“I didn’t think it wos poss’ble,” said Rokens. “I thought as how there wasn’t a man in the ship as could ha’ done sich a low, mean thing as that.”
“No more did I,” said Dick Barnes.
“Wall, boys,” observed Nikel Sling emphatically, “I guess as how that I don’t believe it yet.”
“Arrah! D’ye think the bottle o’ brandy stole his-self?” inquired Briant.
“I ain’t a-goin’ fur to say that; but a ghost might ha’ done it, p’raps, a-purpose to get us into a scrape.”
There was a slight laugh at this, and from that moment the other men suspected that Sling was the culprit. The mere fact of his being the first to charge the crime upon any one else—even a ghost—caused them, in spite of themselves, to come to this conclusion. They did not, however, by word or look, show what was passing in their minds, for the Yankee was a favourite with his comrades, and each felt unwilling that his suspicion should prove to be correct.
“I don’t agree with you,” said Tarquin, who feared that suspicion might attach to himself, seeing that he had been the ringleader in the recent mutiny; “I don’t believe that ghosts drink.”
“Och! that’s all ye know!” cried Phil Briant. “Av ye’d only lived a month or two in Owld Ireland, ye’d have seen raison to change yer mind, ye would. Sure I’ve seed a ghost the worse o’ liquor meself.”
“Oh! Phil, wot a stunner!” cried Gurney.
“It’s as true as me name’s Phil Briant—more’s the pity. Did I niver tell ye o’ the Widdy Morgan, as had a ghost come to see her frequently?”
“No, never—let’s hear it.”
“Stop that noise with yer hammer, then, Tim Rokens, jist for five minutes, and I’ll tell it ye.”
The men ceased work for a few minutes while their comrade spoke as follows—
“It’s not a long story, boys, but it’s long enough to prove that ghosts drink.
“Ye must know that wance upon a time there wos a widdy as lived in a small town in the county o’ Clare, in Owld Ireland, an’ oh! but that was the place for drinkin’ and fightin’. It wos there that I learned to use me sippers; and it wos there, too, that I learned to give up drinkin’, for I comed for to see what a mighty dale o’ harm it did to my poor countrymen. The sexton o’ the place was the only man as niver wint near the grog-shop, and no wan iver seed him overtook with drink, but it was a quare thing that no wan could rightly understand why he used to smell o’ drink very bad sometimes. There wos a young widdy in that town, o’ the name o’ Morgan, as kep’ a cow, an’ owned a small cabin, an’ a patch o’ tater-ground about the size o’ the starn sheets of our owld long-boat. She wos a great deal run after, wos this widdy—not that the young lads had an eye to the cow, or the cabin, or the tater-estate, by no manes—but she wos greatly admired, she wos. I admired her meself, and wint to see her pretty fraquent. Well, wan evenin’ I wint to see her, an’ says I, ‘Mrs Morgan, did ye iver hear the bit song called the Widdy Machree?’ ‘Sure I niver did,’ says she. ‘Would ye like to hear it, darlint?’ says I. So she says she would, an’ I gave it to her right off; an’ when I’d done, says I, ‘Now, Widdy Morgan, ochone! will ye take me?’ But she shook her head, and looked melancholy. ‘Ye ain’t a-goin’ to take spasms?’ said I, for I got frightened at her looks. ‘No,’ says she; ‘but there’s a sacret about me; an’ I like ye too well, Phil, to decaive ye; if ye only know’d the sacret, ye wouldn’t have me at any price.’
“‘Wouldn’t I?’ says I; ‘try me, cushla, and see av I won’t.’
“‘Phil Briant,’ says she, awful solemn like, ‘I’m haunted.’
“‘Haunted!’ says I; ‘’av coorse ye are, bliss yer purty face; don’t I know that ivery boy in the parish is after ye?’
“‘It’s not that I mane. It’s a ghost as haunts me. It haunts me cabin, and me cow, and me tater-estate; an’ it drinks.’
“‘Now, darlint,’ says I, ‘everybody knows yer aisy frightened about ghosts. I don’t belave in one meself, an’ I don’t mind ’em a farden dip; but av all the ghosts in Ireland haunted ye, I’d niver give ye up.’
“‘Will ye come an’ see it this night?’ says she.
“‘Av coorse I will,’ says I. An’ that same night I wint to her cabin, and she let me in, and put a candle on the table, an’ hid me behind a great clock, in a corner jist close by the cupboard, where the brandy-bottle lived. Then she lay down on her bed with her clo’s on, and pulled the coverlid over her, and pretinded to go to slape. In less nor half-an-hour I hears a fut on the doorstep; then a tap at the door, which opened, it seemed to me, of its own accord, and in walks the ghost, sure enough! It was covered all over from head to fut in a white sheet, and I seed by the way it walked that it wos the worse of drink. I wos in a mortal fright, ye may be sure, an’ me knees shuk to that extint ye might have heard them rattle. The ghost walks straight up to the cupboard, takes out the brandy-bottle, and fills out a whole tumbler quite full, and drinks it off; it did, the baste, ivery dhrop. I seed it with me two eyes, as sure as I’m a-standin’ here. It came into the house drunk, an’ it wint out drunker nor it came in.”
“Is that all?” exclaimed several of Briant’s auditors.
“All! av coorse it is. Wot more would ye have? Didn’t I say that I’d tell ye a story as would prove to ye that ghosts drink, more especially Irish ghosts? To be sure it turned out afterwards that the ghost was the sexton o’ the parish as took advantage o’ the poor widdy’s fears; but I can tell ye, boys, that ghost niver came back after the widdy became Mrs Briant.”
“Oh! then ye married the widder, did ye?” said Jim Scroggles.
“I did; an’ she’s alive and hearty this day av she’s not—”
Briant was interrupted by a sudden roar of laughter from the men, who at that moment caught sight of Jacko, the small monkey, in a condition of mind and body that, to say the least of it, did him no credit. We are sorry to be compelled to state that Jacko was evidently and undoubtedly tipsy. Gurney said he was “as drunk as a fiddler.”
We cannot take upon ourself to say whether he was or was not as drunk as that. We are rather inclined to think that fiddlers, as a class, are maligned, and that they are no worse than their neighbours in this respect, perhaps not so bad. Certainly, if any fiddler really deserves the imputation, it must be a violoncello player, because he is, properly speaking, a base-fiddler.
Be this, however, as it may, Jacko was unmistakably drunk—in a maudlin state of intoxication—drunker, probably, than ever a monkey was before or since. He appeared, as he came slowly staggering forward to the place where the men were at work on the boat, to have just wakened out of his first drunken sleep, for his eyes were blinking like the orbs of an owl in the sunshine, and in his walk he placed his right foot where his left should have gone, and his left foot where his right should have gone, occasionally making a little run forward to save himself from tumbling on his nose, and then pulling suddenly up, and throwing up his arms in order to avoid falling on his back. Sometimes he halted altogether,—and swayed to and fro, gazing, meanwhile, pensively at the ground, as if he were wondering why it had taken to rolling and earthquaking in that preposterous manner; or were thinking on the bald-headed mother he had left behind him in the African wilderness. When the loud laugh of the men saluted his ears, Jacko looked up as quickly and steadily as he could, and grinned a ghastly smile—or something like it—as if to say, “What are you laughing at, villains?”
It is commonly observed that, among men, the ruling passion comes out strongly when they are under the influence of strong drink. So it is with monkeys. Jacko’s ruling passion was thieving; but having, at that time, no particular inducement to steal, he indulged