Chapter Three.
The Irish Sailor’s Yarn.
“The Ghost on Board Ship.”
I have followed the say, man and boy, any time these thirty years and more; and sure it’s but little I have to tell you about that same in the way of short commons, long voyages, mishaps, and shipwrecks that would be interesting to you, seeing that, in all rasonable probability, you have all of you had your fair share of the like.
However, maybe I can spin you a short yarn about what every one of you hasn’t seen, and that is a “ghost on boord ship.”
“A ghost on board ship!” chorused the sailors, turning eagerly toward the speaker.
Bedad, ye may say that, and as fine a ghost as ever mortial man set eyes upon.
You must know I was always partial to the say, and first tried my hand at a sailor’s life wid a cousin of my mother’s, who had a small sloop he used for fishing along the coast off the Cove of Cork.
It was on boord the little Shamrock I got my say-legs, and, by the same token, many a sharp rope’s-ending into the bargain.
I had plinty to ate, and plinty to drink, and plinty of hard work, too, as there were but three hands on boord—my cousin, one man, and myself, making up the entire crew.
I was well enough trated, and had no rason to complain.
The sloop was a fast sailer, and a good say-boat, and I ought to have been continted—but somehow it’s myself that wasn’t satisfied at all at all.
I never saw the tall masts of the big ships that traded to furrin parts that I didn’t long to clamber up their sides, and see if I couldn’t get a berth—anything, from captain to cabin-boy, I wasn’t particular—on boord one of them.
One fine day, when the little sloop was high and dry, my cousin stepp’d into a shebeen to get a taste of the mountain dew, and give me what he called my share, which was a dale more pewter than whiskey—for it’s mighty little of the latter was left in the measure whin he handed it to me; when a tall, spare, good-looking sort of a chap enough, with lashings of bright brass buttons on his coat and waistcoat, and a smart goold band round his peaked cap, who happened to be taking his morning’s refreshment at the same time, said to my cousin as he emptied his naggin, “Fill that,” says he, “onct more,—fill that, and drink wid me.”
“Never say it again,” says my cousin. “Fill and drink’s the word this time with you, and the next with me, honest man!”
“All right!” replied the stranger.
And fill and drink it was more than onct round, you may be on your oath.
“That’s a smart youngster!” says he wid the band and buttons, pointing to me.
“The boy’s well enough, as a boy,” says my cousin. “He’s strong, handy, and willing, and not the sort of a lad to kape where there’s an empty larder; but if he ates well, he works well; so more power to his elbow, and double rations, wid all my heart!”
“That’s the lad for my money!” says the stranger. “Would you like to take a trip with me, youngster?”
“What ship do you belong to, sir?” I asked.
“That,” says he, going to the door of the public, and pointing to a splindid three-master, with the stars and stripes at the peak.
“And where do you sail to, sir?” says I.
“New York,” replied he.
“Where’s that, if it’s plasin’ to you, sir?” says I.
“In Amerikay,” says he; “the land of the brave, and the home of the free!”
“Amerikay!” broke in my cousin. “My sister’s wife’s uncle has a son there—a tall young man, badly pock-marked, with a slight cast in his left eye, and hair as red as a fox. Lanty O’Gorman is the name he has upon him. He has been there two years and better. Mayhap you have met him?”
“I dar say I have,” said the stranger, laughing heartily.
“Would you take a message to him, sir?” asked my cousin.
“I’d be everlastingly delighted,” says he, “but there’s a dale of O’Gormans about; and as most of them are pock-marked, squint, and have red heads, I’m afraid I’d be bothered to know him. Do you think that young shaver would remimber him?”
“Faith and troth I would, sir,” says I, “by rason of the leathering he gave me onct for making an April fool of him, telling him the chickens the ould hen had hatched from the ducks’ eggs had tuck to the water, and if he didn’t hurry and get them out of the pond, every mother’s son of them would be drownded!”
“Wal,” said the stranger, “it’s an almighty pity you ain’t there to see him. The man I know of the name of O’Gorman is as rich as mud; and if he took a liking to you, he could make your fortune right off the reel in less than no time!”
“I’d give the worrild to go,” says I.
“Come, old man,” says the Yankee—I found out afterward he was an Amerikan—“what do you say? Will you let this young shaver take a trip with me? He shall be well cared for under the stars and stripes. I’ll give him fair pay and good usage. Fact is, I am in want of a smart lad, who has got his say-legs, to wait upon myself and a few extra cabin-passengers. I like the cut of the boy’s jib, so say yes or no—how is it to be? It will be for the lad’s good?”
“Arrah, good luck to ye, cousin, darlint, let me go! It has been the wish of my heart, slapin’ and wakin’, this many a long day! Let me go, and sorra a rap I’ll spind of the lashings of goold Cousin Lanty will give me, but bring every pinny home safe and sound, just as he puts it into my hand!”
“You offer fair and honest,” says my cousin. “It’s true for you, it would be for the boy’s good—far better than his wasting his time dredging and coasting about here; but—what would his mother say?”
“Wal,” said the stranger, “I have done a good many pretty considerable difficult things in my time, but as to my being able to tell you what his mother, or any other female woman of the feminine persuasion, would be likely to say, my hand won’t run to that; so, rather than play the game out, I’ll hand in my cards. What I want to know is, what you mean to say to it; and you must be smart making up your mind, for the Brother Jonathan will trip her anchor bright and early in the morning! Yes, sir-ree!”
To cut the matter short, boys, the Yankee skipper gave my cousin enough in advance to find me in the slops I wanted; and I felt as if I could lep over the moon for joy when I saw the ship’s articles signed, and myself rated, at fair wages, as cabin-boy for the outward and return trips.
The ould people lived some twenty miles inland, so there was no chance of seeing them to bid good-by; and maybe that was all for the best, as it wasn’t till the hurry and bustle of buying my kit was over, and I got fairly on boord, that the thought of my father and mother, little Norah and Patsey, came across my mind; and when it did, the joy I felt at getting the great wish of my heart gratified—sailing in an elegant three-master—with more people on boord her (she was an emigrant ship) than there was in my own native village, and a dozen besides—turned into unfeigned sorrow at parting from them; and, for the life of me, I couldn’t close my eyes all night, because of the scalding hot tears that would force their way from under the lids.
But boys are boys, and sorrow sits lightly on young hearts; and it’s a blessin’ it does, for sure we get enough of it when we grow older, and, perhaps, wiser, and better able to bear it!
Faith, it was as much as I could do to wonder at everything I saw on boord the beautiful clipper—for a clipper she was, boys, and could knock off her twelve knots an hour as easy as a bird flies.
The skipper was as good a seaman as ever boxed a compass; the crew, barring the skulkers, were well trated. As for the “ould soldiers,” the way they got hazed and started was—I must use a Yankee word—a caution!
We made the Battery at New York in a few hours over thirty days.
I got leave to go on shore with the third mate, a mighty dacint young man; and whin I tould him I wanted him to take me to my cousin, by my mother’s sister’s side, whose name was O’Gorman, with the small-pox, a squint, and a foxey head, I thought he’d taken a seven years’ lase of a laugh, and would—unless he split his sides—never do anything else but that same for the rest of his born days.
To cut the matter short, he tould me the skipper had sould me as chape as a speckled orange! So I gave up all hopes of finding my cousin and my fortune; saw as much as I could of the beautiful city; bought a trifle or two to take home; and, after another splendid run, was landed, safe and sound, onct more on the dear ould Cove of Cork.
“Then you saw no ghost in that ship?” says Bostock.
“Faith, I did!”
“But you have told us nothing about it!” says I.
Wait till a while ago. I tuck my wages, and started for the public, where I knew I should find my cousin—and right glad he was to see me; but I couldn’t help feeling as if something was wrong by the way he looked and answered me, whin I asked afther the ould people and little Norah and Patsey.
“Take a tumbler of punch, now!” says he; “and we’ll talk of that afterward.”
“Not at all,” says I. “The news, whether good or bad, will go better with the punch; so we’ll have them together. How is my darlint mother?”
“Well!” says he.
“And dad?” I inquired.
“Well, too!” says he.
“Thank the Lord for that!” says I. “And the little ones?”
“Happy and hearty!” says he.
“Thanks be to heaven again!” says I. “But what’s the matter wid you, at all, man alive?”
“The matter wid me?” said he. “What would be the matter wid me?” said he.
“Sorra a one of me knows!” replied I. “But you look as if you were at a wake widout whiskey!”
“You didn’t hear much about what happened at Ballyshevan in Amerikay?” says he.
“Faith, you are right! Not much more than I did about Foxey O’Gorman, wid his squint and red hair!” says I, laughing to think what a fool the skipper had made of me.
“There’s nothing to laugh at here!” says he. “There’s only two things that have been plintiful this sason!”
“Potaties and oats?” says I.
“No such luck!” says he.
“What thin?” I asked.
“Famine and faver!” he says pat.
You might have knocked me down wid a Jack-straw, whin I heard those words. I raled back, and if it hadn’t been for a binch that was close against the wall, which I clutched a hould of, and managed to bring myself up with, I’d have fallen full length on the floor.
“Have a good sup of this!” says he, handing me his tumbler of punch; “and don’t take on so,” says he. “You are better off than most of the neighbours! Sure death hasn’t knocked at your door; and all you love are living—though they have had a hard time of it—to welcome you back.”
“You are right,” says I, as I started up, “and the sooner I get that welcome the better. What am I wasting my time here for, at all at all, whin I ought to be there—it’s only twenty miles. It’s airly yet, I can be home by nightfall. I have promised to return, but I’ve got three days’ lave, so I’m off at onct.”
I won’t kape you on the road, sure it’s longer than ever it seemed; but it came to an end at last. I forgot all my fatigue whin I opened the door, and stepped inside the threshhold; it was between day light and dark—there was no candle burning—but I could see the forms of the four people most dear to me on earth. An involuntary “The Vargin be praised!” broke from my lips.
“My son!—my son!” almost screamed my mother, and if I had been four boys instead of one there wouldn’t have been room enough on me for the kisses they all wanted to give me at the same time.
Whin the first great joy of our meeting was over, I began to ask pardon for quitting ould Ireland widout their lave.
“Don’t spake about it, darlint,” said my mother; thin, pointing upward, she added, mighty solemn, “Glory be to Him, it was His will, and it was the best day’s work ever you did. Tell him what has happened.”
“I will,” said my father. “You see, Phil, my son, soon after you sailed for Amerikay, the old master died, and the estate came into the hands of his nephew, a wild harum-scarum sort of a chap, that kapes the hoith of company with the quality and rich people in London and Paris, and the lord knows where else besides; but never sets his foot, nor spinds a skurrick here, where the money that pays for his houses, and carriages, and race-horses, and the wine his foine friends drinks—when his tenants is starving—comes from. Seeing how things were likely to go, the ould agent threw up his place rather than rack the tenants any further; this just suited my gintleman, who sent over a new one, a hard man, wid a heart of stone, and he drove the poor craytures as a wolf would drive a flock of shape; they did their best, till their crops failed, to kape their bits of farms; but then—God help them! they were dead bate—sure the famine came, and the famine brought on the faver; they couldn’t pay; they were evicted by dozens; and the evictions brought oil something worse than the famine or faver—something they hungered and thirsted for more than mate and dhrink.”
“What was that, father dear?”
“Revinge!” says he.
“Revinge! father—revinge!” I muttered.
“Yis,” says he; “but hush! spake low, darlin’! The boys wint out! Well, after that, it’s little the moon or stars were wanted to light up the night while there was a full barn on the estate.
“The country is overrun by the police and the sojers; but it is small good they have done, or are likely to do. Starving men don’t care much for stale or lead; but—”
Here he paused, and raised his hand.
“Hush! there’s futsteps on the road, and me talking loud enough to be heard a mile off.”
As he spoke, he rose, went stealthily to the door, opened it, and looked out.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s naither the peelers nor the sogers, it’s frinds that’s coming.”
As he wint back to his sate, a fine, handsome young fellow brought in a lovely girl, exclaiming, as he entered, “God save all here.”
“Amen for that same kindly wish,” was our answer.
They were ould frinds and playmates, the son and daughter of two of the snuggest farmers on the estate; and I well knew before I sailed for Amerikay they were engaged to be married.
“I wasn’t wrong,” said the young man, as he looked hard at me, “it is Phil himself. How’s every bit of you? sure it’s right glad I am to see you here this blessed night.”
“And me, too, Phil,” said pretty Mary Sheean, as she took the hand young O’Rourke left free, and shook it warmly.
We sat for, maybe, an hour or more, talking over ould times; and it was with a sad heart I listened to the bad news—for bad enough it was!
O’Rourke tould me the rason of his visit was to let me know he and Mary had made up their minds to sail for Amerikay, where they had some frinds doing well, and it was agreed they would go as steerage passengers with me, three days after date, in the clipper ship, George Washington.
As they rose to depart, and were bidding us a kind good-night, a low whistle outside caused us all to start. O’Rourke drew himself up, and compressed his lips tightly, as he listened for a repetition of the signal.
Mary turned deathly pale, and clutched her sweetheart’s arm convulsively.
The whistle was repeated.
Miles stooped down, kissed the trembling girl’s forehead, and, addressing me, hastily said, “Phil, tired as you must be, I know I can trust to you to see Mary safe home.”
“Why not do so yourself?” asked I.
“Because I am called, and must obey.”
“Are the boys out to-night?” inquired my father.
“They are, and will be till—”
“When?—where?” demanded my mother.
“No matter,” said O’Rourke, “you will know soon enough. Perhaps too soon.”
The whistle was heard for the third time. O’Rourke rushed from the cottage, exclaiming, “Heaven guard you all!”
After the lapse of a few minutes, I started with Mary for her father’s house. As I left her, looking very sad, at the door, I told her to be sure to see that O’Rourke was not too late to sail wid me.
“Little fear of that,” said she; “since his father has been ordered to quit the farm, to make way for a friend of the new agent’s, he’ll be glad to lave the place forever.”
I turned to go home, with a sad heart.
It was the end of harvest-time; the weather was very sultry, and the night cloudy and overcast.
I thought, as I hurried home, we should soon have a heavy thunder-storm, and fancied the summer lightning was more vivid than usual.
Just as I reached my father’s door, I was startled by the sudden flashing of a fierce flame in the direction of the mansion of the new heir to the splendid estate he inherited from his uncle.
I doubted for a moment, but then was perfectly sartain the Hall was on fire.
I dashed off at the top of my speed, taking the nearest cut across the fields to the scene of the conflagrashun.
As I was pelting along, I heard the fire-bell sounding from the police barracks, but I got to the place before the sogers or peelers had a chance of reaching it.
A glance convinced me the ould place was doomed; the flames had burst through the lower windows, and were carried by the lattice-work, that reached high above the portico, to the upper story.
While I was looking at the blazing pile, a horseman galloped at full speed up the avenue. Just as he had almost reached the Hall door, and was reining in his horse to dismount, four or five dark figures appeared to spring suddenly out of the ground, and I heard the report of fire-arms—two distinct shots I could swear to. At the first, one of the party, who sought to intercept the mounted man, fell; at the second, the rider rolled from his saddle heavily to the ground, and then the other figures disappeared as suddenly as they had at first sprung up.
I was so thunderstruck, that for some few minutes I could not stir from the spot.
Seeing no sign of the approach of the military or police, curiosity, or some strong feeling, got the better of my prudence, and I hurried forward to the scene of slaughter, for such in my heart I felt it was—in the case of at least of one of the fallen men. And there, with the lurid light of the burning building flashing across his deathlike face, and the purple blood welling up from a wound in his chest through his cambric shirt-frill, lay, stretched in death, the newly appointed agent, and, close beside him, O’Rourke, still living, but drawing every breath with such difficulty that I felt certain his last hour had come.
I raised his head, and spoke to him. He knew my voice, and, by a superhuman effort, managed to support himself on his elbow, as he took a small purse from his breast-pocket; he placed it in my hand, and said, “Phil, darlin’, I know you’ve the brave and thrue heart, though it’s only a boy you are. Listen to my last words. Kape my secret, for my sake; never let on to man or mortial you saw me here. Give that purse to Mary—take her to her frinds in Amerikay—she’ll never hear of this there, and may larn in time to forget me. Tell her we shall meet in a better place; and hark! my eyes are growing dark, but I can hear well enough, there are futsteps—they are coming this way; run, for your life; if you are found here, you will die on the gallows, and that would break your poor old father and mother’s hearts! Bless you, Phil, alanna! Remember my last words, and, as you hope for mercy, do my bidding!”
He drew a deep sigh, fell heavily from my arms, rolled over on his side, and there—with the dead agent’s fixed and glassy eyes staring the frightful stare of death straight at him—lay cowld and still!
The sound of the futsteps came nearer and nearer. I started at my best speed for home. When I stepped into the house, the children had been put to bed, but the ould people were still talking by the dim light of the nearly burnt-out turf fire. I wished them good-night, plading fataigue, and reached my small room without their having an opportunity of noticing the state of alarm and agitation I was in.
The next day was an awful one for me. The violent death of the middleman was in every one’s mouth; but it was some relief to find no mention was made of the finding the corpse of poor O’Rourke.
I concluded the footsteps we had both heard were those of some of his associates, and that they had carried off and concealed his body.
I fulfilled O’Rourke’s wishes to the best of my power; saw Mary Sheean safe on boord ship, put her in the care of a dacent, middle-aged countrywoman of her own—and as I was assuring her, in O’Rourke’s words, that he would soon join her, all I had to say was cut short by the arrival of a parcel of peelers on boord, and the rason of their coming was the assassination of the agent had been discovered. O’Rourke was missing, and so suspicion fell on him—and there was a reward of two hundred pounds offered for him. It was thought possible he might be on boord the George Washington, and they had come, with a full description of his person, to sarch the ship.
The passengers—and it was a tadeous job—were all paraded—over three hundred in the steerage, let alone the cabin and the crew—every part of the ship was overhauled, but, as may naturally be supposed, no Miles O’Rourke was found.
I need scarcely tell yez, boys, what a relief that was to pretty Mary Sheean and myself.
When the police-officers had left the George Washington, she beckoned me to her, and whispered, “Thanks be to the Lord he was not on boord! though I know he would never take any man’s life; still, as he was out that night, it would have gone hard wid him. But, never fear, he’ll come by the next ship; and so I’ll wait and watch for him at New York. There’s his box—take care of it for him till we get there; and see, here’s the kay—mind that, too; maybe I’d lose it.”
I hadn’t the heart to undecaive her, so I answered her as cheerfully as I could, put the kay in my pocket and the box in my locker, and went about my business, wid a mighty heavy heart entirely.
All went on smoothly enough—but about the tenth day after we sailed, a report got afloat that the ship was haunted.
At first, the captain only laughed at such an absurd rumour; but finding the men believed it, and went unwillingly about their duty after dark, unless in couples, he set to work to find out who had been the first person to circulate the story.
After a deal of dodging and prevarication, it was traced to black Sam, the nigger cook.
The skipper called the ould darky up to the quarter-deck, and then, in the hearing of the cabin-passengers and most of the crew, the cook stated, afther we had been at say for a few days, that one night, as he was dozing in the caboose, he was startled by the appearance of a tall figure, with a face as pallid as death, noiselessly entering through the half-open door. The ghost—for such Sam was willing to swear it was, to use his own words, “on a stack of bibles as high as the main topmast”—had on a blood-stained shroud. It slowly approached the terror-stricken cook, who, fearing it intended to do him some bodily harrum, sprang from his bunk, and yell’d loudly for assistance. At the first sound of Sam’s voice, the lamp wint out of itself, and the ghost vanished.
Several sailors bore testimony to hearing the cook screaming for help—to the fearful state of fright he was in; and, as they could see no trace of the apparition Sam so minutely described, confirmed his report as to the sudden disappearance of the supernatural intruder.
This was the origin of the report; but, some days after, at least half a dozen seamen declared they had seen the self-same spectre gliding about the deck soon after midnight; and among them the boatswain, as brave a fellow as ever brandished a rope’s-end, declared that, upon waking suddenly one night, he saw the ghost sated on his locker, either imitating the action of a person ating voraciously, or making a series of such horribly ugly grimaces as would have done honour to Vanity Fair itself.
The whole affair was considered a good joke by the skipper and cabin-passengers; but those in the steerage and the ship’s crew placed implicit confidence in the cook’s narrative, corroborated and supported as it was by the sailors and the boatswain.
For my part, I had no faith in any worse sperrits than those than that come out of a bottle, or, maybe, a hogshead, and I lost no chance of trotting out the friends of the ghost.
But my turn had to come—and come it did, with a vingeance.
One night, boy-like, I had been braggin’ mightily loud about my courage. Ould Sam offered to bet his three days’ grog against mine I daren’t slape in the caboose he had deserted since he saw the sperrit that same night.
The wager was made, and I turned in, thinking what a laugh I should have against the ould darky when I handed him back his complement of rum.
I’ll do the ould nagur the justice to say, whin I accepted the wager, he offered to let me off; and, when he found I was determined to stick to it, he warned me, with a sigh that sounded like a groan, I had much better not; but anyway, happen what might, he hoped I would hould him harmless, and forgive him for my misfortune, if any should overtake me.
Wid a smile, bedad! I promised to do so, and, when the time came, turned into the bunk, and was soon fast aslape.
How long this lasted, I don’t know; but I was suddenly awoke by feeling a cowld, clammy hand passing over my face, and whin I opened my pay-pers, judge of my dread whin I saw the lank spectre I had been making a joke of standing by my side. Bedad! if Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was stuck in my throat, I couldn’t have felt more nearly choked. The crature, whatever it was, seemed as tall as the manemast, and as thin as a rasher of wind.
Every hair on my head sprang up, and my eyes seemed starting out of their sockets to meet those of the ghost, which were as big as saucers, and were fixed on mine with a look that seemed to go through and through them, and come out at the back of my head.
I tried to cry out, but I couldn’t; but if my tongue couldn’t chatter, my teeth could. If the big skeleton’s bones had been put in an empty cask, and well shuck up by a couple of strong min, they couldn’t have made a bigger noise than my jaws did.
I tried my hardest to remimber and reharse a prayer; but sorrow the taste of one would come into my head. Shure, everything dacent was frightened clane out of it. The only good thing I could call to mind was what my mother taught me to say before males. I thought that was better than nothing, so I whispered out, while I was shivering with the fear that was upon me, “For what I am going to recave, may the Lord make me truly thankful!”
Whin I had done, the ghost’s jaws moved, and, in a voice so hoarse and hollow, that it might have come from the bottom of a churchyard vault, half-moaned, half-groaned, “It’s grace you’re saying, you imperint young blaggard!”
“It is,” says I, trimbling all over. “That is, if it’s not displasing to your honour’s lordship.”
“That depinds,” says he, “upon what you are going to give me to ate after it.”
“Ate!” says I. “Why, thin, be good to us! can you ate?”
“Thry me,” says he, “and you’ll see whether I can or not; and make haste, for my time’s short! I must go down agin almost immadiately, and it isn’t the bit or sup I’ve had for near onto five days; and by rason of that, although I was a strong man once, it’s nearly gone I am!”
“Gone where?” I asked.
“To my grave,” says he.
“Bad cess to them, whoever they were, that ought to have done it, and didn’t! Haven’t they buried you yet?” I inquired.
“What would they bury me for?” says he.
“It’s customary with corpses where I come from,” I answered.
“I come from the same place,” says he. “They are bad enough there, in all conscience—more particularly, by the same token, the middlemen, tithe-proctors, and excisemen; but they didn’t bury live min in my time,” says he.
“But they did dead ones,” says I.
“Of coorse,” he assented. “And it’s you that will have to bury me mighty soon, unless—”
“Unless what?” I demanded, in a bigger fright than ever at the thought of having to turn sexton to a sperrit.
“Well, unless you give me something to ate and drink,” says he.
“Take all there is in that locker,” says I, “and welcome—and be off out of this.”
“Don’t say it agin,” says he; and he opened the locker, and walked into the cook’s store like a shark that had been kaping a six weeks’ fast.
It was wonderful to see how the tears stood in the poor ghost’s eyes, how his jaws worked, and his throat swelled, as he swallowed mouthful after mouthful, the bigness of a big man’s fist. In a few minutes he turned to me, and said, “Take my blessing for this, Phil!”
I was startled to hear the ghost call me by my own name; but as I didn’t want to encourage him to kape on visiting terms, I thought it wouldn’t do to let him become too familiar, so I said, mighty stiff like, “Fill yourself, honest spirit, as much as you plase, but don’t be Phil-ing me—I don’t like such freedom on a short acquaintance—and you are no friend of mine,” says I.
“I was onct,” he replied.
“When?” asked I.
“When we were in the ould counthry,” says he. “When you tuck the purse from me for Mary Sheean, and promised to spake the last words I spoke to her.”
When I heard him say that, all my ould fears came over me fifty times stronger than ever, for hadn’t I broken my promise to O’Rourke? And I could see now, from the family likeness, this was his spirit; and instead of telling her all he said, only given half his message to poor Mary!
“Oh, be me sowl, good ghost!” says I.
“If I’m a ghost, I’m—”
He made a long pause, so I spoke.
“Never mind what,” says I. “I don’t want to axe any post-mortem questions—”
“Blest!” says he.
“That’s a great relief entirely,” says I. “But if you are blessed, I’m no fit company for you; so never mind your manners—don’t stay to bid me good-by, but go at onct!”
“You don’t want me to stay?” says he.
“I don’t,” I replied.
“You are more changed than I am,” he added.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” says I, “seeing the sort of company I am in.”
“Do you find fault with my company?” asked he.
“I do,” says I.
“And you wish me to go—down below again?”
“As soon as convanient,” says I.
“Well, Philip Donavan,” says he, “aither I or you are mortially changed.”
“It’s you,” says I. “My turn hasn’t come yet, but it will, all in good time.”
“Phil Donavan, do you know who you are spaking to?”
“Faix I do, to my sorrow!” says I; “to Miles O’Rourke’s ghost!”
“Miles O’Rourke’s ghost!” says he.
“Dickens a doubt of it!” says I. “Didn’t I see his body lying stark and dead, wid the blood welling out in gallons from his heart?”
“It wasn’t my heart, man alive—it was my shoulder; and shure it was the loss of that same that made me faint! Take a hould of my hand, if you doubt me! There’s little left of it but skin and bone; but it’s human still!”
It was moightily against my own wish,—and wid a cowld shiver running down my back, I did as he asked; but whin I did catch a hould of his fist, ghost or no ghost, he nearly made mine into a jelly wid the squeeze he gave it.
“Murther alive!” says I.
“Hould your whist! Remember, I’m a ghost!” says he.
“That’s thrue for you!” says I; “and you must continue one for the rest of the voyage, or maybe you will be trated as something worse!”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A stowaway!” says I. “The skipper’s a good man enough; but if he discovers you, the way he’ll sarve you will be awful!”
“What will he do?” inquired he.
“Give you thirty-nine and land you!” says I.
“Land me where?”
“In the middle of the say!” says I.
“Murther!” says he.
“Moighty like it,” says I; “but he’ll do it!”
“I’d have to give up the ghost then!” says he.
“You would, in airnest!” I tould him. “But you mustn’t do it yet. Tell me how you come on boord?”
“I will,” says he. “When the boys found me, I had only a flesh wound, and had fainted from loss of blood. They got a car, and smuggled me down to Cork. I had scarcely set my fut on deck, as the peelers came rowing up the side. When the order was given to muster all hands, I made my way to the hould, and hid myself in the straw in an empty crate in the darkest corner of the place. The men searched pretty closely, but, as good luck would have it, they passed by my hiding-place.”
“You must go back to it. But now, Miles O’Rourke, answer me one question, and, as you are a man, answer it truly!”
“What is it?”
“Did you kill the agint?”
Wake as was O’Rourke, he stood grandly up; the ould honest, proud look came into his pale, wasted, but still handsome face; and pointing his long, thin finger to heaven, he said, in a deep, low tone, the earnestness of which I shall never forget to my dying day, “As I hope for justice some day here, and mercy hereafter, I did not!”
The hug I gave him would have broken many a strong man’s ribs, let alone a ghost’s; but I couldn’t help it. Bedad, if I had been a Roosian bear itself, that hug would have been a credit to me.
“What on earth am I to do?” asked Miles.
“Anything you plase,” says I, “whin you get there! But you are on the water now, worse luck—and that’s what bothers me. I wouldn’t give a thrawneen for your life, if you are discovered and recognised as Miles O’Rourke. There’s two hundred pounds reward offered for you, and the evidence seems pretty strong against you.”
“How would they know me?” says he. “You didn’t—and no wonder! Shure whin I came on boord I weighed fourteen stone; and now, ten stone in the one scale would pitch me up to the ceiling out of the other!”
“That’s thrue enough,” says I; “but you must bear in mind I tuck you for somebody else’s ghost, and didn’t make any allowance for the starving you have had, which, particularly as a stowaway, they would be sure to do. But now you must get back to the hould. I’ll contrive to drop half my rations and a trifle of grog down every day—see Mary, and consult with her. Shure, one woman’s wit is worth a dozen men’s in a case like this.”
“But—” says he.
“Hush!” says I; “I hear futsteps. We are in a tight place now! There’s only one chance for us: I’m aslape, and you’re a ghost again!”
I fell back in my bunk, and began snoring like a porker wid the influenzey, just as the door opened, and the ould nagur poked in his black woolly mop.
Miles stood up to his full height, and raised his hands above his head, as if he was going to pounce upon him.
The poor cook, terrified beyond measure, fell down as flat as a flounder on his face, shrieking out at the top of his voice, “The ghost!—the ghost!”
O’Rourke stepped over his body, and hurried back to his hiding-place, unseen by the bewildered sailors.
I pretended to awake from a sound slape, and had the pleasure of hearing the toughest yarn that ever was spun, from Sam, in which he gave a soul-thrilling description of his encounter and hand-to-hand fight with the dreadful apparition.
I saw Mary the next morning, and broke the news of O’Rourke’s being on board as gently as I could. Our plans were soon laid. By the time we came to an anchor off New York, I contrived to drop, unseen by any one, a bundle, containing a suit of O’Rourke’s clothes, shaving materials, and a small looking-glass, down the hold.
When the passengers were paraded, the police-officer, who had remained on board, was too much engaged reading the following description of a supposed murderer to pay much attention to pretty Mary Sheean, or the poor, pale, stooping invalid she was supporting.
“Two hundred pounds reward for the apprehension of Miles O’Rourke. Description.—Florid face, curling brown hair, large and muscular limbs, finely developed chest. Height, about six feet; weight, rather under fourteen stone.”
Unlike as the half-starved wreck was to what he had been when he came on boord, I was in an agony of fear, until I saw Mary safely landed on the Battery, convulsively grasping the hand of the Ship’s Ghost.
“Yes, Paddy,” says the doctor, “that’s all very cheerful and entertaining, but decidedly unscientific, and you didn’t tell us how you got here.”
“Not he!” said Scudds, growling; “I thought it war going to be a real ghost.”
“I say, look at him!” said Bostock.
But nobody would stop to look at him; the men shuffling off once more—all but the doctor and myself—as that figure regularly melted away before our eyes—body, bones, clothes, everything; and at the end of five minutes there was nothing there but a little dust and some clear ice.
“It’s very wonderful!” the doctor said; “but it won’t do. We must find another, take him up carefully, and not thaw him out, but get him back to Hull in his ice, like a glass case.”
“Come back, lads; the Irishman’s gone,” I said; and they came back slowly; and we had to set up the tent in a fresh place, and, while we did it, the doctor found another body, and set us to work to get it out.
We got this one out capitally; the ice running like in a grain; and after six hours’ hard work, there lay the body, like an ornament in a glass paper-weight, and the doctor was delighted.
About two hours after, as we were all sitting together in the tent, we heard a sharp crack, and started; but the doctor said it was only the ice splitting with the heat of the sun; and so it proved, for five minutes after, in came a gaunt, weird-looking figure, with a strange stare in his glimmering, grey eyes; a wild toss in his long yellow hair and beard, both of which were dashed with patches of white, that looked as though the colour had changed by damp or mildew, or the bitter, searching cold. With such a dreamy, far-off gaze, he looked beyond the men who sat opposite, that they turned involuntarily and glanced over their shoulders, as though they expected to see something uncanny peering at them from behind. His long limbs and wiry frame, together with this strange, eerie expression, give him the air of some old viking or marauding Jute come to life again, and ready to recite a Norse rune, or to repeat a mystic saga of the deep, impenetrable North.
“Eh,” he said, “I was just thinkin’ a bit aboot the time when I went wi’ Captain Parry to his expedition.”
“Why, you weren’t with Captain Parry?” said the doctor.
“It’s aboot mysel’ I meant to tel ye, if ye’ll no’ be so clever wi’ contradictin’, and I say once more—(here he glowered into space, as though he saw something a long way off)—I was thinking about a man I met wi’ in about eighty-two degrees o’ latitude, when I was out wi’ Captain Parry on the third expedition of the Hecla, in 1827, at which time I was no more than forty year old.”
“Forty in 1827!” said the doctor. “Why, how old do you make yourself?”
“I’ll no mak’ mysel’ any age; but let us—no’ to be particular to a year or so—put me down at seventy-six or seventy-eight.”
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed Scudds. “Why, man, you’re not above fifty.”
“Weel, if ye maun tell my story yersels—maybe ye’ll gi’e me leave to turn in, or light my pipe. I’ll no’ speak if ye’ve no wish to hear; but now I mind that I’m eighty-four year old last Thursday was a week, for I was four-and-twenty when I first had ten years’ sleep at Slievochan.”
The man’s eyes were fixed on space, as though he saw all that he was about to narrate going on in some strange way in the dim distance; and except an occasional grunt of interest, a deep-drawn breath, or the refilling and relighting of a pipe, all was still as he went on.