The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector. William Carleton

of my reception.”

      “Did they know who you were?” asked his mother, with evident interest.

      “Not till this morning, at breakfast.”

      “Well,” said she again, “when they heard it?”

      “Why, their attention and kindness even redoubled,” replied her son; “and as for Miss Goodwin herself, she's as elegant, as sweet, and as lovely a girl as I ever looked on. Mother, I beg you to entertain no implacable or inveterate enmity against her. I will stake my existence that she never stooped to any fraudulent circumvention of my poor uncle. Take my word for it, the intent and execution of the will must be accounted for otherwise.”

      “Well and truly said, Harry,” said his step-father—“well and generously said; give me your hand—my boy; thank you. Now, madam,” he proceeded, addressing his wife, “what have you to say to the opinion of a man who has lost so much by the transaction, when you hear that that opinion is given in her favor?”

      “Indeed, my dear Harry,” observed his sister, “she is all that you have said of her, and much more, if you knew her as we do; she is all disinterestedness and truth, and the most unselfish girl that ever breathed.”

      Now, there were two persons present who paused upon hearing this intelligence; one of whom listened to it with unexpected pleasure, and the other with mingled emotions of pleasure and pain. The first of these were Mrs. Lindsay, and the other her son Charles. Mrs. Lindsay, whose eyes were not for a moment off her son, understood the significant glance he had given her when he launched forth so heartily in the praise of Alice Goodwin; neither did the same glance escape the observation of his brother Charles, who inferred, naturally enough, from the warmth of the eulogium that had been passed upon her, that she had made, perhaps, too favorable an impression upon his brother. Of this, however, the reader shall hear more in due time.

      “Well,” said the mother slowly, and in a meditating voice, “perhaps, after all, we may have done her injustice. If so, no person would regret it more than myself; but we shall see. You parted from them, Harry, on friendly terms?”

      “I did, indeed, my dear mother, and am permitted, almost solicited, to make their further acquaintance, and cultivate a friendly intimacy with them, which I am determined to do.”

      “Bravo, Harry, my fine fellow; and we will be on friendly terms with them once more. Poor, honest, and honorable old Goodwin! what a pity that either disunion or enmity should subsist between us. No; the families must be once more cordial and affectionate, as they ought to be. Bravo, Harry! your return is prophetic of peace and good feeling; and, confound me, but you shall have a bonfire this night for your generosity that will shame the sun. The tar-barrels shall blaze, and the beer-barrels shall run to celebrate your appearance amongst us. Come, Charley, let us go to Rathfillan, and get the townsfolk to prepare for the fete: we must have fiddlers and pipers, and plenty of dancing. Barney Casey must go among the tenants, too, and order them all into the town. Mat Mulcahy, the inn-keeper, must give us his best room; and, my life to yours, we will have a pleasant night of it.”

      “George,” exclaimed his wife, in a tone of querulous remonstrance, “you know how expensive—”

      “Confound the expense and your penury both,” exclaimed her husband; “is it to your own son, on his return to us after such an absence, that you'd grudge the expense of a blazing bonfire?”

      “Not the bonfire,” replied his wife, but—”

      “Ay, but the cost of drink to the tenants. Why, upon my soul, Harry, your mother is anything but popular here, you must know; and I think if it were not from respect to me and the rest of the family she'd be indicted for a witch. Gadzooks, Jenny, will I never get sense or liberality into your head? Ay, and if you go on after your usual fashion, it is not unlikely that you may have a tar-barrel of your own before long. Go, you and Harry, and tell your secrets to each other while we prepare for the jubilation. In the meantime, we must get up an extempore dinner to-day—the set dinner will come in due time, and be a different affair; but at all events some of the neighbors we must have to join us in the jovialities—hurroo!”

      “Well, George,” said she, with her own peculiar smile, “I see you are in one of your moods to-day.”

      “Ay, right enough, the imperative one, my dear.”

      “And, so far as I am concerned, it would not certainly become me to stand in the way of any honor bestowed upon my son Harry; so I perceive you must only have it your own way—I consent.”

      “I don't care a fig whether you do or not. When matters come to a push, I am always master of my own house, and ever will be so—and you know it. Good-by, Harry, we will be back in time for dinner, with as many friends as we can pick up on so short notice—hurroo!”

      He and Charles accordingly went forth to make the necessary preparations, and give due notice of the bonfire, after which they succeeded in securing the attendance of about a dozen guests to partake of the festivity.

      Barney, in the meantime, having received his orders for collecting, or, as it was then called, warning in the tenantry to the forthcoming bonfire, proceeded upon his message in high spirits, not on account of the honor it was designed to confer on Woodward, against whom he had already conceived a strong antipathy, in consequence of the resemblance he bore to his mother, but for the sake of the fun and amusement which he purposed to enjoy at it himself. The first house he went into was a small country cabin, such as a petty farmer of five or six acres at that time occupied. The door was not of wood, but of wicker-work woven across long wattles and plastered over with clay mortar. The house had two small holes in the front side-walls to admit the light; but during severe weather these were filled up with straw or rags to keep out the storm. On one side of the door stood a large curra, or, “ould man,” for it was occasionally termed both—composed of brambles and wattles tied up lengthwise together—about the height of a man and as thick as an ordinary sack. This was used, as they termed it, “to keep the wind from the door.” If the blast came from the right, it was placed on that side, and if from the left, it was changed to the opposite. Chimneys, at that period, were to be found only upon the houses of extensive and wealthy farmers, the only substitute for them being a simple hole in the roof over the fireplace. The small farmer in question cultivated his acres with a spade: and after sowing his grain he harrowed it in with a large thorn bush, which he himself, or one of his sons, dragged over it with a heavy stone on the top to keep it close to the surface. When Barney entered this cabin he found the vanithee, or woman of the house, engaged in the act of grinding oats into meal for their dinner with a quern, consisting of two diminutive millstones turned by the hand; this was placed upon a praskeen, or coarse apron, spread under it on the floor to receive the meal. An old woman, her mother, sat spinning flax with the distaff—for as yet flax wheels were scarcely known—and a lubberly young fellow about sixteen, with able, well shaped limbs and great promise of bodily strength, sat before the fire managing a double task, to wit, roasting, first, a lot of potatoes in the greeshaugh, which consisted of half embers and half ashes, glowing hot; and, secondly, at a little distance from the larger lighted turf, two duck eggs, which, as well as the potatoes, he turned from time to time, that they might be equally done. All this he conducted by the aid of what was termed a muddha vristha, or rustic tongs, which was nothing more than a wattle, or stick, broken in the middle, between the ends of which he held both his potatoes and his eggs while turning them. Two good-looking, fresh-colored girls were squatted on their hunkers (hams), cutting potatoes for seed—late as the season was—with two case knives, which, had been borrowed from a neighboring farmer of some wealth. The dress of the women was similar and simple. It consisted of a long-bodied gown that had only half skirts; that is to say, instead of encompassing the whole person, the lower part of it came forward only as far as the hip bones, on each side, leaving the front of the petticoat exposed. This posterior part of the gown would, if left to fall to its full length, have formed a train behind them of at least two feet in length. It was pinned up, however, to a convenient length, and was not at all an ungraceful garment, if we except the sleeves, which went no farther than the elbows—a fashion in dress which is always unbecoming, especially when