P.
THE CASTLE OF AUGHENTAIN, OR A LEGEND OF THE BROWN GOAT,
A TALE OF TOM GRASSIEY, THE SHANAHUS.
BY WILLIAM CARLETON.
When Tom had expressed an intention of relating an old story, the hum of general conversation gradually subsided into silence, and every face assumed an expression of curiosity and interest, with the exception of Jemsy Baccagh, who was rather deaf, and blind George M’Givor, so called because he wanted an eye; both of whom, in high and piercing tones, carried on an angry discussion touching a small law-suit that had gone against Jemsy in the Court Leet, of which George was a kind of rustic attorney. An outburst of impatient rebuke was immediately poured upon them from fifty voices. “Whisht with yez, ye pair of devils’ limbs, an’ Tom goin’ to tell us a story. Jemsy, your sowl’s as crooked as your lame leg, you sinner; an’ as for blind George, if roguery would save a man, he’d escape the devil yet. Tarenation to yez, an’ be quiet till we hear the story!”
“Ay,” said Tom, “Scripthur says that when the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the ditch; but God help the lame that have blind George to lead them; we might aisily guess where he’d guide them to, especially such a poor innocent as Jemsy there.” This banter, as it was not intended to give offence, so was it received by the parties to whom it was addressed with laughter and good humour.
“Silence, boys,” said Tom; “I’ll jist take a draw of the pipe till I put my mind in a proper state of transmigration for what I’m goin’ to narrate.”
He then smoked on for a few minutes, his eyes complacently but meditatively closed, and his whole face composed into the philosophic spirit of a man who knew and felt his own superiority, as well as what was expected from him. When he had sufficiently arranged the materials in his mind, he took the pipe out of his mouth, rubbed the shank-end of it against the cuff of his coat, then handed it to his next neighbour, and having given a short preparatory cough, thus commenced his legend:—
“You must know that afther Charles the First happened to miss his head one day, havin’ lost it while playin’ a game of ‘Heads an’ Points’ with the Scotch, that a man called Nolly Rednose, or Oliver Crummle, was sent over to Ireland with a parcel of breekless Highlanders an’ English Bodaghs to subduvate the Irish, an’ as many of the Prodestans as had been friends to the late king, who were called Royalists. Now, it appears by many larned transfigurations that Nolly Rednose had in his army a man named Balgruntie, or the Hog of Cupar; a fellow who was as coorse as sackin’, as cunnin’ as a fox, an’ as gross as the swine he was named afther. Rednose, there is no doubt of it, was as nate a hand at takin’ a town or castle as ever went about it; but then, any town that didn’t surrendher at discretion was sure to experience little mitigation at his hands; an’ whenever he was bent on wickedness, he was sure to say his prayers at the commencement of every siege or battle; that is, he intended to show no marcy in, for he’d get a book, an’ openin’ it at the head of his army, he’d cry, ‘Ahem, my brethren, let us praise God by endeavourin’ till sing sich or sich a psalm;’ an’ God help the man, woman, or child, that came before him after that. Well an’ good: it so happened that a squadron of his psalm-singers were dispatched by him from Enniskillen, where he stopped to rendher assistance to a part of his army that O’Neill was leatherin’ down near Dungannon, an’ on their way they happened to take up their quarthers for the night at the Mill of Aughentain. Now, above all men in the creation, who should be appointed to lead this same squadron but the Hog of Cupar. ‘Balgruntie, go off wid you,’ said Crummle, when administering his instructions to him; ‘but be sure that wherever you meet a fat royalist on the way, to pay your respects to him as a Christian ought,’ says he; ‘an’, above all things, my dear brother Balgruntie, don’t neglect your devotions, otherwise our arms can’t prosper; and be sure,’ says he, with a pious smile, ‘that if they promulgate opposition, you will make them bleed anyhow, either in purse or person; or if they provoke the grace o’ God, take a little from them in both; an’ so the Lord’s name be praised, yeamen!’
Balgruntie sang a psalm of thanksgivin’ for bein’ elected by his commander to sich a holy office, set out on his march, an’ the next night he an’ his choir slep in the mill of Aughentain, as I said. Now, Balgruntie had in this same congregation of his a long-legged Scotchman named Sandy Saveall, which name he got by way of etymology, for his charity; for it appears by the historical elucidations that Sandy was perpetually rantinizin’ about sistherly affection an’ brotherly love: an’ what showed more taciturnity than any thing else was, that while this same Sandy had the persuasion to make every one believe that he thought of nothing else, he shot more people than any ten men in the squadron. He was indeed what they call a dead shot, for no one ever knew him to miss any thing he fired at. He had a musket that could throw point blank an English mile, an’ if he only saw a man’s nose at that distance, he used to say that with aid from above he could blow it for him with a leaden handkerchy, meaning that he could blow it off his face with a musket bullet; and so by all associations he could, for indeed the faits he performed were very insinivating an’ problematical.
Now, it so happened that at this period there lived in the castle a fine wealthy ould royalist, named Graham or Grimes, as they are often denominated, who had but one child, a daughter, whose beauty an’ perfections were mellifluous far an’ near over the country, an’ who had her health drunk, as the toast of Ireland, by the Lord Lieutenant in the Castle of Dublin, undher the sympathetic appellation of ‘the Rose of Aughentain.’ It was her son that afterwards ran through the estate, and was forced to part wid the castle; an’ it’s to him the proverb colludes, which mentions ‘ould John Grame, that swallowed the castle of Aughentain.’