Daniel O'Rourke (2)

People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke, but
how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and
below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls
of the Pooka's Tower. I knew the man well. He lived at the bottom of
Hungry Hill, just at the right-hand side of the road as you go towards
Bantry. An old man was he at the time he told me the story, with grey
hair and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that I heard
it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old poplar
tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky. I was going to
visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at
Glengariff.

"I am often axed to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the
first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go before
Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and, sure enough, there was a
dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high
and low, rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after
all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little, to
be sure, and, maybe, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were
no losers by it in the end; and they were so easy and civil, and kept
such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes; and there was no
grinding for rent, and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that did
not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often in a year; but now
it's another thing. No matter for that, sir, for I'd better be telling
you my story.

"Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and
we drank, and we danced, and the young master, by the same token, danced
with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they were,
though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got,
as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can't remember,
ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place; only I did leave it,
that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself, I'd just step
to Molly Cronohan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the bracket
heifer that was bewitched; and so, as I was crossing the stepping-stones
of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up at the stars, and
blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed my foot, and souse I
fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I, 'I'll be drowned now!'
However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for dear life, till
at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell
how, upon a _dissolute_ island.

"I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered,
until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as
day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning
her), and I looked east and west, north and south, and every way, and
nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog. I could never find out how I got
into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was
that it would be my _berrin'_ place. So I sat upon a stone, which, as
good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my
head, and sing the ULLAGONE--when all of a sudden the moon grew black,
and I looked up and saw something for all the world as if it was moving
down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came
with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an
eagle?--as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry! So he
looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,' says he,
'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I; 'I hope you're
well'; wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to
speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?' says he. 'Nothing
at all, sir,' says I, 'only I wish I was safe home again.' 'Is it out of
the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis, sir,' says I; so I up
and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water;
how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog and did not know my
way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a minute's thought, 'though it is
very improper of you to get drunk on a Lady-day, yet, as you are a
decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and never fling stones at me or
mine, nor cries out after one in the field, my life for yours,' says he;
'so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and
I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's
making game of me; for whoever heard of riding a-horseback on an eagle
before?' ''Pon the honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting his right
foot on his breast, 'I am quite in earnest; and so now either take my
offer or starve in the bog--besides I see that your weight is sinking
the stone.'

"It was true enough, as he said, for I found the stone every minute
going from under me. I had no choice; so, thinks I to myself, faint
heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance. 'I thank your
honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take your kind
offer.' I therefore mounted on the back of the eagle, and held him tight
enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I
knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up, up, up--God knows how far
he flew. 'Why, then,' said I to him--thinking he did not know the right
road home--very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely;
'sir,' says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission
to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over
my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your
worship.'

"'_Arrah_, Dan,' says he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next
field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word, it would be no
joke to shoot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up
off a _could_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' says I to myself, but I
did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept flying,
flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use.
'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your
tongue, Dan,' says he, 'and mind your own business, and don't be
interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this is my
business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan!' says he: so I said no more.

"At last, where should we come to but to the moon itself. Now, you can't
see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook
sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure thus
on the ground with the end of his stick).

"'Dan,' says the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion
'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' says I, 'who in the world _axed_ you
to fly so far--was it I? Did not I beg and pray and beseech you to stop
half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' said he; 'I'm tired
bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest
myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I; 'is it upon that little
round thing, then? Why, then, sure, I'd fall off in a minute, and be
_kilt_ and spilt, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver--so
you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' says he; 'you can catch fast hold of the
reaping-hook that's sticking out of the side of the moon, and 'twill
keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I. 'Maybe not,' said he, quite
quiet. 'If you don't, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one
slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in
your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf
in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever
to have come along with the likes of you'; and so, giving him a hearty
curse in Irish, for fear he'd know what I said, I got off his back with
a heavy heart, took hold of the reaping-hook and sat down upon the moon,
and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.

"When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said,
'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he; 'I think I've nicked
you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year' ('twas true enough for
him, but how he found it out is hard enough to say), 'and in return you
are freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
cockthrow.'

"'Is that all, and is this how you leave me, you brute, you,' says I.
'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at last?
Bad luck to yourself, with your hook'd nose, and to all your breed, you
blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use; he spread out his great big
wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled
after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever, without
his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to
this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a disconsolate
condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a
door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as
if it had not been opened for a month before--I suppose they never
thought of greasing them--and out there walks--who do you think but the
man in the moon himself? I knew him by his bush.

"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very
well, thank your honour,' says I. 'I hope your honour's well.' 'What
brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a little
overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a _dissolute_
island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and the thief of an eagle
promised to fly me out of it, and how, instead of that, he had fled me
up to the moon.

"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff, when I was
done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much
against my will that I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's
your business,' said he; 'Dan, mine is to tell you that you must not
stay, so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' said I,
'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook lest I fall off.' 'That's what
you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may I ask how many
you are in family that you would not give a poor traveller lodging? I'm
sure 'tis not often you're troubled with strangers coming to see you,
for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself, Dan,' says he, 'but you'd better
let go the reaping-hook.' 'Faith, and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll
not let go the grip, and the more you bids me the more I won't let
go--so I will.' 'You had better, Dan,' says he again. 'Why, then, my
little fellow,' says I, taking the whole weight of him with my eye from
head to foot, 'there are two words to that bargain; and I'll not
budge--you may, if you like.' 'We'll see how that is to be,' says he;
and back he went, giving the door such a great bang after him (for it
was plain he was huffed), that I thought the moon and all would fall
down with it.

"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back he
comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without saying a word
he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook that was holding me
up, and _whap_ it came in two. 'Good morning to you, Dan,' says the
spiteful little blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling down with a
bit of the handle in my hand; 'I thank you for your visit, and fair
weather after you, Daniel.' I had no time to make any answer to him, for
I was tumbling over and over, and rolling and rolling, at the rate of a
fox-hunt. 'God help me!' says I, 'but this is a pretty pickle for a
decent man to be seen in at this time of the night. I am now sold
fairly.' The word was not out of my mouth, when, whiz! what should fly
by close to my ear but a flock of wild geese, all the way from my own
bog of Ballyasheenagh, else how should they know _me_? The _ould_
gander, who was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me,
'Is that you, Dan?' 'The same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he
said, for I was by this time used to all kinds of _bedivilment_, and,
besides, I knew him of _ould_. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel
O'Rourke; how are you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I,
'thank you kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of
some, 'I hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are,
Daniel,' says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you
going all the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had
taken the drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in
the bog, and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how
the man in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you; put
out your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is
your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the time
I thought within myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no
help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese
flew after him as fast as hops.

"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
up out of the water. 'Ah, my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought
it best to keep a civil tongue in my head anyway, 'fly to land, if you
please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for a while,
because, you see, we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I, 'that's
surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose, why, then,
to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.'

"'Whist, whist, you fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia
is a very decent sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like
another, only there is a little more sand there.'

"Just as we were talking a ship hove in sight, sailing so beautiful
before the wind. 'Ah, then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the ship,
if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he; 'if I dropped you
now you would go splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I, 'I know
better than that, for it is just clean under us, so let me drop now at
once.'

"'If you must, you must,' said he; 'there, take your own way'; and he
opened his claw, and, faith, he was right--sure enough, I came down
plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I
went, and I gave myself up, then, for ever, when a whale walked up to
me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in
the face, and never the word did he say, but, lifting up his tail, he
splashed me all over again with the cold salt water till there wasn't a
dry stitch upon my whole carcass! And I heard somebody saying--'twas a
voice I knew too--'Get up, you drunken brute, off o' that'; and with
that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
was splashing all over me--for, rest her soul, though she was a good
wife, she could never bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of
her own.

"'Get up,' said she again; 'and of all places in the parish, would no
place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
Carrigapooka? An uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And, sure
enough, I had, for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
and men of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through
bogs and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green ocean. If I
was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd lie down in the
same spot again, I know that!"