iron. Biddy started when she felt the first pull, and threw up her hands wildly. She could utter no cry, for her voice was choked. Pulling still, Darkey drew her back of the chair, and dragged her several paces until she reached the bedpost, and was able to wind the rope round and round it. She was beyond making the least resistance; her eyes were starting, and her face purple. Darkey's strength collapsed at once when the deed was done. She was again the feeble aged crone, who had barely vigour enough to hang the pot upon the crook. To lie down and rest was now her sole desire, but how rest with that companion in the house? So, unwilling to bear her company a minute longer, she put on her shawl, and locking the door, began to stagger in the dark along the field-path to Joseph Willock's, supported by her stick. It took her half an hour to cross that one field, so terrified and exhausted was she. Joseph, his wife, and two farm servants were in the kitchen when she entered. Carefully looking around, she told her tale in whispers to the awe-stricken audience, who vibrated between horror and applause. One thing was decided upon at once. Biddy must be hidden away very quietly, and the affair must be kept secret for the old woman's sake. This might well be done, since the townland was Protestant with the exception of that one cottier house. "Gather the neighbours," said Joseph Willock to his servants. And accordingly, there were soon assembled in the farm-house kitchen two stalwart Colhouns and three young Hutchesons. a The story was re-told. Darkey was praised and comforted, and "Johnnie" of whisky apiece was partaken of all round. The moon had risen by the time the party left Joseph Willock's, armed with pickaxes and spades. The fire was out, but the moonlight fell upon the back countrywoman's dead face as she lay against the bedpost, with the rope round her neck. The men untied her, and carried her out to the old fort on Colhoun's land, Darkey following the weird procession with her eyes. She was laid upon the grass under a "gentle bush," i.e., fairyhaunted thorn, while they dug a grave. "Dead men tell nae tales," remarked young Colhoun, as they put her in, wrapped in her tartan shawl for lack of shroud, and tumbled the earth upon her. "There, Biddy Gallagher," continued he, with grim sarcasm, "you'll rest snug eneugh for a' ye had nae extreme unction, an' nae wake, an' there'll be nae priest ava to offer masses for yer sowl." Long before dawn the grave was filled in, and a large flagstone placed over it. The secret was religiously preserved. Biddy's native place was far distant, and nobody came from thence to inquire about her. Those who had chanced to meet her on her way to Cloughfin might conjecture that she had gone to visit her old mistress; but no one had actually seen her take the turn leading to Darkey's cottage, and there were very few questions asked about her. Indeed, the fate of one person could cause but little speculation in those troublous and stirring times. The story, however, was told in whispers by many a fireside during the long winter evenings; it was, in fact, regarded in the light of a valuable Protestant possession, and as such was remembered, and handed down from father to child. Generation after generation of the juvenile inhabitants of Cloughfin played their games of marbles and danced upon the flagstone that covered the grave. II. THE SPIT OF THE WHEEL. THE much to be deplored enmity between the two religions above described, though very general, was, even in those wild days, not quite universal. Here and there a Roman Catholic lived on terms of hearty goodwill with his Protestant neighbours, and was ready to brave the utmost wrath of the rebel party rather than turn against them. And they, won from their suspicion, made common cause with, and endeavoured to shield him from the mutual foe. "The Spit of the Wheel" is a story as well remembered in Ulster as that of Darkey Willock and her servant-girl. Jack Donnel was a weaver, living in the thinly-populated district of Temple Clady, in the county Derry. He was a religious man, attending chapel regularly, and paying the priest all his dues. But he would not join the Whiteboy meetings, or nightly drill, would not enter into any conspiracy against the lives of the Protestant farmers in his neighbourhood. When urged to cast in his lot with the rebels, his answer was always the same: "You ones needna be fleeching me to stir the neighbours; they ha' been the very best o' neighbours to me an' mine.' Up to the year 1798 no man had been more prosperous or more highly respected than poor Jack Donnel. Weaving was a good trade, and he earned enough to keep himself, his wife, and four younger children very comfortably, as well as to send the elder ones to America, as they were old enough to go out into the world and seek their own fortunes. But from the day he first refused to join the rebels his prosperity was over, and he lived in mortal terror. "Give in to the boys, Jack dear, for the love o' these childer an' me," pleaded his wife in the darkness of night, when gusts of wind swept through the bleak hills, and sounds were heard like the tramp of those he had offended. "Na, na, Sheelah, woman! It's the love o' my ain soul keeps me frae dipping my hands in the innocent blood," was he wont to answer, with sorrowful but very steadfast courage. The skeleton sycamores rattled, and the wind howled, and the trampling was heard for many and many an anxious winter night, and morning still found the Donnels unharmed, but at length the avenging tread really did stop at their door. The Clady men had taken it in turn to sit up with them every night since Donnel had let it be understood how he had incurred the displeasure of his own people, but this night they were all at a wake in a farm-house about half a mile of. Then, as now, attendance at wake or funeral was considered the very highest obligation of friendship, to which all other engagements must give way. So it happened that the Donnels were for once unguarded in their lonely cabin. Chests and tables were piled up against the door. A mighty blackthorn club and an old sword lay on the bed beside Jack, who was wide awake and fully dressed. He was listening intently to ominous sounds that rose above the fitful gusts of wind. "The saints preserve us!" whispered his trembling wife, touching him with her chilly hand. "It's the boys!" "Ay, Sheelah, it is," was all Jack said. He grasped his club, and, taking his place behind the barricade at the door, prepared to defend her and the children till his last gasp. But his courage availed him little. The assailants were numerous, their blows were heavy, and the door soon flew in. Then a horrible scene of slaughter took place. The tumult awoke the poor children, who slept all four together in a bed built into the wall. They climbed out and began to run about the kitchen floor. Mary, the eldest, had sufficient presence of mind to creep under a large tub which was used for holding webs of linen, and which happened to be lying upside down beneath the dresser. She was a small child for eleven years of age, and she shrunk together as much as she could, but she felt that she was raising up the tub, so as to make a distance of some two inches between it and the ground. Through this chink she saw her mother and the three children cruelly murdered, and her father struck down by a bludgeon after fighting as long as he had strength to stand, and left for dead, stretched along before the hearth. The assassins searched the house, under the bed, up in the loft, &c., to see if any one was concealed, but nobody thought of Mary's tub. She lay completely hidden. Their search ended, the men went away, all but one—a man named Ryan, whom she knew perfectly from seeing him on Sundays at chapel. He had gone some steps with the rest, when a second thought seemed to have struck him, for he stepped hastily back into the house, muttering that it was safest to be sure of things, and taking the rim of the spinning-wheel, he flung it down on Donnel's breast, and jumping up, danced upon it with all his force. But the same instant Mary saw him spring down again, the blood pouring from a wound in the calf of his leg. He had intended that the spit, a sharpened rod of steel which pierced the rim of the wheel, should be forced into Donnel's breast, and imagined he had so thrown the rim that it must be underneath; but instead of that he had left the spit sticking uppermost, and when he sprang upon the rim it ran into his own leg, cutting it so deeply that the blood spouted from the wound through the long stocking he wore with his knee-breeches. Mary's eyes were sharpened by her terror. She saw the blood pouring from the cut, and noticed that Ryan stayed to bandage his leg with her father's handkerchief before he followed his accomplices. So when the poor child was discovered by the enraged neighbours, she had a circumstantial tale to tell. Ryan was apprehended and convicted upon her evidence. On being asked, as she stood in the witness-box at the trial, whether she was quite sure that the prisoner was one of the gang who had murdered her father, she told what she had seen him do with the rim of the wheel. "The cut canna be whole yet," said she. "Strip his leg an' ye'll be sure to find it. If it isna there, I'll no' ax to hurt a hair o' his head.' But the cut was there, and Ryan was sentenced to death for the murder of the Donnels. He was to be hanged on a gallows erected at Temple Clady, in sight of the spot where the crime had been committed. The Protestants poured into Derry on the morning of Ryan's execution, and lined the streets, grimly resolved to assist the military in preventing any attempt at a rescue. The rebels had contrived to send the prisoner a message, and so confident was he that they would keep their promise of rescuing him, that he came out of the gaol and mounted the cart with a dauntless, cheerful air, throwing glances of scorn and defiance at the crowded windows right and left. These were filled with his enemies, glad to see him where he was, with the hangman seated by his side, holding an end of the rope that was round his neck. His friends and well-wishers, regarding him as a martyr, would have risked much to rescue him, but they were so outnumbered, that they could only scowl their baffled rage, and slink away into the background. The present writer has heard the story told by old people who were present and remember the whole affair; the dauntless manner in which the prisoner drove away; how the soldiers surrounded the cart, and the thousands from the country fell in and followed to Temple Clady, bent on seeing justice done; how the body was brought back to Derry, was quartered, and laid under quicklime in the gaol yard; how the Protestant multitude accompanied the prisoner in the morning, surging with excitement like a mighty, stormy sea, and returned calm and satisfied, to make their way home in streams along mountain paths and high roads to many a lonely farmstead. WHITHER? A LITTLE longer, and the tale is told Of this dead year's closed days; a cloudy pall Sad drenching rain soon rots those russet leaves, What follows our life's autumn? Are the sheaves Man his wise wonted words in answer weaves. JAMES MEW. |