did he wish himself sitting at home by the fire
-
Coomara’s Calling
169
side with Biddy. Yet where was the use of wishing now, when
he was so many miles, as he thought, below the waves of
the Atlantic? Still he held hard by the Merrow’s tail, slippery
as it was; and, at last, to Jack’s great surprise, they got out
of the water, and he actually found himself on dry land at
the bottom of the sea. They landed just
in front of a nice house that was slated
very neatly with oyster shells! and the
Merrow, turning about to Jack, wel-
comed him down.
Jack could hardly speak,
what with wonder, and what
with being out of breath with
travelling so fast through the water.
He looked about him and could
see no living things, barring crabs
and lobsters, of which there were
plenty walking leisurely about
on the sand. Overhead was the
sea like a sky, and the fishes like
birds swimming about in it.
“Why don’t you speak, man?” said the Merrow: “I dare
say you had no notion that I had such a snug little concern
here as this? Are you smothered, or choked, or drowned, or
are you fretting after Biddy, eh?”
Among the Mermaids
170
“Oh! not myself indeed,” said Jack, showing his teeth
with a good-humoured grin; “but who in the world would
ever have thought of seeing such a thing?”
“Well, come along, and let’s see what they’ve got for us
to eat?”
Jack really was hungry, and it gave him no small pleasure
to perceive a fine column of smoke rising from the chimney,
announcing what was going on within. Into the house he
followed the Merrow, and there he saw a good kitchen, right
well provided with everything. There was a noble dresser,
and plenty of pots and pans, with two young Merrows cook-
ing. His host then led him into the
room, which was furnished shab-
bily enough. Not a table or a chair
was there in it; nothing but planks
and logs of wood to sit on, and eat
off. There was, however, a good fire
blazing upon the hearth—a com-
fortable sight to Jack.
“Come now, and I’ll show you
where I keep—you know what,” said the Merrow, with a sly
look; and opening a little door, he led Jack into a fine cellar,
well filled with pipes, and kegs, and hogsheads, and barrels.
“What do you say to that, Jack Dogherty? Eh! May be a
body can’t live snug under the water?”
Overhead was
the sea like a sky,
and the fishes like
birds swimming
about in it.
Coomara’s Calling
171
“Never the doubt of that,” said Jack, with a convincing
smack of his upper lip, that he really thought what he said.
They went back to the room, and found dinner laid.
There was no tablecloth, to be sure—but what matter? It
was not always Jack had one at home. The dinner would
have been no discredit to the first house of the country on a
fast day. The choicest of fish, and no wonder, was there. Tur-
bots, and sturgeons, and soles, and lobsters, and oysters, and
twenty other kinds, were on the planks at once, and plenty
of the best of foreign spirits. The wines, the old fellow said,
were too cold for his stomach.
Jack ate and drank till he could eat no more: then taking
up a shell of brandy, “Here’s to your honour’s good health, sir,”
said he; “though, begging you pardon, it’s mighty odd that as
long as we’ve been acquainted I don’t know your name yet.”
“That’s true, Jack,” replied he; “I never thought of it be-
fore, but better late than never. My name’s Coomara.”
“And a mighty decent name it is,” cried Jack, taking an-
other shellfull: “here’s to your good health, Coomara, and
may ye live these fifty years to come!”
“Fifty years!” repeated Coomara;
“I’m obliged to you, indeed! If you
had said five hundred, it
would have been something
worth the wishing.”
Among the Mermaids
172
“By the laws, sir,” cried Jack, “
youz
live to a powerful age
here under the water! You knew my grandfather, and he’s
dead and gone better than these sixty years. I’m sure it must
be a healthy place to live in.”
“No doubt of it; but come, Jack, keep the liquor stirring.”
Shell after shell did they empty, and to Jack’s exceeding
surprise, he found the drink never got into his head, owing,
I suppose, to the sea being over them, which kept their nod-
dles cool.
Old Coomara got exceedingly comfortable, and sung
several songs; but Jack, if his life had depended on it, never
could remember more than
“Rum fum boodle boo,
Ripple dipple nitty dob;
Dumdoo doodle coo,
Raffle taffle chittiboo!”
Coomara’s Calling
173
It was the chorus to one of them; and, to say the truth, no-
body that I know has ever been able to pick any particular
meaning out of it; but that, to be sure, is the case with many
a song nowadays.
At length said he to Jack, “Now, my dear boy, if you fol-
low me, I’ll show you my
curiosities
!” He opened a little door,
and led Jack into a large room, where Jack saw a great many
odds and ends that Coomara had picked up at one time
or another. What chiefy took his attention, however, were
things like lobsterpots ranged on the ground along the wall.
“Well, Jack, how do you like my
curiosities
?” said old Coo.
“Upon my
sowkins
, sir,” said Jack, “they’re mighty well
worth the looking at; but might I make so bold as to ask
what these things like lobster-pots are?”
“Oh! the Soul Cages, is it?”
“The what? sir!”
“These things here that I keep the souls in.”
“
Arrah
! What souls, sir?” said Jack, in amazement; “sure
the fish have no souls in them?”
“Oh! no,” replied Coo, quite coolly, “that they have not;
but these are the souls of drowned sailors.”
“The Lord preserve us from all harm!” muttered Jack,
“how in the world did you get them?”
“Easily enough: I’ve only, when I see a good storm com-
ing on, to set a couple of dozen of these, and then, when the
Among the Mermaids
174
sailors are drowned and the souls get out of them under the
water, the poor things are almost perished to death, not being
used to the cold; so they make into my pots for shelter, and
then I have them snug, and fetch them home, and is it not
well for them, poor souls, to get into such goo
d quarters?”
Jack was so thunderstruck he did not know what to say,
so he said nothing. They went back into the dining-room,
and had a little more brandy, which was excellent, and then,
as Jack knew that it must be getting late, and as Biddy might
be uneasy, he stood up, and said he thought it was time for
him to be on the road.
“Just as you like, Jack,” said Coo,
“but take a
duc an durrus
before
you go; you’ve a cold journey before
you.”
Jack knew better manners than
to refuse the parting glass.
“I wonder,” said he, “will I be able to make out my way
home?”
“What should ail you,” said Coo, “when I’ll show you the
way?”
Out they went before the house, and Coomara took one
of the cocked hats, and put it upon Jack’s head the wrong
way, and then lifted him up on his shoulder that he might
launch him up into the water.
“But these are the
souls of drowned
sailors.”
Coomara’s Calling
175
“Now,” says he, giving him a heave, “you’ll come up just in
the same spot you came down in; and, Jack, mind and throw
me back the hat.”
He canted Jack off his shoulder, and up he shot like a
bubble—whirr, whif, whiz—away he went up through the
water, till he came to the very rock he had jumped off where
he found a landing-place, and then in he threw the hat, which
sunk like a stone.
The sun was just going down in the beau-
tiful sky of a calm summer’s evening.
Feas-
cor
was seen dimly twinkling in the cloudless
heaven, a solitary star, and the waves of the
Atlantic flashed in a golden flood of light. So
Jack, perceiving it was late, set off home; but when he got
there, not a word did he say to Biddy of where he had spent
his day.
The state of the poor souls cooped up in the lobster-pots
gave Jack a great deal of trouble, and how to release them
cost him a great deal of thought. He at first had a mind to
speak to the priest about the matter. But what could the
priest do, and what did Coo care for the priest? Besides, Coo
was a good sort of an old fellow, and did not think he was
doing any harm. Jack had a regard for him, too, and it also
might not be much to his own credit if it were known that he
used to go dine with Merrows. On the whole, he thought his
Among the Mermaids
176
best plan would be to ask Coo to dinner, and to make him
drunk, if he was able, and then to take the hat and go down
and turn up the pots. It was, first of all, necessary, however,
to get Biddy out of the way; for Jack was prudent enough, as
she was a woman, to wish to keep the thing secret from her.
Accordingly, Jack grew mighty pious all of a sudden, and
said to Biddy that he thought it would be for the good of
both their souls if she was to go and take her rounds at Saint
John’s Well, near Ennis. Biddy thought so too, and accord-
ingly off she set one fine morning at day-dawn, giving Jack
a strict charge to have an eye to the place. The coast being
clear, away went Jack to the rock to give the appointed signal
to Coomara, which was throwing a big stone into the water.
Jack threw, and up sprang Coo!
“Good morning, Jack,” said he; “what do you want
with me?”
Coomara’s Calling
177
“Just nothing at all to speak about, sir,” returned Jack,
“only to come and take a bit of dinner with me, if I might
make so free as to ask you, and sure I’m now after doing so.”
“It’s quite agreeable, Jack, I assure you; what’s your hour?”
“Any time that’s most convenient to you, sir—say one
o’clock, that you may go home, if you wish, with the daylight.”
“I’ll be with you,” said Coo, “never fear me.”
Jack went home, and dressed a noble fish dinner, and got
out plenty of his best foreign spirits, enough, for that matter,
to make twenty men drunk. Just to the minute came Coo,
with his cocked hat under his arm. Dinner was ready, they
sat down, and ate and drank away manfully. Jack, thinking
of the poor souls below in the pots, plied old Coo well with
brandy, and encouraged him to sing, hoping to put him un-
der the table, but poor Jack forgot that he had not the sea
over his head to keep it cool. The brandy got into it, and did
his business for him, and Coo reeled off home, leaving his
entertainer as dumb as a haddock on a Good Friday.
Jack never woke till the next morning, and then he was
in a sad way. “’This to no use for me thinking to make that
old Rapparee drunk,” said Jack, “and how in this world can I
help the poor souls out of the lobster-pots?” After ruminat-
ing nearly the whole day, a thought struck him. “I have it,”
says he, slapping his knee; “I’ll be sworn that Coo never saw
a drop of
poteen
, as old as he is, and that’s the
thing
to settle
Among the Mermaids
178
him! Oh! then, is not it well that Biddy will not be home
these two days yet; I can have another twist at him.”
Jack asked Coo again, and Coo laughed at him for hav-
ing no better head, telling him he’d never come up to his
grandfather.
“Well, but try me again,” said Jack, “and I’ll be bail to
drink you drunk and sober, and drunk again.”
“Anything in my power,” said Coo, “to oblige you.”
At this dinner Jack took care to have his own liquor well
watered, and to give the strongest brandy he had to Coo. At
last says he, “Pray, sir, did you ever drink any poteen?—any
real mountain dew?”
“No,” says Coo; “what’s that, and where does it come
from?”
“Oh, that’s a secret,” said Jack, “but it’s the right stuff—
never believe me again, if ’tis not fifty times as good as brandy
Coomara’s Calling
179
or rum either. Biddy’s brother just sent me a present of a
little drop, in exchange for some brandy, and as you’re an old
friend of the family, I kept it to treat you with.”
“Well, let’s see what sort of thing it is,” said Coomara.
The
poteen
was the right sort. It was first-rate, and had
the real smack upon it. Coo was delighted: he drank and he
sung
Rum bum boodle boo
over and over again; and
he laughed and he danced, till he fell on the floor
fast asleep. Then Jack, who had taken good care
to keep himself sober, snapt up the cocked hat—
ran off to the rock—leaped, and soon arrived
at Coo’s habitation.
All was as still as a churchyard at mid-
night—not a Merrow, old or young, was there. In
he went and turne
d up the pots, but nothing did he see, only
he heard a sort of a little whistle or chirp as he raised each
of them. At this he was surprised, till he recollected what
the priests had often said, that nobody living could see the
soul, no more than they could see the wind or the air. Having
now done all that he could for them, he set the pots as they
were before, and sent a blessing after the poor souls to speed
them on their journey wherever they were going. Jack now
began to think of returning; he put the hat on, as was right,
the wrong way; but when he got out he found the water so
high over his head that he had no hopes of ever getting up
Among the Mermaids
180
into it, now that he had not old Coomara to give him a lift.
He walked about looking for a ladder, but not one could he
find, and not a rock was there in sight. At last he saw a spot
where the sea hung rather lower than anywhere else, so he
resolved to try there. Just as he came to it, a big cod happened
to put down his tail. Jack made a jump and caught hold of
it, and the cod, all in amazement, gave a bounce and pulled
Jack up. The minute the hat touched the water away Jack was
whisked, and up he shot like a cork, dragging the poor cod,
that he forgot to let go, up with him tail foremost. He got to
the rock in no time and without a moment’s delay hurried
home, rejoicing in the good deed he had done.
But, meanwhile, there was fine work at home; for our
friend Jack had hardly left the house on his soul-freeing ex-
pedition, when back came Biddy from her soul-saving one
to the well. When she entered the house and saw the things
lying
thrie-na-helah
on the table before her—“Here’s a pret-
ty job!” said she; “that blackguard of mine—what ill-luck I
had ever to marry him! He has picked up some vagabond or
other, while I was praying for the good of his soul, and they’ve
been drinking all the
poteen
that my own brother gave him,
and all the spirits, to be sure, that he was to have sold to
his honour.” Then hearing an outlandish kind of grunt, she
looked down, and saw Coomara lying under the table. “The
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