When Neil A-Mughan Was Tuk
WE had been in the middle of our story-tellin’, with all our seats drawn close together round Shemishin’s big hearth fire. The storm of rain and sleet without gave us no bother, only made us enjoy the comfort of the big fire, and the great stories, far more keenly. But in the middle of an excitin’ story of Paudeen Mor’s—a fearful adventure of his in the wilds of Georgia, when he was carrying the pack there, the latch rattled, and the door burst open, and into the middle of the floor stepped a man, with a scared look on his face, and out of whose clinging clothes, streams of water were running, and pouring over the floor. The wet hair came down his brows and fell in wet tongues, and streams were running from it. His hat leaf drooped over all like a limp rag.
“God bliss all here!” he said.
“And yerself likewise,” we said, when we got our breaths.
“Thank God!” said he from his heart. “It’s me is the glad man to get a Christian roof over me head. I’ve been tuk.”
“What? By the fairies? On such a night?”
“The fairies,” Shemishin said, rebuking us, “wouldn’t take any Christun on such a night.”
“They wouldn’t,” said the stranger, “and didn’t. I was tuk by Willie-the-Wisp.”
“God help ye, poor man,” Shemishin said, “ye had a narrow escape.” And, “God help ye, poor man,” we all said, and made room for him amongst us.
“I’m Neil a-Mughan of Tievahurkey,” said he. “I was comin’ from Donegal where I was in payin’ the rent to Misther Martin. It was mortial dark an’ I feared I’d lose me way. Two mile back I seen the light in from me, an’ I dhrew on it thinkin’ of course it was a house. An’ as I stumbled on, it seemed farther and farther away. I was gettin’ deeper in the mire at every step I tuk, but I sthruggled on for the dear life to reach that light. I darsay it tuk me a long mile, among such marshes and bog-holes that only God willed it, and I had some poor body’s prayer about me, I couldn’t have escaped with the life. Three times runnin’ I was steppin’ intil a bog-hole when somethin’ (I thought) toul’ me not to lay down me foot—I held it back, and looked, and the black bottomless wather lay right at me toe—”
“Musha, God was by ye.”
“He was. Thanks be till Him, this night.”—
“Amen! Amen!”
“Well, when I’d gone the full mile, an’ seen I was only gettin’ more hopelesser into the bog, it sthruck me like a flash that it was no other nor Willie-the-Wisp, and all at wanst, I seen how I’d been deluded and a’most lost. But there I was in the middle of a black threacherous bog in a night as sleety and wet as sorra, and as dark as the inside of a cow, an’ where the next step might mean death. I turned, as nearly as I could think, in the same direction I had come—an’ yous may take my word for it that I was prayin’ faster nor I was used to. If I have any idea of time that’s two solid hours ago—and here I am now! This is the first sign of Christianity I’ve seen. How I got out of the bog is more nor I can tell meself—only I know God (praise be till Him!) was guidin’ me steps.”
Poor Norah, when she recovered sufficiently from the shock of both the stranger’s appearance, and his story, warmed him a skillet of milk, and literally insisted on pouring it down the poor fellow’s throat when it must have felt like so much molten lead. But Norah would hear of no remonstrance, and Shemishin, equally well-intentioned, stood by and held the victim.
Neil a-Mughan survived. Then Norah turned Patrick Burns’s only sons Charlie and Ned out of the chimney-corner in which they squatted, and stuck Neil into it—“till the hait gets in about yer heart,” she said, “and dhrives all the sleet out of yer bones.” She put on what she called “a pitcher of tay,” for him, then buttered several large fadges of oaten bread, and boiled four eggs hard, and gave all to him in the corner.
Neil felt a new man as he got around these; and by sympathy our spirits got higher, too, and we felt in the mood to hear Shemishin (than whom there were few better fitted to do it) give us the story of Willie-the-Wisp, and the reason for his wanderings, and his evil tricks upon travellers:—
In the grand old times, long, long ago, there was wanst a blacksmith, and his name was Willie—and he was notorious over all Ireland for the dhrinkin’ sportin’ way he spent all of his life—and it was often and often prophesied for him that he’d never come till a good ending. He had come of good family, and besides his thrade—which was in them days, a profession for a gentleman—his people had left to him great properties both in houses and in lands. But all these properties Willie very soon dhrunk and sported away,—and all melted like snow in summer. When it come to that he had only his trade, Willie had purty hard times of it; for he didn’t want to work, and he didn’t care to starve,—and he found it purtikilarly hard to have no money to sport and spend, as he was used to do. He worked as little as he could, but he wanted as much as ever; so things went on from bad to worse, and his chances of thrade even was laivin’ him, for no man could be sartin whether he’d oblige them or refuse them (accordingly as the mood was on him) when they’d bring a horse to shoe, or a plough to mend. And at long and at last wan mornin’ that he had got no breakfast, bekase he had neither money nor means, he was standin’ leanin’ against his own forge doore, with his heart in his boots, when what should come up the road but a poor miserable lookin’ old fella with a pair of broken pot-hooks in his hand and, “Good man,” says he to Willie, “would ye mind doin’ a little job for me, and mendin’ these pot-hooks?” Willie was in ill-humour for workin’; but with all his faults he had always a soft spot for the poor somewhere or other in his heart. So when he looks at the little ragged man and his broken pot-hooks for a minute, he says, “Step inside,” an’ takin’ the pieces out of the old man’s hand, he blew up the fire, an’ very soon made the pot-hooks all right again. “How much for that?” says the wee old man. But Willie was mad with him for mentionin’ a charge. “Well thanky, thanky,” says the wee fella, “It’s little money I’d have to offer ye anyhow. But since ye are so kind-hearted I’ll not laive ye without givin’ ye some reward. Ax me,” says he, “for any three requests ye like—barrin’ money or money’s worth, an’ I’ll give them to ye.” Willie at wanst seen that he was dailin’ with a fairy. “Well,” says Willie, “there’s a lot of lazy loungers comes about me house an’ forge, an’ annoy me tarribly throwin’ me sledge, an’ sittin’ themselves down in me armchair, an’ sometimes even bein’ so dishonest as to pick the very money out of me purse—when there’s any in it. So I wish,” says Willie, “first that anywan ever takes up that sledge cannot laive it down again without I let them; and I wish anywan sits down in my armchair mayn’t be able to rise from it, till I allow them; and I wish that once a piece of money goes into my purse, it can’t get out again till I take it out.” “Yer wishes is granted, Willie,” says the wee old man, “an’ I’m sorry ye didn’t wish for health, happiness, and Heaven,” and he went away.
Then Willie was standin’ leanin’ in his forge-doore again ruminatin’ over it all, and feelin’ far more down-hearted than afore, when all at wanst he hears the noise of hoofs, and up there rides a grand gentleman entirely mounted on a great black charger. And “Helloa, Willie,” says he, “what are ye so down in the mouth about this mornin’? Ye look as lorn as a March graveyard.” “Small wonder I would,” says Willie, says he. “And if you had the same raison it’s not such a spruce jaunty lookin’ gentleman you’d be this mornin’.” “I’m mortial sorry for ye Willie,” says the gentleman, “Can I help ye?” “I dar’say ye could; but I don’t expect ye would,” says Willie. “Don’t be so sartin of that,” says the gentleman—“What is it ye need?” “Money,” says Willie, “an’ plenty of it.” “How much of it?” says the gentleman. “Och, a roomful,” says Willie that way, careless. “Well, a roomful,” says the gentleman, says he, “you’ll have,—on wan condition.” “And what is the condition?” says Willie, says he, brightenin’ up. “It’s this,” says the gentleman, “that you’ll consent to give yerself to me and come with me in seven years and a day from now.” At this Willie’s eye went down and caught sight of one of the gentleman’s feet an’ he seen it was cloven. “Phew!” says Willie, says he, “is that how the hare sits?” “It’s a grand offer,” says the gentleman. “Just this minute ye were plannin’ how ye’d do away with yerself. It’s cowl’ comfort to go out of the wurrl’ on a hungry belly. Here ye have the offer of a roomful of money, an’ a whole year to spend and sport it. Think of all the fun ye’d get out of a roomful of money in twelvemonths and a day!” “Thrue for ye,” says Willie: “it’s a bargain.”