Larry Cotter had a farm on one side of Lough Gur,[17] and was thriving in it, for he was an industrious proper sort of man, who would have lived quietly and soberly to the end of his days, but for the misfortune that came upon him, and you shall hear how that was. He had as nice a bit of meadow-land, down by the water-side, as ever a man would wish for; but its growth was spoiled entirely on him, and no one could tell how.
One year after the other it was all ruined just in the same way: the bounds were well made up, and not a stone of them was disturbed; neither could his neighbours’ cattle have been guilty of the trespass, for they were spancelled;[18] but however it was done, the grass of the meadow was destroyed, which was a great loss to Larry.
“What in the wide world will I do?” said Larry Cotter to his neighbour, Tom Welsh, who was a very decent sort of man himself: “that bit of meadow-land, which I am paying the great rent for, is doing nothing at all to make it for me; and the times are bitter bad, without the help of that to make them worse.”
“’Tis true for you, Larry,” replied Welsh: “the times are bitter bad—no doubt of that; but may be if you were to watch by night, you might make out all about it: sure there’s Mick and Terry, my two boys, will watch with you; for ’tis a thousand pities any honest man like you should be ruined in such a scheming way.”
Accordingly, the following night, Larry Cotter, with Welsh’s two sons, took their station in a corner of the meadow. It was just at the full of the moon, which was shining beautifully down upon the lake, that was as calm all over as the sky itself; not a cloud was there to be seen any where, nor a sound to be heard, but the cry of the corn-creaks answering one another across the water.
“Boys! boys!” said Larry, “look there! look there! but for your lives don’t make a bit of noise, nor stir a step till I say the word.”
They looked, and saw a great fat cow, followed by seven milk-white heifers, moving on the smooth surface of the lake towards the meadow.
“’Tis not Tim Dwyer the piper’s cow, any way, that danced all the flesh off her bones,” whispered Mick to his brother.
“Now boys!” said Larry Cotter, when he saw the fine cow and her seven white heifers fairly in the meadow, “get between them and the lake if you can, and, no matter who they belong to, we’ll just put them into the pound.”
But the cow must have overheard Larry speaking, for down she went in a great hurry to the shore of the lake, and into it with her, before all their eyes: away made the seven heifers after her, but the boys got down to the bank before them, and work enough they had to drive them up from the lake to Larry Cotter.
Larry drove the seven heifers, and beautiful beasts they were, to the pound: but after he had them there for three days, and could hear of no owner, he took them out, and put them up in a field of his own. There he kept them, and they were thriving mighty well with him, until one night the gate of the field was left open, and in the morning the seven heifers were gone. Larry could not get any account of them after; and, beyond all doubt, it was back into the lake they went. Wherever they came from, or to whatever world they belonged, Larry Cotter never had a crop of grass off the meadow through their means. So he took to drink, fairly out of the grief; and it was the drink that killed him, they say.
In the west of Ireland there was a lake, and no doubt it is there still, in which many young men had been at various times drowned. What made the circumstance remarkable was, that the bodies of the drowned persons were never found. People naturally wondered at this: and at length the lake came to have a bad repute. Many dreadful stories were told about that lake; some would affirm, that on a dark night its waters appeared like fire—others would speak of horrid forms which were seen to glide over it; and every one agreed that a strange sulphureous smell issued from out of it.
There lived, not far distant from this lake a young farmer, named Roderick Keating, who was about to be married to one of the prettiest girls in that part of the country. On his return from Limerick, where he had been to purchase the wedding-ring, he came up with two or three of his acquaintance, who were standing on the shore, and they began to joke with him about Peggy Honan. One said that young Delaney, his rival, had in his absence contrived to win the affection of his mistress:—but Roderick’s confidence in his intended bride was too great to be disturbed at this tale, and putting his hand in his pocket, he produced and held up with a significant look the wedding-ring. As he was turning it between his fore-finger and thumb, in token of triumph, somehow or other the ring fell from his hand, and rolled into the lake: Roderick looked after it with the greatest sorrow; it was not so much for its value, though it had cost him half-a-guinea, as for the ill-luck of the thing; and the water was so deep, that there was little chance of recovering it. His companions laughed at him, and he in vain endeavoured to tempt any of them by the offer of a handsome reward to dive after the ring: they were all as little inclined to venture as Roderick Keating himself; for the tales which they had heard when children were strongly impressed on their memories, and a superstitious dread filled the mind of each.
“Must I then go back to Limerick to buy another ring?” exclaimed the young farmer. “Will not ten times what the ring cost tempt any one of you to venture after it?”
There was within hearing a man who was considered to be a poor, crazy, half-witted fellow, but he was as harmless as a child, and used to go wandering up and down through the country from one place to another. When he heard of so great a reward, Paddeen, for that was his name, spoke out, and said, that if Roderick Keating would give him encouragement equal to what he had offered to others, he was ready to venture after the ring into the lake; and Paddeen, all the while he spoke, looked as covetous after the sport as the money.
“I’ll take you at your word,” said Keating. So Paddeen pulled off his coat, and without a single syllable more, down he plunged, head foremost, into the lake: what depth he went to, no one can tell exactly; but he was going, going, going down through the water, until the water parted from him, and he came upon the dry land; the sky, and the light, and every thing, was there just as it is here; and he saw fine pleasure-grounds, with an elegant avenue through them, and a grand house, with a power of steps going up to the door. When he had recovered from his wonder at finding the land so dry and comfortable under the water, he looked about him, and what should he see but all the young men that were drowned working away in the pleasure-grounds as if nothing had ever happened to them! Some of them were mowing down the grass, and more were settling out the gravel walks, and doing all manner of nice work, as neat and as clever as if they had never been drowned; and they were singing away with high glee:—
Well, Paddeen could not but look at the young men, for he knew some of them before they were lost in the lake; but he said nothing, though he thought a great deal more for all that, like an oyster:—no, not the wind of a word passed his lips; so on he went towards the big house, bold enough, as if he had seen nothing to speak of; yet all the time mightily wishing to know who the young woman could be that the young men were singing the song about.
When he had nearly reached the door of the great house, out walks from the kitchen a powerful fat woman, moving along like a beer-barrel on two legs, with teeth as big as horses’ teeth, and up she made towards him.
“Good morrow, Paddeen,” said she.
“Good morrow, Ma’am,” said he.
“What brought you here?” said she.
“’Tis after Rory Keating’s gold ring,” said he, “I’m come.”
“Here it is for you,” said Paddeen’s fat friend, with a smile on her face that moved like boiling stirabout [gruel.]
“Thank you, Ma’am,” replied Paddeen, taking it from her:—“I need not say the Lord increase you, for you’re fat enough already. Will you tell me, if you please, am I to go back the same way I came?”
“Then you did not come to marry me?” cried the corpulent woman in a desperate fury.
“Just wait till I come back again, my darling,” said Paddeen: “I’m to be paid for my message, and I must return with the answer, or else they’ll wonder what has become of me.”
“Never mind the money,” said the fat woman: “if you marry me, you shall live for ever and a day in that house, and want for nothing.”
Paddeen saw clearly that, having got possession of the ring, the fat woman had no power to detain him; so without minding any thing she said, he kept moving and moving down the avenue, quite quietly, and looking about him; for, to tell the truth, he had no particular inclination to marry a fat fairy. When he came to the gate, without ever saying good by, out he bolted, and he found the water coming all about him again. Up he plunged through it, and wonder enough there was, when Paddeen was seen swimming away at the opposite side of the lake; but he soon made the shore, and told Roderick Keating, and the other boys that were standing there looking out for him, all that had happened. Roderick paid him the five guineas for the ring on the spot; and Paddeen thought himself so rich with such a sum of money in his pocket, that he did not go back to marry the fat lady with the fine house at the bottom of the lake, knowing she had plenty of young men to choose a husband from, if she pleased to be married.
In an age so distant that the precise period is unknown, a chieftain named O’Donoghue ruled over the country which surrounds the romantic Lough Lean, now called the lake of Killarney. Wisdom, beneficence, and justice, distinguished his reign, and the prosperity and happiness of his subjects were their natural results. He is said to have been as renowned for his warlike exploits as for his pacific virtues; and as a proof that his domestic administration was not the less rigorous because it was mild, a rocky island is pointed out to strangers, called “O’Donoghue’s Prison,” in which this prince once confined his own son for some act of disorder and disobedience.
His end—for it cannot correctly be called his death—was singular and mysterious. At one of those splendid feasts for which his court was celebrated, surrounded by the most distinguished of his subjects, he was engaged in a prophetic relation of the events which were to happen in ages yet to come. His auditors listened, now wrapt in wonder, now fired with indignation, burning with shame, or melted into sorrow, as he faithfully detailed the heroism, the injuries, the crimes, and the miseries of their descendants. In the midst of his predictions he rose slowly from his seat, advanced with a solemn, measured, and majestic tread to the shore of the lake, and walked forward composedly upon its unyielding surface. When he had nearly reached the centre, he paused for a moment, then turning slowly round, looked towards his friends, and waving his arms to them with the cheerful air of one taking a short farewell, disappeared from their view.
The memory of the good O’Donoghue has been cherished by successive generations with affectionate reverence: and it is believed that at sunrise, on every May-dew morning, the anniversary of his departure, he revisits his ancient domains: a favoured few only are in general permitted to see him, and this distinction is always an omen of good fortune to the beholders: when it is granted to many, it is a sure token of an abundant harvest,—a blessing, the want of which during this prince’s reign was never felt by his people.
Some years have elapsed since the last appearance of O’Donoghue. The April of that year had been remarkably wild and stormy; but on May morning the fury of the elements had altogether subsided. The air was hushed and still; and the sky, which was reflected in the serene lake, resembled a beautiful but deceitful countenance, whose smiles, after the most tempestuous emotions, tempt the stranger to believe that it belongs to a soul which no passion has ever ruffled.
The first beams of the rising sun were just gilding the lofty summit of Glenaa, when the waters near the eastern shores of the lake became suddenly and violently agitated, though all the rest of its surface lay smooth and still as a tomb of polished marble; the next moment a foaming wave darted forward, and, like a proud high-crested war-horse, exulting in his strength, rushed across the lake towards Toomies mountain. Behind this wave appeared a stately warrior fully armed, mounted upon a milk-white steed; his snowy plume waved gracefully from a helmet of polished steel, and at his back fluttered a light blue scarf. The horse, apparently exulting in his noble burden, sprang after the wave along the water, which bore him up like firm earth, while showers of spray that glittered brightly in the morning sun were dashed up at every bound.
The warrior was O’Donoghue; he was followed by numberless youths and maidens who moved lightly and unconstrained over the watery plain, as the moonlight fairies glide through the fields of air: they were linked together by garlands of delicious spring flowers, and they timed their movements to strains of enchanting melody. When O’Donoghue had nearly reached the western side of the lake, he suddenly turned his steed, and directed his course along the wood-fringed shore of Glenaa, preceded by the huge wave that curled and foamed up as high as the horse’s neck, whose fiery nostrils snorted above it. The long train of attendants followed with playful deviations the track of their leader, and moved on with unabated fleetness to their celestial music, till gradually, as they entered the narrow strait between Glenaa and Dinis, they became involved in the mists which still partially floated over the lakes, and faded from the view of the wondering beholders: but the sound of their music still fell upon the ear, and echo, catching up the harmonious strains, fondly repeated and prolonged them in soft and softer tones, till the last faint repetition died away, and the hearers awoke as from a dream of bliss.
LEGENDS OF THE MERROW.
——“The mysterious depths
And wild and wondrous forms of ocean old.”
Mattima’s Conchologist.
On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer’s morning, just at day-break, stood Dick Fitzgerald “shoghing the dudeen,” which may be translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick’s mouth.
“’Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning,” said Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. “Well, to be sure,” continued he, after a pause, “’tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one’s self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer one—nothing but the child of one’s own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune,” said Dick with a melancholy smile, “to have the woman, it would not be this way with me!—and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He’s no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing line without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete—Is it not so?” said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon the strand, which though it could not speak, stood up as firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.
But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it, appeared in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.
Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand, near her; and he had heard that if once he could possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt tears—doubly salt, no doubt, from her—came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driuth, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, ’twas enough to make any one feel let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own.
“Don’t cry, my darling,” said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that.
Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way of comforting her. ’Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck’s foot; but ’twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
“What’s your name, my darling?” says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It’s the universal language; and there’s not a woman in the world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.
The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of her whining all at once—“Man,” says she, looking up in Dick Fitzgerald’s face, “Man, will you eat me?”
“By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee,” cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, “I’d as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?—Now ’twas some ugly ill-looking thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!”
“Man,” said the Merrow, “what will you do with me, if you won’t eat me?”
Dick’s thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse, that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any real woman, he was fairly in love with her. ’Twas the neat way she called him man, that settled the matter entirely.
“Fish,” says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion; “fish,” says he, “here’s my word, fresh and fasting, for you this blessed morning, that I’ll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the world, and that’s what I’ll do.”
“Never say the word twice,” says she; “I’m ready and willing to be yours, mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, ’till I twist up my hair.”
It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the rock.
Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and says he in the greatest wonder; “Is it speaking you are, my darling, to the salt water?”
“It’s nothing else,” says she quite carelessly, “I’m just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind.”
“And who’s your father, my duck?” says Dick.
“What!” said the Merrow, “did you never hear of my father? he’s the king of the waves, to be sure!”
“And yourself, then, is a real king’s daughter?” said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be.
“Oh, I’m nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your father;—to be sure he has all the money that’s down in the bottom of the sea!”
“Money,” repeated the Merrow, “what’s money?”
“’Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it,” replied Dick; “and may be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid them?”
“Oh! yes,” said the Merrow, “they bring me what I want.”
“To speak the truth, then,” said Dick, “’tis a straw bed I have at home before you, and that, I’m thinking, is no ways fitting for a king’s daughter: so, if ’twould not be displeasing to you, just to mention, a nice feather-bed, with a pair of new blankets—but what am I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under the water?”
“By all means,” said she, “Mr. Fitzgerald—plenty of beds at your service. I’ve fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just planting for the rearing of young ones.”
“You have?” says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little puzzled. “’Tis a feather-bed I was speaking of—but clearly, yours is the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each other, that a person when they’d have the one, need never ask for the other.”
However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig, where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.
“There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald,” said his Reverence, looking mighty glum. “And is it a fishy woman you’d marry?—the Lord preserve us!—Send the scaly creature home to her own people, that’s my advice to you, wherever she came from.”
Dick had the cohuleen driuth in his hand, and was about to give it back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a moment, and then, says he—
“Please your Reverence she’s a king’s daughter.”
“If she was the daughter of fifty kings,” said Father Fitzgibbon, “I tell you, you can’t marry her, she being a fish.”
“Please your Reverence,” said Dick again, in an under tone, “she is as mild and as beautiful as the moon.”
“If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,” said the Priest stamping his right foot, “you can’t marry her, she being a fish!”
“But she has all the gold that’s down in the sea only for the asking, and I’m a made man if I marry her; and,” said Dick, looking up slily, “I can make it worth any one’s while to do the job.”
“Oh! that alters the case entirely,” replied the Priest; “why there’s some reason now in what you say: why didn’t you tell me this before?—marry her by all means if she was ten times a fish. Money, you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the pains in counselling you as I have done.”
So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each other. Every thing prospered with Dick—he was at the sunny side of the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in the greatest contentment.
It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up, how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young Fitzgeralds—two boys and a girl.
In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to do that.
One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left his wife, minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to do without disturbing his fishing tackle.
Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find behind it in a hole in the wall but her own cohuleen driuth.
She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she felt a longing to go back to them.
She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart to lose her. “But,” says she, “he won’t lose me entirely, for I’ll come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my father and my mother, after being so long away from them.”
She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The Merrow then went down to the strand.—The sea was lying calm and smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children were at the instant forgotten, and placing the cohuleen driuth on her head, she plunged in.
Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to search for the cohuleen driuth. It was gone and the truth now flashed upon him.
Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait, expecting the return of his wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her below by main force; “For,” says Dick, “she surely would not of herself give up her husband and her children.”
While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the pattern for one, under the name of the Lady of Gollerus.
The ancient burial-place of the Cantillon family was on an island in Ballyheigh Bay. This island was situated at no great distance from the shore, and at a remote period was overflowed in one of the encroachments which the Atlantic has made on that part of the coast of Kerry. The fishermen declare they have often seen the ruined walls of an old chapel beneath them in the water, as they sailed over the clear green sea, of a sunny afternoon.[19] However this may be, it is well known that the Cantillons were, like most other Irish families, strongly attached to their ancient burial-place; and this attachment led to the custom, when any of the family died, of carrying the corpse to the seaside, where the coffin was left on the shore within reach of the tide. In the morning it had disappeared, being, as was traditionally believed, conveyed away by the ancestors of the deceased to their family tomb.
Connor Crowe, a county Clare man, was related to the Cantillons by marriage. “Connor Mac in Cruagh, of the seven quarters of Breintragh,” as he was commonly called, and a proud man he was of the name. Connor, be it known, would drink a quart of salt water, for its medicinal virtues, before breakfast; and for the same reason, I suppose, double that quantity of raw whisky between breakfast and night, which last he did with as little inconvenience to himself as any man in the barony of Moyferta; and were I to add Clanderalaw and Ibrickan, I don’t think I should say wrong.
On the death of Florence Cantillon, Connor Crowe was determined to satisfy himself about the truth of this story of the old church under the sea: so when he heard the news of the old fellow’s death, away with him to Ardfert, where Flory was laid out in high style, and a beautiful corpse he made.
Flory had been as jolly and as rollocking a boy in his day as ever was stretched, and his wake was in every respect worthy of him. There was all kind of entertainment and all sort of diversion at it, and no less than three girls got husbands there—more luck to them. Every thing was as it should be: all that side of the country, from Dingle to Tarbet, was at the funeral. The Keen was sung long and bitterly; and, according to the family custom, the coffin was carried to Ballyheigh strand, where it was laid upon the shore with a prayer for the repose of the dead.
The mourners departed, one group after another, and at last Connor Crowe was left alone: he then pulled out his whisky bottle, his drop of comfort as he called it, which he required, being in grief; and down he sat upon a big stone that was sheltered by a projecting rock, and partly concealed from view, to await with patience the appearance of the ghostly undertakers.
The evening came on mild and beautiful; he whistled an old air which he had heard in his childhood, hoping to keep idle fears out of his head; but the wild strain of that melody brought a thousand recollections with it, which only made the twilight appear more pensive.
“If ’twas near the gloomy tower of Dunmore, in my own sweet county, I was,” said Connor Crowe, with a sigh, “one might well believe that the prisoners, who were murdered long ago, there in the vaults under the castle, would be the hands to carry off the coffin out of envy, for never a one of them was buried decently, nor had as much as a coffin amongst them all. ’Tis often, sure enough, I have heard lamentations and great mourning coming from the vaults of Dunmore Castle; but,” continued he, after fondly pressing his lips to the mouth of his companion and silent comforter, the whisky bottle, “didn’t I know all the time well enough, ’twas the dismal sounding waves working through the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, and fretting themselves to foam. Oh then, Dunmore Castle, it is you that are the gloomy-looking tower on a gloomy day, with the gloomy hills behind you; when one has gloomy thoughts on their heart, and sees you like a ghost rising out of the smoke made by the kelp-burners on the strand, there is, the Lord save us! as fearful a look about you as about the Blue Man’s Lake at midnight. Well then, any how,” said Connor, after a pause, “is it not a blessed night, though surely the moon looks mighty pale in the face? St. Senan himself between us and all kinds of harm!”
It was, in truth a lovely moonlight night; nothing was to be seen around but the dark rocks, and the white pebbly beach, upon which the sea broke with a hoarse and melancholy murmur. Connor, notwithstanding his frequent draughts, felt rather queerish, and almost began to repent his curiosity. It was certainly a solemn sight to behold the black coffin resting upon the white strand. His imagination gradually converted the deep moaning of old ocean into a mournful wail for the dead, and from the shadowy recesses of the rocks he imaged forth strange and visionary forms.
As the night advanced, Connor became weary of watching; he caught himself more than once in the fact of nodding, when suddenly giving his head a shake, he would look towards the black coffin. But the narrow house of death remained unmoved before him.
It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when he heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger, above the heavy and monotonous roll of the sea: he listened, and presently could distinguish a Keen, of exquisite sweetness, the notes of which rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, whose deep murmur mingled with and supported the strain!
The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and then fell into a low plaintive wail. As it ended, Connor beheld a number of strange, and in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures, emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to launch into the water.
“This comes of marrying with the creatures of earth,” said one of the figures, in a clear, yet hollow tone.
“True,” replied another, with a voice still more fearful, “our king would never have commanded his gnawing white-toothed waves to devour the rocky roots of the island cemetery, had not his daughter, Durfulla, been buried there by her mortal husband!”
“But the time will come,” said a third, bending over the coffin,