The Ashes of Old Wishes
Page 1
THE ASHES OF OLD WISHES:
AND OTHER DARBY O'GILL TALES
The Ashes of Old Wishes:
And Other Darby O'Gill Tales
By
Herminie Templeton Kavanagh
Chicago
Jordan Publishing Company
Copyright, 1926
By
H. T. Kavanagh
CONTENTS
The Ashes of Old Wishes
The Haunted Bell
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
The Sheep Stealer
Bridgeen and the Leprechaun
The Monks of Saint Bride
Killbohgan and Killboggan
The Crocks of Gold
How Satan Cheated Sarah Muldowney
Patrick of the Bells
THE ASHES OF OLD WISHES:
AND OTHER DARBY O'GILL TALES
The Ashes of Old Wishes
ALL DAY long, big flakes of soft, wet snow had flurried and scurried and melted about Darby O'Gill's cottage, until, by twilight, the countryside was neither more nor less than a great white bog. Then, to make matters worse, as the night came on, that rapscallion of an east wind waked up, and came sweeping with a roar through the narrow lanes and over the desolate fields, gleefully buffeting and nipping every living thing in its way. It fairly tore the fur cap off Maurteen Cavanaugh's head, and gaily tossed that precious relic into the running ditch; it shrieked mockingly as it lifted poor old Mrs. Maloney's red cloak and swirled that tattered robe over the good woman's bewildered head, twisting her this way and that till she was so distracted, she had to go into Joey Hoolighan's for a sip of hot tea and a soothering bit of fresh gossip. Then growing more uproarious, the blackguard gale, after swooping madly around and around Darby O'Gill's cottage, leaped to the roof and perched itself on the very top of the chimney, where, for three mortal hours, it sat shouting down boisterous challenge to the discontented man who crouched moody and silent before his own smoky hearth.
Darby heard the challenge well enough, but wasted little heed. A shapeless worry darkened the lad's mind. Ever since supper, when Bridget and the children went to bed—the better to get an early start for midnight Christmas Mass—Darby and Malachi, the yellow cat, sat opposite each other in the glow of the smoldering turf. There's nothing can equal in its comfort the comfortableness of a contented cat.
Lately Darby had taken great satisfaction in talking to Malachi. The cat proved to be a splendid listener—never contradicting any statement, however boastful, but receiving all his master's confidences with a blinking gravity that was as respectful as it was flattering.
"This is Christmas Eve, Malachi. I suppose ye know that. I'm going to tell ye a great saycrit. By all the tokens, I ought to be a happy man. Well, you'll be surprised—I am n't! I'm far, far from it! Everything in the world is growing moldy. Nothin' tastes as it used to taste. Have ye noticed the flavor of the petaties lately, Malachi, or the tang of the bacon? No, to be sure, how could ye?" Darby discontentedly scratched his head with the stem of his pipe and heaved a deep sigh. "Heigh ho! Oh, what petaties we used to get when I was a gossoon! The way Bridget could bile cabbage in the ould days would be a model for a quane, so it would. But, now—well, we won't disparage her. There's nothing I put into me mouth has the right smack to it. There's something or other I want bad, Malachi, and—whisht!"—he bent over—"and this is me saycrit: I dunno rightly what it is I want, but whatever it is, I'll never be rightly happy till I get it."
Darby had often claimed that Malachi, with a blink of his green eye, could tell the unspoken word in a man's mind. Sure, everyone knew how, at the first breath of a rise in Bridget's temper, the wise old lad would, with one nimble spring, land on the cottage roof, and there, safe from the broom, he would crouch, peering over the edge of the thatch till the storm went down. So now, visibly impressed with the great secret, Malachi turned his back to the fire and began thoughtfully stroking his left ear.
While the cat was thus engaged, the peaceful quiet of the hearth was rudely broken by a sudden shaking of the door and a rattling of the latch, as though nervous fingers were striving to lift it. Darby, in alarm, threw back his head to listen. Could it be a wraith? No! it was only the wind. Baffled in its attempt to open the door, the ruffian gale then began flinging white dabs of soft snow at the black window panes—for all the world like a blackguard boy. At last, with an exultant shout, it leaped to the cottage roof again and, whoop! down the chimney it came.
"Poof! bad cess to the smoke an' bad luck to the wind, if they haven't the two eyes stung out of me head. I'd wind the clock and you and me'd go to bed this minute, so we would, Malachi, if I didn't know that Brian Connors, the King of the Fairies, would surely pay us a wisit the night." Malachi's back stiffened immediately, and with quick, indignant switches of his tail, he swept the hearthstone where he sat.
"Oh, I know ye don't like the Good People, me lad, and you may have yer raysons. But you must admit that the little man has never failed to bring us some token for Christmas since first I met him. Though, to tell the truth," he added, a sudden scowl furrowing his face, "for a man who has the whole worruld in his pocket, the fairy gives—oh, by the powers, Malachi! I came near forgetting to tell ye me dhrame. I dhramed last night I was picking up goold suverings till me back ached. So, maybe the king'll bring me some thraymendous present—oh, millia murdher, me sight's gone entirely this time. Conshumin' to the minute longer I'll stay up—phew! ugh! ugh! ugh!"
The great puff of bitter pungent smoke that blinded the lad's eyes also sent him off into a fit of coughing. He was still choking and gasping and sweeping the water from his swimming lids when, happening to look up, whom should he spy through the blue smoke, calmly sitting on his favorite stool on the opposite side of the hearth, but the little Master of the Fairies himself. As usual, the King's gold crown was tilted rakishly to one side, his green velvet cloak was flung back from his shoulders, and he sat with one short pipestem of a leg dangling carelessly over the other. Put into a scale, he might have weighed, crown and all, about as much as Malachi.
"The top of the avenin' to ye, Darby O'Gill," piped he, "an' the complyments of the sayson to you an' yours."
At the first sound of the fairy's voice, Malachi, with tail erect, trotted out of the kitchen.
"The same to yerself," coughed Darby, rubbing his eyes, "an' if it isn't axing ye to go out of yer way too much, King, I'll thank ye afther this to come in by the dure or the windy, and not be takin' thim shortcuts down through the chimbley. You nearly put the two eyes out of me head, so ye did."
"Oh! faith, Darby, me sowl," laughed the King good-naturedly, "the Christmas present I've brought ye'll put the two eyes back again, and brighter than ever."
The discontented look on Darby's face changed at once to a red glow of pleasure. He expected a bag of diamonds or a crock of gold at the very least. Still he strove hard to conceal his delight and said as carelessly as he could, "What is it, King darlint. I'll go bail your present's a grand one this time, at any rate."
"You may well say that, me lad, for I've brought ye," chuckled the King, clasping his knee and leaning back comfortably against the chimney corner—"I've brought ye a jug of the foinest potteen in all Ireland ground."
Darby's jaw dropped to his chest. If ever hope took a cropper, it was then. "Th-thank ye kindly, King," he stuttered; and to hide his bitter disappointment, the poor fellow began poking viciously at the smoldering turf.
The evident chagrin of his friend was not lost on the Master of the Good People, and the quick-tempered little King flared up instantly.
Darby himself was thoroughly aroused. He felt slighted and belittled. Hammering out each word on the hearthstone, he replied, "You're right, King, it's riches I want! It's riches; an' that's the laste ye might be afther givin' me."
The fairy's eyes snapped threateningly. "Haven't I tould ye ag'in and ag'in that I'd never rune ye an' spile ye by givin' ye riches? Haven't—"
"We hear ducks talkin'! No sinsible man, King, was runed or spiled by riches. Besides, there's other things ye might give me."
The little king's lip curled. "Oh, ye ongrateful omadhaun! Just to punish ye, I've a mind to—" he hesitated and looked steadily at Darby. "By jayminie, I will—I'll give ye any three wishes you make this night, barrin' riches. I won't break me worrud on that score."
So great and so sudden was the offer that, for a moment, Darby's mind floundered helplessly. Meekly subsiding to his stool again, he peered from under anxious brows and asked doubtingly, "Do you mane it, King?"
The king frowned. "I do mane it; but the consequences'll be on your own sore head."
Darby thoughtfully regarded the fairy. Then, putting the poker carefully back in the corner, he said, "Don't be vexed with me, King agra; sure I've lots of throuble. I'm a very onhappy man. I don't know why it is, but I'm feelin' turrible. So, by your lave, if it's perfectly convaynient, I'll take the favors of the three wishes."
"Out with them then! What do ye want?"
"Well, first an' foremost, King, I want the he-licks-her of life, that Maurteen Cavanaugh was readin' about. I want to live forever."
The old king reeled and almost fell off the stool.
"By the four fires of Fingal, Darby O'Gill, if you don't flog the worruld. But go on, man alive, what'll ye be wantin' next?"
"Well, afther that, if it's not too much throuble, ye may make me as comfortable an' as well off as the rich Lord Killgobbin." By putting the wish this way, Darby cleverly avoided a direct request for riches.
The king shut his lips in a grim smile and slowly wagged his head.
"I will that! I'll make ye as well off an' as comfortable as Lord Killgobbin—with every vein of me heart. Go on!"
"The third wish, King, is the easiest of all to grant. Make me happy."
"That I will! Ye won't know yerself. Wait till I'm done with ye," said the king, getting up and drawing his cloak about his shoulders. "An' we'll lose no time about it ayther. We've a good dale of thravelin' to do the night, so put on you're great coat."
Nothing loath, the lad did as he was bid and then waited expectantly.
"We're goin' into sthrange places, me bould Trojan," the king went on, "an' I think it best we go unwisible. Come nearer to me."
With much impressiveness, the little King of the Good People raised his hand and touched his companion lightly on the arm.
On the moment, a strange, tingling chill swept over Darby, and he began to grow invisible. First his feet faded into thin air; and even as he stared open-mouthed at the place they had been, his knees disappeared; and the next second, the lad felt himself snuffed out like a tallow dip.
The king also was gone, but presently the familiar voice of the little fairy sounded from its place on the stool:
"We're goin' out now, avourneen."
"But how can I go out," wailed Darby in great distress. "Where are me two foine legs? What's become of me, I'd like to know?"
"Be aisy, man! You'll not nade yer legs for a while. I'll put ye asthride a horse the night, the loike of which you never rode afore. You're goin' to ride the wind, Darby. Listen! D'ye hear it callin' us?"
Darby was still looking for some traces of his vanished legs when, without realizing the slightest sense of motion, he found himself in the open. There was a flash of black sky, a glimpse of wet weather, and the astonished man was three miles from home, standing beside the king in old Daniel Delaney's kitchen. It was all so sudden; he could scarcely believe his eyes. And to make matters more confusing, although Darby had known old Dan'l's kitchen since childhood, there was a certain weirdness and unreality about it now that chilled the unseen intruder's blood.
The room was almost dark and filled with fitful fireshadows that danced and wavered and dimmed upon the walls.
"Mark well what ye see and hear, Darby O'Gill, for this is but a shadow of your first wish—the wish to live forever. This is the ashes of long life." The king's voice was so solemn that Darby cowered, half-frightened from it.
Before the lonely hearth sat old Daniel Delaney and his wife, Julia. Half the county knew their desolate history. Ninety-two years had passed over their heads, and seventy years they had lived together as man and wife. Of all the old couples in that parish—and there were many of them—Daniel Delaney and his wife were the very oldest, and the loneliest. Twenty years ago, their last child had died in America, an old man. Long before that, Teddy, Michael, and Dan, soldier lads, fell before Sebastopol. And now, without chick or child, indeed without one of their blood that bore their name, the old couple waited patiently, each night mumbling the hope that maybe the morrow might bring to them the welcome deliverance.
As Darby gazed, a comprehension of the desolation, the loneliness, and the ceaseless heartache of the old people came to him like an inspiration, and his heart melted with pity.
He understood, as never before, how completely old Dan'l and Julia's world was gone—faded into vague memories. The new voices and strange young faces that kept constantly crowding into and filling the old fond nooks gave to the couple a cruel sense of being aliens in an unsympathetic land. The winding lanes, the well-remembered farms, and the crowded chapel were filled, for them, with specters. They were specters themselves, and the quiet waiting churchyard called ever and ever, with passionate insistence to their tired, empty hearts. Darby's eyes filled with hot tears.
"Will I be like Dan'l Delaney?" he whispered fearfully to the king.
"Worse. You'll be all alone; Bridget'll be gone from you. Hist! Dan'l is talking. Listen!"
"Is that you, Julia machree?" an old voice quavered. "Ah, so it is, so it is! I thought it was me father sittin' there an'—an' I was a little gossoon again at his knee—just like our little Mickey. Where's Mickey? Oh, to be sure! Oh, thin wasn't me father the handsome man—and grand! Six feet two in his stockin's! Six feet two. An' to think, agra, to think that now, in all this wide, wide worruld, only you and me are left who ever set eyes on him. Isn't it a quare worruld entirely, Julia! A quare worruld! Only you and me left, all dead, all dead!" The old man's voice fell to a whimper, and he wiped a tear from his cheek with shaking fingers.
"Aye, they're all gone from us, Dan'l, me lad. I was just thinkin', your father's father built this house and sthrangers'll have it soon—I couldn't sleep last night for worrying over it. All me foine boys and tendher, beautiful colleens! All, all gone. An' one gray day follys another gray day, an' nothing happens, nothing ever happens for us. Isn't this Christmas Eve, Dan'l? Little Norah's birthday?"
The old man lifted his trembling hands in an agony of regret. "Christmas Eve! O Mother of Heaven! Oh, the merry-makin' an' the happiness of the childher! Marcyful Father, why can't we go to them?"
"Hush, Dan'l! For shame, man. Think how good God has been to us. Hasn't He kept us together? Mightn't He have taken you an' left me here alone? See how gentle He is with ould people. First, He crowds Heaven with their friends to prepare a welcome; then He fills the worruld so full of pains, an' aches, an' sorrow, that it is no throuble at all to lave it. No throuble at all."
"God help them," thought Darby. The bitterness of their sorrows filled his own heart, and the weight of all their years pressed down on him.
"King," he asked, "isn't it quare that we can't always be young and live forever?"
"It's bekase you've no knowledge
of Heaven that you ax so foolish a question as that," sighed the King.
Meanwhile old Dan'l would not be comforted, but was fretting and whimpering, like a child three years old.
"Come away, come away, King," urged Darby hoarsely. "When Bridget an' the childher are in the churchyard, I want to lie with them. Ye may keep the he-licks-her, King. I want none of it."
"I thought so. Now for your second wish," said the king.
The words weren't out of his mouth till Darby found himself standing with the fairy in the window recess of a large and brilliantly lighted bedroom in Killgobbin Castle. Soft, moss-green carpets an inch thick covered the floor. Slender shepherds and dainty shepherdesses, beautiful dames and stately knights smiled and curtsied from the priceless tapestries on the wall. In a far corner of the room stood a canopied mahogany bed, lace-draped and with snowy pillows. Gilded tables and luxurious easy chairs were scattered here and there, while a great tiger skin, which gleamed yellow and black from the center of the floor, gave Darby a catch in his breath. It might have been the bedchamber of a king. Here no sound of the storm could reach.