by Louise Welsh
“I’d go if I knew how to go to them,” said Crowley.
“Why not invite them to supper?” retorted the woman.
He rose up then, went out, and called: “Men, women, children, soldiers, sailors, all people that I have ever made coffins for, I invite you tonight to my house, and I’ll spend what is needed in giving a feast.”
The people who were watching the dead man on the table saw him smile when he heard the invitation. They ran out of the room in a fright and out of the kitchen, and Daniel Crowley hurried away to his shop as fast as ever his donkey could carry him. On the way he came to a public-house and, going in, bought a pint bottle of whiskey, put it in his pocket, and drove on.
The workshop was locked and the shutters down when he left that evening, but when he came near he saw that all the windows were shining with light, and he was in dread that the building was burning or that robbers were in it. When right there Crowley slipped into a corner of the building opposite, to know could he see what was happening, and soon he saw crowds of men, women, and children walking toward his shop and going in, but none coming out. He was hiding some time when a man tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Is it here you are, and we waiting for you? ’Tis a shame to treat company this way. Come now.”
Crowley went with the man to the shop, and as he passed the threshold he saw a great gathering of people. Some were neighbours, people he had known in the past. All were dancing, singing, amusing themselves. He was not long looking on when a man came up to him and said: “You seem not to know me, Daniel Crowley.”
“I don’t know you,” said Crowley. “How could I?”
“You might then, and you ought to know me, for I am the first man you made a coffin for, and ’twas I gave you the first start in business.”
Soon another came up, a lame man: “Do you know me, Daniel Crowley?”
“I do not.”
“I am your cousin, and it isn’t long since I died.”
“Oh, now I know you well, for you are lame. In God’s name,” said Crowley to the cousin, “how am I to get these people out o’ this. What time is it?”
“Tis early yet, it’s hardly eleven o’clock, man.”
Crowley wondered that it was so early.
“Receive them kindly,” said the cousin; “be good to them, make merriment as you can.”
“I have no money with me to get food or drink for them; ’tis night now, and all places are closed,” answered Crowley.
“Well, do the best you can,” said the cousin.
The fun and dancing went on, and while Daniel Crowley was looking around, examining everything, he saw a woman in the far-off corner. She took no part in the amusement, but seemed very shy in herself.
“Why is that woman so shy – she seems to be afraid?” asked he of the cousin. “And why doesn’t she dance and make merry like others?”
“Oh, ’tis not long since she died, and you gave the coffin, as she had no means of paying for it. She is in dread you’ll ask her for the money, or let the company know that she didn’t pay,” said the cousin.
The best dancer they had was a piper by the name of John Reardon from the city of Cork. The fiddler was one John Healy. Healy brought no fiddle with him, but he made one, and the way he made it was to take off what flesh he had on his body. He rubbed up and down on his own ribs, each rib having a different note, and he made the loveliest music that Daniel Crowley had ever heard. After that the whole company followed his example. All threw off what flesh they had on them and began to dance jigs and hornpipes in their bare bones. When by chance they struck against one another in dancing, you’d think it was Brandon Mountain that was striking Mount Eagle, with the noise that was in it.
Daniel Crowley plucked up all his courage to know could he live through the night, but still he thought daylight would never come. There was one man, John Sullivan, that he noticed especially. This man had married twice in his life, and with him came the two women. Crowley saw him taking out the second wife to dance a breakdown, and the two danced so well that the company were delighted, and all the skeletons had their mouths open, laughing. He danced and knocked so much merriment out of them all that his first wife, who was at the end of the house, became jealous and very mad altogether. She ran down to where he was and told him she had a better right to dance with him than the second wife; “That’s not the truth for you,” said the second wife; “I have a better right than you. When he married me you were a dead woman and he was free, and, besides, I’m a better dancer than what you are, and I will dance with him whether you like it or not.”
“Hold your tongue!” screamed the first wife. “Sure, you couldn’t come to this feast tonight at all but for the loan of another woman’s shinbones.”
Sullivan looked at his two wives, and asked the second one: “Isn’t it your own shinbones you have?”
“No, they are borrowed. I borrowed a neighbouring woman’s shins from her, and ’tis those I have with me tonight.”
“Who is the owner of the shinbones you have under you?” asked the husband.
“They belong to one Catherine Murray. She hadn’t a very good name in life.”
“But why didn’t you come on your own feet?”
“Oh, I wasn’t good myself in life, and I was put under a penalty, and the penalty is that whenever there is a feast or a ball I cannot go to it unless I am able to borrow a pair of shins.”
Sullivan was raging when he found that the shinbones he had been dancing with belonged to a third woman, and she not the best, and he gave a slap to the wife that sent her spinning into a corner.
The woman had relations among the skeletons present, and they were angry when they saw the man strike their friend. “We’ll never let that go with him,” said they. “We must knock satisfaction out of Sullivan!”
The woman’s friends rose up, and, as there were no clubs or weapons, they pulled off their left arms and began to slash and strike with them in terrible fashion. There was an awful battle in one minute.
While this was going on Daniel Crowley was standing below at the end of the room, cold and hungry, not knowing but he’d be killed. As Sullivan was trying to dodge the blows sent against him, he got as far as Daniel Crowley and stepped on his toe without knowing it; Crowley got vexed and gave Sullivan a blow with his fist that drove the head from him and sent it flying to the opposite corner.
When Sullivan saw his head flying off from the blow, he ran, and, catching it, aimed a blow at Daniel Crowley with the head, and aimed so truly that he knocked him under the bench; then, having him at a disadvantage, Sullivan hurried to the bench and began to strangle him. He squeezed his throat and held him so firmly between the bench and the floor that the man lost his senses, and couldn’t remember a thing more.
When Daniel Crowley came to himself in the morning, his apprentice found him stretched under the bench with an empty bottle under his arm. He was bruised and pounded. His throat was sore where Sullivan had squeezed it; he didn’t know how the company broke up, nor when his guests went away.
TAM O’SHANTER
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759–1796) was born in Alloway, Ayrshire and spent his early life working on a series of barely profitable tenant farms. He was considering decamping for the West Indies when his first collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was published in 1786. Burns was often in conflict with the kirk. His poems reflect a love of nature, the opposite sex, carousing and a desire for social equality. His birthday is celebrated on the 25th January each year at Burns Suppers across the world.
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,
That lie between
us and our hame,
Whar sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter
(Auld Ayr wham ne’er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonny lasses).
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was nae sober;
That lika melder, wi’ the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the L – d’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirton Jean till Monday.
She prophesy’d that late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drown’d in Doon;
Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld haunted kirk.
The landlady and Tam grew gracious.
The landlady and Tam grew gracious.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!
But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi’ reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo’ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favors, secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E’en drown’d himself amang the nappy,
As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white – then melt forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm. –
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in,
And sic a night he taks the road in;
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.
Well mounted on his grey mare, Meg.
Well mounted on his grey mare, Meg.
The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling show’rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow’ring round wi’ prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares:
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. –
By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor’d;
And past the birks and meikie stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder’d bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel. –
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll:
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze;
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing;
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. –
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn;
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae we’ll face the devil! –
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light:
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge;
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl. –
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip slight,
Each in its cauld hand held a light. –
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted;
Five scymitars, wi’ murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft,
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft:
Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awfu’,
Which ev’n to name wad be unlawfu’.
The dancers quick and quicker flew.
The dancers quick and quicker flew.
As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew:
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark!
Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans
A’ plump and strapping, in their teens:
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o’ gude blue hair,
I wad hae gi’en them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonnie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,
Lowping an’ flinging on a crummock,
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kend what was what fu’ brawlie,
There was ae winsome wench and walie,
That night enlisted in the core
(Lang after kend on Carrick shore;
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the countryside in fear),
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie. –
Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!
But here my muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her pow’r;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood like ane bewitch’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d;
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a’ thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark;
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skreech and hollow.
Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy coming!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
An win the key-stane[A] of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!