grandfather.

  “’Tis past praying for,” says Sir Dominick. “The last guinea’s gone; the ould place will follow it. It must be sold, and I’m come here, I don’t know why, like a ghost to have a last look round me, and go off in the dark again.”

  And with that he tould him to be sure, in case he should hear of his death, to give the oak box, in the closet off his room, to his cousin, Pat Sarsfield, in Dublin, and the sword and pistols his grandfather carried in Aughrim, and two or three thrifling things of the kind.

  And says he, “Con, they say if the divil gives you money overnight, you’ll find nothing but a bagful of pebbles, and chips, and nutshells, in the morning. If I thought he played fair, I’m in the humour to make a bargain with him tonight.”

  “Lord forbid!” says my grandfather, standing up, with a start and crossing himself.

  “They say the country’s full of men, listin’ sogers for the King o’ France. If I light on one o’ them, I’ll not refuse his offer. How contrary things goes! How long is it since me an Captain Waller fought the jewel at New Castle?”

  “Six years, Masther Dominick, and ye broke his thigh with the bullet the first shot.”

  “I did, Con,” says he, “and I wish, instead, he had shot me through the heart. Have you any whisky?”

  My grandfather took it out of the buffet, and the masther pours out some into a bowl, and drank it off.

  “I’ll go out and have a look at my horse,” says he, standing up. There was sort of a stare in his eyes, as he pulled his riding-cloak about him, as if there was something bad in his thoughts.

  “Sure, I won’t be a minute running out myself to the stable, and looking after the horse for you myself,” says my grandfather.

  “I’m not goin’ to the stable,” says Sir Dominick; “I may as well tell you, for I see you found it out already — I’m goin’ across the deer-park; if I come back you’ll see me in an hour’s time. But, anyhow, you’d better not follow me, for if you do I’ll shoot you, and that ‘id be a bad ending to our friendship.”

  And with that he walks down this passage here, and turns the key in the side door at that end of it, and out wid him on the sod into the moonlight and the cowld wind; and my grandfather seen him walkin’ hard towards the park-wall, and then he comes in and closes the door with a heavy heart.

  Sir Dominick stopped to think when he got to the middle of the deer-park, for he had not made up his mind, when he left the house, and the whisky did not clear his head, only it gev him courage.

  He did not feel the cowld wind now, nor fear death, nor think much of anything but the shame and fall of the old family.

  And he made up his mind, if no better thought came to him between that and there, so soon as he came to Murroa Wood, he’d hang himself from one of the oak branches with his cravat.

  It was a bright moonlight night, there was just a bit of a cloud driving across the moon now and then, but, only for that, as light a’most as day.

  Down he goes, right for the wood of Murroa. It seemed to him every step he took was as long as three, and it was no time till he was among the big oak-trees with their roots spreading from one to another, and their branches stretching overhead like the timbers of a naked roof, and the moon shining down through them, and casting their shadows thick and twist abroad on the ground as black as my shoe.

  He was sobering a bit by this time, and he slacked his pace, and he thought ‘twould be better to list in the French king’s army, and thry what that might do for him, for he knew a man might take his own life any time, but it would puzzle him to take it back again when he liked.

  Just as he made up his mind not to make away with himself, what should he hear but a step clinkin’ along the dry ground under the trees, and soon he sees a grand gentleman right before him comin’ up to meet him.

  He was a handsome young man like himself, and he wore a cocked-hat with gold-lace round it, such as officers wears on their coats, and he had on a dress the same as French officers wore in them times.

  He stopped opposite Sir Dominick, and he cum to a standstill also.

  The two gentlemen took off their hats to one another, and says the stranger:

  “I am recruiting, sir,” says he, “for my sovereign, and you’ll find my money won’t turn into pebbles, chips, and nutshells, by tomorrow.”

  At the same time he pulls out a big purse full of gold.

  The minute he set eyes on that gentleman, Sir Dominick had his own opinion of him; and at those words he felt the very hair standing up on his head.

  “Don’t be afraid,” says he, “the money won’t burn you. If it proves honest gold, and if it prospers with you, I’m willing to make a bargain. This is the last day of February,” says he; “I’ll serve you seven years, and at the end of that time you shall serve me, and I’ll come for you when the seven years
is over, when the clock turns the minute between February and March; and the first of March ye’ll come away with me, or never. You’ll not find me a bad master, any more than a bad servant. I love my own; and I command all the pleasures and the glory of the world. The bargain dates from this day, and the lease is out at midnight on the last day I told you; and in the year” — he told him the year, it was easy reckoned, but I forget it— “and if you’d rather wait,” he says, “for eight months and twenty eight days, before you sign the writin’, you may, if you meet me here. But I can’t do a great deal for you in the mean time; and if you don’t sign then, all you get from me, up to that time, will vanish away, and you’ll be just as you are tonight, and ready to hang yourself on the first tree you meet.”

  Well, the end of it was, Sir Dominick chose to wait, and he came back to the house with a big bag full of money, as round as your hat a’most.

  My grandfather was glad enough, you may be sure, to see the master safe and sound again so soon. Into the kitchen he bangs again, and swings the bag o’ money on the table; and he stands up straight, and heaves up his shoulders like a man that has just got shut of a load; and he looks at the bag, and my grandfather looks at him, and from him to it, and back again. Sir Dominick looked as white as a sheet, and says he:

  “I don’t know, Con, what’s in it; it’s the heaviest load I ever carried.”

  He seemed shy of openin’ the bag; and he made my grandfather heap up a roaring fire of turf and wood, and then, at last, he opens it, and, sure enough, ’twas stuffed full o’ golden guineas, bright and new, as if they were only that minute out o’ the Mint.

  Sir Dominick made my grandfather sit at his elbow while he counted every guinea in the bag.

  When he was done countin’, and it wasn’t far from daylight when that time came, Sir Dominick made my grandfather swear not to tell a word about it. And a close secret it was for many a day after.

  When the eight months and twenty-eight days were pretty near spent and ended, Sir Dominick returned to the house here with a troubled mind, in doubt what was best to be done, and no one alive but my grandfather knew anything about the matter, and he not half what had happened.

  As the day drew near, towards the end of October, Sir Dominick grew only more and more troubled in mind.

  One time he made up his mind to have no more to say to such things, nor to speak again with the like of them he met with in the wood of Murroa. Then, again, his heart failed him when he thought of his debts, and he not knowing where to turn. Then, only a week before the day, everything began to go wrong with him. One man wrote from London to say that Sir Dominick paid three thousand pounds to the wrong man, and must pay it over again; another demanded a debt he never heard of before; and another, in Dublin, denied the payment of a thundherin’ big bill, and Sir Dominick could nowhere find the receipt, and so on, wid fifty other things as bad.

  Well, by the time the night of the 28th of October came round, he was a’most ready to lose his senses with all the demands that was risin’ up again him on all sides, and nothing to meet them but the help of the one dhreadful friend he had to depind on at night in the oak-wood down there below.

  So there was nothing for it but to go through with the business that was begun already, and about the same hour as he went last, he takes off the little crucifix he wore round his neck, for he was a Catholic, and his gospel, and his bit o’ the thrue cross that he had in a locket, for since he took the money from the Evil One he was growin’ frightful in himself, and got all he could to guard him from the power of the devil. But tonight, for his life, he daren’t take them with him. So he gives them into my grandfather’s hands without a word, only he looked as white as a sheet o’ paper; and he takes his hat and sword, and telling my grandfather to watch for him, away he goes, to try what would come of it.

  It was a fine still night, and the moon — not so bright, though, now as the first time — was shinin’ over heath and rock, and down on the lonesome oak-wood below him.

  His heart beat thick as he drew near it. There was not a sound, not even the distant bark of a dog from the village behind him. There was not a lonesomer spot in the country round, and if it wasn’t for his debts and losses that was drivin’ him on half mad, in spite of his fears for his soul and his hopes of paradise, and all his good angel was whisperin’ in his ear, he would a’ turned back, and sent for his clargy, and made his confession and his penance, and changed his ways, and led a good life, for he was frightened enough to have done a great dale.

  Softer and slower he stept as he got, once more, in undher the big branches of the oak-threes; and when he got in a bit, near where he met with the bad spirit before, he stopped and looked round him, and felt himself, every bit, turning as cowld as a dead man, and you may be sure he did not feel much betther when he seen the same man steppin’ from behind the big tree that was touchin’ his elbow a’most.

  “You found the money good,” says he, “but it was not enough. No matter, you shall have enough and to spare. I’ll see after your luck, and I’ll give you a hint whenever it can serve you; and any time you want to see me you have only to come down here, and call my face to mind, and wish me present. You shan’t owe a shilling by the end of the year, and you shall never miss the right card, the best throw, and the winning horse. Are you willing?”

  The young gentleman’s voice almost stuck in his throat, and his hair was rising on his head, but he did get out a word or two to signify that he consented; and with that the Evil One handed him a needle, and bid him give him three drops of blood from his arm; and he took them in the cup of an acorn, and gave him a pen, and bid him write some words that he repeated, and that Sir Dominick did not understand, on two thin slips of parchment. He took one himself and the other he sunk in Sir Dominick’s arm at the place where he drew the blood, and he closed the flesh over it. And that’s as true as you’re sittin’ there!

  Well, Sir Dominick went home. He was a frightened man, and well he might be. But in a little time he began to grow aisier in his mind. Anyhow, he got out of debt very quick, and money came tumbling in to make him richer, and everything he took in hand prospered, and he never made a wager, or played a game, but he won; and for all that, there was not a poor man on the estate that was not happier than Sir Dominick.

  So he took again to his old ways; for, when the money came back, all came back, and there were hounds and horses, and wine galore, and no end of company, and grand doin’s, and divarsion, up here at the great house. And some said Sir Dominick was thinkin’ of gettin’ married; and more said he wasn’t. But, anyhow, there was somethin’ troublin’ him more than common, and so one night, unknownst to all, away he goes to the lonesome oak-wood. It was something, maybe, my grandfather thought was troublin’ him about a beautiful young lady he was jealous of, and mad in love with her. But that was only guess.

  Well, when Sir Dominick got into the wood this time, he grew more in dread than ever; and he was on the point of turnin’ and lavin’ the place, when who should he see, close beside him, but my gentleman, seated on a big stone undher one of the trees. In place of looking the fine young gentleman in goold lace and grand clothes he appeared before, he was now in rags, he looked twice the size he had been, and his face smutted with soot, and he had a murtherin’ big steel hammer, as heavy as a halfhundred, with a handle a yard long, across his knees. It was so dark under the tree, he did not see him quite clear for some time.

  He stood up, and he looked awful tall entirely. And what passed between them in that discourse my grandfather never heered. But Sir Dominick was as black as night afterwards, and hadn’t a laugh for anything nor a word a’most for any one, and he only grew worse and worse, and darker and darker. And now this thing, whatever it was, used to come to him of its own accord, whether he wanted it or no; sometimes in one shape, and sometimes in another, in lonesome places, and sometimes at his side by night when he’d be ridin’ home alone, until at last he lost heart altogether and sent for the priest.r />
  The priest was with him a long time, and when he heered the whole story, he rode off all the way for the bishop, and the bishop came here to the great house next day, and he gev Sir Dominick a good advice. He toult him he must give over dicin’, and swearin’, and drinkin’, and all bad company, and live a vartuous steady life until the seven years bargain was out, and if the divil didn’t come for him the minute afther the stroke of twelve the first morning of the month of March, he was safe out of the bargain. There was not more than eight or ten months to run now before the seven years wor out, and he lived all the time according to the bishop’s advice, as strict as if he was “in retreat.”

  Well, you may guess he felt quare enough when the mornin’ of the 28th of February came.

  The priest came up by appointment, and Sir Dominick and his raverence wor together in the room you see there, and kep’ up their prayers together till the clock struck twelve, and a good hour after, and not a sign of a disturbance, nor nothing came near them, and the priest slep’ that night in the house in the room next Sir Dominick’s, and all went over as comfortable as could be, and they shook hands and kissed like two comrades after winning a battle.

  So, now, Sir Dominick thought he might as well have a pleasant evening, after all his fastin’ and praying; and he sent round to half a dozen of the neighbouring gentlemen to come and dine with him, and his raverence stayed and dined also, and a roarin’ bowl o’ punch they had, and no end o’ wine, and the swearin’ and dice, and cards and guineas changing hands, and songs and stories, that wouldn’t do any one good to hear, and the priest slipped away, when he seen the turn things was takin’, and it was not far from the stroke of twelve when Sir Dominick, sitting at the head of his table, swears, “this is the best first of March I ever sat down with my friends.”

  “It ain’t the first o’ March,” says Mr. Hiffernan of Ballyvoreen. He was a scholard, and always kep’ an almanack.

  “What is it, then?” says Sir Dominick, startin’ up, and dhroppin’ the ladle into the bowl, and starin’ at him as if he had two heads.