by Mervyn Wall
“The trouble is that I’m not much good at anything except washing and paring edible roots,” replied Fursey. “They never trained me to anything else.”
“Nonsense,” said the Devil encouragingly. “Surely a man of your ability could milk a cow without pulling the teats off her.”
“I suppose so,” said Fursey without much conviction.
“Well, come on,” said the Archfiend. “What are we waiting for?”
“I trust that you are not coming with me?” said Brother Fursey, his voice betraying some anxiety. “I’d prefer you wouldn’t, if you don’t mind.”
“I have no choice,” said the Devil. “As you yourself indicated just now, Cashel is the only place to which this road leads. So of necessity myself and the boys will bear you company. They’re waiting below around the bend of the road, a whole acre of them, an acre of the choicest and most variegated demons that have ever been brought together in this holy land of Ireland. You will travel in style, with an entourage the Emperor of Constantinople cannot boast of. Besides, I have a little business in Cashel. An acquaintance of mine is being subjected to ill-treatment in that city, and I must see if something cannot be done to alleviate her distress. She’s a very fine old lady. Fifty years ago there wasn’t a handsomer woman in the territory. She’s a little broken in the wind now, I’ll admit, and somewhat spavined. You must make her acquaintance, my dear Fursey. I have no doubt but that the two of you will find that you have much in common.”
The ex-monk groaned as he placed his crutches beneath his aching armpits and painfully made his way to the road, while the Devil strolled beside him discoursing affably on the beauty of the countryside, the gentle greenness of field and tree, the flaming yellow gorse and the hawthorn in pink and white blossom. As they walked along the crooked road towards the bend where it curled over the hill, the vast sky, woolly with cloud, shed its mild sunlight down upon them.
“It’s the first day of May,” said the Devil. “I must admit that it’s good to be alive.”
He was silent for a moment, listening to the stumping and grinding of Fursey’s crutches on the stony road and the heavy breathing of the ex-monk who was inexperienced in such work. Then his face darkened.
“The old lady is being most foully ill-treated,” he said, “by a villainous oaf of a bishop, a most uninviting fellow, gaunt and hungry-looking, with a smell of grave-mould off his breath that would turn your stomach. I don’t fancy him at all. Himself and the King are intent on burning her as a witch. Did you ever hear the like?” said the Devil, and a hard note crept into his voice. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand,” he said, “it’s superstition.”
CHAPTER II
On a morning of sprightly sunshine and breeze a friar of huge stature came along the southern road towards Cashel. The dust that powdered his sandals and robe indicated that he had come a long way. He had a mop of wiry ginger hair, which seemed pale in contrast to the fiery red of his face. Indeed, only for his dress, which proclaimed him a man of God, the flaming hue of his countenance and his nose blossoming in the centre of it, might have led one to believe that he was addicted to the pleasures of the table and to the sorry joy that is derived from the consumption of strong drink. It would have been an unjust judgment; for the mighty fires that raged in Father Furiosus proceeded from love of God and the desire to smite at Evil wherever it might raise its ugly head. He was a man of powerful frame; and you had but to observe the great knotted fist clutching a heavy blackthorn stick, to have it borne in powerfully upon you that the Church Militant was no empty phrase.
At the wicker gate in the palisade he brushed aside the guard who diffidently enquired his name and business, and proceeded on his way without deigning to reply; but he had only advanced a few paces into the city when a rabble of dogs came tumbling from the alleys and doorways, and precipitated themselves in his direction, snarling hideously. Scrubby and raffish curs who were investigating distant rubbish heaps, hearing the din that betokened a stranger within the gates, immediately abandoned their researches and came tearing towards him with bared fangs. The guard at the gate and those citizens who were in the immediate vicinity, hurriedly took refuge in the neighbouring cabins, from which they peered in morbid expectancy of seeing the newcomer torn to pieces. But the older and more case-hardened canines pulled up suddenly in full career, for a second glance at the broad-shouldered friar lightly swinging his blackthorn stick as he strode confidently on his way, seemed to persuade them that they had misconstrued the situation. They circled him once or twice and grudgingly wagged their tails as if to convince him that their actions had been motivated merely by friendly curiosity; but a few of the younger and less experienced dogs came within his reach growling fiercely, until the friar, without pausing in his stride, with a few deft backhanders of his blackthorn, scattered them in all directions yowling piteously.
As Father Furiosus made his way among the hundred-and-twenty huts that constituted the city, he noted appreciatively the signs of prosperity and happiness on every side of him, the peat smoke billowing from the doorways of the cabins, the crowing of the city’s cocks and the tuneful grunting of its pigs. In a couple of minutes he had traversed the settlement and found himself at the northern gate. Here he paused and raised his finger to indicate to the armed guard that he wished to converse with him. The soldier came running to his side, bowing abjectly.
“Tell me, fellow,” said the friar, nodding towards a fine new building which stood on a slight eminence, “is that the palace of your wise and enlightened monarch, the mighty Cormac Silkenbeard?”
“Oh no, sir,” replied the soldier, “may it please your reverence, that’s the new palace which good Bishop Flanagan has built for himself.”
Father Furiosus turned to admire the edifice. It was a building of generous proportions, thatched with the best of seasoned reeds and fronted by a pair of bronze doors so wide that four churchmen could walk through abreast without undue difficulty.
“It actually has what they call an ‘upstairs’,” volunteered the soldier with considerable awe in his voice, “the first ‘upstairs’ that was ever in Ireland. It means, as it were, that there are two houses on top of one another. There are rooms up there in the air where you can walk about if you want to.”
“Dear me,” said the friar sententiously. “One of these days science will certainly over-reach itself. And does not certain danger attend the ascent?”
“They say not, your Holiness,” replied the soldier. “The Bishop does have a class of ladder of the finest polished elm-wood, which brings you to the ‘upstairs’ through a hole in the roof.”
“It’s a fine building,” said the friar, adding thoughtlessly: “It must have cost a power of wealth to build.”
“Yes,” said the soldier with a slight sigh.
The friar turned and indicated a large building at some distance.
“And I suppose that’s the King’s House?”
“It is,” replied the soldier.
“That’s all, my man,” said the friar, dismissing his informant, who with a grovelling bow ran back to his post.
For a moment or two Father Furiosus contemplated the King’s House, its thatch decayed and diseased, and one of its walls supported by a manure heap. He smiled slightly, then he turned his steps to the incline which led to the Bishop’s Palace, reflecting as he went that it was well to assert at all times and in all things the superiority of the Church to the State.
The great bronze doors of the Palace were opened by an Anglo-Saxon slave boy, who on hearing the friar’s name and condition, ushered him into a spacious hall strewn with sweet-smelling rushes. The Bishop, he explained, was out in the stockyard at the back of the palace inspecting the episcopal herds, but would be informed at once of the friar’s arrival.
Father Furiosus had not long to wait before the lean figure of the Bishop slid through a doorway, and advancing noiselessly across the hall, held out his hand for his visitor to kiss. When the friar aro
se from his knees he was graciously waved to a seat on a bench that ran along the wall. After the exchange of the usual civilities about the weather, the Bishop politely enquired whether the friar had lunched.
“Indeed, no,” replied Father Furiosus with a sigh that seemed to come from the hollow depths of his stomach. “I have but even now arrived in your splendid and interesting city.”
“Then you must lunch with me,” said the Bishop. “I am about to partake of my mid-day collation. I keep but a poor table: perhaps that is fitting in a man of God. I trust that you will honour me by sharing my humble meal.”
Father Furiosus protested that food was a thing to which he seldom gave a thought, but he arose with alacrity and followed the Bishop into an inner room. They seated themselves, and at a command from the Bishop discreet serving-men placed before them two quart-pots of ale and a jelly of smelts.
“I trust that you have at least breakfasted,” said the Bishop.
“I did,” replied the friar, “but sparingly. In a cave on the road about ten miles to the south there lives a gentle anchorite with whom I stopped to exchange the time of day. We passed a pleasant hour in godly conversation. He pressed me to partake of a couple of his crusts and obligingly smashed them for me with his mallet.”
“It’s all very well for the anchorites,” said the Bishop. “They use up none of their energies sitting at the mouths of their caves all day, but a man like yourself who has to be about God’s work, needs more solid sustenance. Eat up, there is a second course. A dish of lampreys is to follow.”
The grateful friar needed no second invitation. As they ate and drank in silence, Father Furiosus was enabled to study Bishop Flanagan, whose reputation as a man of God was only second to his own.
Those who did not like the Bishop, whispered of him that he was a man from whom every graceful attribute seemed to have been withheld by Nature. He was spare and stringy, and his Adam’s apple was in constant motion in his scraggy throat. His underlip was loose and twitched as he looked at you, but it was not from nervousness, for the way he held his head and the unrelenting gaze of his eyes close placed above the long thin nose, betokened his pride in his exalted rank and his determination to exact from all the respect which was his due. The odour of sanctity was clearly discernible from his breath and person.
When the dish of lampreys had been carried in by two undersized serfs the Bishop replenished his ale-pot and leaned across the table towards the friar.
“Father Furiosus,” he said, “I want you to know how honoured I am to have under my roof-tree a man of your great reputation and sanctity.”
The face of Father Furiosus clouded, as it always did when he heard himself praised. It came to him that he should not have drunk his second quart of ale so rapidly, for there was a tear in his eye for which he could not account. However, he bent towards the Bishop and answered huskily:
“Please don’t say that, your lordship. I know that I have quite unworthily acquired such a reputation, but it never fails to grieve me to hear such sentiments expressed. I am at once overwhelmed with the consciousness that there does not walk the roads of Ireland a more depraved sinner than myself.”
“Tut, tut,” said the Bishop, “how can you say that?”
“Listen,” said the friar vehemently, clutching Bishop Flanagan’s arm. “When I was young I led a most wicked and dissolute life. I blasphemed God and cursed my parents, and gave myself over to every infamy. I was a wrestler at the court of the King of Thomond. I rejoiced in circuses and the godless company of acrobats. Thank God, I kept myself free from the taint of women; but in all else I was a lost soul. I was a gambler, a drunkard and a singer of songs. I rejoiced in poetry. But on the day of my greatest triumph when I broke the back of Torgall the Dane, God spoke to me, and I heard Him even above the applause of that wild court. ‘Vanity of vanities,’ He said, ‘and all in vanity.’ I heard Him, but I heeded Him not. But that evening when the moon was out I was approached by a lively and engaging female with an invitation to take a walk with her along a country road. By ourselves actually, and by moonlight! Then did I know indeed that I was trembling on the brink of Hell, and I fled from that court, first to the hills, and then to the monastery at Glendaloch. But you probably know the rest.”
The friar flung his great bulk back into his chair despondently.
“You didn’t stay,” said the Bishop gently.
“They wouldn’t keep me,” said the friar. “A little dispute with the cook about the porridge being cold one morning. Unfortunately I crippled him.”
“It was a pity,” said the Bishop.
“It was the same in every monastery I entered,” continued Father Furiosus gloomily. “My ungovernable temper was my ruin. In Bangor I deprived the doorkeeper of the one eye he had, and I killed a scullion in Clonfert. I pleaded with the Abbot that his skull was thin, but they turned me out.”
The friar seemed sunk in intolerable dolour until the Bishop replenished his tankard.
“God’s ways are not our ways,” said Bishop Flanagan, “perhaps it was for the best. See all the good that you have been enabled to do.”
“Yes,” said Father Furiosus, rousing himself to drink deeply. “I became a wandering friar, and as God has given me a spirit that fears neither man, dog nor devil, I have perhaps done some little good. I make my way from settlement to settlement wherever I think my services may be needed, and I assure you it is a sturdy demon or necromancer that can stand against me. I have become expert in demonology and in detecting the darker acts of sorcery. On my way from town to town I clear the lovers from the ditches and the doorways, but that’s in the nature of a sideline.”
“Nevertheless, even if it be but a sideline, you have done a man’s part in preventing the hateful passion of love from spreading throughout this land.”
“I have a strong arm, thank God,” said the friar.
“Where have you come from now?” asked the Bishop.
“From the town of Cork,” replied the friar.
“Business, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said the friar, “a bad case of werewolves. Some thirty citizens had disappeared leaving no evidence of whither they might have betaken themselves. A heap of skeletons, picked clean of flesh, was found in the backyard of a town councillor. This, as you may imagine, gave rise to suspicion, and I had him watched. It transpired that three town councillors were involved. Every evening at sundown the spirit of the wolf took possession of them, and they repaired to the forest. They were small, paunchy men, and to see them coursing through the woods, naked and on all fours, was a remarkable sight.”
“It must have been,” remarked the Bishop. “What did you do with them eventually?”
“We hunted them with hounds and spearmen, and deprived them of their lives,” replied Father Furiosus gloomily. “It’s the only thing to do with a werewolf.”
“Is there no way,” asked the Bishop, “whereby a werewolf may be detected in the early stages of his affliction?”
“Yes,” replied the friar, “when a man first becomes a werewolf, he often betrays himself by going out and fighting with all the town dogs. I don’t know if that perhaps happened before my arrival. The people of Cork are singularly uncouth, and such behaviour might not have been deemed in any way extraordinary.”
The Bishop arose from the table and led the way back to the hall.
“I hope,” he said, “you will be able to stay a couple of days in Cashel. We have need of your services here.”
“I was on my way to Clonmacnoise,” replied the friar, “which, I hear, is much abused by disembodied spirits and satanic creatures of the craftier sort, and I had looked forward to greeting again an old fellow-wrestler at the Thomond Court, a Father Sampson, who is now a monk in that monastery; but hearing that Cashel was enduring sundry molestations and the worst horrors of witchcraft, I turned aside to place my experience in such matters at your lordship’s disposal. In what way are you troubled here in Cashel? Is it by wily imps te
asing the besotted natives or have strange and terrible happenings come about through the detestable workings of a witch? Tell me all. Do not fear that your lordship will alarm me. I am hardened by many a fight with the Evil One and by many a lonely midnight prayer.”
“I am walking over to the King’s House,” said the Bishop. “If you will accompany me, I shall relate to you the story of our afflictions.”
They passed out through the bronze doors, out into the pleasant sunlight. As they walked down the hill towards the litter of huts, groups of townspeople, when they saw the Bishop, removed their hats and even fell on their knees, while little children ceased their play and crept out of sight.
“You must know,” began Bishop Flanagan, “that our minds have recently been exercised by certain untoward happenings which gave rise to the conviction that there were sorcerers in the neighbourhood. For many nights King Cormac Silkenbeard had been deprived of his rest by the hideous caterwauling of a platoon of cats, who mustered on the roofs surrounding the royal dwelling, and there raised a clamour so uncouth and deformed that it was speedily doubted whether their behaviour did not proceed from the operation of a powerful spell. On the fourth night, King Cormac told me, he had drunken deeply of brown ale in an endeavour to forget his cares; and, enraged by the persistence of the persecution to which he was being subjected, he seized his sword and rushed out into the garden in his night attire. To his horror he beheld several felines engaged in what appeared to be animated conversation, while on the wall sat a brindled tom of monstrous size with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs, who grinned sarcastically at the King and waved his paw in derision. There could be no further doubt but that these were enchanted cats; and on my advice, two conjurors and a ventriloquist who had come to the town for the annual fair, were immediately seized. As they persisted obstinately in denial, they were put to the question.”