Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories. William Carleton

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СКАЧАТЬ often failed him to procure the breeches. In fact, it was a misfortune to him that he was the Son of his father and mother at all. Had he been a second Melchizedec, and got into breeches in time, the virtues which circumstances suppressed in his heart might have flourished like cauliflowers, though the world would have lost all the advantages arising from the splendor of his talents at going naked.

      Another fact, in justice to his character, must not be omitted. His penchant for fruit was generally known; but few persons, at the period we are describing, were at all aware that a love of whiskey lurked as a predominant trait in his character, to be brought out at a future era in his life.

      Before Phelim reached his tenth year, he and his parents had commenced hostilities. Many were their efforts to subdue some peculiarities of his temper which then began to appear. Phelim, however, being an only son, possessed high vantage ground. Along with other small matters which he was in the habit of picking up, might be reckoned a readiness at swearing. Several other things also made their appearance in his parents' cottage, for whose presence there, except through his instrumentality, they found it rather difficult to account. Spades, shovels, rakes, tubs, frying-pans, and many other-articles of domestic use, were transferred, as if by magic, to Larry's cabin.

      As Larry and his wife were both honest, these things were, of course, restored to their owners, the moment they could be ascertained. Still, although this honest couple's integrity was known, there were many significant looks turned upon Phelim, and many spirited prophecies uttered with especial reference to him, all of which hinted at the probability of his dying something in the shape of a perpendicular death. This habit, then, of adding to their furniture, was one cause of the hostility between him and his parents; we say one, for there were at least, a good round dozen besides. His touch, for instance, was fatal to crockery; he stripped his father's Sunday clothes of their buttons, with great secrecy and skill; he was a dead shot at the panes of his neighbors' windows; a perfect necromancer at sucking eggs through pin-holes; took great delight in calling home the neighboring farmers' workingmen to dinner an hour before it was ready; and was in fact a perfect master in many other ingenious manifestations of character, ere he reached his twelfth year.

      Now, it was about this period that the small-pox made its appearance in the village. Indescribable was the dismay of Phelim's parents, lest he among others might become a victim to it. Vaccination, had not then surmounted the prejudices with which every discovery beneficial to mankind is at first met; and the people were left principally to the imposture of quacks, or the cunning of certain persons called “fairy men” or “sonsie women.” Nothing remained now but that this formidable disease should be met by all the power and resources of superstition. The first thing the mother did was to get a gospel consecrated by the priest, for the purpose of guarding Phelim against evil. What is termed a Gospel, and worn as a kind of charm about the person, is simply a slip of paper, on which are written by the priest the few first verses of the Gospel of St. John. This, however, being worn for no specific purpose, was incapable of satisfying the honest woman. Superstition had its own peculiar remedy for the small-pox, and Sheelah was resolved to apply it. Accordingly she borrowed a neighbor's ass, drove it home with Phelim, however, on its back, took the interesting youth by the nape of the neck, and, in the name of the Trinity, shoved him three times under it, and three times over it. She then put a bit of bread into its mouth, until the ass had mumbled it a little, after which she gave the savory morsel to Phelim, as a bonne bouche. This was one preventive against the small-pox; but another was to be tried.

      She next clipped off the extremities of Phelim's elf locks, tied them in linen that was never bleached, and hung them beside the Gospel about his neck. This was her second cure; but there was still a third to be applied. She got the largest onion possible, which, having cut into nine parts, she hung from the roof tree of the cabin, having first put the separated parts together. It is supposed that this has the power of drawing infection of any kind to itself. It is permitted to remain untouched, until the disease has passed from the neighborhood, when it is buried as far down in the earth as a single man can dig. This was a third cure; but there was still a fourth. She borrowed ten asses' halters from her neighbors, who, on hearing that they were for Phelim's use, felt particular pleasure in obliging her. Having procured these, she pointed them one by one at Phelim's neck, until the number nine was completed. The tenth, she put on him, and with the end of it in her hand, led him like an ass, nine mornings, before sunrise, to a south-running stream, which he was obliged to cross. On doing this, two conditions were to be fulfilled on the part of Phelim; he was bound, in the first place, to keep his mouth filled, during the ceremony, with a certain fluid which must be nameless: in the next, to be silent from the moment he left home until his return.

      Sheelah having satisfied herself that everything calculated to save her darling from the small-pox was done, felt considerably relieved, and hoped that whoever might be infected, Phelim would escape. On the morning when the last journey to the river had been completed, she despatched him home with the halters. Phelim, however, wended his way to a little hazel copse, below the house, where he deliberately twined the halters together, and erected a swing-swang, with which he amused himself till hunger brought him to his dinner.

      “Phelim, you idle thief, what kep you away till now?”

      “Oh; mudher, mudher, gi' me a piece o' arran? (* bread.)

      “Why, here's the praties done for your dinner. What kep you?”

      “Oh, be gorra, it's well you ever seen me at all, so it is!”

      “Why,” said his father, “what happened you?”

      “Oh, bedad, a terrible thing all out. As I was crassin' Dunroe Hill, I thramped on hungry grass. First, I didn't know what kem over me, I got so wake; an' every step I wint, 'twas waker an' waker I was growin', till at long last, down I dhrops, an' couldn't move hand or fut. I dunna how long I lay there, so I don't; but anyhow, who should be sthreelin' acrass the hill, but an old baccagh.

      “'My bouchaleen dhas,' says he—'my beautiful boy,' says he—'you're in a bad state I find. You've thramped upon Dunroe hungry grass, an' only for somethin' it's a prabeen you'd be, afore ever you'd see home. Can you spake at all?' says he.

      “'Oh, murdher,' says I,' I b'lieve not.'

      “'Well here,' says the baccagh, 'open your purty gub, an' take in a thrifle of this male, an' you'll soon be stout enough.' Well, to be sure, it bates the world! I had hardly tasted the male, whin I found myself as well as ever; bekase you know, mudher, that's the cure for it. 'Now,' says the baccagh, 'this is the spot the fairies planted their hungry grass, an' so you'll know it agin when you see it. What's your name?' says he.

      “'Phelim O'Toole,' says I.

      “'Well,' says he, 'go home an' tell your father an' mother to offer up a prayer to St. Phelim, your namesake, in regard that only for him you'd be a corp before any relief would a come near you; or, at any rate, wid the fairies.'”

      The father and mother, although with a thousand proofs before them that Phelim, so long as he could at all contrive a lie, would never speak truth, yet were so blind to his well-known propensity, that they always believed the lie to be truth, until they discovered it to be a falsehood. When he related a story, for instance, which carried not only improbability, but impossibility on the face of it, they never questioned his veracity. The neighbors, to be sure, were vexed and nettled at the obstinacy of their credulity; especially on reflecting that they were as sceptical in giving credence to the narrative of any other person, as all rational people ought to be. The manner of training up Phelim, and Phelim's method of governing them, had become a by-word in the village. “Take a sthraw to him, like Sheelah O'Toole,” was often ironically said to mothers remarkable for mischievous indulgence to their children.

      The following day proved that no charm СКАЧАТЬ