J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 | Page 5

best, undignified.
He frequently invited himself when his entertainers had forgotten to do
so; he dropped in accidentally upon small drinking parties of his
acquaintance in public houses, and entertained them with stories, queer
or terrible, from his inexhaustible reservoir, never scrupling to accept
an acknowledgment in the shape of hot whiskey-punch, or whatever
else was going.
There was at that time a certain atrabilious publican, called Philip
Slaney, established in a shop nearly opposite the old turnpike. This man
was not, when left to himself, immoderately given to drinking; but
being naturally of a saturnine complexion, and his spirits constantly
requiring a fillip, he acquired a prodigious liking for Bob Martin's
company. The sexton's society, in fact, gradually became the solace of
his existence, and he seemed to lose his constitutional melancholy in
the fascination of his sly jokes and marvellous stories.
This intimacy did not redound to the prosperity or reputation of the
convivial allies. Bob Martin drank a good deal more punch than was
good for his health, or consistent with the character of an ecclesiastical
functionary. Philip Slaney, too, was drawn into similar indulgences, for
it was hard to resist the genial seductions of his gifted companion; and
as he was obliged to pay for both, his purse was believed to have
suffered even more than his head and liver.
Be this as it may, Bob Martin had the credit of having made a drunkard
of "black Phil Slaney"--for by this cognomen was he distinguished; and
Phil Slaney had also the reputation of having made the sexton, if
possible, a "bigger bliggard" than ever. Under these circumstances, the
accounts of the concern opposite the turnpike became somewhat
entangled; and it came to pass one drowsy summer morning, the
weather being at once sultry and cloudy, that Phil Slaney went into a
small back parlour, where he kept his books, and which commanded,
through its dirty window-panes, a full view of a dead wall, and having

bolted the door, he took a loaded pistol, and clapping the muzzle in his
mouth, blew the upper part of his skull through the ceiling.
This horrid catastrophe shocked Bob Martin extremely; and partly on
this account, and partly because having been, on several late occasions,
found at night in a state of abstraction, bordering on insensibility, upon
the high road, he had been threatened with dismissal; and, as some said,
partly also because of the difficulty of finding anybody to "treat" him
as poor Phil Slaney used to do, he for a time forswore alcohol in all its
combinations, and became an eminent example of temperance and
sobriety.
Bob observed his good resolutions, greatly to the comfort of his wife,
and the edification of the neighbourhood, with tolerable punctuality. He
was seldom tipsy, and never drunk, and was greeted by the better part
of society with all the honours of the prodigal son.
Now it happened, about a year after the grisly event we have mentioned,
that the curate having received, by the post, due notice of a funeral to
be consummated in the churchyard of Chapelizod, with certain
instructions respecting the site of the grave, despatched a summons for
Bob Martin, with a view to communicate to that functionary these
official details.
It was a lowering autumn night: piles of lurid thunder-clouds, slowly
rising from the earth, had loaded the sky with a solemn and boding
canopy of storm. The growl of the distant thunder was heard afar off
upon the dull, still air, and all nature seemed, as it were, hushed and
cowering under the oppressive influence of the approaching tempest.
It was past nine o'clock when Bob, putting on his official coat of seedy
black, prepared to attend his professional superior.
"Bobby, darlin'," said his wife, before she delivered the hat she held in
her hand to his keeping, "sure you won't, Bobby, darlin'--you
won't--you know what."
"I _don't_ know what," he retorted, smartly, grasping at his hat.
"You won't be throwing up the little finger, Bobby, acushla?" she said,
evading his grasp.
"Arrah, why would I, woman? there, give me my hat, will you?"
"But won't you promise me, Bobby darlin'--won't you, alanna?"
"Ay, ay, to be sure I will--why not?--there, give me my hat, and let me
go."

"Ay, but you're not promisin', Bobby, mavourneen; you're not promisin'
all the time."
"Well, divil carry me if I drink a drop till I come back again," said the
sexton, angrily; "will that do you? And now will you give me my hat?"
"Here it is, darlin'," she said, "and God send you safe back."
And with this parting blessing she closed the door upon his retreating
figure, for it was now quite dark, and resumed her knitting till his
return, very much relieved; for she thought he had