Volume 1 — From The Lamp. JEM M'GOWAN'S WISH.

"I wish I were a lord," said Pat M'Gowan, a lazy young fellow, as he stretched over his grandmother's turf-fire a pair of brawny fists that were as red as the blaze that warmed them.

"You wish to be a lord!" answered Granny M'Gowan; "oh, then, a mighty quare lord you would make; but, as long as you live, Pat, never wish again; for who knows but you might wish in the unlucky minute, and that it would be granted to you?"

"Faix, then, granny, I just wish I could have my wish this minute."

"You're a fool, Pat, and have no more sense in your head than a cracked egg has a chance of a chicken inside of it. Maybe you'd never cease repenting of your wish if you got it."

"Maybe so, granny, but for all that I'd like to be a lord. Tell me, granny, when does the unlucky minute come that a body may get their wish?"

"Why, you see, Pat, there is one particular little bit of a minute of time in every twenty-four hours that, if a mortal creature has the unlucky chance to wish on that instant, his wish, whether for good or for bad, for life or death, fortune or misfortune, sickness or health, for himself or for others, the wish is granted to him; but seldom does it turn out for good to the wisher, because it shows he is not satisfied with his lot, and it is contrary to what God in his goodness has laid down for us all to do and suffer for his sake. But, Pat, you blackguard, I see you are laughing at your old granny because you think I am going to preach a sermon to you; but you're mistaken. I'll tell you what happened to an uncle of my own, Jem M'Gowan, who got his wish when he asked for it."

"Got his wish—oh, the lucky old fellow!" cried Pat. "Do, granny, tell me all about him. Got his wish! oh, how I wish I was a lord!"

"Listen to me, Pat, and don't be getting on with any of your foolish nonsense. My uncle, Jem M'Gowan, was then something like yourself, Pat— a strapping, able chap, but one that, like you too, would sooner be scorching his shins over the fire than cutting the turf to make it, and rather watching the potatoes boiling than digging them out of the ridge. Instead of working for a new coat, he would be wishing some one gave it to him. When he got up in the morning, he wished for his breakfast; and when he had swallowed it, he wished for his dinner; and when he had bolted down his dinner, he began to wish for his supper; and when he ate his supper, he wished to be in bed; and when he was in bed, he wished to be asleep—in fact, he did nothing from morning to night but wish, and even in his dreams I am quite sure he wished to be awake. Unlucky for Jem, his cabin was convenient to the great big house of Squire Kavanagh; and when Jem went out in the morning, shivering with cold, and wishing for a glass of whisky to put spirits in him, and he saw the bedroom windows of Squire Kavanagh closed, and knew that the squire was lying warm and snug inside, he always wished to be Squire Kavanagh. Then, when he saw the {57} squire driving the horse and the hounds before him, and he all the while working in the field, he wished it still more; and when he saw him dancing with the beautiful young ladies and illigant young gentlemen in the moonlight of a summer's evening, in front of his fine hall-door and under the shade of the old oak-trees, he wished it more than ever. The squire was always coming before him; and so happy a man did he seem that Jem was always saying to himself, 'I wish I was Squire Kavanagh,' from, cockcrow to sunset, until he at last hit upon the unfortunate minute in the twenty-four hours when his wish was to be granted. He was just after eating his dinner of fine, mealy potatoes, fresh-churned buttermilk, and plenty of salt and salt-butter to relish them, when he stretched out his two legs, threw up his arms, and yawned out, 'Oh, dear, I wish I was Squire Kavanagh!'

"The words were scarce uttered when he found himself, still yawning, in the grand parlor of Kavanagh House, sitting opposite to a table laid out with china, and a table-cloth, silver forks, and no end of silver spoons, and a roaring hot beefsteak before him. Jem rubbed his eyes and then his hands with joy, and thought to himself, 'By dad, my wish is granted, and I'll lay in plenty of beefsteak first of all.' He began cutting away; but, before he had finished, he was interrupted by some people coming in. It was Sir Harry M'Manus, Squire Brien, and two or three other grand gentlemen; and says they to him, 'Kavanagh, don't you know this is the day you're to decide your bet for five hundred pounds, that you will leap your horse over the widest part of the pond outside?'

"'Is it me? says Jem. 'Why, I never leaped a horse in my life!'

"'Bother!' says one; 'you're joking. You told us yourself that you did it twenty times, and there's the English colonel that made the bet with you, and he'll be saying, if you don't do it, that the Irish are all braggers; so, my dear fellow, it just comes to this—you must either leap the pond or fight me; for, relying upon your word, I told the colonel I saw you do it myself.'

"'I must fight you or leap the pond, is it?' answered Jem, trembling from head to foot.

"'Certainly, my dear fellow,' replied Sir Harry. 'Either I must shoot you or see you make the leap; so take your choice.'

"'Oh! then, bring out the horse,' whimpered Jem, who was beginning to wish he wasn't Squire Kavanagh.

"In a minute afterward, Jem found himself out in the lawn, opposite a pond that appeared to him sixty feet wide at the least. 'Why,' said he, 'you might as well ask me to jump over the ocean, or give a hop-step-and-a-leap from Howth to Holyhead, as get any horse to cross that lake of a pond.'

"'Come, Kavanagh,' said Sir Henry, 'no nonsense with us. We know you can do it if you like; and now that you're in for it, you must finish it.'

"'Faix, you'll finish me, I'm afeerd,' said Jem, seeing they were in earnest with him; 'but what will you do if I'm drowned?'

"'Do?' says Sir Henry.' Oh, make yourself aisy on that account. You shall have the grandest wake that ever was seen in the country. We'll bury you dacently, and we'll all say that the bouldest horseman now in Ireland is the late Squire Kavanagh. If that doesn't satisfy you, there's no pleasing you; so bring out the horse immediately.'

"'Oh! murder, murder!" says Jem to himself; 'isn't this a purty thing, that I must be drowned to make a great character for a little spalpeen like Squire Kavanagh? Oh, then, it's I that wish I was Jem M'Gowan again! Going to be drowned like a rat, or smothered like a blind kitten! and all for a vagabond I don't care a straw about. I, that never was on a horse's back before, to think of leaping over an ocean! Bad cess to you, Squire Kavanagh, for your boastin' and your wagerin'!'

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"Well, a fine, dashing, jumping, rearing, great big gray horse was led up by two grooms to Jem's side. 'Oh, the darling!' said Sir Harry; 'there he goes! there's the boy that will win our bets for us! Clap him at once upon the horse's back,' says he to the grooms. The sight left Jem's eyes the very instant he saw the terrible gray horse, well known as one of the most vicious bastes in the entire country. If he could, he'd have run away, but fright kept him standing stock-still; and, before he knew where he was, he was hoisted into the saddle. 'Now, boys,' roared Sir Harry, 'give the horse plenty whip, and my life for it he is over the pond.'

"Jem heard two desperate slashes made on the flanks of the horse. The creature rose on his four legs off the ground, and came down with a soss that sent Jem up straight from the saddle like a ball, and down again with a crack fit to knock him into a hundred thousand pieces, not one of them bigger than the buttons of his waistcoat. 'Murder!' he shrieked; 'I wish I was Jem M'Gowan back again!' But there was no use in saying this, for he had already got his wish. The horse galloped away like lightning. He felt rising one instant up as high as the clouds, and the next he came with a plop into the water, like a stone that you would make take a 'dead man's dive.' He remembered no more till he saw his two kind friends, Sir Harry M'Manus and Squire Brien, holding him by the two legs in the air, and the water pouring from his mouth, nose, and every stitch of his clothes, as heavy and as constant as if it was flowing through a sieve, or as if he was turned into a watering-pot.

"'I'm a dead man,' says he, looking up in the face of his grand friends as well as he could, and kicking at the same time to get loose from them. 'I'm a dead man; and, what's worse, I'm a murdered man by the two of you.'

"'Bedad, you're anything but that,' said Sir Harry. 'You're now the greatest man in the county, for, though you fell into the pond, the horse leapt it; and I have won my bet, for which I am extremely obliged to you.'

"After shaking the water out of him, they laid him down on the grass, got a bottle of whisky, and gave him as much as he chose of it. Jem's spirits began to rise a little, and he laughed heartily when they told him he had won 500 from the English colonel. Jem got on his legs, and was beginning to walk about, when who should he see coming into the demesne but two gentlemen—one dressed like an officer, with under his arm a square mahogany box, the other with a great big horsewhip. Jem rubbed his hands with delight, for he made sure that the gentleman who carried the box was going to make Squire Kavanagh—that is, himself—some mighty fine present.

"'Kavanagh,' said Sir Harry, 'you will want some one to stand by you as a friend in this business; would you wish me to be your friend?'

"'In troth, I would,' says Jem. 'I would like you to act as a friend to me upon all occasions.'

"'Oh, that's elegant!' said Sir Harry. 'We'll now have rare sport.'

"'I'm mighty glad to hear it,' Jem replied, 'for I want a little sport after all the troubles I had.'

"'Oh, you're a brave fellow,' said Sir Harry.

"'To be sure I am,' answered Jem. 'Didn't I leap the gray horse over the big pond?'

"The gentleman with the box and whip here came up to Jem and his friends; and the whip-gentleman took off his hat, and says he, 'Might I be after asking you, is there any one of the present company Squire Kavanagh?'

"Jem did not like the looks of the gentleman, and Sir Harry M'Manus stepped before him, and said—'Yes; he is here to the fore. What is your business with him? I am acting as his friend, and I have a right to ask the question.'

"'Then, I'll tell ye what it is,' said {59} the gentleman. 'He insulted my sister at the Naas races yesterday.'

"'Faix,' says Jem, 'that's a lie! Sure, I wasn't near Naas races.'

"The word was hardly out of his mouth when he got a crack of a horsewhip across the face, that cut, he thought, his head in two. He caught hold of the gentleman, and tried to take the whip out of his hand; but, instead of the strength of Jem M'Gowan, he had only the weakness of Squire Kavanagh, and he was in an instant collared; and, in spite of all his kicking and roaring, lathered with the big whip from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. The gentleman got at last a little tired of beating him, and, flinging him away from him, said 'You and I are now quits about the lie, but you must give me satisfaction for insulting my sister.'

"'Satisfaction!' roared out Jem, as lie twisted and turned about with the pain of the beating. 'Bedad, I'll never be satisfied till every bone in your ugly body is broken.'

"'Very well,' said the gentleman. 'My friend, Captain M'Ginnis, is come prepared for this.'

"Upon that, Jem saw the square box opened that he thought was filled with a beautiful present for him; and he saw four ugly-looking pistols lying beside each other, and in one corner about two dozen of shining bran-new bullets. Jem's knees knocked together with fright when he saw Captain M'Ginnis and Sir Harry priming and loading the pistols.

"'Oh! murder, murder! this is worse than the gray horse,' he said. 'Now I am quite sure of being killed entirely.' So he caught hold of Sir Harry by the coat, and stuttered out, *Oh, then, what in the world are ye going to do with me?'

"'Do?' replied his friend; 'why, you're going to stand a shot, to be sure.'

"'The devil a shot I'll stand,' said Jem. 'I'll run away this minute.'

"'Then, by my honor and veracity, if you do,' replied Sir Harry, 'I'll stop you with a bullet. My honor is concerned in this business. You asked me to be your friend, and I'll see you go through it respectably. You must either stand your ground like a gentleman, or be shot like a dog.'

"Jem heartily wished he was no longer Squire Kavanagh; and as they dragged him up in front of the gentleman, and placed them about eight yards asunder, he thought of the quiet, easy life he led before he became a grand gentleman. He never while a laboring boy was ducked in a pond, or shot like a wild duck. But now he heard something said about 'making ready;' he saw the gentleman raise his pistol on a level with his head; he tried to lift his arm, but it stuck as fast by his side as if it was glued there. He saw the wide mouth of the wicked gentleman's pistol opened at his very eye, and looking as if it were pasted up to his face. He could even see the leaden bullet that was soon to go skelpin' through his brains! He saw the gentleman's finger on the trigger! His head turned round and round, and in an agony he cried out—'Oh, I wish I was Jem M'Gowan back again!'

"'Jem, you'll lose half your day's work,' said Ned Maguire, who was laboring in the same field with him. 'There you've been sleeping ever since your dinner, while Squire Kavanagh, that you are always talking about, was shot a few minutes ago in a duel that he fought with some strange gentleman in his own demesne.'

"'Oh," said Jem, as soon as he found that he really wasn't shot, 'I wouldn't for the wealth of the world be a gentleman. Better to labor all day than spend half an hour in the grandest of company. Faix, I've had enough and to spare of grand company and being a gentleman since I have gone to sleep here in the potato-field; and Squire Kavanagh, if he only knew it, had much more reason, poor man, to wish he was Jem M'Gowan than I had to wish I was Squire Kavanagh.'

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"And ever after that, Pat," concluded the old lady, "Jem M'Gowan went about his work like a man, instead of wasting his time in nonsensical wishings."

"Thankee, granny," yawned Pat M'Gowan, as he shuffled off to bed. "After that long story, I don't think I'll ever wish to be a lord again."