Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/445

 438 Mother Abbess, claimed the goat as her property,’ observed the captain.

‘I am as much a Mother Abbess as that worn-out remnant of an ill-spent life,’ remarked Peter Devine; ‘and I am sure I am a better Christian, for she does not look to me, as if she had ever been inside a place of worship in all her born-days.’

‘Examine her in her theology,’ said the captain.

‘To be sure I will. Come now, old lady!’ said Peter Devine. ‘Understand what I am about. I am going to ask you three questions—three of the easiest questions in Ecclesiastical History I can think of; and if you can answer any one of them, you may return to the shore in safety. If not, the first failure will be followed by a little push, the second failure by the same, and the third by a ducking, such as you never had before, and never will again. Are you ready?’

‘Go on, you Irish thieves and murderers, replied Moyra, as stout as a lion. ‘You have made up your minds to steal away my goat, and to secure it you think nothing of robbing me of my life.life.’ [sic]

‘I am a holy and pious Christian,’ meekly answered Peter Devine, ‘and I don’t care three jack-straws about being abused by a woman, and I mind it the less, when the woman that is scolding me happens to be both old and ugly. Now, then, my good lady—here is a question for you, that almost every child in Ireland can answer. My first question is—What was the name of Saint Patrick’s grandfather’s male gossip?’

The old woman remained silent.

‘Give her a tiny push, boys,’ said Peter Devine. ‘Well, now then, my old lady, for a second and easier question:—What was the roof of the house made of, in which Saint Bridget took shelter when she was a child, and was flying with all her family from the pursuit of the pagans?’

“The old woman remained silent.

‘Give her another little push, boys!’ said Peter Devine. ‘And, now, for the third and last question, which is so simple I am almost ashamed to ask it:—What was the name of the creek in Brittany at which Saint Ronan landed when he fled out of Ireland, for fear the people would make a bishop of him?’

“The old woman remained silent.

‘O, you old besom of destruction!’ exclaimed the disgusted Peter Devine. ‘Even supposing you were not a witch, you deserve to be drowned for your ignorance. Drive her neck and crop into the river! Away with her! There she goes! What a splash! That I may never swallow another hot tumbler, but the water is fizzing and bubbling about her as if instead of a woman, you had thrown a bar of red hot iron into the Suir.’

‘My curse!’ shrieked Moyra Olliffe, as she rose to the surface, and was carried away by the rapid tide. ‘My curse! and the curse of the Valkyries! and the curse of the Crows! on Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell, and his intended wife, Aileen, and on Captain Joseph O’Leary, the scheming robber; and on punch-drinking Peter Devine, the hypocrite; and on all belonging to them!’

‘Look at her! look at her!’ exclaimed the excited Peter Devine, ‘she is floating on the stream as light, tight, and airy as a cork, and cursing like a Dublin Jackeen, as she swims away from us. And, see! the ravens are gathering in the air over her, and wheeling round her, and ready the moment she gets to the bend of the river, out of the sight of Christians, to help her on to the land again. Isn’t it lucky when I heard there was a suspicion of a witch being on board that I brought up on deck with me my gun, loaded with a blessed silver bullet. Here is to have one crack at her. If she escapes this, there is no killing her.’

“As Peter Devine thus spoke, he took aim at the old witch as she floated away, with her mouth full of curses. He fired, and the ball hit the old woman in the very centre of her leathern magic girdle, and the moment it did so, she blew up into a thousand pieces, as if she was a barrel and her inside all filled with nothing but gunpowder! As the smoke cleared away, the ravens were seen descending, and carrying off in their beaks fragments of what appeared to be the clothing of the wicked witch, Moyra Olliffe!

“I am very near the end of my story. The ship Granvaile at once sailed down the Suir, and out to sea, and when it got two hundred miles and a quarter from the land, Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell stood upon the deck in his yellow velvet cap, with the black plumes, in his tight-fitting yellow dress, and with his red sash around his waist. In obedience to his orders the ship returned to the port of Waterford; and in an hour afterwards, Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell was riding up on his black horse to the white house yonder. In two hours afterwards, he and the beautiful Aileen were riding down the hill of Rahar on the same black horse; he in the saddle, and she on a pillion behind him; and in three hours afterwards they were married in the church at Park; and in four hours afterwards they were dining together as man and wife in the white house, and they had for their dinner a ham, two young chickens, boiled; and two young ducks, roasted; and the chickens belonged to the brood of Mrs. Dorking, and the ducks to Mrs. Muscovy—the same hen and the same duck, from whose conversation together Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell first learned the sad tidings that he had been, by the wicked witch’s enchantments changed from a handsome young man into a yellow-haired goat.

“The young bride and bridegroom kept open house for all comers, gentle and simple, rich and poor, for a whole month together. No one was sent away empty-handed; all had rich presents given to them; and at the end of that time, the bride’s fortune in diamonds, gold and silver, was carried off to Waterford, and from Waterford conveyed by the Granvaile to Cadiz. And it’s little wonder that the descendants of one who brought such wealth to Spain should in our days be made a grandee. The surprise ought to be, that when the O’Donnells had such riches they were not saluted as ‘grandees’ on their landing.

“And yet the general belief in this part of Ireland, and it has been the same for centuries, is that much as was the wealth that O’Donnell and his