Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/358

 348 the beginning of March I was startled from a sound sleep by the light of a candle passed before my face, as well as by some one shaking me violently. 1 was awake at once, and saw Mrs. Howard standing at my bedside, her whole frame trembling, and her wild eyes bloodshot and frenzied. At the same time I heard the storm shrieking round the house and, knowing that since her bereavement any tumult of the elements excited her almost to madness, especially if it came in the night, I at once concluded that the tempest I now heard was the cause of her agitation. I tried to soothe her; and as she paced rapidly to and fro I arose, and, taking her hands, besought her to sit down with me by my still burning fire.

"It is not the storm," she said, when I urged her not to fear it, "it is a dream I have had—"

And then she related the dream or vision, which I was taught by after circumstances to regard as the strangest I had ever heard. She said she seemed to be standing in the front lobby, when she heard her husband's voice calling to her from the hall below; and as she leant over the stair-head to speak to him, she saw him at the foot of the staircase, appareled as he had been for the grave, and with his head bound up as it had been after the surgeons had opened it to extract the slugs. "There is mischief abroad," he said, or seemed to say; "I cannot rest in my grave: there will be more widows and orphans before to-morrow night." She implored him to explain his meaning; but he only told her to go to the front window, and look out. She obeyed, and saw that a place some two miles from the house, where four roads met, had replaced the lawn, and along the road leading from here rolled a car, on which sat three persons, the driver, Colonel P, and a man in the garb of a soldier. Suddenly she heard a shot, and when the smoke cleared away the car was vacant; and she awoke, bathed in perspiration, and, hurrying on her dressing-gown, came to me, unable to bear her fears alone.

I must confess to being somewhat superstitious; but, aware of her state of mind, and her constant dwelling on the tragedy of October, I gave little heed to this dream, and reasoned vainly with her on the sin and folly of giving too great weight to such chimeras. She could not be appeased; and, replenishing the fire, we sat up all night. The next day, before noon, the whole country was ringing with the tidings that Colonel P and a sergeant of the regiment stationed at B had been shot at the cross-roads while on their way to pay the troops at another station. The story was true in part. At the identical spot seen in the dream, four men had fired from the hedge; two of the shots had taken effect on the poor sergeant, who fell dead from his seat; a third had wounded Colonel P, and the fourth whistled harmlessly across the road. The brave old man shouted to some labourers in the field for help (it was about ten o'clock in the forenoon), and at the same time he discharged shot after shot from his pistols. The driver leaped from the car, and the murderers, cowed by unexpected resistance, took to flight across the very field in which several men were at work; but not one of the latter raised his eyes from the ground he was digging, nor did they make any reply to the repeated cries of Colonel P, till the villains were out of sight.

I make no comment on this dream, or the succeeding circumstances. I only know that the facts occurred as I have stated them, and I have neither added nor diminished aught in the recital. A few weeks after this murder I left Howardville, and have never seen it since; but, happily, the old order of things has been swept away, and it is to be hoped that the rising generation may never witness such a state of affairs as that which prevailed during my first and last "Winter in Tipperary."

Sir Tristem built a golden bark,
 * With snowy pinions like a bird,

And went afloat on waters dark,
 * Whose sobbing waves were blackly stirred;

And on those waters of the dead, Along the moveless night he fled, With shining mail around him, And a white light that crowned him. Saying, "I go to realms unknown,
 * Upon a homeless quest to meet

The flower of kings, whose light has flown
 * And left the world in night complete:

Caparison'd in shining mail, Across the self-same waves I sail, Whereon his bright boat bore him, With fairies beaming o'er him. "And setting on my quest divine,
 * Behind I leave all earthly things,

The lust of women and of wine,
 * And seek the lily white flower of kings;

In whose left court degenerate knights Wanton like swine in gross delights, Killing the heart's pure quiet With petty rage and riot!" He laid him, in his knightly strength
 * Along the bottom of the boat,

And crossed his hands, and lay at length,
 * And closed his eyes, and went afloat;

And slowly, at their own strange will, The magic sails began to fill, And the boat, helmless wholly, Like a bright bird, swam slowly. Sir Tristem slumbered quietly
 * But on his forehead there was light,

And in a trance he seemed to see
 * The ghostly shores on left and right;

A cold wind murmured in his crest, A weight like lead was on his breast, He heard the waters sobbing, Like his own pulses throbbing. Past lonely kingdoms of the dead,
 * Dim-gleaming coves and shadowy bays,

Led by the radiance round his head,
 * Sir Tristem journeyed many days;