The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 342, November 22, 1828

THE SKETCH BOOK

A VISION OF PURGATORY

By William Maginn, Esq.

The churchyard of Inistubber is as lonely a one as you would wish to see on a summer's day, or avoid on a winter's night. Under the east window of the church is a mouldering vault of the De Lacys,—a branch of a family descended from one of the conquerors of Ireland; and there they are buried, when the allotted time calls them to the tomb. Sir Theodore De Lacy had lived a jolly, thoughtless life, rising early for the hunt, and retiring late from the bottle. A good-humoured bachelor who took no care about the management of his household, provided that the hounds were in order for his going out, and the table ready on his coming in. As for the rest,—an easy landlord, a quiet master, a lenient magistrate (except to poachers,) and a very excellent foreman of a grand jury. He died one evening while laughing at a story which he had heard regularly thrice a week for the last fifteen years of his life, and his spirit mingled with the claret. In former times when the De Lacys were buried, there was a grand breakfast, and all the party rode over to the church to see the last rites paid. The keeners lamented; the country people had a wake before the funeral, and a dinner after it—and there was an end. But with the march of mind comes trouble and vexation. A man has now-a-days no certainty of quietness in his coffin—unless it be a patent one. He is laid down in the grave, and the next morning finds himself called upon to demonstrate an interesting fact! No one, I believe, admires this ceremony, and it is not to be wondered at that Sir Theodore De Lacy held it in especial horror. "I'd like," said he one evening, "to catch one of the thieves coming after me when I'm dead—By the God of War, I'd break every bone in his body;—but," he added with a sigh, "as I suppose I'll not be able to take my own part then, upon you I leave it, Larry Sweeney, to watch me three days and three nights after they plant me under the sod. There's Doctor Dickenson there, I see the fellow looking at me—fill your glass, Doctor—here's your health! and shoot him, Larry, do you hear, shoot the Doctor like a cock, if he ever comes stirring up my poor old bones from their roost of Inistubber." "Why, then," Larry answered, accepting the glass which followed this command, "long life to both your honours; and it's I that would like to be putting a bullet into Doctor Dickenson—heaven between him and harm—for hauling your honour away, as if you was a horse's head, to a bonfire. There's nothing, I 'shure you, gintlemin, poor as I am, that would give me greater pleasure." "We feel obliged, Larry" said Sir Theodore, "for your good wishes." "Is it I pull you out of the grave, indeed!" continued the whipper-in, for such he was, —"I'd let nobody pull your honour out of any place, saving 'twas purgatory; and out of that I'd pull you myself, if I saw you going there." "I am of opinion, Larry," said Doctor Dickenson, "you would turn tail if you saw Sir Theodore on that road. You might go further, and fare worse, you know." "Turn tail!" replied Larry, "it is I that wouldn't—I appale to St. Patrick himself over beyond"—pointing to a picture of the Prime Saint of Ireland, which hung in gilt daubery behind his master's chair, right opposite to him. To Larry's horror and astonishment, the picture fixing its eyes upon him, winked with the most knowing air, as if acknowledging the appeal. "What makes you turn so white then at the very thought," said the doctor, interpreting the visible consternation of our hero in his own way. "Nothing particular," answered Larry; "but a wakeness has come strong over me, gintlemin, and if you'd have no objection, I'd like to go into the air for a bit." Leave was of course granted, and Larry retired amid the laughter of the guests—but as he retreated, he could not avoid casting a glance on the awful picture—and again the Saint winked, with a most malicious smile. It was impossible to endure the repeated infliction, and Larry rushed down the stairs in an agony of fright and amazement. "May be," thought he, "it might be my own eyes that wasn't quite steady—or the flame of the candle. But no—he winked at me as plain as ever I winked at Judy Donaghue of a May morning. What he manes by it I can't say—but there's no use of thinking about it—no, nor of talking neither, for who' d believe me if I tould them of it?"

The next evening Sir Theodore died, as has been mentioned; and in due time thereafter was buried according to the custom of the family, by torch-light, in the churchyard of Inistubber. All was fitly performed; and although Dickenson had no design upon the jovial knight—and if he had not, there was nobody within fifteen miles that could be suspected of such an outrage,—yet Larry Sweeney was determined to make good his promise of watching his master. "I'd think little of telling a lie to him, by the way of no harm when he was alive," said he, wiping his eyes, as soon as the last of the train had departed, leaving him with a single companion in the lonely cemetery; "but now that he's dead—God rest his soul!—I'd scorn it. So Jack Kinaley, as behoves my first cousin's son, stay you with me here this blessed night, for betune (between) you and I, it an't lucky to stay by one's self in this ruinated old rookery, where ghosts, God help us, is as thick as bottles in Sir Theodore's cellar!" "Never you mind that, Larry," said Kinaley, a discharged soldier, who had been through all the campaigns of the Peninsula; "never mind, I say, such botherations. Han't I lain in bivouack on the field at Salamanca, and Tallawara, and the Pyrumnees, and many another place beside, where there was dead corpses lying about in piles, and there was no more ghosts than kneebuckles in a ridgemint of Highlanders. Here, let me prime them pieces, and hand us over the bottle; we'll stay snug under this east window, for the wind's coming down the hill, and I defy"—"None of that bould talk, Jack," said his cousin; "as for what ye saw in foreign parts, of dead men killed afighting, sure that's nothing to the dead—God rest 'em!—that's here. There you see, they had company one with the other, and being killed fresh-like that morning, had no heart to stir; but here, faith! 'tis a horse of another colour." "May be it is," said Jack, "but the night's coming on; so I'll turn in. Wake me if you sees any thing; and after I've got my two hours' rest, I'll relieve you."

With these words the soldier turned on his side, under shelter of a grave, and as his libations had been rather copious during the day, it was not long before he gave audible testimony that the dread of supernatural visitants had had no effect in disturbing the even current of his fancy. Although Larry had not opposed the proposition of his kinsman, yet he felt by no means at ease. He put in practice all the usually recommended nostrums for keeping away unpleasant thoughts:—all would not do. "If it was a common, dacent, quite (quiet,) well-behaved churchyard a'self," thought Larry, half-aloud—"but when 'tis a place like this forsaken ould berrin'-ground, which is noted for villiany"—"For what, Larry?" said a gentleman, stepping out of a niche which contained the only statue time had spared. It was the figure of Saint Colman, to whom the church was dedicated. Larry had been looking at the figure, as it shone forth in ebon and ivory in the light and shadow of the now high-careering moon, "For what, Larry," said the gentleman,—"for what do you say the churchyard is noted?" "For nothing at all, plase your honour," replied Larry, "except the height of gentility." The stranger was about four feet high, dressed in what might be called flowing garments,—if, in spite of their form, their rigidity did not deprive them of all claim to such an appellation. He wore an antique mitre upon his head; his hands were folded upon his breast; and over his right shoulder rested a pastoral crook. There was a solemn expression in his countenance, and his eye might truly be called stony. His beard could not be well said to wave upon his bosom; but it lay upon it in ample profusion, stiffer than that of a Jew on a frosty morning after mist. In short, as Larry soon discovered to his horror, on looking up at the niche, it was no other than Saint Colman himself, who had stept forth, indignant (in all probability) at the stigma cast by the watcher of the dead on the churchyard of which his Saintship was patron. He smiled with a grisly solemnity—just such a smile as you might imagine would play round the lips of a milestone (if it had any,) at the recantation so quickly volunteered by Larry. "Well," said he, "Lawrence Sweeney"—"How well the old rogue," thought Larry, "knows my name!" "Since you profess yourself such an admirer of the merits of the churchyard of Inistubber, get up and follow me, till I show you the civilities of the place—for I am master here, and must do the honours." "Willingly would I go with your worship," replied our friend; "but you see here I am engaged to Sir Theodore, who, though a good master, was a mighty passionate man when every thing was not done as he ordered it; and I am feared to stir." "Sir Theodore," said the Saint, "will not blame you for following me. I assure you he will not." "But then," said Larry—"Follow me!" cried the Saint, in a hollow voice, and casting upon him his stony eye, drew poor Larry after him, as the bridal guest was drawn by the lapidary glance of the Ancient Mariner; or, as Larry himself afterwards expressed it, "as a jaw tooth is wrinched out of an ould woman with a pair of pinchers." The Saint strode before him in silence, not in the least incommoded by the stones and rubbish, which at every step sadly contributed to the discomfiture of Larry's shins, who followed his marble conductor into a low vault, situated at the west end of the church. The path lay through coffins piled up on each side of the way in various degrees of decomposition; and, excepting that the solid footsteps of the saintly guide, as they smote heavily on the floor of stone, broke the deadly silence, all was still. Stumbling and staggering along, directed only by the casual glimpses of light afforded by the moon, where it broke through the dilapidated roof of the vault, and served to discover only sights of woe, Larry followed. He soon felt that he was descending, and could not help wondering at the length of the journey. He began to entertain the most unpleasant suspicions as to the character of his conductor;—but what could he do? Flight was out of the question, and to think of resistance was absurd. "Needs must, they say," thought he to himself, "when the devil drives. I see it's much the same when a saint, leads."

At last the dolorous march had an end; and not a little to Larry's amazement, he found that his guide had brought him to the gate of a lofty hall, before which a silver lamp, filled with naphtha, "yielded light as from a sky."—From within loud sounds of merriment were ringing; and it was evident, from the jocular harmony and the tinkling of glasses, that some subterraneous catch-club were not idly employed over the bottle. "Who's there?" said a porter, roughly responding to the knock of Saint Colman. "Be so good," said the Saint, mildly, "my very good fellow, as to open the door without further questions, or I'll break your head. I'm bringing a gentleman here on a visit, whose business is pressing." "May be so," thought Larry, "but what that business may be, is more than I can tell." The porter sulkily complied with the order, after having apparently communicated the intelligence that a stranger was at hand; for a deep silence immediately followed the tipsy clamour; and Larry, sticking close to his guide, whom he now looked upon almost as a friend, when compared with these underground revellers to whom he was about to be introduced, followed him through a spacious vestibule, which gradually sloped into a low-arched room, where the company was assembled. And a strange-looking company it was. Seated round a long table were three-and-twenty grave and venerable personages, bearded, mitred, stoled, and croziered,—all living statues of stone, like the Saint who had walked out of his niche. On the drapery before them were figured the images of the sun, moon, and stars—the inexplicable bear—the mystic temple, built by the hand of Hiram—and other symbols, of which the uninitiated knew nothing. The square, the line, the trowel, were not wanting, and the hammer was lying in front of the chair. Labour, however, was over, and the time for refreshment having arrived, each of the stony brotherhood had a flagon before him; and when we mention that the Saints were Irish, and that St. Patrick in person was in the chair, it is not to be wondered at that the mitres, in some instances, hung rather loosely on the side of the heads of some of the canonized compotators. Among the company were found St. Senanus of Limerick, St. Declan of Ardmore, St. Canice of Kilkenny, St. Finbar of Cork, St. Michan of Dublin, St. Brandon of Kerry, St. Fachnan of Ross, and others of that holy brotherhood; a vacant place, which completed the four-and-twentieth, was left for St. Colman, who, as every body knows, is of Cloyne; and he, having taken his seat, addressed the president, to inform him that he had brought the man. The man (viz. Larry himself) was awestruck with the company in which he so unexpectedly found himself; and trembled all over when, on the notice of his guide, the eight-and-forty eyes of stone were turned directly upon himself. "You have just nicked the night to a shaving, Larry," said St. Patrick: "this is our chapter-night, and myself and brethren are here 'assembled on merry occasion.'—You know who I am?" "God bless your reverence," said Larry, "it's I that do well. Often did I see your picture hanging over the door of places where it is"—lowering his voice—"pleasanter to be than here, buried under an ould church." "You may as well say it out, Larry," said St. Patrick; "and don't think I'm going to be angry with you about it; for I was once flesh and blood myself. But you remember, the other night, saying that you would think nothing of pulling your master out of purgatory, if you could get at him there, and appealing to me to stand by your words.