News traveled slowly in those old days, and he was a bold man that journeyed far from home. So weeks went by and no word drifted through the monastery walls about the bride, when lo and behold, one morning about three months after the wedding, an astonishing thing happened: the Lady O'Carrioll herself, and no other, came riding across the drawbridge again. This time, however, she rode hurrying alone up the winding path, her mist of brown hair streaming in the wind and a look of terror frozen on her white face. At the same time rushed, galloping in furious pursuit, Lord Roderick O'Carrioll.
"Open and let me in," she called to the warder. "I claim the protection of this holy place."
And the draw was let down to her when they heard that cry, but when she rode over the bridge, the O'Carrioll already galloped at her heels, and when they drew bridle in the midst of the crowd of curious friars, one horse's head tossed beside the other horse's head.
The man's eyes gleamed on her like coals of living fire, and what he said was: "Is it to escape you thought you would? Return to your house and to your duty, shameless woman!"
The Lady O'Carrioll didn't answer him then, but slipped quickly down from the horse, and it's on her two bended knees she went before the abbot.
"I claim your protection! Save me, Sir Abbot," she implored.
The old monk looked in stern amazement from the dark, threatening brow of the angry man to the death-white checks of the girl at his feet.
"Stop where you are, O'Carrioll," was what he said as the chief dismounted, "and come not a foot nearer, for, though I'm a priest of God, now if you so much as lift a finger to this woman, it's little help that sword you're striving to draw will be to ye then."
At that the abbot turned, and it's what he called to the warder: "Brother John, raise the drawbridge." And while the bridge was clanking up, a score of stalwart monks armed, some with staves, some with spears, and two or three with naked swords, crowded hurrying up and grouped themselves around their abbot. "And now, Roderick O'Carrioll," demanded the soldierly old friar, "what means this rude pursuit?"
"By the cross, it's what it means, that she is a disobedient wife," haughtily replied the O'Carrioll, "and it's more than that you shall not know."
"It's more than that I shall know indeed," said the abbot, "for unless you swear by the cross on your sword-hilt never to harm a hair of the woman's head, it's not one foot she'll stir beyond this gate. And if your men shall try a rescue, 'tis your own corpse that they'll bear away."
"Most willingly do I take that oath," spoke the O'Carrioll, "though it's not through any dread of this nest of scurrying brown mice. An O'Carrioll never did anything yet through fear; but I'll take the oath you say to ease the fears of this woman. Unworthy as she is, I love her."
And straightway, holding up the gold hilt of his sword, he swore by it, blunt and plain like a soldier, to keep her safe from any hurt or harm or shame that might come through himself or through another.
The lady dropped her tear-wet hands from her white face and, unassisted, rose to her feet. Not a word did she utter, but the proud, hopeless look of her eyes would wring one's heart.
And the two rode silently away together.
"Now may God forgive us all," cried Brother Andrew, the youngest of the monks. "We've done a craven thing to let him take her from this shelter."
"Not so," answered the abbott. "It's safer for her to go. The man will keep his oath."
The monks of Saint Bride never saw her again, and for two months, it's little they heard of her, and then a dark rumor crept over the valley. And when two cowherds stood together out on the lonely hills, they whispered the rumor to each other, and when any two men were alone together in their currach on the ocean, they talked of it, and it's what they said: "The O'Carrioll has reddened his hands with his wife, and he has reddened his hands with his brother Turlough that she had the love for, and the both of them are lying beside each other, cold and dead, at the bottom of the sea."
At last one day, a fisherman found a lady's blue cloak washed up between two rocks, and it was the Lady O'Carrioll's gold-embroidered cloak, they were saying. They brought that cloak to the monastery.
Now, when the abbot of Saint Bride heard this thing and of the way the sword oath that had been put upon the O'Carrioll was broken, it's great indeed the wrath that was on the good man, for such treachery never had been heard of before in all Ireland.
The evening of the day that the blue cloak was brought to him, he called all the monks together in the chapel, and there they consulted one with the other what was a just and worthy punishment to put upon the O'Carrioll. It was the turn of midnight before they decided that and went to their cells. And then on the morning of the morrow, just when the great round sun was reddening the foreheads of the hills, they all gathered again on the east turret of the monastery, and when the abbot found that they were all about him, he fronted the castle of the O'Carrioll and raised his oaken cross. Then he cursed that house, and he cursed the chief of that house. And it wasn't the O'Carrioll alone he cursed, but he banned him and all who cleaved to him with the curse of sleepless nights, which is the most agonizing of all curses, and he doomed them with the curse of friendless days, which is the most terrible of all curses, and he cursed them with the might of a quick-coming death, which is the surest of all curses. And he put excommunication upon the lord of the castle, so that he would be banished from out of the ways of living man.
And the abbot sent Brother Paul and Brother Philip over to the castle, and the two holy friars repeated to the O'Carrioll and to his retainers the terrible curse and the words of excommunication.
So no wonder it is at all, at all, that quick and heavy that curse fell. For from that day out, the kerns began to steal away from Black Roderick's land, the way they were afraid of the curse; and the fighting men deserted him, at first by twos and three and then by scores; and then the women of the house crept away in the night; so that presently he that used to be counting five hundred spears was left with but a dozen or so of the old retainers.
And that is how Black Roderick's power went from him, so that he was forced at last to pay tribute to the O'Driscolls, that he might save the roof of his castle from the torches of the MacDonoughs.
And that's the way, too, it befell with him when the red plague came sweeping up from Ath Cliath, as they used to be calling the city of Dublin then, and it leaving in its track no living man, woman, or child.
One morning, six men lay dead in the castle of the O'Carrioll, and within the hour, the master of the house, in the way that he would be ready if his own turn came, sent a quick messenger over for one of the monks of Saint Bride to come and shrive him. But the abbot sent a stern answer back, and it's what he said: "Let Roderick O'Carrioll come himself to this monastery, and on his bare knees make public confession of the murder of his brother and of his wife, and full acknowledgment of his other crimes, and then let him humbly take on himself the penance I'll impose—and it's no light penance that will be either. And let him not be sending here for a priest again, for it's to the chapel he himself must come, and it's my own tongue and no other that shall ask the forgiveness for him, and until I do that same, it's unshriven he will be, and it's neither ease for his body, nor rest for his soul, he may expect in this world or in the next."
When the frightened messenger went back and told that, it's what the O'Carrioll answered: "It's a hard saying, that is, and the curse they put on me I send back to them, and let it be laid against their souls that, as I am innocent of the crime they say, they shall pray for me until I am blessed, whether in this world or in the next!"
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he felt the sickness of the plague on him, and he turned to the serving-men and what he said was: "The hand of death is on me now, and after all, I'd wish to die at peace with God, and I'm not guilty of the crime they lay against me, so put me on the litter there and carry me with what haste you can to the monastery of Saint Bride. And when
they hear what I have to say, it's well I know they'll shrive me then."
And the serving-men were loath to go, for the night was on, and it was All Souls' night, and wild with the wind and the thunder and the rain. But for love of the old times, they took the master up between them at last, and it's how they carried him out into the darkness, and down into the valley, and by every short way toward the monastery.
By the time the serving-men had reached the path on the edge of the high cliff, which was halfway between the two places, they were as frightened as four shivering hares, and they set down the litter to rest themselves. When they did that, there sprang across the sky a long flame of green lightning, and when it was over, a man of them said: "We need go no further; the O'Carrioll is dead." And they crossed themselves then, but not one of them dared say, "God have mercy on his soul," because of the curse that was on him. Then one of them said, "What shall we do with him now?"
And the waves were leaping up against the rocks, the way they were striving to drag the men down into sea.
Then the oldest of them answered, and what he said was: "The sea is calling for him, because he cannot be buried in the consecrated ground. We shall bury him in the sea."
So they flung him far out over the cliff, and the strong waves of the green sea leaped up to meet him as he fell, and there was his grave.
At sunrise, on the morning of the morrow, the red plague stalked into the monastery of Saint Bride, and the first token of its presence was when it put its hot breath upon the old abbot himself so that he withered within the hour. And it's the dying that was burying the dead from that hour on, until the last friar of them all, with his spade in his hand, tumbled, stricken into a half-filled grave.
Then the loneliness and bleakness of desolation settled down on miles of hills and leagues of plains. For three times ten years, the deer browsed under the castle walls, and the badgers dug their lairs in the dry monastery moat; and then the O'Broders sent their herds and their cattle and their swine down into the fat grasslands which for so long had lain fallow. But for years after that, no one had the courage in his four bones to take shelter in the castle or the monastery, for fear of the sickness and the misfortune that was on the two places.
But after a time, there came an old swineherd of the O'Broders—Brown Shamus, he was called—and on winter nights, he used to be driving his pigs into the castle yard and to be building a great blaze on the hearth of the hall, the way he would be sleeping in the warmth of it.
One night, as he sat huddled before the fire, with his chin on his knees, there fell a hard rap on the hall door behind him. Brown Shamus never turned his head, for he'd often heard sounds like that before at night in the castle, and he had seen strange shapes, and well he knew that it's from the grave they were, and what he'd do then was to be shutting his eyes and striving not to be thinking of them. In that way, they never bothered him.
But the rap came again, and after it a blast of cold air. By that, Shamus knew the door was open. He turned around then, and what he saw was a very old man and a very old woman, and they were perishing with the cold. At that, Shamus began on his prayers, for he made no doubt but what it was two spirits standing ferninst him.
Then the old man, seeing the fright that was on Shamus, spoke up, and it's what he said: "Have no fear, swineherd of the brown beard. It is I, Turlough O'Carrioll; and this is the Lady O'Carrioll, my brother's wife, that has come back with me."
At that, the terror was all the greater on Shamus, for he was sure the two had been dead at the bottom of the sea those forty years. But when they drew nearer to the fire, and he heard the fall of their shoes on the stones of the floor, he knew by that it was living creatures they were, for the others that used to be coming and going there made no sound at all on the stones.
And sure enough, Turlough O'Carrioll it was, coming back after all these years, and his brother's wife along with him. Instead of being murdered and killed, as the report was out, they had taken a currach at night, and had slipped away to foreign parts, where they lived together until the hour I'm telling you about. And the pride of Black Roderick O'Carrioll, and his bitter shame, and maybe a bit of love for the both of them as well, had kept their flight and their crime secret; even when the dark man was excommunicated, and cursed, and forsaken on account of them, he made no sign. Sure you can never tell what good or evil thing is working hidden inside the mind of a man.
How long Turlough and the Lady O'Carrioll remained living it's not very sure. It may have been one year, or it may have been two years, but it wasn't very long. At any rate, the two of them died and were put in the one grave, and that was the end of the world for them, and they came back no more. You may see the wide, brownstone flag that covers them to this day in the churchyard of the monastery, for they were laid in consecrated ground.
And wouldn't it have been a good thing, too, if Roderick O'Carrioll, and the monks of Saint Bride with him, could have found untroubled graves in consecrated ground? But an unjust curse is a dreadful thing. And through five hundred years, as sure as the night of All Souls came, the friars of the abbey, and the lord of the castle, made bitter penance for their sin.
The dead make no account of time, they say and, indeed, why should they? And so, one generation followed another generation, and the story of the curse came down with the years, and the weary penance kept still unfinished.
By and by, the lonely castle of the O'Carrioll melted away in the sun and the snow. One by one, its great stones were rolled down the mountainside to build the fishers' village of Killgillam, which was growing up on the ribbon of sandy beach below—the same village that I was telling you about, where Michael Bresnahan lived.
But no man proved hardy enough to take a single stone from the haunted abbey, for fear of the bad luck it might bring him. So it, too, crumbled away in the sun and in the storms, but the gray rocks that tumbled lay where they fell.
And many's the strange whisper that went around about things that were seen at night on the top of that lonely hill. And I myself knew a very truthful old man who once lived in that village, and his name was Thomas O'Deegan, and this is what he told me: One All Souls' night, when he drifted out on the bay alone, fixing his nets, and the wind fluttered in sweeps down from the face of the cliff, he heard the sound of many voices chanting together, and it was the litany for the dead, they were singing.
Now, it's in the prayer book, as everyone knows, that the living may pray for the dead, and the dead may pray for the living, but the sorrow of it is that the dead may not pray for the dead. It's a queer way that is, but they do be saying that there's a stranger thing still, and I'm greatly bothered sometimes to know the reason, and it's what it is: Though the dead cannot pray for the dead, if one among the living say a prayer for the departed, then the dead may join his prayer to that same living prayer, and so as it makes one prayer, they'll both be heard.
And this was the penance that was put on the monks of Saint Bride: Once a year, upon All Souls' night—the night O'Carrioll died—they were to come out of their graves, every one, and to pray for the dead man's soul, and this until the day of judgment, with no release, unless some living voice would join itself to their dead voices.
And it was a punishment put upon Black Roderick, too, for his red deeds, that his soul should attend them there and find no ease until it felt the blessing of the abbot of Saint Bride. And so the useless prayers went on through all the generations—for sure, what man in all the country felt brave enough to climb that lonely road at midnight on Halloween?
So by this time, yer honor will understand the hard task that Sheelah Maguire put upon Michael Bresnahan: He must go alone, d'ye mind, at midnight of All Souls', to the ruined monastery and there face the unhappy spirits of the monks of Saint Bride, and join his living prayers with their own, over the body of Black Roderick.
On the way home from Ballinderg, after seeing Sheelah, Michael turned over and over in his mind the advice the fai
ry doctor had given him, and it's what he decided at last: "Well, after all, I think I'd better try to stand the faulting of Katie for a while longer, and if the worst comes to the worst," said the persecuted man to himself, "maybe I'll stop a trifle of the drink for peace sake." With that, he tossed the matter from his mind and decided to do the best he could with Katie.
Be that as it may, one afternoon not long after, as the lad was on his way home from the village of Ballyslane (where he was after selling a fine cow to his uncle, Ned Corrigan, who kept the public house by the bridge), he took for a shortcut home the path along the cliff. When he reached the top of the hill, there fell a queer weariness on him, maybe from his journey and a bit of a weakness as well, so he stopped to clear his wits and to rest awhile on the sunny side of the old abbey. In that way, maybe he could with a clear head meet Katie. Trouble never stayed long at a time with the lad. As he sat comfortably reclining with his back to the wall and smoking his pipe, the boy could see far down below him the little village straggle lazily along the yellow beach. About a stone's throw out from the edge of the green cliff stood his own white cottage, with the gray nets drying on its roof, and he could make out, too, Katie moving around in the thumbnail of a garden, with one of the children clinging to her petticoat, and it's what he thought: "Oh, wouldn't I be the foolish man to be going down there now the way I am, with the sign of the drop of drink on me, after the hard warning about the public houses she was putting on me when I went away this morning! No, no, Michael, take my advice, be a wise lad, and do you go in there now to the old chapel, where no one will be seeing you, and take a matter of forty winks or so, the way you'll have a sober and a clear head going down to her while it is still in the light of the evening."
The Ashes of Old Wishes Page 11