Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “’Tis the twenty-ninth of February, leap year,” says he. And just as they were talkin’, the clock strikes twelve; and my grandfather, who was half asleep in a chair by the fire in the hall, openin’ his eyes, sees a short square fellow with a cloak on, and long black hair bushin’ out from under his hat, standin’ just there where you see the bit o’ light shinin’ again’ the wall.

  (My hunchbacked friend pointed with his stick to a little patch of red sunset light that relieved the deepening shadow of the passage.)

  “Tell your master,” says he, in an awful voice, like the growl of a baist, “that I’m here by appointment, and expect him downstairs this minute.”

  Up goes my grandfather, by these very steps you are sittin’ on.

  “Tell him I can’t come down yet,” says Sir Dominick, and he turns to the company in the room, and says he with a cold sweat shinin’ on his face, “for God’s sake, gentlemen, will any of you jump from the window and bring the priest here?” One looked at another and no one knew what to make of it, and in the mean time, up comes my grandfather again, and says he, tremblin’, “He says, sir, unless you go down to him, he’ll come up to you.”

  “I don’t understand this, gentlemen, I’ll see what it means,” says Sir Dominick, trying to put a face on it, and walkin’ out o’ the room like a man through the pressroom, with the hangman waitin’ for him outside. Down the stairs he comes, and two or three of the gentlemen peeping over the banisters, to see. My grandfather was walking six or eight steps behind him, and he seen the stranger take a stride out to meet Sir Dominick, and catch him up in his arms, and whirl his head against the wall, and wi’ that the hall-doore flies open, and out goes the candles, and the turf and wood-ashes flyin’ with the wind out o’ the hall-fire, ran in a drift o’ sparks along the floore by his feet.

  Down runs the gintlemen. Bang goes the hall-doore. Some comes runnin’ up, and more runnin’ down, with lights. It was all over with Sir Dominick. They lifted up the corpse, and put its shoulders again’ the wall; but there was not a gasp left in him. He was cowld and stiffenin’ already.

  Pat Donovan was comin’ up to the great house late that night and after he passed the little brook, that the carriage track up to the house crosses, and about fifty steps to this side of it, his dog, that was by his side, makes a sudden wheel, and springs over the wall, and sets up a yowlin’ inside you’d hear a mile away; and that minute two men passed him by in silence, goin’ down from the house, one of them short and square, and the other like Sir Dominick in shape, but there was little light under the trees where he was, and they looked only like shadows; and as they passed him by he could not hear the sound of their feet and he drew back to the wall frightened; and when he got up to the great house, he found all in confusion, and the master’s body, with the head smashed to pieces, lying just on that spot.

  The narrator stood up and indicated with the point of his stick the exact site of the body, and, as I looked, the shadow deepened, the red stain of sunlight vanished from the wall, and the sun had gone down behind the distant hill of New Castle, leaving the haunted scene in the deep grey of darkening twilight.

  So I and the story-teller parted, not without good wishes on both sides, and a little “tip,” which seemed not unwelcome, from me.

  It was dusk and the moon up by the time I reached the village, remounted my nag, and looked my last on the scene of the terrible legend of Dunoran.

  HYACINTH O’TOOLE

  Published posthumously in Temple Bar, 1884

  IN the course of my life I have met with more accidents and assaults than twenty other men, and they never cost me any trouble to speak of — cats, prods, and gunshot, all came quite natural, and healed like enchantment. It was a murdering pity I was not a general. I could have stood any amount of hacking, and slashing, and riddling, and been never the worse man, nor a week on the sick-list. A shoemaker mistook me one day for a county Cork man that was paying attentions to his wife, and gave me a slice with his half-moon knife — bad luck to that ugly instrument — as I was walking down Petticoat Lane, no more thinking of his wife, I give you my solemn honour, than Saint Joseph of Arimathea was of Potiphar’s. The next thing was, Baron Dromdouski — a Polish refugee of distinction, and a perfect gentleman, I will day, and played the guitar like an angel, though liable occasionally to be carried away by his feelings — stuck me with an oyster-knife, while we were differing on politics, in the “Good Samaritan” in Exchange Street. I could count up fifty such unlucky catastrophes; but I think the worst was, what happened to me as I was whistling in the hall of my lodgings, where I was waiting to take Miss Doolan out for a walk.

  I must tell you there’s nothing on earth I hate equal to a cat, and it is the only thing that walks on feet I was ever thoroughly affeard to look in the face. It’s a dread that was born with me, and it will never leave me; and I’d run into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace away from one, and I think I’d have jumped after Quintus Curtins into the bottomless abyss if there was a cat behind me.

  Well the cause of this accident I’m going to mention, was our cook, poor thing, that was flighty and out of her mind for love of a private grenadier in the Buffs, and she drove a three-pronged iron toasting-fork, between the kitchen banisters, up to the hilt in the calf of my leg. I thought it was the cat that I saw there, looking like mischief, only a minute before, and I gave a screech and a jump, and I went flying into the hall with the toasting-fork stuck in my leg.

  “La! Mr. Toole, what’s that stuck in your leg?” cries Miss Doolan, who was that minute coming down the stairs.

  “It’s the cat,” I roared, almost out of my senses, and away with me out of the hall-door, that chanced to be open, and down the street I pegged like a madman, knocking my hat off on an old gentleman’s face, that was looking out of his study-window, and never waiting to pick it up. I thought the beast would never let go, and my hair was standing up on my head, and I wish you saw the capers I cut, trying to shake it off.

  “For the Lord’s sake,” I implored, dancing mad in the middle of the street, “will some of you pull it off my leg? I’ll give yon a shilling, whoever does.”

  “I’ll take it off,” says a goodnatured scavenger, that thought I was mad — and bedad I wasn’t far from it — and he strove to catch hold of the handle of the fork; and I was so wild with fright I made a cut at the animal with my stick behind, and struck the scavenger right across the knuckles, and on I ran feeling the cat’s teeth and claws, as I thought, fast in me still.

  “Bad luck to you, ye Turk!” says the scavenger, shying a stone at me, as big as a lemon, and knocking a carman out of his dicky with it, pipe, whip, caubeen, and all.

  “Look what’s stuck in his leg, boys!” called out the blackguard little children, running after me. “See there, look, look, look what’s stuck in his leg!”

  “Will some of you hit it, lick it, wallop it? It’s mad!” I holloaed. By this time I was running up Grafton Street, and every one looking after me, some wondering, some laughing, and some frightened.

  “It’s fastened in my leg!” I roared. “Will none of you pull it off?”

  “I will,” says one.

  “Shoot it,” says I.

  “I will,” says another.

  “It’s mad!” said I.

  “Stop your capers, man, and I’ll pull it out,” says another.

  “Give it a lick,” said I,” break its back, stick a knife in it.”

  “Arra! Bother ye. How much ironmongery do you want?” says another. “Stop aisy, and I’ll coax it out in a jiffy.”

  “Do,” said I, “coax it; its name’s Mufti.”

  “It was a little thief that snatched it out at last, as it trailed along the ground, and a devil of a hard pluck it took, and ran away with it and pawned it for a penny.

  Well, I need go no further; I mentioned these, and might mention fifty other wounds, to show you that they were no trifles, and I can take my davy there was not one of the series that took a week
to heal.

  I’m happy to tell you that I was quite sufficiently well to avail myself of Mrs. Molloy’s invitation to drink tea, go to the play, and return to supper with her agreeable party. I need not tell you that if I had had as many holes in my body as a colander, and was bleeding at every pore, I would have contrived, cost what it might, to drag myself to the side of the beautiful Theodora, although it was only to expire at her feet.

  The hour named for assembling at the hospitable lodgings of the Molloys was halfpast five. I dressed myself with uncommon care. We sported wonderful high and voluminous white cravats in those days, which had a good deal the effect of modem poultices. We wore besides under-waistcoats of coloured satin, pantaloons and pumps, and blue coats with brass buttons gilt.

  I was glad as I looked at myself in the glass, and brushed up my hair above my forehead into a “topping,” as Mr. Bassegio called that conical triumph of the decorative art, to think that I looked a little pale.

  Mundy had called on me the day after this extraction, not knowing a word of the matter, and wondering why I did not look in at the billiard-rooms. I made a rather painful effort, for I was lying on my face, to get into a more natural position, which I did with a slight groan. “Wounded!” says he.

  “Slightly,” said I, “that is, they say it won’t be dangerous.”

  “Oh! oh!” says he, smiling faintly down at me as I lay on my bed, with a look at once stem and knowing. “Gunshot, eh?”

  I had told him on purpose, for I knew that he was intimately acquainted with the Molloys, and I wished Theodora to hear that I was wounded; for a man hurt in an affair of honour (and what but that could she suppose?) is the most interesting patient that can come under the steel of the faculty or the cognisance of the fair.

  “Gunshot,” I acquiesced; for a carbine’s as good a “gun” as a pistol any day; and about the “shot” at any rate, there could be no mistake.

  “Shivering an’ a daisy, as you say?” he inquired. “Looking into a barrel? Ten paces, eh?”

  “I’ll not deny the distance was about that,” said I. “We were both slightly wounded, and — that’s all. I won’t talk about it; we are under terms not to tell on one another; and ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. Are you asked to the Molloys’ tea-party to go to the playhouse on — next, and back again to supper?”

  “Yes,” says Mundy, “and I mean to go; that’s as fine a blackeyed, piquey-cheeked, bouncing grenadier of a— “

  “Stop!” said I, making a bounce to sit up, for my blood was boiling; but I was not equal to that change of posture yet. “If you mean Miss Theodora Molloy— “ I began.

  “Oh! oh! So it is there the wind sits,” says he, and he laughed, “I meant old Mother Molloy, of course; don’t be uneasy, my dear fellow.”

  We parted, notwithstanding, very good friends, and I was glad to hear that he was just going to pay them a visit in their apartments on Ormond Quay, and I knew he could not keep my little secret long from that agreeable family.

  The better part of the week had passed, as you are aware, since this visit of Mundy’s, and I was now on the point of setting oat to enjoy the delightful evening I had been dreaming of for so long.

  When my toilet was completed, I practised sitting down and standing up, which I did, perhaps, a little stiffly; still the movement was quite feasible, and I trusted to the inspiration of Theodora’s presence to make it graceful.

  When all was ready I took my opera-hat and got into the hackney-coach, with a great coat-of-arms, as big as a signboard, emblazoned on each door. Some judge or Lord Mayor, or other magnifico, seemed to have owned every one of them, fifty years before, and turned them adrift to batter about the town ever since. I sat down alone in my glory. It was a roomy place. Three could easily sit at a side. I wish you felt the jolting, and bobbing, and bumping. I was in no condition to enjoy it just then, and on second thought, I readjusted my pose. I kneeled down; such, for sufficient reasons, was the attitude I preferred, with my elbows on the cushion. There was room enough for changes of the sort: it was as big as a pew, a very uneasy one, you may suppose: the noise of it was enough to deafen a cannoneer for an hour after. If all the old iron and broken glass in Dublin was being tossed by madmen in frying-pans like pancakes, it could not exceed the ring and clatter and batter of that musical enclosure. They were all alike; there was no use in fretting; I wanted to be at Ormond Quay to the minute, not to lose one moment of Theodora’s company, possibly to arrive first of the lot and have her all to myself before any one else should come in to bother us.

  Unfortunately, my coachman was something the worse for liquor, and delayed me considerably by tumbling out of the box, which he did three times: once on his back, once on his face, and last on his knees and elbows. He had to be helped up on to the box every time, and his hat, whip, and other appurtenances collected and restored by some charitable blackguards of his acquaintance, while I, compelled to change my attitude of devotion, was stamping in my pumps and silk stockings, in my roomy prison, and swearing till I almost burst my cravat, with my “topping,” my expressive face, and my fist out of the window. At length, after many hairbreadth escapes and a long and heartrending oscillation between the house ten doors above and the house ten doors below, the particular door I wanted to stop at, I was actually liberated, and ascended the narrow stairs, preceded by the maid, with my heart thumping, I verily believe, audibly. I heard people talking, and the voice of Theodora quite distinguishable from the rest. The woman did not announce my name, and I soon discovered that she was not aware that I had followed her upstairs, for she said:

  “There’s a little hop-o’-my-thumb of a man in the hall, if ye plase, ma’am, that says you asked him to tay; but I think it’s what he’s a bit of a shop-boy that’s come with a bill, and, if you like, I’ll put him out by the lug.”

  . I was so confused and embarrassed, and above all so anxious to put an end to the discussion, before anything past all endurance should be said, that I bolted into the room, putting on the best smile I could and stretching out my hand to Mrs. Molloy, who was next me. But the maid at the door, with arms as thick as Donnelly’s, the boxer, caught me by the collar at the nape of my neck with such a sudden jerk that I fell sitting on the floor, smack, as if I was shot, and she never let go her grip, but held me half-choked, sitting bolt upright, with my legs out, pumps and pantaloons, like a pair of compasses.

  “How dare ye!” says the powerful maid, giving me a shake that made my teeth chatter. “How dare ye, dare ye, dare ye!”

  I think she’d have pulled me down the stairs backwards, sitting as I was, only that Mrs. Molloy recovered her speech, and with a stamp on the floor that made the tea-spoons jump in their saucers, she bawls out, “My curse on you, Juggy Hanlon, what are you doing to Mr. Dooley, my most sinsare friend? Up with ye, Mr. Dooley, and I hope you’re nothing the worse, and down with yon, Juggy Hanlon, and my curse go along wid ye, to the kitchen. Take a chair and an air of the fire, Mr. Dooley, the evening’s a trifle could, I think; and settle your cravat at the glass there between the windows, and we won’t look at ye — bad luck to her impudence. Here’s my daughter Theodora, waiting to shake hands wid ye; but she won’t look at ye no more than myself till ye settle your waistcoat and cravat; it’s a wonder of the world she didn’t make smithereens of your watch. She’s cruel strong, that same Juggy Hanlon!”

  I did as I was bid; I was so confounded I could hardly see my own reflection in the dingy little pier-glass. I saw in the background the images of other people indistinctly, and I heard a sound of voices, but I could not say at the time whether they were laughing at me or what they were doing.

  In another minute I was shaking hands with everyone that would shake hands with me, and with some of them, I dare say, twice over t at least. I was beginning to feel more like myself. It was not a very large party: Mundy was there, and Lieutenant Kramm — Sidebotham was on duty, but expected to get off in time to come to supper — there was an impudent lit
tle Galway chap, no bigger than myself, with a smirk on his red face, and a pair of calves, I give you my honour, AS round as a hat, paying attentions, if you please, to Miss Theodora Molloy. I don’t think he was a day under forty! With half an eye I saw what he was at. If you caught a stranger driving your only horse and new gig to the Howth races, or walking down Dame Street in your best hat, with your umbrella in his hand, you might conceive, in a small way, the feelings with which I witnessed the usurpation in question. I had no idea until that moment how entirely I had come to regard Theodora as my own. I think I could have cut his ugly little head off his shoulders, and kicked it through the window into the Liffey.

  “I must introjuice you to my sinsare friend— “

  “The O’Kelly of Ballynamuck,” whispered the gentleman from Galway, who knew his weakness.

  “Mr. Dooley— “

  “Toole” I whispered.

  “Well, ain’t it all one? Mr. Toole, I beg leave to introjuice yon both. Mr. Toole, this is The O’Kelly of Ballynamuck. The O’Kelly of Ballynamuck, this is Mr. Toole.”

  “Proud to make your acquaintance,” said The O’Kelly, with a fierce sort of curtsey, that made me think that he, also, instinctively smelt a rat.

  “Your most obedient, sir,” said I, making him an awful low bow, and, raising my head higher than usual, I treated him at the end of it to a short, fierce stare; with another short bow at the end of that again.

  “Fine weather, sir! uncommon fine, Mr. Toole. Everything promises amazing; though, of course, it don’t agree with everything alike. If this weather houlds a little longer I wouldn’t wonder if we had piteeties at three-halfpence!”

  “Indeed, sir!” said I, expressing more wonder than I altogether felt, for I wasn’t quite sure whether the sum he named was wonderfully high or wonderfully low. “Do you play billiards, sir?”