At length it pleased the Counsellor, or old Nick on his behalf, to look out for a wife; and, as dreams go by contraries, so Conaghty’s perverse vision of matrimonial happiness induced him to select a sposa very excellent internally, but in her exterior as much the reverse of himself as any two of the same species could be.
Madam Conaghty was (and I dare say still is) a neat, pretty, dressy little person: her head reached nearly up to her spouse’s hip; and if he had stood wide, to let her pass, she might (without much stooping) have walked under him as through a triumphal arch.
He was quite delighted with his captivating fairy, and she equally so with her good-natured giant. Nothing could promise better for twenty or thirty years of honey-moons, when an extraordinary and most unexpected fatality demonstrated the uncertainty of all sublunary enjoyments, and might teach ladies who have lost their beauty the dangers of a looking-glass.
The Counsellor had taken a small house, and desired his dear little Mary to furnish it to her own dear little taste. This, as new-married ladies usually do, she set about with the greatest zeal and assiduity. She had a proper taste for things in general, and was besides extremely anxious to make her giant somewhat smarter; and, as he had seldom in his life had any intercourse with looking-glasses larger than necessary just to reflect his chin whilst shaving, she determined to place a grand mirror in her little drawing-room, extensive enough to exhibit the Counsellor to himself from head to foot—and which, by reflecting his loose, shabby habiliments, and tremendous contour, might induce him to trim himself up.
This plan was extremely promising in the eyes of little Mary; and she had no doubt it would be entirely consonant with her husband’s own desire of Mrs. Conaghty’s little drawing-room being the nicest in the neighbourhood. She accordingly purchased, in Great George Street, at a very large price, a looking-glass of sufficing dimensions, and it was a far larger one than the Counsellor had ever before noticed.
When this fatal reflector was brought home, it was placed leaning against the wall in the still unfurnished drawing-room,—and the lady, having determined at once to surprise and reform her dear giant, did not tell him of the circumstance. The ill-fated Counsellor, wandering about his new house—as people often do toward the close of the evening—that interregnum between sun, moon, and candlelight, when shadows are deep and figures seem lengthened—suddenly entered the room where the glass was deposited. Unconscious of the presence of the immense reflector, he beheld, in the gloom, a monstrous and frightful Caliban—wild, loose, and shaggy,—standing close and direct before him; and, as he raised his own gigantic arms in a paroxysm of involuntary horror, the goblin exactly followed his example, lifting its tremendous fists, as if with a fixed determination to fell the Counsellor, and extinguish him for ever.
Conaghty’s imagination was excited to its utmost pitch. Though the spectre appeared larger than any d—l on authentic record, he had no doubt it was a genuine demon sent express to destroy his happiness and carry him to Belzebub. As his apprehensions augmented, his pores sent out their icy perspiration: he tottered—the fiend too was in motion! his hair bristled up, as it were like pikes to defend his head. At length his blood recoiled, his eyes grew dim, his pulse ceased, his long limbs quivered—failed; and down came poor Conaghty with a loud shriek and a tremendous crash. His beloved bride, running up alarmed by the noise, found the Counsellor as inanimate as the boards he lay on. A surgeon was sent for, and phlebotomy was resorted to as for apoplexy, which the seizure was pronounced to be. His head was shaved; and by the time he revived a little, he had three extensive blisters and a cataplasm preparing their stings for him.
It was two days before he recovered sufficiently to tell his Mary of the horrid spectre that had assailed him—for he really thought he had been felled to the ground by a blow from the goblin. Nothing, indeed, could ever persuade him to the contrary, and he grew quite delirious.
His reason returned slowly and scantily; and when assured it was only a looking-glass that was the cause of his terror, the assurance did not alter his belief. He pertinaciously maintained, that this was only a kind story invented to tranquillise him. “Oh, my dearest Mary!” said poor Conaghty, “I’m gone!—my day is come—I’m called away for ever. Oh! had you seen the frightful figure that struck me down, you could not have survived it one hour! Yet why should I fear the d—l? I’m not wicked, Mary! No, I’m not very wicked!”
A thorough Irish servant, an old fellow whom the Counsellor had brought from Connaught, and who of course was well acquainted with supernatural appearances, and had not himself seen the fatal mirror,—discovered, as he thought, the real cause of the goblin’s visit, which he communicated to his mistress with great solemnity, as she afterward related.