Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two

There is no country in the world whose scenery is more sweetly diversified, or more delicately shaded away into that exquisite variety of surface which presents us with those wavy outlines of beauty that softly melt into each other, than is that of our own green island. Alas! how many deep valleys, wild glens, green meadows, and pleasant hamlets, lie scattered over the bosom of a country, peopled by inhabitants who are equally moved by the impulses of mirth and sorrow; each valley, and glen, and pleasant hamlet marked by some tearful remembrance of humble calamity of which the world never hears. How little do its proud nobility know of the fair and still beauty which marks the unbroken silence of its most delightful retreats, or of the unassuming records of love or sorrow, which pass down through a single generation, and are soon lost in the rapid stream of life. We do not love to remember sorrow, but its traces, notwithstanding, are always the most uneffaceable, and, what is strange as true, its mournful imprint remains ever the longest upon the heart that is most mirthful. We talk not now of the hollow echo, like mirth, which comes from thousands only because the soul is wanting. No; but we say that as the diamond is found in the darkness of the mine, as the lightning shoots with most vivid flashes from the gloomiest cloud, so does mirthfulness frequently proceed from a heart susceptible of the deepest melancholy. Many and true are the simple tales of Irish life which could prove this. Many a fair laughing girl who has danced in happiness, light as a mote in the sunbeam, has been suddenly left in darkness, bowed down in youth and beauty to the grave, and though the little circle of which she was the centre may have been disturbed by her untimely life, yet in brief space, except to a few yearning and stricken hearts who could not forget her who was once their pride and hope, her Memory has passed away like a solitary bird, viewed as it goes over us, and followed wistfully, by the eye, until by degrees it lessens and lessens--becomes dim--then fades into a speck, and ultimately melts into the blue distance of heaven. One such a “simple annal,” brought about by the inscrutable hand that guides the destinies of life, we are now about to present to our readers. Were it the mere creation of our fancy, it might receive many of those embellishments at our hand with which we scruple not to adorn the shadowy idealities of fiction.

It is, however, one of those distressing realities so often produced by the indulgence of vehement passion, that we are compelled by the melancholy severity of its truth to give the details of, not, alas, as we could have wished them to happen, but simply as they occurred.

The village of Ballydhas was situated in the bosom of as sweet a valley as ever gladdened the eye and the heart of a man to look upon. Contentment, peace, and prosperity, walked step by step with its happy inhabitants. The people were marked by a pastoral simplicity of manners, such as is still to be found in some of the remote and secluded hamlets of Ireland. The vale was green and shelving, having its cornfields, its pasturage, and its patches of fir, poplar, and mountain-ash intermingled, and creeping up on each side in wild but quiet beauty to the very mountain tops that enclosed it. At the head of the glen reposed a small clear sheet of water, as calm and unruffled as the village itself. By this sweet lake was fed the pure stream which murmured down between the banks, here and there opened, and occasionally covered by hazel, black-thorn, or birches. As it approached the village the scenery about it became more soft and tranquil. The banks spread away into meadows flower-spangled and green; the fields became richer; the corn waved to the soft breezes of summer; the noon-day smoke of the dinner fires rose up, and was gently borne away to the more wide-spread scene of grandeur and cultivation that lay in the champaign country below it. On each side of the glen were masses of rock and precipices, just large enough to give sufficient wildness and picturesque beauty to a view which in itself was calm and serene. In the distance about a mile to the north, stood out a bold but storm-vexed headland, that heaved back the mighty swell of the Atlantic, of which a glimpse could be caught from an eminence above the village. Nothing indeed could be finer than the booming fury of the giant billows, as they shivered themselves into spray, and thundered around the gloomy caverns of the headland, especially when contrasted with the calm sense of peace and security which reposed upon the neat white village in the glen.

How sweet of a summer Sabbath morning to sit upon the brow of this delightful valley, and contemplate in the light dreams of a happy heart its humble images of all that is pure, and peaceful, and soothing in life; the little bustle of preparation for the cheerful but solemn duties of the day; the glad voices of bright-faced boys and girls, eager to get on their Sunday clothes; the busy stirring about of each tucked-up matron, washing, and combing, and pinning her joyous little ones; and the contented father now dressed, placidly smoking his after-breakfast pipe, looking upon their little cares, and their struggles for precedence in being decked out with their humble finery; now rebuking an elder boy for his impatience and want of consideration in not allowing his juniors to get first dressed, and again soothing a younger one until his turn came.

“Barney, troth you ought to have more sinse, avick, than to be quarrellin' wid poor Jemmy about gettin' an you. Don't you know he's but a child, an' must of coorse get his little things an before you, espishially as this is the first Sunday of the crathur's new jacket an' throwsers. Blood alive, Barney, be manly, and don't make comparishment wid a pasitah (child). I hope you've got off your lesson in the catechiz this mornin', and that you wont have to hang down your head wid the blush of shame among the bouchaleens (little boys) in the chapel to-day. Go 'way, avick, and rehearse it, an' whin your mother finishes him, and Dick, and little Mary, she'll have yourself as clane as a new sixpence.”

Then came the moment when the neat and well-dressed groups issued out of their happy homes, and sought in cheerful companionship with those of different creeds, their respective places of worship; for, gentle reader, the inhabitants of Ballydhas were, in point of religion, some Protestant, some Roman Catholic, and others Presbyterian. Many a time have we seen them proceed together in peace and friendship along the same road, until they separated either to church, to meeting, or to chapel; and again return on their way home, in a spirit equally cordial and kind. The demon of political discord and religious rancor had not come among them. Each class in the parish worshipped God after its own manner. All were happy, and industrious, and independent, for they had not then been taught that they were slaves and natural enemies groaning under the penal yoke of oppression.

Their fairs and markets were equally peaceful. Neither faction-fight nor party-fight ever stained the streets with blood. The whoop of strife was never raised by neighbor against neighbor, nor the coat trailed, or the caubeen thrown up into the air to challenge an opposite faction. There was, in truth, none of all this. The people were moral and educated. Religion they attended with that decorous sense of decency which always results from a sincere perception of its obligations and influence.

Yet were they not without their sports and rustic amusements. Where the bitterness of malignity is absent, cheerfulness has full play, and candor, ever open and benevolent, is the exponent of mirth and good will. Though their fairs and markets were undisturbed by the savage violence of mutual conflict, yet were they enlivened by the harmless pastimes which throw the charm of uncorrupted life over the human heart and the innocent scenes from which it draws in its amusements. Life is harsh enough, and we are no friends to those who would freeze its genial current by the gloomy chill of ascetic severity.

Within about two miles of Ballydhas stood the market town of the parish. It also bore the traces of peace and happiness. Around it lay a rich fertile country, studded with warm homesteads, waving fields, and residences of a higher rank, at once elegant and fashionable. The gentry were not, it is true, of the highest class; but in lieu of that they were kind, considerate, and what was before all, resident. If an accidental complaint happened to be preferred by one man against another, they generally were qualified by a knowledge of their characters to administer justice between them, without the risk of being misled by misrepresentation. This prevented many complaints founded in malice or party-spirit, and consequently reduced litigation to an examination of the very few cases in which actual injury had been sustained.

Many a fair day have we witnessed in this quiet and thriving market town. And it is sweet to us--yes, intensely sweet to leave, for a moment, the hollow and slippery pathways of artificial life--of that unfeeling, unholy and loathsome selfishness of heart, and soul, and countenance, which marks as with a brand of infamy, the fictions of fashionable and metropolitan society, where every person and profession you meet, is a lie or a libel to be guarded against. Yes, it is pleasant to us to leave all this, and to go back in imagination to a fair day in the town of Balaghmore. Like an annual festival, it stole upon us with many yearning wish, that time, at least for a month before, should be annihilated. And when the fair morning came, what a drifting tide of people, cows, sheep, horses, and pigs, passed on in the eager tumult of business, before our eyes. The comfortable farmer in his best gray frize; the young man in spruce corduroy breeches, home-made blue coat, and bran new hat; the tidy maiden with neat bunch of yarn, spun by her own fingers, giving sufficient proof to her bachelor that a young woman of industrious habits uniformly makes the best wife for a poor man. Various, indeed, were the classes that, in multitudinous groups, drifted towards the fair green. The spruce, well-mounted horse-jockey, with bottle-green coat closely buttoned, tight buckskin inexpressibles, long-lashed hunting-whip, and top-boots; the drover on his plump hack, pacing slowly after his fat beeves; the gentleman farmer, trundling along in his gig, or trotting smartly on a bit of half-blood. Here go a family group, the children with new hats and ruffles, grandfather a little behind, with the hand of an own pet boy or a girl in his; observe the joy of their faces; what complacent happiness on the ruddy countenance of the healthy old man. The parents are also happy, but betray the unconscious anxiety of those who love their children, and are sensible of the serious duties inseparable from their condition; the four little ones know not the cares of affection, and, consequently, their looks are full of delight, eagerness, and curiosity. What a tide of bewildered interrogatories does the fifth urchin pour upon the ear of the old grandfather, who is foolish enough to stop the whole group, in order to relate the precocious pertinency of some particular query. There goes a snug farmer, his wife, and good-looking daughters, seated upon a farm-car that is trussed with straw, covered by a blue quilt. We will wager that some “good woman” has somewhere about the premises a few cakes of hard griddle-wheat, to eat when they get hungry, with a glass of punch, and, it may be, a good slice or two of excellent hung beef or bacon. But now they approach town, and the stream thickens. There go the beggars, mendicants, and impostors, showing a degree of agility rather impracticable with their respective maladies, grievous and deplorable as they all, of course, are; and toiling vehemently after them, hops “Bill i' the Bowl,” pitching himself along in a copper-fastened dish, with a small stool or creepie supporting each hand. But now the whole sweep of the town and fair-green open to us; tents, and standings, and tables, and roasting and boiling are all about us; for the spoileen fires are in operation, and many a fat sheep will be cut up, as well for those who have never tasted mutton before, as for hundreds who eat rather from hunger than curiosity. Heavens! what an astounding multitude of discordant noises all blend into one hoarse, deep, drowsy body of sound, for which we can find no suitable term. Cows lowing, sheep bleating, pigs grunting, horses neighing, men shouting, women screaming, fiddlers playing, pipes squeeling, youngsters, dancing, hammering up of standings and tents, thumping of restive or lazy animals, the show-man's drum, the lottery-man's speech, the ballad-singer's squall, all come upon us; and lastly, the unheeded sweep of the death-bell, as it tells with sullen tongues that some poor mortal has for ever departed from the cares and amusements, the trade and traffic, of this transitory life.