Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/418

 . 5, 1861.] Aileen. ‘And now to contrive how to get my fortune out of the hands of my grandmother. See if you can think of any plan for attaining that object.’

‘I am greatly afraid,’ replied Phelim, ‘that the only plan that will ever suggest itself to my mind is the simple one—of knocking out her brains.’

‘Remember she is my grandmother,’ said Aileen.

‘Ah! yes!’ sighed Phelim, ‘that is the awkward circumstance in the way of the execution of my simple plan.’

‘Remember, also, she is a witch, and not so easily disposed of as you may fancy,’ said Aileen. ‘I must see if I cannot contrive something easier and more humane than your project. In two days from this time meet me here again. Meanwhile let me know where a messenger may find you, in case I desired to see you.’

‘I am stopping in Waterford,’ answered Phelim. ‘I was on the point of starting for Spain, in search of adventures, when the sight of you changed my destiny. I have hired the state-cabin on board the Granvaile, which sails from Waterford for Cadiz this day week, under the command of the skilful and pious captain, Joseph O’Leary.’

‘Farewell, my six-foot hero!’ sighed the lovely Aileen.

‘Farewell!—rose of Rahar!—beauty of the Blackwater!—topaz of Kilkenny county!—pride of Park!—diamond of Scart!—concentration of female beauty and perfection!’ exclaimed the enamoured Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell, as he touched with his gold spur the sable side of his coal-black steed, and rode rapidly down the very road by the side of which we are now sitting, on his way to Waterford.

“ all the thrilling raptures of a first youthful and true love, Aileen and Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell parted from each other that fine, bright day, on the banks of the Blackwater. Their hearts beat with hope and joy; but how different would have been their feelings, if they had known that the whole of their conversation had been listened to by the wicked witch, Moyra Olliffe?

“By a most unlucky chance, that old villain of a woman was told that there had been buried, a few days previously, in the graveyard adjoining Park Church, the body of an unbaptised infant; and as she wanted the right thigh-bone of the child to boil up into a broth for one of her incantations, she was busy in grubbing for it amongst the graves, when she heard the noise made by O’Donnell’s horse as its hoofs came down upon the stony road outside. The wall of the churchyard overhung the bank of the river, and, squatting behind the wall, the old woman could hear every word the two lovers had spoken.

“This wicked, abominable, and horrid ugly old woman had but one tooth in her head, and that was in the upper jaw, from which it stood out like a pig’s tusk. When Aileen began to speak, the witch caught hold of this long, villanous tooth, and she never let it go until the two lovers separated, when, starting up, and dragging it out by the root, she cast it upon the earth, and then, as her mouth filled with blood, she spurted forth these words:

‘My curse upon her! the audacious minx! As I tear out this tooth from my head, so do I tear her, the last of my race, from my heart! Ah! ha! so! she wants to marry an Irishman! and a Christian too! She would sink the name of Olliffe to become a dirty O’Donnell! and to give him, too, all the wealth which her grandfather won by his sword, and her valiant grand-uncle, Olaf-ironfist, squeezed out of the blood and bones of the Irish! She would throw not only all that away upon a stranger she did not know yesterday! Ay—would she! and if she knew the secret as to the wealth of all the Danes that I have, until now, protected from the gaze of mortals by my witchcraft, she would fling all that away with her own fortune! Oh! the renegade and the rapscallion! Why! by the thunderbolts of Thor! she must herself have turned Christian! If that is so; and if, since her baptism, she has never committed a sin, then I am powerless against her! I can do her no mischief. I will try. I can but fail. And if I do not succeed with her, why then I must see what my arts can effect, first to bewilder this outrageously tall Irishman; and if I am baffled there also, then to try the most powerful of my charms against him. Oh! all ye holy, ruthless, blood-loving, brain-scattering valkyries, come and help me! I go now to seek for the most rancid poisons. Ah! Aileen! if you are a Christian, and have lost your baptismal innocence, then this very night you shall be a corpse! and to-morrow your dainty body will be given over as a banquet to the worms in the churchyard of Park.’

“All that day the witch was busy with her magic skillet concocting a most deadly poison. It was not until evening she had completed her task; and then, when she met her grandchild, at supper, she presented her with a bowl of milk which she pretended she had herself taken that minute from the cow. The unsuspecting, innocent, darling Aileen accepted the deadly gift—at once swallowed it; and the moment she did so fell senseless and motionless on the earth!

“The wicked witch, with a tearless eye and an unshaken hand, had presented the poison to her grandchild; and when she saw the poor young girl fall, she looked at her with eagerness in the hope she might behold the lovely creature’s limbs quivering in the agonies of death.

‘Curses! a hundred thousand curses upon her! I cannot hurt her!”her!’ [sic] cried the witch. “She‘She [sic] is a baptised Christian, and her soul is unstained by mortal sin. All that my poor art can do against her is to throw her into a deep sleep for forty-eight hours; and even that much I could not have accomplished had she but blessed the poisoned milk or said one word of a prayer before swallowing it. My skill as a witch can do no hurt to her. I must then try what can be done against the youth, who has fallen in love with her. I have full forty-eight hours, whilst this deep sleep continues to bewilder and bewitch him, without the chance of being molested or interfered with by her.’

“Of all the inhuman, unfeeling, mean, nasty,