Melmoth the Wanderer

whose well-replenished fuel gave testimony to the “master’s” indisposition, who would probably as soon have been placed on the fire himself as seen the whole kish emptied on it once, were seated the old housekeeper, two or three “followers,” (i.e. people who ate, drank, and lounged about in any kitchen that was open in the neighbourhood, on an occasion of grief or joy, all for his honor’s sake, and for the great rispict they bore the family), and an old woman, whom John immediately recognized as the doctress of the neighbourhood⁠—a withered Sybil, who prolonged her squalid existence by practising on the fears, the ignorance, and the sufferings of beings as miserable as herself. Among the better sort, to whom she sometimes had access by the influence of servants, she tried the effects of some simples, her skill in which was sometimes productive of success. Among the lower orders she talked much of the effects of the “evil eye,” against which she boasted a counter-spell, of unfailing efficacy; and while she spoke, she shook her grizzled locks with such witch-like eagerness, that she never failed to communicate to her half-terrified, half-believing audience, some portion of that enthusiasm which, amid all her consciousness of imposture, she herself probably felt a large share of; still, when the case at last became desperate, when credulity itself lost all patience, and hope and life were departing together, she urged the miserable patient to confess “there was something about his heart;” and when this confession was extorted from the weariness of pain and the ignorance of poverty, she nodded and muttered so mysteriously, as to convey to the bystanders, that she had had difficulties to contend with which were invincible by human power. When there was no pretext, from indisposition, for her visiting either “his honor’s” kitchen, or the cottar’s hut⁠—when the stubborn and persevering convalescence of the whole country threatened her with starvation⁠—she still had a resource:⁠—if there were no lives to be shortened, there were fortunes to be told;⁠—she worked “by spells, and by such daubry as is beyond our element.” No one twined so well as she the mystic yarn to be dropped into the limekiln pit, on the edge of which stood the shivering inquirer into futurity, doubtful whether the answer to her question of “who holds?” was to be uttered by the voice of demon or lover.

No one knew so well as she to find where the four streams met, in which, on the same portentous season, the chemise was to be immersed, and then displayed before the fire (in the name of one whom we dare not mention to “ears polite”), to be turned by the figure of the destined husband before morning. No one but herself (she said) knew the hand in which the comb was to be held, while the other was employed in conveying the apple to the mouth⁠—while, during the joint operation, the shadow of the phantom-spouse was to pass across the mirror before which it was performed. No one was more skilful or active in removing every iron implement from the kitchen where these ceremonies were usually performed by the credulous and terrified dupes of her wizardry, lest, instead of the form of a comely youth exhibiting a ring on his white finger, an headless figure should stalk to the rack (Anglicè, dresser), take down a long spit, or, in default of that, snatch a poker from the fireside, and mercilessly take measure with its iron length of the sleeper for a coffin. No one, in short, knew better how to torment or terrify her victims into a belief of that power which may and has reduced the strongest minds to the level of the weakest; and under the influence of which the cultivated sceptic, Lord Lyttleton, yelled and gnashed and writhed in his last hours, like the poor girl who, in the belief of the horrible visitation of the vampire, shrieked aloud, that her grandfather was sucking her vital blood while she slept, and expired under the influence of imaginary horror. Such was the being to whom old Melmoth had committed his life, half from credulity, and (Hibernicè speaking) more than half from avarice. Among this group John advanced⁠—recognising some⁠—disliking more⁠—distrusting all. The old housekeeper received him with cordiality;⁠—he was always her “whiteheaded boy,” she said⁠—(imprimis, his hair was as black as jet), and she tried to lift her withered hand to his head with an action between a benediction and a caress, till the difficulty of the attempt forced on her the conviction that that head was fourteen inches higher than her reach since she had last patted it. The men, with the national deference of the Irish to a person of superior rank, all rose at his approach (their stools chattering on the broken flags) and wished his honor “a thousand years and long life to the back of that; and would not his honor take something to keep the grief out of his heart;” and so saying, five or six red and bony hands tendered him glasses of whiskey all at once. All this time the Sybil sat silent in the ample chimney-corner, sending redoubled whiffs out of her pipe. John gently declined the offer of spirits, received the attentions of the old housekeeper cordially, looked askance at the withered crone who occupied the chimney corner, and then glanced at the table, which displayed other cheer than he had been accustomed to see in his “honor’s time.” There was a wooden dish of potatoes, which old Melmoth would have considered enough for a week’s subsistence. There was the salted salmon (a luxury unknown even in London. Vide Miss Edgeworth’s Tales, The Absentee).

There was the “slink veal,” flanked with tripe; and, finally, there were lobsters and fried turbot enough to justify what the author of the tale asserts, suo periculo, that when his great grandfather, the Dean of Killala, hired servants