CHAPTER XIV. ON AN IRISH DANCE.

LADY INNISFAIL’S guests—especially those who had been wandering over the mountains with guns all day—found her rather too indefatigable in her search for new methods of entertaining them. The notion of an after-dinner stroll of a few miles to the village of Ballycruiskeen for the sake of witnessing an entertainment, the details of which Lady Innisfail was unable to do more than suggest, and the attractions of which were rather more than doubtful, was not largely relished at the Castle.

Lord Innisfail announced his intention of remaining where he had dined; but he was one of the few men who could afford to brave Lady Innisfail’s disdain and to decline to be chilled by her cold glances. The other men who did not want to be entertained on the principles formulated by Lady Innisfail, meanly kept out of her way after dinner. They hoped that they might have a chance of declaring solemnly afterwards, that they had been anxious to go, but had waited in vain for information as to the hour of departure, the costume to be worn, and the password—if a password were needed—to admit them to the historic rites of the Cruiskeen.

One of the women declined to go, on the ground that, so far as she could gather, the rite was not evangelical. Her views were evangelical.

One of the men—he was an Orangeman from Ulster—boldly refused to attend what was so plainly a device planned by the Jesuits for the capture of the souls—he assumed that they had souls—of the Innisfail family and their guests.

Miss Craven professed so ardently to be looking forward to the entertainment, that Mr. Airey, with his accustomed observance of the distribution of high lights in demeanour as well as in conversation. felt certain that she meant to stay at the Castle.

His accuracy of observation was proved when the party were ready to set out for Ballycruiskeen. MIss Craven’s maid earned that lady’s affectionate regards to her hostess; she had been foolish enough to sit in the sun during the afternoon with that fascinating novel, and as she feared it would, her indiscretion had given her a headache accompanied by dizziness. She would thus be unable to go with the general party to the village, but if she possibly could, she would follow them in an hour—perhaps less.

Edmund Airey smiled the smile of the prophet who lives to see his prediction realized—most of the prophets died violent deaths before they could have that gratification.

“Yes, it was undoubtedly an indiscretion,” he murmured.

“Sitting in the sun?” said Lady Innisfail.

“Reading Paul Bourget,” said he.

“Of course,” said Lady Innisfail. “Talking of indiscretions, has anyone seen—ah, never mind.”

“It is quite possible that the old friend whom you say he wrote about, may be a person of primitive habits—he may be inclined to retire early,” said Mr. Airey.

Lady Innisfail gave a little puzzled glance at him—the puzzled expression vanished in a moment, however, before the ingenuousness of his smile.

“What a fool I am becoming!” she whispered. “I really never thought of that.”

“That was because you never turned your attention properly to the mystery of the headache,” said he.

Then they set off in the early moonlight for their walk along the cliff path that, in the course of a mile or so, trended downward and through the Pass of Lamdhu, with its dark pines growing half-way up the slope on one side. The lower branches of the trees stretched fantastic arms over the heads of the party walking on the road through the Pass. In the moonlight these fantastic arms seemed draped. The trees seemed attitudinizing to one another in a strange pantomime of their own.

The village of Ballycruiskeen lay just beyond the romantic defile, so that occasionally the inhabitants failed to hear the sound of the Atlantic hoarsely roaring as it was being strangled in the narrow part of the lough. They were therefore sometimes merry with a merriment impossible to dwellers nearer the coast.

It did not appear to their visitors that this was one of their merry nights. The natives were commanded by their good priest to be merry for “the quality,” under penalties with which they were well acquainted. But merriment under a penalty is no more successful than the smile which is manufactured in a photographer’s studio.

Father Conn made the mistake of insisting on all the members of his flock washing their faces. They had washed all the picturesqueness out of them, Mr. Airey suggested.

The Curragh of Ballycruiskeen was a somewhat wild moorland that became demoralized into a bog at one extremity. There was, however, a sufficiently settled portion to form a dancing green, and at one side of this patch the shocking incongruity of chairs—of a certain sort—and even a sofa—it was somewhat less certain—met the eyes of the visitors.

“Mind this, ye divils,” the priest was saying in an affectionate way to the members of his flock, as the party from the Castle approached. “Mind this, it’s dancing a new roof on the chapel that ye are. Every step ye take means a slate, so it does.”

This was clearly the peroration of the pastor’s speech.

The speech of Mr. Phineas O’Flaherty, who was a sort of unceremonious master of the ceremonies, had been previously delivered, fortunately when the guests were out of hearing.

At first the entertainment seemed to be a very mournful one. It was too like examination day at a village school to convey an idea of spontaneous mirth. The “quality” sat severely on the incongruous chairs—no one was brave enough to try the sofa—and some of the “quality” used double eye-glasses with handles, for the better inspection of the performers. This was chilling to the performers.

In spite of the efforts of Father Conn and his stage manager, Mr. O’Flaherty, the members of the cast for the entertainment assumed a huddled appearance that did themselves great injustice. They declined to group themselves effectively, but suggested to Mr. Durdan—who was not silent on the subject—one of the illustrations to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs—a scene in which about a score of persons about to be martyred are shown to be awaiting, with an aspect of cheerful resignation that deceived no one, their “turn” at the hands of the executioner.

The merry Irish jig had a depressing effect at first. The priest was well-meaning, but he had not the soul of an artist. When a man has devoted all his spare moments for several years to the repression of unseemly mirth, he is unwise to undertake, at a moment’s notice, the duties of stimulating such mirth. Under the priest’s eye the jig was robbed of its jiguity, so to speak. It was the jig of the dancing class.

Mr. O’Flaherty threatened to scandalize Father Conn by a few exclamations about the display of fetlocks—the priest had so little experience of the “quality” that he fancied a suggestion of slang would be offensive to their ears. He did not know that the hero of the “quality” in England is the costermonger, and that a few years ago the hero was the cowboy. But Edmund Airey, perceiving with his accustomed shrewdness, how matters stood, managed to draw the priest away from the halfhearted exponents of the dance, and so questioned him on the statistics of the parish—for Father Conn was as hospitable with his statistics as he was with his whiskey punch upon occasions—that half an hour had passed before they returned together to the scene of the dance, the priest with a five-pound note of Mr. Airey’s pressed against his heart.

“Murder alive! what’s this at all at all?” cried Father Conn, becoming aware of the utterance of whoop after whoop by the dancers.

“It’s the jig they’re dancin’ at last, an’ more power to thim!” cried Phineas O’Flaherty, clapping his hands and giving an encouraging whoop or two.

He was right. The half dozen couples artistically dishevelled, and rapidly losing the baleful recollections of having been recently tidied up to meet the “quality”—rapidly losing every recollection of the critical gaze of the “quality”—of the power of speech possessed by the priest—of everything, clerical and lay, except the strains of the fiddle which occupied an intermediate position between things lay and clerical, being wholly demoniac—these half dozen couples were dancing the jig with a breadth and feeling that suggested the youth of the world and the reign of Bacchus.

Black hair flowing in heavy flakes over shoulders unevenly bare—shapely arms flung over heads in an attitude of supreme self-abandonment—a passionate advance, a fervent retreat, then an exchange of musical cries like wild gasps for breath, and ever, ever, ever the demoniac music of the fiddle, and ever, ever, ever the flashing and flying from the ground like the feet of the winged Hermes—flashing and flashing with the moonlight over all, and the fantastic arms of the hill-side pines stretched out like the fringed arms of a grotesque Pierrot—this was the scene to which the priest returned with Edmund Airey.

He threw up his hands and was about to rush upon the half-frenzied dancers, when Edmund grasped him by the arm, and pointed mutely to the attitude of the “quality.”

Lady Innisfail and her friends were no longer sitting frigidly on their chairs—the double eye-glasses were dropped, and those who had held them were actually joining in the whoops of the dancers. Her ladyship was actually clapping her hands in the style of encouragement adopted by Mr. O’Flaherty.

The priest stood in the attitude in which he had been arrested by the artful Edmund Airey. His eyes and his mouth were open, and his right hand was pressed against the five-pound note that he had just received. There was a good deal of slate-purchasing potentialities in a five-pound note. If her ladyship and her guests were shocked—as the priest, never having heard of the skirt dance and its popularity in the drawing-room—believed they should be, they were not displaying their indignation in a usual way. They were almost as excited as the performers.

Father Conn seated himself without a word of protest, in one of the chairs vacated by the Castle party. He felt that if her ladyship liked that form of entertainment, the chapel roof was safe. The amount of injury that would be done to the Foul Fiend by the complete re-roofing of the chapel should certainly be sufficient to counteract whatever sin might be involved in the wild orgy that was being carried on beneath the light of the moon. This was the consolation that the priest had as he heard whoop after whoop coming from the dancers.

Six couples remained on the green dancing-space. The fiddler was a wizened, deformed man with small gleaming eyes. He stood on a stool and kept time with one foot. He increased the time of the dance so gradually as to lead the dancers imperceptibly on until, without being aware of it, they had reached a frenzied pitch that could not be maintained for many minutes. But still the six couples continued wildly dancing, the moonlight striking them aslant and sending six black quivering shadows far over the ground. Suddenly a man dropped out of the line and lay gasping on the grass. Then a girl flung herself with a cry into the arms of a woman who was standing among the onlookers. Faster still and faster went the grotesquely long arms of the dwarf fiddler—his shadow cast by the moonlight was full of horrible suggestions—and every now and again a falsetto whoop came from him, his teeth suddenly gleaming as his lips parted in uttering the cry.

The two couples, who now remained facing one another, changing feet with a rapidity that caused them to appear constantly off the ground, were encouraged by the shouts and applause of their friends. The air was full of cries, in which the spectators from the Castle joined. Faster still the demoniac music went, every strident note being clearly heard above the shouts. But when one of the two couples staggered wildly and fell with outstretched arms upon the grass, the shriek of the fiddle sounded but faintly above the cries.

The priest could restrain himself no longer. He sprang to his feet and kicked the stool from under the fiddler, sending the misshapen man sprawling in one direction and his instrument with an unearthly shriek in another.

Silence followed that shriek. It lasted but a few seconds, however. The figure of a man—a stranger—appeared running across the open space between the village and the Curragh, where the dance was being held.

He held up his right hand in so significant a way, that the priest’s foot was arrested in the act of implanting another kick upon the stool, and the fiddler sat up on the ground and forgot to look for his instrument through surprise at the apparition.

“It’s dancin’ at the brink of the grave, ye are,” gasped the man, as he approached the group that had become suddenly congested in anticipation of the priest’s wrath.

“Why, it’s only Brian the boatman, after all,” said Lady Innisfail. “Great heavens! I had such a curious thought as he appeared. Oh, that dancing! He did not seem to be a man.”

“This is no doubt part of the prehistoric rite,” said Mr. Airey.

“How simply lovely!” cried Miss Stafford.

“In God’s name, man, tell us what you mean,” said the priest.

“It’s herself,” gasped Brian. “It’s the one that’s nameless. Her wail is heard over all the lough—I heard it with my ears and hurried here for your reverence. Don’t we know that she never cries except for a death?”

“He means the Banshee,” said Lady Innisfail.

“The people, I’ve heard, think it unlucky to utter her name.”

“So lovely! Just like savages!” said Miss Stafford.

“I dare say the whole thing is only part of the ceremony of the Cruiskeen,” said Mr. Durdan.

“Brian O’Donal,” said the priest; “have you come here to try and terrify the country side with your romancin’?”

“By the sacred Powers, your reverence, I heard the cry of her myself, as I came by the bend of the lough. If it’s not the truth that I’m after speaking, may I be the one that she’s come for.”

“Doesn’t he play the part splendidly?” said Lady Innisfail. “I’d almost think that he was in earnest. Look how the people are crossing themselves.”

Miss Stafford looked at them through her double eye-glasses with the long handle.

“How lovely!” she murmured. “The Cruiskeen is the Oberammergau of Connaught.”

Edmund Airey laughed.

“God forgive us all for this night!” said the priest. “Sure, didn’t I think that the good that would come of getting on the chapel roof would cover the shame of this night! Go to your cabins, my children. You were not to blame. It was me and me only. My Lady”—he turned to the Innisfail party—“this entertainment is over. God knows I meant it for the best.”

“But we haven’t yet heard the harper,” cried Lady Innisfail.

“And the native bards,” said Miss Stafford. “I should so much like to hear a bard. I might even recite a native poem under his tuition.”

Miss Stafford saw a great future for native Irish poetry in English drawing-rooms. It might be the success of a season.

“The entertainment’s over,” said the priest.

“It’s that romancer Brian, that’s done it all,” cried Phineas O’Flaherty.

“Mr. O’Flaherty, if it’s not the truth may I—oh, didn’t I hear her voice, like the wail of a girl in distress?” cried Brian.

“Like what?” said Mr. Airey.

“Oh, you don’t believe anything—we all know that, sir,” said Brian.

“A girl in distress—I believe in that, at any rate,” said Edmund.

“Now!” said Miss Stafford, “don’t you think that I might recite something to these poor people?” She turned to Lady Innisfail. “Poor people! They may never have heard a real recitation—‘The Dove Cote,’ ‘Peter’s Blue Bell’—something simple.”

There was a movement among her group.

“The sooner we get back to the Castle the better it will be for all of us,” said Lady Innisfail. “Yes, Father Constantine, we distinctly looked for a native bard, and we are greatly disappointed. Who ever heard of a genuine Cruiskeen without a native bard? Why, the thing’s absurd!”

“A Connaught Oberammergau without a native bard! Oh, Padre mio—Padre mio!” said Miss Stafford, daintily shaking her double eye-glasses at the priest.

“My lady,” said he, “you heard what the man said. How would it be possible for us to continue this scene while that warning voice is in the air?”

“If you give us a chance of hearing the warning voice, we’ll forgive you everything, and say that the Cruiskeen is a great success,” cried Lady Innisfail.

“If your ladyship takes the short way to the bend of the lough you may still hear her,” said Brian.

“God forbid,” said the priest.

“Take us there, and if we hear her, I’ll give you half a sovereign,” cried her ladyship, enthusiastically.

“If harm comes of it don’t blame me,” said Brian. “Step out this way, my lady.”

“We may still be repaid for our trouble in coming so far,” said one of the party. “If we do actually hear the Banshee, I, for one, will feel more than satisfied.”

Miss Stafford, as she hurried away with the party led by Brian, wondered if it might not be possible to find a market for a Banshee’s cry in a London drawing-room. A new emotion was, she understood, eagerly awaited. The serpentine dance and the costermonger’s lyre had waned. It was extremely unlikely that they should survive another season. If she were to be first in the field with the Banshee’s cry, introduced with a few dainty steps of the jig incidental to a poem with a refrain of “Asthore” or “Mavourneen,” she might yet make a name for herself.