Good God! my wife is gone! my wife is gone astray! I've lived with you six months, John, and so far I've been true; A han'somer man than me! Why, that ain't much to say; Curse her! curse her! I say, and give my curses wings! And when her face grows pale, and when her eyes grow dim, And thoughts that are now asleep will wake up in her mind, And yet in her girlish heart there was somethin' or other she had And she loved me a little, I think, although it didn't last; But I mustn't think of these things I've buried 'em in the past. I'll take my hard words back, nor make a bad matter worse; She'll have trouble enough, poor thing; she shall not have my curse; But I'll live a life so square and I well know that I can -- That she will always grieve that she went with that han'somer man. Ah, here is her kitchen dress! it makes my poor eyes blur; It seems, when I look at that, as if 'twas holdin' her. And here are her week-day shoes, and there is her week-day hat. And yonder's her weddin'-gown: I wonder she didn't take that! 'Twas only this mornin' she came and called me her "dearest dear," And said I was makin' for her a regular paradise here: O God! if you want a man to sense the pains of hell, Good-by I wish that death had severed us two apart; And if I thought I could bring my words on heaven to bear, I would pray that I might be, if it only could be so, As happy and gay as I was a half an hour ago! JANE (entering). Why, John, what a litter here! you've thrown things all around! Come, what's the matter now? and what 've you lost or found? And here's my father here, a-waiting for supper, too; I've been a-riding with him- he's that "handsomer man than you." Ha ha! Pa, take a seat, while I put the kettle on, And get things ready for tea, and kiss my dear old John. Why, John, you look so strange! Come, what has crossed your track? I was only a joking, you know; I'm willing to take it back. JOHN (aside). Well, now, if this ain't a joke, with rather a bitter cream! It seems as if I'd woke from a mighty ticklish dream; And I think she "smells a rat," for she smiles at me so queer; ---- 'Twas one of her practical drives why didn't I understand! 2287 WILLIAM CARLETON. WILLIAM CARLETON, an Irish novelist, born at Prillisk, Tyrone, Ireland, in 1794; died at Dublin, Jan. 30, 1869. After receiving his early education in a "hedge school," he set out for Munster, to complete his education as "a poor scholar." Homesickness and a disagreeable dream on the night after his setting out sent him back to his parents, and he spent the next two years in the labors and amusements of his native place, acquiring at wakes, fairs, and merrymakings, a minute knowledge of Irish peasant life. At the age of seventeen he went to the academy of a relative at Glasslough, where he remained for two years. He afterward went to Dublin, seeking fortune, his capital on arriving being 2s. 9d. His "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," which appeared in 1830, was so warmly welcomed, that in 1833 he published a second series. This proved as popular as the first, and Carleton's success as an author was assured. In 1835 he published "Father Butler,” and in 1839 “Fardorougha, the Miser, or the Convicts of Lisnamorna"; "The Fawn of Spring Vale"; "The Clarionet, and other Tales," of which "The Misfortunes of Barney Branagan" appeared in 1841, "Valentine McClutchy," a novel (1845); "The Black Prophet " (1847); "The Tithe Proctor" (1849); "The Squanders of Castle Squander" (1852); "Willy Reilly" (1855); and "The Evil Eye" (1860). During the last years of his life Carleton received a pension of £200. THE LIANHAN SHEE. AN IRISH SUPERSTITION. (From "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.”) ONE summer evening Mary Sullivan was sitting at her own well-swept hearth-stone, knitting feet to a pair of sheep's-gray stockings, for Bartley, her husband. It was one of those serene evenings in the month of June, when the decline of day assumes a calmness and repose resembling what we might suppose to have irradiated Eden when our first parents sat in it before their fall. The beams of the sun shone through the windows in clear shafts of amber light, exhibiting millions of those atoms which float to the naked eye within its mild radiance. The dog lay barking in his dream at her feet, and the gray cat sat purring placidly upon his back, from which even his occasional agitation did not dislodge her. Mrs. Sullivan was the wife of a wealthy farmer, and niece to the Rev. Felix O'Rourke; her kitchen was consequently large, comfortable, and warm. Over where she sat jutted out the "brace," well lined with bacon; to the right hung a wellscoured salt-box, and to the left was the jamb, with its little Gothic paneless window to admit the light. Within it hung several ash rungs, seasoning for flail-sooples, a dozen of eel-skins, and several stripes of horse-skin, as hangings for them. The dresser was a "parfit white," and well furnished with the usual appurtenances. Over the door and on the "threshel" were nailed, "for luck," two horse-shoes that had been found by accident. In a little "hole " in the wall, beneath the salt-box, lay a great bottle of holy water to keep the place purified; and against the cope-stone of the gable, on the outside, grew a large lump of house-leek, as a specific for sore eyes. In the corner of the garden were a few stalks of tansy, “to kill the thievin' worms in the childhre, the crathurs," together with a little Rosenoble, Solomon's Seal, and Bugloss, each for some medicinal purpose. The "lime wather" Mrs. Sullivan could make herself, and the "bog bane" for the linh roe, or heart-burn, grew in their own meadow-drain; so that, in fact, she had within her reach a very decent pharmacopoeia, perhaps as harmless as that of the profession itself. Lying on the top of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and sewed in the folds of her own scapular was the dust of what had once been a fourleafed shamrock, an invaluable specific "for seein' the good people," if they happened to come within the bounds of vision. Over the door in the inside, over the beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of withered palm that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday; and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own hands, a woolen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being overlooked by evil eyes, or elf-shot by the fairies, who seem to possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the season of parturition. It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, for toothaches, headaches, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let it suffice to inform our read up ers that she was well stocked with them; and that, in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a potion made and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing forever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife. Whether it produced this desirable object or not our readers may conjecture, when we add that the herb-doctor, after having taken a very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to disappear from the neighborhood, in order to avoid meeting with Bartley, who had a sharp look out for him, not exactly on his own account, but "in regard," he said, "that it had no effect upon Mary, at all at all;" whilst Mary, on the other hand, admitted its efficacy upon herself, but maintained "that Bartley was worse nor ever afther it." Such was Mary Sullivan, as she sat at her own hearth, quite alone, engaged as we have represented her. What she may have been meditating on we cannot pretend to ascertain; but after some time she looked sharply into the "backstone," or hob, with an air of anxiety and alarm. By-and-by she suspended her knitting, and listened with much earnestness, leaning her right ear over to the hob, from whence the sounds to which she paid such deep attention proceeded. At length she crossed herself devoutly, and exclaimed, "Queen of saints about us!- is it back yees are? Well, sure there's no use in talkin', bekase they say you know what's said of you, or to you—an' we may as well spake yees fair. Hem-musha, yees are welcome back, crickets, avourneenee! I hope that, not like the last visit ye ped us, yees are comin' for luck now! Moolyeen 1 died, anyway, soon afther your other kailyee,2 ye crathurs, ye. Here's the bread, an' the salt, an' the male for yees, an' we wish yees well. Eh?-saints above, if it isn't listenin' they are jist like a Christhen! Wurrah, but yees are the wise an' the quare crathurs all out." She then shook a little holy water over the hob, and muttered to herself an Irish charm or prayer against the evils which crickets are often supposed by the peasantry to bring with them, and requested, still in the words of the charm, that their presence might, on that occasion, rather be a presage of good fortune to man and beast belonging to her. "There now, ye dhonhans ye, sure ye can't say that ye're ill thrated here, anyhow, or ever was mocked or made game of in the same family. You have got your hansel, an' full an' plenty of it; hopin' at the same time that you'll have no rason in life 1 A cow without horns. 2 Short visit. |