“Nevertheless with us it is our great sport.”
“Business is business and sport is sport,” he said. “Now, we hunted as business, and had little fights and killed one another as our sport.”
“We are not suffered to kill one another.”
“But take the case,” said he, “that a man has a nose-ring, or a pretty wife, and you want one or the other. Surely you might kill him and possess yourself of what you so ardently covet?”
“By no means. Now, to change the topic,” I went on, “you are totally destitute of clothing. You do not even wear the traditional garment of fig leaves.”
“What avail fig leaves? There is no warmth in them.”
“Perhaps not—but out of delicacy.”
“What is that? I don’t understand.” There was clearly no corresponding sensation in the vibrating tympanum of his psychic nature.
“Did you never wear clothes?” I inquired.
“Certainly, when it was cold we wore skins, skins of the beasts we killed. But in summer what is the use of clothing? Besides, we only wore them out of doors. When we entered our homes, made of skins hitched up to the rock overhead, we threw them off. It was hot within, and we perspired freely.”
“What, were naked in your homes! you and your wives?”
“Of course we were. Why not? It was very warm within with the fire always kept up.”
“Why—good gracious me!” I exclaimed, “that would never be tolerated nowadays. If you attempted to go about the country unclothed, even get out of your clothes freely at home, you would be sent to a lunatic asylum and kept there.”
“Humph!” He again lapsed into silence.
Presently he exclaimed: “After all, I think that we were better off as we were eight thousand years ago, even without your matches, Benedictine, education, chocolat menier, and commercials, for then we were able to enjoy real sport—we could kill one another, we could knock old wives on the head, we could have a dozen or more squaws according to our circumstances, young and pretty, and we could career about the country or sit and enjoy a social chat at home, stark naked. We were best off as we were. There are compensations in life at every period of man. Vive la liberté!”
At that moment I heard a shout—saw a flash of light. The workmen had pierced the barrier. A rush of fresh air entered. I staggered to my feet.
“Oh! mon Dieu! Monsieur vit encore!”
I felt dizzy. Kind hands grasped me. I was dragged forth. Brandy was poured down my throat. When I came to myself I gasped: “Fill in the hole! Fill it all up. Let H. P. lie where he is. He shall not go to the British Museum. I have had enough of prehistoric antiquities. Adieu, pour toujours la Vézère.”
McAlister
(A tale from A Book of Ghosts)
The city of Bayonne, lying on the left bank of the Adour, and serving as its port, is one that ought to present much interest to the British tourist, on account of its associations. For three hundred years, along with Bordeaux, it belonged to the English crown. The cathedral, a noble structure of the fourteenth century, was reared by the English, and on the bosses of its vaulting are carved the arms of England, of the Talbots, and of other great English noble families. It was probably designed by English architects, for it possesses, in its vaulting, the long central rib so characteristic of English architecture, and wholly unlike what was the prevailing French fashion of vaulting in compartments, and always without that connecting rib, like the inverted keel of a ship, with which we are acquainted in our English minsters. Under some of the modern houses in the town are cellars of far earlier construction, also vaulted, and in them as well may be seen the arms of the English noble families which had their dwellings above.
But Bayonne has later associations with us. At the close of the Peninsular War, when Wellington had driven Marshal Soult and the French out of Spain, and had crossed the Pyrenees, his forces, under Sir John Hope, invested the citadel. In February, 1814, Sir John threw a bridge of boats across the Adour, boats being provided by the fleet of Admiral Penrose, in the teeth of a garrison of 15, 000 men, and French gunboats which guarded the river and raked the English whilst conducting this hazardous and masterly achievement. This brilliant exploit was effected whilst Wellington engaged the attention of Soult about the Gaves, affluents of the Adour, near Orthez. It is further interesting, with a tragic interest, on account of an incident in that campaign which shall be referred to presently.
The cathedral of Bayonne, some years ago, possessed no towers—the English were driven out of Aquitaine before these had been completed. The west front was mean to the last degree, masked by a shabby penthouse, plastered white, or rather dirty white, on which in large characters was inscribed, “Liberté égalité et fraternité.”
This has now disappeared, and a modern west front and twin towers and spires have been added, in passable architecture. When I was at Bayonne, more years ago than I care to say, I paid a visit to the little cemetery on the north bank of the river, in which were laid the English officers who fell during the investment of Bayonne.
The north bank is in the department of the Landes, whereas that on the south is in the department of the Basses Pyrénées.
About the time when the English were expelled from France, and lost Aquitaine, the Adour changed its course. Formerly it had turned sharply round at the city, and had flowed north and found an outlet some miles away at Cap Breton, but the entrance was choked by the moving sand-dunes, and the impatient river burst its way into the Bay of Biscay by the mouth through which it still flows. But the old course is marked by lagoons of still blue water in the midst of a vast forest of pines and cork trees. I had spent a day wandering among these tree-covered landes, seeking out the lonely lakes, and in the evening I returned in the direction of Bayonne, diverging somewhat from my course to visit the cemetery of the English. This was a square walled enclosure with an iron gate, rank with weeds, utterly neglected, and with the tombstones, some leaning, some prostrate, all covered with lichen and moss. I could not get within to decipher the inscriptions, for the gate was locked and I had not the key, and was quite ignorant who was the custodian of the place. Being tired with my trudge in the sand, I sat down outside, with my back to the wall, and saw the setting sun paint with saffron the boles of the pines. I took out my Murray that I had in my knapsack, and read the following passage:—
“To the N., rises the citadel, the most formidable of the works laid out by Vauban, and greatly strengthened, especially since 1814, when it formed the key to an entrenched camp of Marshal Soult, and was invested by a detachment of the army of the Duke of Wellington, but not taken, the peace having put a stop to the siege after some bloody encounters. The last of these, a dreadful and useless expenditure of human life, took place after peace was declared, and the British forces put off their guard in consequence. They were thus entirely taken by surprise by a sally of the garrison, made early on the morning of April 14th; which, though repulsed, was attended with the loss of 830 men of the British, and by the capture of their commander, Sir John Hope, whose horse was shot under him, and himself wounded. The French attack was supported by the fire of their gunboats on the river, which opened indiscriminately on friend and foe. Nine hundred and ten of the French were killed.”
When I had concluded, the sun had set, and already a grey mist began to form over the course of the Adour. I thought that now it was high time for me to return to Bayonne, and to table d’hôte, which is at 7.30 p. m. , but for which I knew I should be late. However, before rising, I pulled out my flask of Scotch whisky, and drained it to the last drop.
I had scarcely finished, and was about to heave myself to my feet, when I heard a voice from behind and above me say—“It is grateful, varra grateful to a Scotchman.”
I turned myself about, and drew back from the wall, for I saw a very remarkable object perched upon it. It was the upper portion of a man in military accoutrements. He was not sitting on the wall, for, if so, his legs would have been dangling ov
er on the outside. And yet he could not have heaved himself up to the level of the parapet, with the legs depending inside, for he appeared to be on the wall itself down to the middle.
“Are you a Scotchman or an Englishman?” he inquired.
“An Englishman,” I replied, hardly knowing what to make of the apparition.
“It’s mabbe a bit airly in the nicht for me to be stirring,” he said; “but the smell of the whisky drew me from my grave.”
“From your grave!” I exclaimed.
“And pray, what is the blend?” he asked. I answered.
“Weel,” said he, “ye might do better, but it’s guid enough. I am Captain Alister McAlister of Auchimachie, at your service, that is to say, his superior half. I fell in one of the attacks on the citadel. Those”—he employed a strong qualification which need not be reproduced—“those Johnny Crapauds used chainshot; and they cut me in half at the waistbelt, and my legs are in Scotland.”
Having somewhat recovered from my astonishment, I was able to take a further look at him, and could not restrain a laugh. He so much resembled Humpty Dumpty, who, as I had learned in childhood, did sit on a wall.
“Is there anything so rideeculous about me?” asked Captain McAlister in a tone of irritation. “You seem to be in a jocular mood, sir.”
“I assure you,” I responded, “I was only laughing from joy of heart at the happy chance of meeting you, Alister McAlister.”
“Of Auchimachie, and my title is Captain,” he said. “There is only half of me here—the etceteras are in the family vault in Scotland.”
I expressed my genuine surprise at this announcement.
“You must understand, sir,” continued he, “that I am but the speeritual presentment of my buried trunk. The speeritual presentment of my nether half is not here, and I should scorn to use those of Captain O’Hooligan.”
I pressed my hand to my brow. Was I in my right senses? Had the hot sun during the day affected my brain, or had the last drain of whisky upset my reason?
“You may be pleased to know,” said the half-captain, “that my father, the Laird of Auchimachie, and Colonel Graham of Ours, were on terms of the greatest intimacy. Before I started for the war under Wellington—he was at the time but Sir Arthur Wellesley—my father took Colonel Graham apart and confided to him: ‘If anything should happen to my son in the campaign, you’ll obleege me greatly if you will forward his remains to Auchimachie. I am a staunch Presbyterian, and I shouldn’t feel happy that his poor body should lie in the land of idolaters, who worship the Virgin Mary. And as to the expense, I will manage to meet that; but be careful not to do the job in an extravagant manner. ’”
“And the untoward Fates cut you short?”
“Yes, the chain-shot did, but not in the Peninsula. I passed safely through that, but it was here. When we were makin’ the bridge, the enemy’s ships were up the river, and they fired on us with chain-shot, which ye ken are mainly used for cutting the rigging of vessels. But they employed them on us as we were engaged over the pontoons, and I was just cut in half by a pair of these shot at the junction of the tunic and the trews.”
“I cannot understand how that your legs should be in Scotland and your trunk here.”
“That’s just what I’m aboot to tell you. There was a Captain O’Hooligan and I used to meet; we were in the same detachment. I need not inform you, if you’re a man of understanding, that O’Hooligan is an Irish name, and Captain Timothy O’Hooligan was a born Irishman and an ignorant papist to boot. Now, I am by education and conveection a staunch Presbyterian. I believe in John Calvin, John Knox, and Jeannie Geddes. That’s my creed; and if ye are disposed for an argument——”
“Not in the least.”
“Weel, then, it was other with Captain O’Hooligan, and we often had words; but he hadn’t any arguments at all, only assertions, and he lost his temper accordingly, and I was angry at the unreasonableness of the man. I had had an ancestor in Derry at the siege and at the Battle of the Boyne, and he spitted three Irish kerns on his sabre. I glory in it, and I told O’Hooligan as much, and I drank a glass of toddy to the memory of William III. , and I shouted out Lillibulero! I believe in the end we would have fought a duel, after the siege was over, unless one of us had thought better of it. But it was not to be. At the same time that I was cut in half, so was he also by chain-shot.”
“And is he buried here?”
“The half of him—his confounded legs, and the knees that have bowed to the image of Baal.”
“Then, what became of his body?”
“If you’ll pay me reasonable attention, and not interrupt, I’ll tell you the whole story. But—sure enough! Here come those legs!”
Instantly the half-man rolled off the wall, on the outside, and heaving himself along on his hands, scuttled behind a tree-trunk.
Next moment I saw a pair of nimble lower limbs, in white ducks and straps under the boots, leap the wall, and run about, up and down, much like a setter after a partridge.
I did not know what to make of this.
Then the head of McAlister peered from behind the tree, and screamed “Lillibulero! God save King William!” Instantly the legs went after him, and catching him up kicked him like a football about the enclosure. I cannot recall precisely how many times the circuit was made, twice or thrice, but all the while the head of McAlister kept screaming “Lillibulero!” and “D—— the Pope!”
Recovering myself from my astonishment, and desirous of putting a term to this not very edifying scene, I picked up a leaf of shamrock, that grew at my feet, and ran between the legs and the trunk, and presented the symbol of St. Patrick to the former. The legs at once desisted from pursuit, and made a not ungraceful bow to the leaf, and as I advanced they retired, still bowing reverentially, till they reached the wall, which they stepped over with the utmost ease.
The half-Scotchman now hobbled up to me on his hands, and said: “I’m varra much obleeged to you for your intervention, sir.”
Then he scrambled, by means of the rails of the gate, to his former perch on the wall.
“You must understand, sir,” said McAlister, settling himself comfortably, “that this produces no pheesical inconvenience to me at all. For O’Hooligan’s boots are speeritual, and so is my trunk speeritual. And at best it only touches my speeritual feelings. Still, I thank you.”
“You certainly administered to him some spiritual aggravation,” I observed.
“Ay, ay, sir, I did. And I glory in it.”
“And now, Captain McAlister, if it is not troubling you too greatly, after this interruption would you kindly explain to me how it comes about that the nobler part of you is here and the less noble in Scotland?”
“I will do so with pleasure. Captain O’Hooligan’s upper story is at Auchimachie.”
“How came that about?”
“If you had a particle of patience, you would not interrupt me in my narrative. I told you, did I not, that my dear father had enjoined on Colonel Graham, should anything untoward occur, that he should send my body home to be interred in the vault of my ancestors? Well, this is how it came about that the awkward mistake was made. When it was reported that I had been killed, Colonel Graham issued orders that my remains should be carefully attended to and put aside to be sent home to Scotland.”
“By boat, I presume?”
“Certainly, by boat. But, unfortunately, he commissioned some Irishmen of his company to attend to it. And whether it was that they wished to do honour to their own countryman, or whether it was that, like most Irishmen, they could not fail to blunder in the discharge of their duty, I cannot say. They might have recognised me, even if they hadn’t known my face, by my goold repeater watch; but some wretched camp-followers had been before them. On the watch were engraved the McAlister arms. But the watch had been stolen. So they picked up—either out of purpose, or by mistake—O’Hooligan’s trunk, and my nether portion, and put them together into one case. You see, a man’s legs are not so
easily identified. So his body and my lower limbs were made ready together to be forwarded to Scotland.”
“But how—did not Colonel Graham see personally to the matter?”
“He could not. He was so much engaged over regimental duties. Still, he might have stretched a point, I think.”
“It must have been difficult to send the portions so far. Was the body embalmed?”
“Embalmed! no. There was no one in Bayonne who knew how to do it. There was a bird-stuffer in the Rue Pannceau, but he had done nothing larger than a seagull. So there could be no question of embalming. We, that is, the bit of O’Hooligan and the bit of me, were put into a cask of eau-de-vie, and so forwarded by a sailing-vessel. And either on the way to Southampton, or on another boat from that port to Edinburgh, the sailors ran a gimlet into the barrel, and inserted a straw, and drank up all the spirits. It was all gone by the time the hogshead reached Auchimachie. Whether O’Hooligan gave a smack to the liquor I cannot say, but I can answer for my legs, they would impart a grateful flavour of whisky.
“I was always a drinker of whisky, and when I had taken a considerable amount it always went to my legs; they swerved, and gave way under me. That is proof certain that the liquor went to my extremities and not to my head. Trust to a Scotchman’s head for standing any amount of whisky. When the remains arrived at Auchimachie for interment, it was supposed that some mistake had been made. My hair is sandy, that of O’Hooligan is black, or nearly so; but there was no knowing what chemical action the alcohol might have on the hair in altering its colour. But my mother identified the legs past mistake, by a mole on the left calf and a varicose vein on the right. Anyhow, half a loaf is better than no bread, so all the mortal relics were consigned to the McAlister vault. It was aggravating to my feelings that the minister should pronounce a varra eloquent and moving discourse on the occasion over the trunk of a confounded Irishman and a papist.”
“You must really excuse me,” interrupted I, “but how the dickens do you know all this?”
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sabine Baring-Gould Page 41
