Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/442

 . 12, 1861.] What? So eager for a start, Restless little truant-heart To and fro Yet awhile, To and fro— Yet awhile? Ay! old or young, While on mortal pivot swung, Joy and woe, Tear and smile, Come and go.

Quaint, small, human pendulum, Lightly may they go and come! Blessings, oh! May they bring And bestow; While the clock-work of the spheres Ticks away your chequered years— To and fro As you swing, To and fro.

“ was greatly astonished, upon awakening the next morning, to discover he was lying on a bed of straw in a little out-house composed of white stones. (That out-house is still standing; I covered it with a new roof last year, and I keep six pigs in it this minute—the real ‘Cannock-and-white’ breed, and well worth six pounds a-piece at any fair or market in the country.) He looked about him, and he could not at first understand what had brought him there, or how he could ever have been carried inside it, for it did not seem to be half large enough or long enough for a man of his size.

‘This is no place for one of the O’Donnells to be stopping in,’ said Phelim to himself, as he stood up, and attempted to walk to the door; when, to his great horror, he discovered that he must stumble and break his neck if he did not fall upon his hands to steady himself.

‘Ah, then, what in the world is the matter with me at all, at all?’ cried Phelim; ‘I do not seem to have the right use of my feet, and I feel it far more convenient to walk on my hands than to have them, as I used to do, dangling in the air. Lord preserve me! I am beginning to be afraid I am bewitched.’

“Phelim’s thoughts were interrupted by the clucking of a hen and the gobbling of a duck.

‘By Gogstie! if it isn’t mad I am becoming,’ said Phelim; ‘I think I can understand every word the fowls outside are speaking to one another. There is no harm in listening, at all events.’

‘There is something strange,’ (so Phelim understood an old duck to say to a hen outside). ‘There is something very strange indeed going on in this place for the last two days, Mrs. Dorking. During all that time I have not once seen the young mistress. I wonder what has become of her. She used to feed us as regular as clock-work, and I feel as hungry as a hawk this morning.’

‘I can tell you all about the young mistress,’ so Phelim understood the old hen to say to the duck. ‘I missed her at feeding-time as well as you, and I fluttered up-stairs to look for her. During the last two days she has been sleeping as sound as a top in her own bed.’

‘Why, then, Mrs. Dorking, isn’t it a burning shame for a young girl like that to be so lazy? Surely she might as well get up and feed us, and then go to bed again, if she chose,’ said the duck, in a very angry manner.

‘But what do you say, Mrs. Muscovy,’ replied the hen, ‘if the poor young lady could not help it?’

‘And why couldn’t she help it, and I starving?’ asked the duck.

‘Because she was bewitched,’ answered the hen.

‘Bewitched! Ah! who could be so cruel as to bewitch such a good young creature as that?’ asked the duck.

‘I cannot say for certain,’ replied the hen; ‘but my belief is, the person who did it was her own grandmother; and I am sorry to say that I fear the young lady is not the only one she has so treated; for, last night, just as I was going to roost, I observed Mother Olliffe carrying a beautiful yellow goat with a red beard in her arms into that out-house there, and that yellow goat, I strongly suspect, is some Christian that is bewitched.’

“Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell trembled with terror when he heard these words pronounced. He looked down at his hands; they were no longer visible; both were covered over with yellow horn-hoofs. His yellow sleeves were changed into yellow hair, and in his agony he shrieked aloud, and terrified himself by the doleful Mah! that issued from his lips.

“The knees of Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell bent beneath him, and he sank upon his side in the midst of the straw, for he felt as if his heart was breaking with grief, horror, and despair.

“When things are at the worst they must mend. So it is with everybody, and so it was with Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell; for at that instant, when he thought that the pleasures of life had for ever departed from him, he heard, and his heart jumped for joy at the sound, the voice of his beloved Aileen calling all the barn-door fowl around her.

“There was a frightful clamour in the farmyard for at least ten minutes. The pigs were grunting, the dogs barking, the geese and the ducks gobbling, the hens cackling, and the little chickens chirping all at once and together. At length they all began feeding, and there was comparative silence amongst them.

“Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell took advantage of this repose, and he gave forth a loud, vehement, and impatient ‘Mah!’

‘What! a goat in the out-house?’ exclaimed Aileen, ‘I must see it.’

“And as she spoke the door was opened by her, and Phelim rushed out and went down on his two front legs before her.

‘Oh! what a lovely animal, and so tame, too! On its knees before me—I never saw the like of it!’ cried Aileen. ‘A yellow-haired goat, too, with a red beard. It reminds me of my beloved hero, Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell, in his yellow