The Devil is an Irishman

by Eddie Lenihan

  The priest sounded baffled, as if the very notion of what Jack had done was beyond imagining.

  ‘I do, Father, but he’s gone now, an’ not a bit o’ harm done. Far from it, in fact.’

  He levered himself off the wall.

  ‘Come on up to the house. I have something to tell you an’ show you, too.’ However grumpily, the priest followed him in, and within ten minutes whatever book-objections had been bothering him were being soothed away by a third glass of brandy.

  ‘Now, Father,’ said Jack, all respect, when he saw the annoyance ebbing out of the other’s countenance as the liquor ebbed in, ‘you were telling us off the altar two Sundays ago about the gable wall o’ the church, weren’t you? ’Tisn’t solid, you were saying. A fair bit o’ work to be done on it.’

  The priest nodded, unwilling to trust himself to words.

  ‘Well, you’ll have the devil’s own work getting the money for that out o’ the parish with times as bad as they are.’

  The priest’s face fell. He nodded again and his shoulders drooped.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind taking a suggestion from a plain man like myself, I might be able to help you there.’

  His reverence was interested now. He straightened in the chair. ‘How so?’

  ‘’Tis like this.’ Jack delicately searched for the correct words, eyeing Máire. ‘We’d be prepared to make a ... donation ... of whatever money the job costs ...’

  The priest’s mouth seemed to have taken on a life of its own; it opened in a series of little clicks, wider and wider.

  ‘... that is, if the thing below in the tree was ... ah ... forgotten about – after the place was blessed, o’ course,’ he added hurriedly.

  Silence a moment. The priest’s mouth closed, then smiled.

  ‘The thing below in the tree? What thing? What tree? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

  Jack smiled in return, and Máire. The bottle did its duty once again. And so the matter was settled.

  ‘But first things first.’ Jack rose. ‘Maybe you’d need a few pounds in advance. To get the thing started, you know.’

  The parish priest was so fuddled by this avalanche of good news that he could only shrug.

  ‘Would you prefer it in sovereigns or notes?’

  ‘Whatever is handiest to yourself,’ the good man smiled. He was happy to be spared the sordid details of such trans-actions. Filthy lucre, after all, though sadly necessary, soiled the hands, left a sour tang where ideally the taste of sweetness should be.

  Jack stepped into the bedroom and reappeared a moment later with a small wooden chest, held lovingly. He placed it on the table and nodded to Máire. She unclasped from her neck a gold chain on which a key hung, fitted the key to the chest, and there opened to the priest’s eyes a sight to restore health to a sick man: a heap of bright coins, golden every last one. He reached out, touched them with trembling fingers, then caught himself. Avarice, greed, lust and the names of several other sins danced before his mind’s eyes, but he quashed them manfully. ‘The Lord’s work comes first,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’s that, Father?’ Jack had half heard his words.

  ‘Nothing. I was just saying to myself how the Lord works in strange ways.’

  Jack was in full agreement. ‘He does, indeed.’

  Two fistfuls of sovereigns were soon jingling their way to the presbytery in the priest’s pockets, with a promise of more to follow, and thus it was that the Devil’s work repaired God’s house, idle gossip was stilled, news of the strange apparition never spread beyond the parish bounds, and Jack and Máire continued to live as before, healthy, happy and charitable almost to a fault.

  The years passed, as pass they tend to do, but there were three routines that Jack never allowed to vary: care for his old chair, the tending of the apple tree and the weekly examination of Máire’s odds-and-ends bag in the wardrobe, which included renewing the mothballs whenever necessary.

  Ten years galloped by. Eleven. Twelve. The thirteenth was no different. Nor the fourteenth. That summer they both took to the West Clare Railway and visited Kilkee for the first time, and marvelled at how the idle rich spent their leisure hours. It would provide them with stories enough for the filling of many a dark winter night, Jack confidently expected.

  But before winter comes September. There is no evading that simple fact. Nor was Jack seeking to escape it, though he willingly enough put it from his mind whenever it became too insistent.

  Their fateful day approached and they both waited wordlessly for what they knew must be: he would come. And he was sure to be very, very angry.

  ‘I wouldn’t blame him,’ Jack nodded as they huddled at breakfast that morning. ‘I think I’d feel the same way myself if I got the treatment that misfortune got.’

  Máire almost laughed to hear this, but did not ask the question it begged.

  ‘Men!’ was all she said, and that to the silence in her own head.

  At that moment – ‘Thud! Thud! Thump!’ – a sound they knew only too well filled the house. Their visitor was at the door, and this time he did not wait for it to be opened. With a crash and an unseemly yelp of glee he was in the room and leaped onto the table, scattering food and crockery. The teapot barely missed scalding Máire and she staggered back, almost tripping over her skirt. She was back in an instant, like a tigress, her voice fiery.

  ‘Have you any manners at all, or what kind of a father an’ mother reared you, you dirty bodach? If I had you here one week I’d teach you to know your place, you cníopaire.’

  Once started, there was no stopping her, and even the Devil clapped his hands to his ears at last. Jack saw his chance, leaned across and touched a hairy arm. The Old One leaped.

  ‘Surely ’tisn’t nervous you are.’ Jack was truly concerned.

  ‘Tell her to shut up, will you? She’ll drive us mad!’

  ‘So, ’tis “us” now, eh?’ thought Jack. ‘There might be hope for me yet if I play this right.’

  He turned to Máire and tapped a finger urgently several times to his lips.

  ‘Shhh! That’s enough said. We know what you mean, all right, now.’

  She stopped in mid-tirade, amazed at the ‘we’.

  ‘Men,’ she said again, this time aloud, and barged off, breathing heavily.

  ‘You’ll excuse her, I hope,’ Jack pleaded. ‘She isn’t feeling herself these last couple o’ days. We were expecting you sooner, you see. You kind o’ surprised her, I think. But don’t mind that now. I know why you’re here, an’ if you’ll gimme one minute I’ll just get my bag o’ belongings – a few little things I might need, you know – an’ I’ll be with you.’

  So surprised was the Devil by this odd contrast that though he looked Jack up and down suspiciously he made no objection to the request. And when Jack returned moments later, the bag tucked neatly under his oxter, there was no question, for Máire and the Devil were locked in a long stare. In fact it was Jack who had to pull him away.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting your family. An’ I’m sure they’re anxious to meet me too.’

  A spell seemed to have been broken, for the Devil now locked on him directly, eye to eye, all his old fire back once more. He smiled, showing his yellow merciless teeth.

  ‘I was inclined to forget, so I was. They’re anxious to meet you, indeed – every one of ’em with a red-hot poker in his fist an’ only waiting the command from me to stick it you-know-where.’

  He clapped an iron grip on Jack, who now began to hope he had not said too much. Better to keep thinking positively, though, he told himself.

  ‘We might as well be on our road, so,’ and with one last ‘Good luck. Pray for me’ to Máire he set off under close escort, stepping out briskly, as if to Mass.

  FOR OVER AN HOUR neither of them spoke. Then Jack asked permission for a short rest.

  ‘No.’

  As brief as that, and as final.

  They walked on a
nd still no let-up.

  ‘My feet are all skinned. Stop, can’t you, until I take off my socks?’

  ‘No.’

  Midday passed and Jack began to labour. The years of good feeding were now beginning to tell.

  ‘I can’t go any farther,’ he wheezed. ‘I’ll have to stop or I’ll get a heart-attack.’

  The Devil chuckled at this notion.

  ‘Why don’t you?’ he replied. ‘It’d make my job a lot easier.’

  Since it was obvious there was no respect here for age, or weight, a different approach was called for. Jack began to pray aloud. Slowly and deliberately, in the most pious voice he could summon. He had spoken only a few words when he was elbowed sharply in the ribs.

  ‘Shut your mouth. I hate that kind o’ dirty language.’

  The Devil was genuinely angry. But Jack only raised his face, threw his eyes up to the heavens and prayed as if his whole future depended on it – which it did.

  After several minutes of heavy breathing the Devil jammed his fingers in his ears, gave Jack a vicious kick in the shin and shouted: ‘Any more of it, now, an’ I’ll throttle you where you stand. Not another step will you go, d’you hear?’

  Jack stopped and glared at him.

  ‘If you don’t let me stop for a rest, ’tis worse I’ll be getting. I can tell you that. You haven’t a notion of all the prayers my mother taught me when I was a child. An’ I remember every one of ’em.’

  He burst into another blast of benediction and at that the Devil laid a trembling hand on his shoulder.

  ‘All right,’ he snarled. ‘We’ll take a minute’s rest here. But only as long as you shut your mouth an’ keep that dirty ráiméis to yourself.’

  ‘Now, now!’ Jack cautioned. ‘That’s no way to talk about holy words.’ But he took the matter no further, and so they sat, Jack on a large stone, the Devil under a bush a few feet away, glowering and cursing under his breath.

  ‘Ahhh!’ Jack’s sigh of relief was genuine enough. But though his feet were killing him and he was out of breath, his mind was whirling. And he knew precisely what he had to do next.

  As if he were quite alone he began to unfold Máire’s bag lovingly, shaking his head, smiling.

  ‘What’s that you’re doing?’ barked the Dark One.

  Jack ignored that. Instead he enquired pleasantly: ‘Tell me, did you ever play any games when you were a young lad?’

  ‘What d’you mean “young lad”? What are you talking about, “games”?’

  ‘Are you telling me you never played games, or that you were never young?’

  ‘I know nothing about foolery like that,’ hissed the Devil. ‘You’re annoying my ears, so shut up.’

  ‘Hold on now a minute until I explain something to you, boyo. ’Tis little about civilised living you know, by the looks of it. But I’m the man that might educate you if you’re able to listen. Now, when I was a young fellow we used to play a game called “Jump the Bag” ...’

  ‘I’m not interested,’ interrupted the Devil. ‘Stupid name, stupid game.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to tell you about it, anyway. Sure, while we’re here we might as well be doing something more than looking at each other – or d’you want me to start the prayers again?’

  Since there was no response to this he shook out the bag, held it up at arms’ length before him, open, and said, ‘Ah, I’m not able to do it now, but when I was young an’ supple – like you are now, God bless you –’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ roared the Devil. ‘I hate the mention of that fellow’s name.’

  ‘All right! All right!’ Jack answered soothingly. ‘You’re very touchy, aren’t you? But don’t mind that. Look! As I was saying, when I was young we used to play this game, an’ all you had to do was jump into the bag, jump out o’ the bag, an’ keep that up for as long as you were able – all the time holding the bag at the length o’ your arms in front o’ you. Not as easy as it might seem.’

  ‘A stupid game for stupid fools,’ was the Devil’s only reply, but Jack could see that there was a flicker of interest there.

  ‘Is that so?’ he sneered. ‘Easy to say that, but could you do it yourself?’ He guessed that the Devil’s vanity might get the better of him, and he was correct: the Old One did not take kindly to being told what he could or could not do.

  ‘What is it you’re babbling about, boy? Gimme that rag of a bag, an’ I’ll show you something.’

  He snatched the bag, held it out at arms’ length, then leaped nimbly into it. It came up to his chest.

  ‘What about that? Hah!’ he laughed scornfully. Jack laughed too.

  ‘Ah, that’s the easy bit. But jump out now as fast.’

  He did so.

  ‘Very good. Only how many times can you do it in a minute? That’ll be the test. I could do it forty-three times a minute when I was about your age.’

  The Devil began a frenzied leaping in and out, urged on – ‘Faster! Faster!’ – by Jack. If any passers-by had seen him there they would have said he was surely an escapee from the madhouse.

  But Jack, though he was enjoying the sight of the Devil making an idiot of himself, was watching carefully his every move, awaiting his opportunity. It came when he noticed the Devil’s tongue appearing at the corner of his mouth. He was beginning to tire, no doubt of that. Carefully selecting his moment, when the Old One was disappearing into the bag, Jack put out his foot, tripped him, and he fell heavily, still trying to hold up the top of the sack.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ cried Jack, all helpfulness, ‘are you hurt? Here, let go an’ I’ll hold this for you while you’re getting up.’

  So saying, he snatched the two top corners of the bag, twisted them into a solid knot, doubled it and tied it tighter again with a length of twine which, by the grace of God, just happened to be in his pocket.

  ‘There you are inside now,’ he whooped, ‘an’ ’tis there you’ll stay until you promise to go away back to Hell an’ bother the two of us no more.’

  The Devil was having none of this. With a shriek of fury, he attacked the bag, tried to burn, eat and kick his way out of it. But all in vain. Even his power was useless against that wondrous material.

  All Jack did was to heave the bag over his shoulder and take to the road, with the Devil kicking inside it like a calf. But Jack never felt a thing; he had a fine layer of fat to protect him after twenty-eight years of leisure and good feeding.

  Whistling as he went, he kept walking until he came to a mill. There was no sign of activity, but he went to the door and knocked. The miller came out.

  ‘God bless you, sir,’ smiled Jack, using his most ingratiating tone of voice. ‘I have a small little bag of oats here, an’ I’d appreciate it if you’d grind it for me.’

  The miller looked him up and down doubtfully.

  ‘Please, sir. I have a young family at home an’ my poor wife can hardly keep ’em fed. I’d be thankful to you forever if you’d oblige me – ’

  ‘Look, I don’t do small quantities like that – not worth my while.’

  ‘Oh, please do, sir. Just this one time. Please! I’m begging you, an’ ’tisn’t often I beg.’

  Jack felt himself warming to his task, and raised his voice.

  ‘For the sake o’ the poor little orphans, sir.’

  The miller put his fingers in his ears, obviously disgusted.

  ‘All right! Just shut your mouth an’ I’ll see what I can do.’

  Sulkily, he beckoned Jack in.

  ‘But you’ll have to do the job yourself. I was just goin’ for my dinner, an’ I’m still goin’.’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ said Jack. ‘I’d hate to keep any man from the table. Only show me where the millstones are, an’ I’ll see to it.’

  That was done, and in the room where the great round stones were about their endless circling Jack looked around him, full of admiration.

  ‘This is a fine place an’ no doubt about it,’ he nodded to the miller approvingly. ‘
But, look, I know what to do. Go on an’ eat your dinner for yourself. An’ thanks.’

  The miller plodded off, and Jack went at once about his business. He swung the sack onto the floor and without ceremony asked one brief question: ‘Will you go away an’ leave us alone, an’ not come back no more?’

  His answer was a well-known phrase, one of its two words containing four letters, Jack sighed, but said no more, only pushed the bag onto the flat stone and waited for the inevitable, a look of pain on his face. In a few seconds the two great stones were drawing the bag inexorably in, inch by inch. For a moment there was a startled silence, then a yell, followed by a shriek as first one leg, then the other, was crushed. The huge stones never faltered, only ate up the bag, until they came to the Devil’s head. That was a nut too hard to crack. In fact it was the vertical stone that cracked, from top to bottom. But Jack had little time either to gloat or wonder; the miller was back now, spluttering his dinner to every side of him in rage. His roars could be heard in the next parish as he shook the floor in his fury.

  ‘God’s curse on you! My new millstone is destroyed, the one that came from France only last month. I’ll kill you for this! Stand there until I get the hatchet, you low sleeveen.’

  He thundered off, intent on bodily harm, but Jack had no intention of waiting to be chopped into small pieces. He snatched up the bag, legged it out the door, and no fear that the miller caught up with him, either; amazing what a turn of speed even the old or overweight can discover in the face of the threat of a blunt instrument, or one with an edge.

  After half a mile of road he had to stop, exhausted. He held out the sack and shook it.

  ‘Hi! Are you still in one piece in there, poor man?’

  A weak groan was all the answer he got.

  ‘Good. You’re alive, anyway. Now, ’tis time to talk serious business again. I’ll ask you what I asked you before: if I let you out, will you promise to go away once an’ for all, an’ not bother us again, ever?’

  ‘I won’t,’ croaked the Devil. ‘But what I will do is kill you slowly – roast you – when I get you home. You’ll be three hundred years dying.’