The House by the Church-Yard | Page 3

LXXXVI.--In Which Mr. Paul Dangerfield Mounts the Stairs of the
House by The Church-yard, and Makes Some Arrangements. 364
LXXXVII.--In Which Two Comrades Are Tete-a-tete in Their Old
Quarters, and Doctor Sturk's Cue Is Cut Off, and a Consultation
Commences. 370
LXXXVIII.--In Which Mr. Moore the Barber Arrives, and the Medical
Gentlemen Lock The Door. 376
LXXXIX.--In Which a Certain Songster Treats the Company To a
Dolorous Ballad Whereby Mr. Irons Is Somewhat Moved. 384
XC.--Mr. Paul Dangerfield Has Something on His Mind, and Captain
Devereux Receives a Message. 390
XCI.--Concerning Certain Documents Which Reached Mr. Mervyn,
and the Witches' Revels at the Mills. 396
XCII.--The Wher-wolf. 401
XCIII.--In Which Doctor Toole and Dirty Davy Confer in the
Blue-room. 408
XCIV.--What Doctor Sturk Brought To Mind, and All That Doctor
Toole Heard At Mr. Luke Gamble's. 414
XCV.--In Which Doctor Pell Declines a Fee, and Doctor Sturk a
Prescription. 422
XCVI.--About the Rightful Mrs. Nutter of the Mills, and How Mr.
Mervyn Received The News. 427
XCVII.--In Which Obediah Arrives. 436
XCVIII.--In Which Charles Archer Puts Himself Upon the Country.
441

XCIX.--The Story Ends. 452

[Illustration]

THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
A PROLOGUE--BEING A DISH OF VILLAGE CHAT.
We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of what was
going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years, to
be sure, is a good while; but though fashions have changed, some old
phrases dropped out, and new ones come in; and snuff and hair-powder,
and sacques and solitaires quite passed away--yet men and women
were men and women all the same--as elderly fellows, like your
humble servant, who have seen and talked with rearward stragglers of
that generation--now all and long marched off--can testify, if they will.
In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of the
outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. The
poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed a
glimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined the
banks of the river and the valley of the Liffey, with a lively sort of
richness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steep
roofs and many coloured hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond the
turnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by
the mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the
sign of the Phoenix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, and
sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confronting
the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,
and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of
Skinner's Alley--a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobite wars
of the previous century--the corporation of shoemakers, or of tailors, or
the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at the stately hour of
five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and wisdom, on a

pleasant summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean gone as the
guests--a dream of the shadow of smoke.
Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'--so called from the
blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board--at the other end
of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right angles from
the line of the broad street, and directly confronting the passenger from
Dublin, gave to it something of the character of a square, and just left
room for the high road and Martin's Row to slip between its flank and
the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well! it is gone. I blame
nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that the rats would soon have
thrown up their lease of it; and that it was taken down, in short, chiefly,
as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' to prevent the inconvenience
of its coming down of itself. Still a peevish but harmless old
fellow--who hates change, and would wish things to stay as they were
just a little, till his own great change comes; who haunts the places
where his childhood was passed, and reverences the homeliest relics of
by-gone generations--may be allowed to grumble a little at the
impertinences of improving proprietors with a taste for accurate
parallelograms and pale new brick.
Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and rustling from
base to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The royal arms cut in
bold relief in the broad stone over the porch--where, pray, is that stone
now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity? Where is the elevated
pew, where many a lord lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, and
thunder-cloud periwig, sate in