J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 | Page 3

again. Blinded with
his own blood, panting and staggering, he presented but a helpless
mark for the blows of his stalwart opponent. It was plain that a touch
would have been sufficient to throw him to the earth. But Larkin had no
notion of letting him off so easily. He closed with him without striking
a blow (the effect of which, prematurely dealt, would have been to
bring him at once to the ground, and so put an end to the combat), and
getting his battered and almost senseless head under his arm, fast in
that peculiar "fix" known to the fancy pleasantly by the name of
"chancery," he held him firmly, while with monotonous and brutal
strokes he beat his fist, as it seemed, almost into his face. A cry of
"shame" broke from the crowd, for it was plain that the beaten man was
now insensible, and supported only by the herculean arm of the bully.
The round and the fight ended by his hurling him upon the ground,
falling upon him at the same time with his knee upon his chest.
The bully rose, wiping the perspiration from his white face with his
blood-stained hands, but Ned lay stretched and motionless upon the
grass. It was impossible to get him upon his legs for another round. So
he was carried down, just as he was, to the pond which then lay close to
the old Park gate, and his head and body were washed beside it.
Contrary to the belief of all he was not dead. He was carried home, and
after some months to a certain extent recovered. But he never held up
his head again, and before the year was over he had died of
consumption. Nobody could doubt how the disease had been induced,

but there was no actual proof to connect the cause and effect, and the
ruffian Larkin escaped the vengeance of the law. A strange retribution,
however, awaited him.
After the death of Long Ned, he became less quarrelsome than before,
but more sullen and reserved. Some said "he took it to heart," and
others, that his conscience was not at ease about it. Be this as it may,
however, his health did not suffer by reason of his presumed agitations,
nor was his worldly prosperity marred by the blasting curses with
which poor Moran's enraged mother pursued him; on the contrary he
had rather risen in the world, and obtained regular and
well-remunerated employment from the Chief Secretary's gardener, at
the other side of the Park. He still lived in Chapelizod, whither, on the
close of his day's work, he used to return across the Fifteen Acres.
It was about three years after the catastrophe we have mentioned, and
late in the autumn, when, one night, contrary to his habit, he did not
appear at the house where he lodged, neither had he been seen
anywhere, during the evening, in the village. His hours of return had
been so very regular, that his absence excited considerable surprise,
though, of course, no actual alarm; and, at the usual hour, the house
was closed for the night, and the absent lodger consigned to the mercy
of the elements, and the care of his presiding star. Early in the morning,
however, he was found lying in a state of utter helplessness upon the
slope immediately overlooking the Chapelizod gate. He had been
smitten with a paralytic stroke: his right side was dead; and it was
many weeks before he had recovered his speech sufficiently to make
himself at all understood.
He then made the following relation:--He had been detained, it
appeared, later than usual, and darkness had closed before he
commenced his homeward walk across the Park. It was a moonlit night,
but masses of ragged clouds were slowly drifting across the heavens.
He had not encountered a human figure, and no sounds but the softened
rush of the wind sweeping through bushes and hollows met his ear.
These wild and monotonous sounds, and the utter solitude which
surrounded him, did not, however, excite any of those uneasy
sensations which are ascribed to superstition, although he said he did
feel depressed, or, in his own phraseology, "lonesome." Just as he
crossed the brow of the hill which shelters the town of Chapelizod, the

moon shone out for some moments with unclouded lustre, and his eye,
which happened to wander by the shadowy enclosures which lay at the
foot of the slope, was arrested by the sight of a human figure climbing,
with all the haste of one pursued, over the churchyard wall, and running
up the steep ascent directly towards him. Stories of "resurrectionists"
crossed his recollection, as he observed this suspicious-looking figure.
But he began, momentarily, to be aware with a sort of fearful