Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

"No doubt you will think me fanciful,--but I had already established a kind of _connection_. I had put together two links of a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not far from the boat was a parchment--_not a paper_--with a skull depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask, 'Where is the connection?' I reply that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death's-head is hoisted in all engagements.

"I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. Parchment is durable,--almost imperishable. Matters of little moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning--some relevancy--in the death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the _form_ of the parchment. Although one of its corners had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum,--for a record of something to be long remembered and carefully preserved."

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was _not_ upon the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you trace any connection between the boat and the skull,--since this latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the _scarabæus_?"

"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the _scarabæus_, there was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it. _You_, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done.

"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and _did_ remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly, (O rare and happy accident!) and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with exercise, and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was about to caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that _heat_ had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment, the skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in _aqua regia_, and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the re-application of heat.

"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges--the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum--were far more _distinct_ than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became visible, at the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended for a kid."

"Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you,--a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth,--but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain,--you will not find any especial connection between your pirates and a goat,--pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interest."

"But I have just said that the figure was _not_ that of a goat."

"Well, a kid then,--pretty much the same thing."

"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of one _Captain_ Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else--of the body to my imagined instrument--of the text for my context."

"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the signature."

"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief;--but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the series of accidents and coincidences,--these were so _very_ extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events should have occurred upon the _sole_ day of all the year in which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"

"But proceed,--I am all impatience."

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current,--the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so continuously could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure still _remaining_ entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident--say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality--had deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided, attempts to regain it, had given first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being unearthed along the coast?"

"Never."

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found, involved a lost record of the place of deposit."

"But how did you proceed?"

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat; but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see it now."

Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red tint, between the death's-head and the goat:--

53$$+305))6*;4826)4$.)4$);806*;48+8¶60))85;1$(;:$*8+83
(88)5*+;46(;88*96*?;8)*$(;485);5*+2:*$(;4956*2(5*--4)8¶8*
;4069285);)6+8)4$$;1($9;48081;8:8$1;48+85;4)485+528806*
81($9;48;(88;4($?34;48)4$;161;:188;$?;

"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."

"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might readily guess, form a cipher,--that is to say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a simple species,--such, however, as would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key."

"And you really solved it?"

"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import.

"In the present case--indeed in all cases of secret writing--the first question regards the _language_ of the cipher; for the principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities), of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English.

"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely (_a_ or _I_, for example), I should have considered the solution as assured. But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:

Of the character 8 there are 33.
; " 26.
4 " 19.
$ ) " 16.
* " 13.
5 " 12.
6 " 11.
+ 1 " 8.
0 " 6.
9 2 " 5.
: 3 " 4.
? " 3.
¶ " 2.
-- . " 1.

"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is _e_. Afterwards, the succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w b k p q x z_. _E_ predominates so remarkably that an individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character.

"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is obvious; but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples,--for _e_ is doubled with great frequency in English,--in such words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' etc. In the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief.

"Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now, of all _words_ in the language, 'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent the word 'the.' Upon inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that ; represents _t_, 4 represents _h_, and 8 represents _e_,--the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken.

"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs,--not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the ; immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this 'the,' we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown--

t eeth.

"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the '_th_,' as forming no portion of the word commencing with the first _t_; since, by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this _th_ can be a part. We are thus narrowed into

t ee,

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in juxtaposition.

"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of _termination_ to what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:--

the tree ;4($?34 the,

or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:--

the tree thr$?3h the.

"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:--

the tree thr...h the,

when the word '_through_' makes itself evident at once. But this discovery gives us three new letters, _o_, _u_, and _g_, represented by $ ? and 3.

"Looking, now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this arrangement,

83(88, or egree,

which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and gives us another letter, _d_, represented by +.

"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination

;46(;88*.

"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus:--

th.rtee.,

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and _n_, represented by 6 and *.

"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the combination,

53$$+.

"Translating, as before, we obtain

.good,

which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first two words are 'A good.'

"It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:--

5 represents a
+ " d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
$ " o
( " r
; " t

"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the _rationale_ of their development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:--

"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out._'"

"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about 'devil's seats,' 'death's-heads,' and 'bishop's hotels'?"

"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the cryptographist."

"You mean, to punctuate it?"

"Something of that kind."

"But how was it possible to effect this?"

"I reflected that it had been a _point_ with the writer to run his words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place, more than usually close together. If you will observe the manuscript in the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division thus:--

"'_A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the Devil's seat--forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes--northeast and by north--main branch seventh limb east side--shoot from the left eye of the death's-head--a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out._'"

"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."

"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days; during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of the 'Bishop's Hotel'; for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of the island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as _Bessop's Castle_, and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a high rock.

"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The 'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks,--one of the latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next done.

"While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's-seat' alluded to in the manuscript, and now I seemed to grasp the full secret.

"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a definite point of view, _admitting no variation_, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases, 'forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,' and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as directions for the levelling of the glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to the rock.

"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course, the 'forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the words, 'northeast and by north.' This latter direction I at once established by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it out to be a human skull.

"Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved; for the phrase, 'main branch, seventh limb, east side,' could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree, while 'shoot from the left eye of the death's-head' admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the trunk through 'the shot' (or the spot where the bullet fell), and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a definite point,--and beneath this point I thought it at least _possible_ that a deposit of value lay concealed."

"All this," I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what then?"

"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' however, the circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it _is_ a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the rock.

"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself."

"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull."

"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a half in the 'shot',--that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure been _beneath_ the 'shot,' the error would have been of little moment; but 'the shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and by the time we had gone fifty feet threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."

"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle,--how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"

"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation of yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea."

"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"

"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them,--and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd,--if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not,--it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But, this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen,--who shall tell?"

[Transcriber's note: In this book the dagger and double dagger characters were used in the cipher. Since these two characters are not part of the ISO-8859-1 character set, the + and $, respectively, were substituted for them.]

THE FAIRY-FINDER.

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

"Finding a fortune," is a phrase often heard amongst the peasantry of Ireland. If any man from small beginnings arrives at wealth, in a reasonable course of time, the fact is scarcely ever considered as the result of perseverance, superior intelligence, or industry; it passes as a byword through the country that "he found a fortin"; whether by digging up a "crock o' goold" in the ruins of an old abbey, or by catching a Leprechaun and forcing him to "deliver or die," or discovering it behind an old wainscot, is quite immaterial: the _when_ or _where_ is equally unimportant, and the thousand are satisfied with the rumor, "He found a fortin." Besides, going into particulars destroys romance,--and the Irish are essentially romantic,--and their love of wonder is more gratified in considering the change from poverty to wealth as the result of superhuman aid, than in attributing it to the mere mortal causes of industry and prudence.

The crone of every village has plenty of stories to make her hearers wonder, how fortunes have been arrived at by extraordinary short cuts; and as it has been laid down as an axiom, "That there never was a fool who had not a greater fool to admire him," so there never was any old woman who told such stories without plenty of listeners.

Now, Darby Kelleher was one of the latter class, and there was a certain collioch[1] who was an extensive dealer in the marvellous, and could supply "wholesale, retail, and for exportation" any customer such as Darby Kelleher, who not only was a devoted listener, but also made an occasional offering at the cave of the sibyl, in return for her oracular communications. This tribute generally was tobacco, as the collioch was partial to chewing the weed; and thus Darby returned a _quid pro quo_, without having any idea that he was giving a practical instance of the foregoing well-known pun.

[Footnote 1: Old woman.]

Another constant attendant at the hut of the hag was Oonah Lenehan, equally prone to the marvellous with Darby Kelleher, and quite his equal in idleness. A day never passed without Darby and Oonah paying the old woman a visit. She was sure to be "at home," for age and decrepitude rendered it impossible for her to be otherwise; the utmost limit of her ramble from her own chimney-corner being the seat of sods outside the door of her hut, where, in the summer time, she was to be found, so soon as the sunbeams fell on the front of her abode, and made the seat habitable for one whose accustomed vicinity to the fire rendered heat indispensable to comfort. Here she would sit and rock herself to and fro in the hot noons of July and August, her own appearance and that of her wretched cabin being in admirable keeping. To a fanciful beholder the question might have suggested itself, whether the hag was made for the hovel, or it for her; or whether they had grown into a likeness of one another, as man and wife are said to do, for there were many points of resemblance between them. The tattered thatch of the hut was like the straggling hair of its mistress, and Time, that had grizzled the latter, had covered the former with gray lichens. To its mud walls, a strong likeness was to be found in the tint of the old woman's shrivelled skin; they were both seriously out of the perpendicular; and the rude mud and wicker chimney of the edifice having toppled over the gable, stuck out, something in the fashion of the doodeen, or short pipe, that projected from the old woman's upper story; and so they both were smoking away from morning till night; and to complete the similitude sadly, both were poor,--both lonely,--both fast falling to decay.

Here were Darby Kelleher and Oonah Lenehan sure to meet every day. Darby might make his appearance thus:--

"Good morrow, kindly, granny."

"The same to you, avick," mumbled out the crone.

"Here's some baccy for you, granny."

"Many thanks to you, Darby. I didn't lay it out for seeing you so airly, the day."

"No, nor you wouldn't neither, only I was passin' this a way, runnin' an arrand for the squire, and I thought I might as well step in and ax you how you wor."

"Good boy, Darby."

"Throth an' it's a hot day that's in it, this blessed day. Phew! Faix, it's out o' breath I am, and mighty hot intirely; for I was runnin' a'most half the way, bekase it's an arrand, you see, and the squire towld me to make haste, and so I did, and wint acrass the fields by the short cut; and as I was passin' by the owld castle, I remembered what you towld me awhile agon, granny, about the crock o' goold that is there _for sartin_, if any one could come upon it."

"An' that's thrue indeed, Darby, avick,--and never heerd any other the longest day I can remember."

"Well, well! think o' that!! O, then it's he that'll be the lucky fellow that finds it."

"Thrue for you, Darby; but that won't be _antil it is laid out_ for some one to rise it."

"Sure, that's what I say to myself often; and why mightn't it be my chance to be the man that it was laid out for to find it?"

"There's no knowin'," mumbled the crone, mysteriously, as she shook the ashes out of her tobacco-pipe, and replenished the _doodeen_ with some of the fresh stock Darby had presented.

"Faix, an' that's thrue, sure enough. O, but you've a power o' knowledge, granny!! Sure enough, indeed, there's no knowin'; but they say there's great virtue in dhrames."

"That's ondeniable, Darby," said the hag, "and by the same token maybe you'd step into the house and bring me out a bit o' 'live turf[2] to light my pipe."

[Footnote 2: In Ireland the tobacco in a pipe is very generally ignited by the application of a piece of burning turf, or, as it is figuratively called, 'live turf.]

"To be sure, granny." And away went Darby to execute the commission.

While he was raking, from amongst the embers on the hearth, a piece of turf sufficiently "alive" for the purpose, Oonah made her appearance outside the hut, and gave the usual cordial salutation to the old woman; just as she had done her civility, out came Darby, holding the bit of turf between the two extremities of an osier twig, bent double for the purpose of forming rustic tongs.

"Musha, an' is that you, Darby?" said Oonah.

"Who else would it be?" said Darby.

"Why, you towld me over an hour agone, down there in the big field, that you wor in a hurry."

"And so I am in a hurry, and wouldn't be here, only I jist stepped in to say God save you to the mother here, and to light her pipe for her, the craythur."

"Well, don't be standin' there, lettin' the coal go black out, Darby," said the woman; "but let me light my pipe at wanst."

"To be sure, granny," said Darby, applying the morsel of lighted ember to the bowl of her pipe, until the process of ignition had been effected. "And now, Oonah, my darlint, if you're so sharp an other people, what the dickens brings you here, when it is mindin' the geese in the stubbles you ought to be, and not here? What would the misthriss say to that, I wondher?"

"O, I left them safe enough, and they're able to take care of themselves for a bit, and I wanted to ax the granny about a dhrame I had."

"Sure, so do I," said Darby; "and you know _first come first sarved_ is a good owld sayin'. And so, granny, you own to it that there's a power o' vartue in dhrames?"

A long-drawn whiff of the pipe was all the hag vouchsafed in return.

"O, then, but that's the iligant tabaccy! musha but it's fine and sthrong, and takes the breath from one a'most, it's so good. Long life to you Darby,--paugh!!"

"You're kindly welkim, granny. An' as I was sayin' about the dhrames,--you say there's a power o' virtue in them."

"Who says agin it?" said the hag, authoritatively, and looking with severity on Darby.

"Sure, an' it's not me you'd suspect o' the like? I was only goin' to say that _myself_ had a mighty sharp dhrame last night, and sure I kem to ax you about the maynin' av it."

"Well, avic, tell us your dhrame," said the hag, sucking her pipe with increased energy.

"Well, you see," said Darby, "I dhremt I was goin' along a road, and that all of a suddint I kem to _crass_ roads, and you know there's great vartue in crass roads."

"That's thrue, avourneen!--paugh!!--go an."

"Well, as I was sayin', I kem to the crass roads, and soon afther I seen four walls; now I think the four walls _manes_ the owld castle."

"Likely enough, avic."

"O," said Oonah, who was listening with her mouth as wide open as if the faculty of hearing lay there, instead of in her ears, "sure, you know the owld castle has only _three_ walls, and how could that be it?"

"No matther for that," said the crone, "it _ought_ to have four, and that's the same thing."

"Well! well! I never thought o' that," said Oonah, lifting her hands in wonder; "sure enough, so it ought!"

"Go an, Darby," said the hag.

"Well, I thought the greatest sight o' crows ever I seen flew out o' the castle, and I think _that_ must mane the goold there is in it."

"Did you count how many there was?" said the hag, with great solemnity.

"Faith, I never thought o' that," said Darby, with an air of vexation.

"Could you tell me, itself, wor they odd or even, avic?"

"Faix, an' I could not say for _sartin_."

"Ah, that's it!!" said the crone, shaking her head in token of disappointment. "How can I tell the maynin' o' your dhrame, if you don't know how it kem out exactly?"

"Well, granny, but don't you think the crows was _likely_ for goold?"

"Yis,--if they flew heavy."

"Throth, then, an' now I remimber they did fly heavy, and I said to myself there would be rain soon, the crows was flyin' so heavy."

"I wish you didn't dhrame o' rain, Darby."

"Why, granny? What harm is it?"

"O, nothin', only it comes in a crass place there."

"But it doesn't spile the dhrame, I hope?"

"O no. Go an."

"Well, with that, I thought I was passin' by Doolins the miller's, and says he to me, 'Will you carry home this sack o' male for me?' Now, you know, male is money, every fool knows!"

"Right, avic."

"And so I tuk the sack o' male an my shouldher, and I thought the woight iv it was killin' me, just as if it _was_ a sack o' goold."

"Go an, Darby."

"And with that I thought I met with a cat, and that, you know, manes an ill-nathur'd woman."

"Right, Darby."

"And says she to me, 'Darby Kelleher,' says she, 'you're mighty yollow, God bless you; is it the jandhers you have?' says she. Now wasn't that mighty sharp? I think the jandhers manes goold?"

"Yis, iv it was the yollow jandhers you dhremt iv, and not the black jandhers."

"Well, it _was_ the yollow jandhers."

"Very good, avic; that's makin' a fair offer at it."

"I thought so, myself," said Darby, "more by token when there was a dog in my dhrame next; and that's a frind, you know."

"Right, avic."

"And he had a silver collar an him."

"O, bad luck to that silver collar, Darby; what made you dhrame o' silver at all?"

"Why, what harm?"

"O, I thought you knew bether nor to dhrame o' silver; why, cushla machree, sure silver is a disappointment all the world over."

"O murther!" said Darby, in horror, "and is my dhrame spylte by that blackguard collar?"

"Nigh hand indeed, but not all out. It would be spylte only for the dog, but the dog is a frind, and so it will be only a frindly disappointment, or maybe a fallin' out with an acquaintance."

"O, what matther," said Darby, "so the dhrame is to the good still!!"

"The dhrame _is_ to the good still; but tell me if you dhremt o' three sprigs o' _spare_mint at the ind iv it?"

"Why, then, now I could not say for sartin, bekase I was nigh wakin' at the time, and the dhrame was not so clear to me."

"I wish you could be sartin o' that."

"Why, I have it an my mind that there _was_ sparemint in it, bekase I thought there was a garden in part iv it, and the sparemint was _likely_ to be there."

"Sure enough, and so you did dhrame o' the three sprigs o' sparemint?"

"Indeed, I could a'most make my book-oath that I dhremt iv it. I'm partly sartin, if not all out."

"Well, that's raysonable. It's a good dhrame, Darby."

"Do you tell me so!"

"'Deed an' it is, Darby. Now wait till the next quarther o' the new moon, and dhrame again _then_, and you'll see what'll come of it."

"By dad an' I will, granny. O but it's you _has_ taken the maynin' out of it beyant everything; and faix if I find the crock, it's yourself won't be the worse iv it; but I must be goin', granny, for the squire bid me to hurry, or else I would stay longer wid you. Good mornin' to you--good mornin', Oonah! I'll see you to-morrow some time, granny." And off went Darby, leisurely enough.

The foregoing dialogue shows the ready credulity of poor Darby; but it was not in his belief of the "vartue of dhrames" that his weakness only lay. He likewise had a most extensive creed as regarded fairies of all sorts and sizes, and was always on the lookout for a Leprechaun. Now a Leprechaun is a fairy of peculiar tastes, properties, and powers, which it is necessary to acquaint the reader with. His taste as to occupation is very humble, for he employs himself in making shoes, and he loves retirement, being fond of shady nooks where he can sit alone and pursue his avocation undisturbed. He is quite a hermit in this respect, for there is no instance on record of two Leprechauns being seen together. But he is quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, waistcoat and inexpressibles of the same, cocked hat, shoes, and buckles. He has the property of deceiving, in so great a degree, those who chance to discover him, that none have ever yet been known whom he has not overreached in the "keen encounter of the wits," which his meeting with mortals always produces. This is occasioned by his possessing the power of bestowing unbounded wealth on whoever can keep him within sight until he is weary of the _surveillance_, and gives the ransom demanded, and to this end, the object of the mortal who is so fortunate as to surprise one is to seize him and never withdraw his eye from him, until the threat of destruction forces the Leprechaun to produce the treasure; but the sprite is too many for us clumsy-witted earthlings, and is sure, by some device, to make us avert our eyes, when he vanishes at once.

This Enchanted Cobbler of the meadows, Darby Kelleher was always on the lookout for. But though so constantly on the watch for a Leprechaun, he never had got even within sight of one, and the name of the Fairy-Finder was bestowed upon him in derision. Many a trick too was played upon him; sometimes a twig stuck amongst long grass, with a red rag hanging upon it, has betrayed Darby into a cautious observance and approach, until a nearer inspection, and a laugh from behind some neighboring hedge, have dispelled the illusion. But this, though often repeated, did not cure him, and no turkey-cock had a quicker eye for a bit of red, or flew at it with greater eagerness, than Darby Kelleher; and he entertained the belief that one day or other he would reap the reward of all his watching, by finding a Leprechaun in good earnest.

But that was all in the hands of Fate, and must be waited for; in the mean time there was the castle and the "crock o' goold" for a certainty, and, under the good omens of the "sharp dhrame" he had, he determined on taking that affair in hand at once. For his companion in the labor of digging, and pulling the ponderous walls of the castle to pieces, he selected Oonah, who was, in the parlance of her own class, "a brave two-handed long-sided jack," and as great a believer in dreams and omens as Darby himself; besides, she promised profound secrecy, and agreed to take a small share of the treasure for her reward in assisting to discover it.

For about two months Darby and Oonah labored in vain; but at last something came of their exertions. In the course of their work, when they occasionally got tired, they would sit down to rest themselves and talk over their past disappointments and future hopes. Now it was during one of these intervals of repose that Darby, as he was resting himself on one of the coign-stones of the ruin, suddenly discovered--that he was in love with Oonah.

Now Oonah happened to be thinking much in the same sort of way about Darby, at that very moment, and the end of the affair was, that Darby and Oonah were married the Sunday following.

The calculating Englishman will ask, Did he find the treasure before he married the girl? The unsophisticated boys of the sod never calculate on these occasions; and the story goes that Oonah Lenehan was the only treasure Darby discovered in the old castle. Darby's acquaintances were in high glee on the occasion, and swore he got _a great lob_; for Oonah, be it remembered, was on the grenadier scale, or what in Ireland is called "the full of a door," and the news spread over the country in some such fashion as this:--

"Arrah, an' did you hear the news?"

"What news?"

"About Darby Kelleher."

"What of him?"

"Sure he found a fairy at last."

"Tare an ounty!"

"Thruth I'm tellin' you. He's married to Oonah Lenehan."

"Ha! ha! ha! by the powers it's she that is the rale fairy! musha, more power to you, Darby, but you've cotched it in airnest now!"

But the fairy he had caught did not satisfy Darby so far as to make him give up the pursuit for the future. He was still on the watch for a Leprechaun; and one morning, as he was going to his work, he stopped suddenly on his path, which lay through a field of standing corn, and his eye became riveted on some object with the most eager expression. He crouched, and crawled, and was making his way with great caution towards the point of his attraction, when he was visited on the back of the head with a thump that considerably disturbed his visual powers, and the voice of his mother, a vigorous old beldame, saluted his ear at the same time with a hearty, "Bad luck to you, you lazy thief, what are you slindging there for, when it's minding your work you ought to be?"

"Whisht! whisht! mother," said Darby, holding up his hand in token of silence.

"What do you mane, you omadhaun?"

"Mother, be quiet, I bid you! whisht! I see it!"

"What do you see?"

"Stoop down here. Straight forninst you, don't you see it as plain as a pikestaff?"

"See what?"

"That little red thing."

"Well, what of it?"

"See there, how it stirs. O murther! it's goin' to be off afore I can catch it. O murther! why did you come here at all, makin' a noise and frightenin' it away?"

"Frightenin' what, you big fool?"

"The Leprechaun there. Whisht! it is quiet agin!"

"May the d----l run a huntin' wid you for a big omadhaun; why, you born nath'ral, is it that red thing over there you mane?"

"Yis, to be sure it is; don't spake so loud, I tell you."

"Why, bad scran to you, you fool, it's a poppy it is, and nothin' else." And the old woman went over to the spot where it grew, and plucking it up by the roots threw it at Darby, with a great deal of abuse into the bargain, and bade him go mind his work, instead of being a "slindging vagabone, as he was."

It was some time after this occurrence, that Darby Kelleher had a meeting with a certain Doctor Dionysius Mac Finn, whose name became much more famous than it had hitherto been, from the wonderful events that ensued in consequence.

Of the doctor himself it becomes necessary to say something. His father was one Paddy Finn, and had been so prosperous in the capacity of a cow doctor, that his son Denis, seeing the dignity of a professor in the healing art must increase in proportion to the nobleness of the animal he operates upon, determined to make the human, instead of the brute creation, the object of his care. To this end he was assisted by his father, who had scraped some money together in his humble calling, and having a spice of ambition in him, as well as his aspiring son, he set him up in the neighboring village as an apothecary. Here Denny enjoyed the reputation of being an "iligant bone-setter," and cracked skulls, the result of _fair_ fighting, and whiskey fevers were treated by him on the most approved principles. But Denny's father was gathered unto _his_ fathers, and the son came into the enjoyment of all the old man's money: this, considering his condition, was considerable, and the possession of a few hundred pounds so inflated the apothecary, that he determined on becoming a "Doctor" at once. For this purpose he gave up his apothecary's shop, and set off--where do you think?--to Spain. Here he remained for some time, and returned to Ireland, declaring himself a full physician of one of the Spanish universities; his name of Denny Finn transformed into Doctor Dionysius Mac Finn, or, as his neighbors chose to call it, Mac Fun, and fun enough the doctor certainly gave birth to. The little money he once had was spent in his pursuit of professional honors, and he returned to his native place with a full title and an empty purse, and his practice did not tend to fill it. At the same time there was a struggle to keep up appearances. He kept a horse, or what he intended to be considered as such, but 'twas only a pony, and if he had but occasion to go to the end of the village on a visit, the pony was ordered on service. He was glad to accept an invitation to dinner wherever he had the luck to get one, and the offer of a bed, even, was sure to be accepted, because that insured breakfast the next morning. Thus poor Doctor Dionysius made out the cause; often asked to dinner from mingled motives of kindness and fun, for while a good dinner was a welcome novelty to the doctor, the absurdities of his pretension and manner rendered him a subject of unfailing diversion to his entertainers. Now he had gone the round of all the snug farmers and country gentlemen in the district, but at last he had the honor to receive an invitation from _the_ squire himself, and on the appointed day Doctor Dionysius bestrode his pony, attired in the full dress of a Spanish physician, which happens to be _red_ from head to foot, and presented himself at "The Hall."

When a groom appeared to take his "horse" to the stable, the doctor requested that his steed might be turned loose into the lawn, declaring it to be more wholesome for the animal than being cooped up in a house; the saddle and bridle were accordingly removed, and his desire complied with.

The doctor's appearance in the drawing-room, attired as he was, caused no small diversion, but attention was speedily called off from him by the announcement of dinner, that electric sound that stimulates a company at the same instant, and supersedes every other consideration whatsoever. Moreover, the squire's dinners were notoriously good, and the doctor profited largely by the same that day, and lost no opportunity of filling his glass with the choice wines that surrounded him. This he did to so much purpose, that the poor little man was very far gone when the guests were about to separate.

At the doctor's request the bell was rung, and his horse ordered, as the last remaining few of the company were about to separate, but every one of them had departed, and still there was no announcement of the steed being at the door. At length a servant made his appearance, and said it was impossible to catch the doctor's pony.

"What do you mean by 'catch'?" said the squire. "Is it not in the stable?"

"No, sir."