“‘Biaidh an taifrionn gan sholas duit a bhean shalach!’
Then turning from the door she went away with long strides. Now, honey, can ye tell me the meaning of those words?”
“They mean,” said I, “unless I am much mistaken: ‘May the Mass never comfort ye, you dirty quean!’”
“Ochone! that’s the maning of them, sure enough. They are cramped words, but I guessed that was the meaning, or something of the kind. Well, after hearing the evil prayer, I sat for a minute or two quite stunned; at length recovering myself a bit I said to the colleen: ‘Get up, and run after the woman and tell her to come back and cross the prayer.’ I meant by crossing that she should call it back or do something that would take the venom out of it. Well, the colleen was rather loth to go, for she was a bit scared herself, but on my beseeching her, she got up and ran after the woman, and being rather swift of foot, at last, though with much difficulty, overtook her, and begged her to come back and cross the prayer, but the divil of a woman would do no such thing, and when the colleen persisted she told her that if she didn’t go back, she would say an evil prayer over her too. So the colleen left her, and came back crying and frightened. All the rest of the day I remained sitting on the stool speechless, thinking of the prayer which the woman had said, and wishing I had given her everything I had in the world, rather than she should have said it. At night came home the boys, and found their mother sitting on the stool, like one stupefied. ‘What’s the matter with you, mother?’ they said. ‘Get up and help us to unpack. We have brought home plenty of things on the car, and amongst others a whole boll of meal.’ ‘You might as well have left it behind you,’ said I; ‘this morning a single measure of male would have been to me of all the assistance in the world, but I quistion now if I shall ever want meal again.’ They asked me what had happened to me, and after some time I told them how a monstrous woman had been to me, and had said an evil prayer over me, because having no meal in the house I had not given her an alms. ‘Come, mother,’ said they, ‘get up and help us to unload! never mind the prayer of the monstrous woman—it is all nonsense.’ Well, I got up and helped them to unload, and cooked them a bit and sat down with them, and tried to be merry, but felt that I was no longer the woman that I was. The next day I didn’t seem to care what became of me, or how matters went on, and though there was now plenty of meal in the house, not a measure did I fill with it to give away in the shape of alms; and when the bacahs, and the liprous women, and the dark men, and the other unfortunates placed themselves at the side of the door, and gave me to understand that they wanted alms, each in his or her particular manner, divil an alms did I give them, but let them stand and took no heed of them, so that at last they took themselves off grumbling and cursing. And little did I care for their grumblings and cursings. Two days before I wouldn’t have had an unfortunate grumble at me, or curse me, for all the riches below the sun; but now their grumblings and curses didn’t give me the slightest uneasiness, for I had an evil prayer spoken against me in the Shanna Gailey by the monstrous woman, and I knew that I was blighted in this world and the next. In a little time I ceased to pay any heed to the farming business, or to the affairs of the house, so that my sons had no comfort in their home. And I took to drink and induced my eldest son to take to drink too—my youngest son, however, did not take to drink, but conducted himself well, and toiled and laboured like a horse, and often begged me and his brother to consider what we were about, and not to go on in a way which would bring us all to ruin, but I paid no regard to what he said, and his brother followed my example, so that at last seeing things were getting worse every day, and that we should soon be turned out of house and home, for no rint was paid, every penny that could be got being consumed in waste, he bade us farewell and went and listed for a sodger. But if matters were bad enough before he went away, they became much worse after; for now when the unfortunates came to the door for alms, instead of letting them stand in pace till they were tired, and took themselves off, I would mock them and point at them, and twit them with their sores and other misfortunes, and not unfrequently I would fling scalding water over them, which would send them howling and honing away, till at last there was not an unfortunate but feared to come within a mile of my door. Moreover, I began to misconduct myself at chapel, more especially at the Aifrionn or Mass, for no sooner was the bell rung, and the holy corpus raised, than I would shout and hoorah, and go tumbling and toppling along the floor before the holy body, as I just now tumbled along the road before you, so that the people were scandalised, and would take me by the shoulders and turn me out of doors, and began to talk of ducking me in the bog. The priest of the parish, however, took my part, saying that I ought not to be persecuted, for that I was not accountable for what I did, being a possessed person, and under the influence of divils. ‘These, however,’ said he, ‘I’ll soon cast out from her, and then the woman will be a holy cratur, much better than she ever was before.’ A very learned man was Father Hogan, especially in casting out divils, and a portly good-looking man too, only he had a large rubicon nose, which people said he got by making over free with the cratur in sacret. I had often looked at the nose, when the divil was upon me, and felt an inclination to seize hold of it, jist to see how it felt. Well, he had me to his house several times, and there he put holy cloths upon me, and tied holy images to me, and read to me out of holy books, and sprinkled holy water over me, and put questions to me, and at last was so plased with the answers I gave him, that he prached a sermon about me in the chapel, in which he said that he had cast six of my divils out of me, and should cast out the seventh, which was the last, by the next Sabbath, and then should present me to the folks in the chapel as pure a vessel as the blessed Mary herself—and that I was destined to accomplish great things, and to be a mighty instrument in the hands of the Holy Church, for that he intended to write a book about me describing the miracle he had performed in casting the seven divils out of me, which he should get printed at the printing-press of the blessed Columba, and should send me through all Ireland to sell the copies, the profits of which would go towards the support of the holy society for casting out unclane spirits, to which he himself belonged. Well, the people showed that they were plased by a loud shout, and went away longing for the next Sunday when I was to be presented to them without a divil in me. Five times the next week did I go to the priest’s house, to be read to, and be sprinkled, and have cloths put upon me, in order that the work of casting out the last divil, which it seems was stronger than all the rest, might be made smooth and aisy, and on the Saturday I came to have the last divil cast out, and found his riverince in full canonicals, seated in his aisy chair. ‘Daughter,’ said he when he saw me, ‘the work is nearly over. Now kneel down before me, and I will make the sign of the cross over your forehead, and then you will feel the last and strongest of the divils, which have so long possessed ye, go out of ye through your eyes, as I expect you will say to the people assembled in the chapel to-morrow.’ So I put myself on my knees before his reverence, who after muttering something to himself, either in Latin or Shanna Gailey—I believe it was Latin, said, ‘Look me in the face, daughter!’ Well, I looked his reverence in the face, and there I saw his nose looking so large, red, and inviting that I could not resist the temptation, and before his reverence could make the sign of the cross, which doubtless would have driven the divil out of me, I made a spring at it, and seizing hold of it with fore-finger and thumb, pulled hard at it. Hot and inctious did it feel. O, the yell that his reverence gave! However, I did not let go my hold, but kept pulling at the nose, till at last to avoid the torment his reverence came tumbling down upon me, causing me by his weight to fall back upon the floor. At the yell which he gave, and at the noise of the fall, in came rushing his reverence’s housekeeper and stable-boy, who seeing us down on the floor, his reverence upon me and my hand holding his reverence’s nose, for I felt loth to let it go, they remained in astonishment and suspense. When his reverence, however, begged them, for the Virgin’s sake, to separate him from the divil of a woman, they ran forward, and having with some difficulty freed his reverence’s nose from my hand, they helped him up. The first thing that his reverence did, on being placed on his legs, was to make for a horsewhip, which stood in one corner of the room, but I guessing how he meant to use it, sprang up from the floor, and before he could make a cut at me, ran out of the room, and hasted home. The next day, when all the people for twenty miles round met in the chapel, in the expectation of seeing me presented to them a purified and holy female, and hearing from my mouth the account of the miracle which his reverence had performed, his reverence made his appearance in the pulpit with a dale of gould-bater’s leaf on his nose, and from the pulpit he told the people how I had used him, showing them the gould-bater’s leaf on his feature as testimony of the truth of his words, finishing by saying that if at first there were seven devils there were now seven times seven within me. Well, when the people heard the story, and saw his nose with the bater’s leaf upon it, they at first began to laugh, but when he appealed to their consciences, and asked them if such was fitting tratement for a praist, they said it was not, and that if he would only but curse me, they would soon do him justice upon me. His reverence then cursed by book, bell, and candle, and the people, setting off from the chapel, came in a crowd to the house where I lived, to wrake vengeance upon me. Overtaking my son by the way, who was coming home in a state of intoxication, they bate him within an inch of his life, and left him senseless on the ground, and no doubt would have served me much worse, only seeing them coming, and guessing what they came about, though I was a bit intoxicated myself, I escaped by the back of the house out into the bog, where I hid myself amidst a copse of hazels. The people coming to the house, and not finding me there, broke and destroyed every bit of furniture, and would have pulled the house down, or set fire to it, had not an individual among them cried out that doing so would be of no use, for that the house did not belong to me, and that destroying it would merely be an injury to the next tenant. So the people, after breaking my furniture and ill-trating two or three dumb beasts, which happened not to have been made away with, went away, and in the dead of night I returned to the house, where I found my son, who had just crawled home covered with blood and bruises. We hadn’t, however, a home long, for the agents of the landlord came to seize for rent, took all they could find, and turned us out upon the wide world. Myself and son wandered together for an hour or two, then, having a quarrel with each other, we parted, he going one way and I another. Some little time after I heard that he was transported. As for myself, I thought I might as well take a leaf out of the woman’s book, who had been the ruin of me. So I went about bidding people give me alms for the glory of God, and threatening those who gave me nothing that the mass should never comfort them. It’s a dreadful curse that, honey; and I would advise people to avoid it even though they give away all they have. If you have no comfort in the mass, you will have comfort in nothing else. Look at me: I have no comfort in the mass, for as soon as the priest’s bell rings I shouts and hoorahs, and performs tumblings before the blessed corpus, getting myself kicked out of chapel, and as little comfort as I have in the mass have I in other things, which should be a comfort to me. I have two sons who ought to be the greatest comfort to me, but are they so? We’ll see—one is transported, and of course is no comfort to me at all. The other is a sodger. Is he a comfort to me? not a bit. A month ago when I was travelling through the black north, tumbling and toppling about, and threatening people with my prayer, unless they gave me alms, a woman, who knew me, told me that he was with his regiment at Cardiff, here in Wales, whereupon I determined to go and see him, and crossing the water got into England, from whence I walked to Cardiff asking alms of the English in the common English way, and of the Irish, and ye are the first Irish I have met, in the way in which I asked them of you. But when I got to Cardiff did I see my son? I did not, for the day before he had sailed with his regiment to a place ten thousand miles away, so I shall never see his face again nor derive comfort from him. Oh, if there’s no comfort from the mass there’s no comfort from anything else, and he who has the evil prayer in the Shanna Gailey breathed upon him, will have no comfort from the mass. Now, honey, ye have heard the story of Johanna Colgan, the bedivilled woman. Give her now a dacent alms and let her go!”
“Would you consider sixpence a decent alms?”
“I would. If you give me sixpence, I will not say my prayer over ye.”
“Would you give me a blessing?”
“I would not. A bedivilled woman has no blessing to give.”
“Surely if you are able to ask people to give you alms for the glory of God, you are able to give a blessing.”