XII
“Jim Barlow was diddled, and though he was game,
He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim,
That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers;
And when the whole story got into the papers,
They said that 'the thieves were no match for the quakers.'
Heigho! yea thee and nay thee.”
“Well, it's a quare thing you should be singin' a song here,” said Larry Hogan, “about Jim Barlow, and it's not over half a mile out of this very place he was hanged.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed all the men at once, looking with great interest at Larry.
“It's truth I'm telling you. He made a very bowld robbery up by the long hill there, on two gintlemen, for he was mighty stout.”
“Pluck to the back-bone,” said Goggins.
“Well, he tuk the purses aff both o' them; and just as he was goin' on afther doin' the same, what should appear on the road before him, but two other travellers coming up forninst him. With that the men that was robbed cried out, 'Stop thief!' and so Jim, seein' himself hemmed in betune the four o' them, faced his horse to the ditch and took across the counthry; but the thravellers was well mounted as well as himself, and powdhered afther him like mad. Well, it was equal to a steeple chase a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it, missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse, it was all over wid him—and up came the four gintlemen. Well, Jim had his pistols yet, and he pulled them out, and swore he'd shoot the first man that attempted to take him; but the gintlemen had pistols as well as he, and were so hot on the chase they determined to have him, and closed on him. Jim fired and killed one o' them; but he got a ball in the shouldher himself, from another, and he was taken. Jim sthruv to shoot himself with his second pistol, but it missed fire. 'The curse o' the road is on me,' said Jim; 'my pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped his shouldher, and now I'll be scragged,' says he, 'but it's not for nothing—I've killed one o' ye,' says he.”
“He was all pluck,” said Goggins.
“Desperate bowld,” said Larry. “Well, he was thried and condimned av coorse, and was hanged, as I tell you, half a mile out o' this very place, where we are sittin', and his appearance walks, they say, ever since.”
“You don't say so!” said Goggins.
“'Faith, it's thrue!” answered Larry.
“You never saw it,” said Goggins.
“The Lord forbid!” returned Larry; “but it's thrue, for all that. For you see the big house near this barn, that is all in ruin, was desarted because Jim's ghost used to walk.”
“That was foolish,” said Goggins; “stir up the fire, Jim, and hand me the whisky.”
“Oh, if it was only walkin', they might have got over that; but at last one night, as the story goes, when there was a thremendious storm o' wind and rain—”
“Whisht!” said one of the peasants, “what's that?”
As they listened, they heard the beating of heavy rain against the door, and the wind howled through its chinks.
“Well,” said Goggins, “what are you stopping for?”
“Oh, I'm not stoppin',” said Larry; “I was sayin' that it was a bad wild night, and Jimmy Barlow's appearance came into the house and asked them for a glass o' sper'ts, and that he'd be obleeged to them if they'd help him with his horse that slipped his shouldher; and, 'faith, afther that, they'd stay in the place no longer; and signs on it, the house is gone to rack and ruin, and it's only this barn that is kept up at all, because it's convaynient for owld Skinflint on the farm.”
“That's all nonsense,” said Goggins, who wished, nevertheless, that he had not heard the “nonsense.”
“Come, sing another song, Jim.”
Jim said he did not remember one.
“Then you sing, Ralph.”
Ralph said every one knew he never did more than join a chorus.
“Then join me in a chorus,” said Goggins, “for I'll sing, if Jim's afraid.”
“I'm not afraid,” said Jim.
“Then why won't you sing?”
“Because I don't like.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Goggins.
“Well, maybe you're afraid yourself,” said Jim, “if you towld thruth.” “Just to show you how little I'm afeard,” said Goggins, with a swaggering air, “I'll sing another song about Jimmy Barlow.”
“You'd better not,” said Larry Hogan. “Let him rest in pace!”
“Fudge!” said Goggins. “Will you join chorus, Jim?”
“I will,” said Jim, fiercely.
“We'll all join,” said the men (except Larry), who felt it would be a sort of relief to bully away the supernatural terror which hung round their hearts after the ghost story by the sound of their own voices.
“Then here goes!” said Goggins, who started another long ballad about Jimmy Barlow, in the opening of which all joined. It ran as follows:—
“My name it is Jimmy Barlow,
I was born in the town of Carlow,
And here I lie in the Maryborough jail,
All for the robbing of the Wicklow mail.
Fol de rol de rol de riddle-ido!”
As it would be tiresome to follow this ballad through all its length, breadth, and thickness, we shall leave the singers engaged in their chorus, while we call the reader's attention to a more interesting person than Mister Goggins or Jimmy Barlow.