'The Quare Gander'

"The Quare Gander" is a short story by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, known for his contributions to Gothic literature. It revolves around themes of identity, deception, and the supernatural. The narrative unfolds in a rural Irish setting, where an eccentric character, Mr. Crumpe, engages in a bizarre encounter involving a mysterious and malevolent figure that leads to a series of unsettling events. Le Fanu’s skillful use of atmosphere and psychological tension serves to explore deeper human fears and societal issues, making this tale a compelling study of the uncanny and a reflection on the nature of reality and the self.

• Fiction

								
     Being a Twelfth Extract from the Legacy of the late Francis
     Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh.

As I rode at a slow walk, one soft autumn evening, from the once noted
and noticeable town of Emly, now a squalid village, towards the no less
remarkable town of Tipperary, I fell into a meditative mood.

My eye wandered over a glorious landscape; a broad sea of corn-fields,
that might have gladdened even a golden age, was waving before me;
groups of little cabins, with their poplars, osiers, and light mountain
ashes, clustered shelteringly around them, were scattered over the
plain; the thin blue smoke arose floating through their boughs in the
still evening air. And far away with all their broad lights and shades,
softened with the haze of approaching twilight, stood the bold wild
Galties.

As I gazed on this scene, whose richness was deepened by the melancholy
glow of the setting sun, the tears rose to my eyes, and I said:

'Alas, my country! what a mournful beauty is thine. Dressed in
loveliness and laughter, there is mortal decay at thy heart: sorrow,
sin, and shame have mingled thy cup of misery. Strange rulers have
bruised thee, and laughed thee to scorn, and they have made all thy
sweetness bitter. Thy shames and sins are the austere fruits of thy
miseries, and thy miseries have been poured out upon thee by foreign
hands. Alas, my stricken country! clothed with this most pity-moving
smile, with this most unutterably mournful loveliness, thou
sore-grieved, thou desperately-beloved! Is there for thee, my country, a
resurrection?'

I know not how long I might have continued to rhapsodize in this strain,
had not my wandering thoughts been suddenly recalled to my own immediate
neighbourhood by the monotonous clatter of a horse's hoofs upon the
road, evidently moving, at that peculiar pace which is neither a
walk nor a trot, and yet partakes of both, so much in vogue among the
southern farmers.

In a moment my pursuer was up with me, and checking his steed into a
walk he saluted me with much respect. The cavalier was a light-built
fellow, with good-humoured sun-burnt features, a shrewd and lively
black eye, and a head covered with a crop of close curly black hair, and
surmounted with a turf-coloured caubeen, in the packthread band of which
was stuck a short pipe, which had evidently seen much service.

My companion was a dealer in all kinds of local lore, and soon took
occasion to let me see that he was so.

After two or three short stories, in which the scandalous and
supernatural were happily blended, we happened to arrive at a narrow
road or bohreen leading to a snug-looking farm-house.

'That's a comfortable bit iv a farm,' observed my comrade, pointing
towards the dwelling with his thumb; 'a shnug spot, and belongs to the
Mooneys this long time. 'Tis a noted place for what happened wid the
famous gandher there in former times.'

'And what was that?' inquired I.

'What was it happened wid the gandher!' ejaculated my companion in a
tone of indignant surprise; 'the gandher iv Ballymacrucker, the gandher!
Your raverance must be a stranger in these parts. Sure every fool knows
all about the gandher, and Terence Mooney, that was, rest his sowl.
Begorra, 'tis surprisin' to me how in the world you didn't hear iv the
gandher; and may be it's funnin me ye are, your raverance.'

I assured him to the contrary, and conjured him to narrate to me the
facts, an unacquaintance with which was sufficient it appeared to stamp
me as an ignoramus of the first magnitude.

It did not require much entreaty to induce my communicative friend to
relate the circumstance, in nearly the following words:

'Terence Mooney was an honest boy and well to do; an' he rinted the
biggest farm on this side iv the Galties; an' bein' mighty cute an' a
sevare worker, it was small wonder he turned a good penny every harvest.
But unluckily he was blessed with an ilegant large family iv daughters,
an' iv coorse his heart was allamost bruck, striving to make up fortunes
for the whole of them. An' there wasn't a conthrivance iv any soart or
description for makin' money out iv the farm, but he was up to.

'Well, among the other ways he had iv gettin' up in the world, he always
kep a power iv turkeys, and all soarts iv poultrey; an' he was out iv
all rason partial to geese--an' small blame to him for that same--for
twice't a year you can pluck them as bare as my hand--an' get a fine
price for the feathers, an' plenty of rale sizable eggs--an' when they
are too ould to lay any more, you can kill them, an' sell them to the
gintlemen for goslings, d'ye see, let alone that a goose is the most
manly bird that is out.

'Well, it happened in the coorse iv time that one ould gandher tuck a
wondherful likin' to Terence, an' divil a place he could go serenadin'
about the farm, or lookin' afther the men, but the gandher id be at his
heels, an' rubbin' himself agin his legs, an' lookin' up in his face
jist like any other Christian id do; an' begorra, the likes iv it was
never seen--Terence Mooney an' the gandher wor so great.

'An' at last the bird was so engagin' that Terence would not allow it
to be plucked any more, an' kep it from that time out for love an'
affection--just all as one like one iv his childer.

'But happiness in perfection never lasts long, an' the neighbours
begin'd to suspect the nathur an' intentions iv the gandher, an' some iv
them said it was the divil, an' more iv them that it was a fairy.

'Well, Terence could not but hear something of what was sayin', an' you
may be sure he was not altogether asy in his mind about it, an' from one
day to another he was gettin' more ancomfortable in himself, until he
detarmined to sind for Jer Garvan, the fairy docthor in Garryowen, an'
it's he was the ilegant hand at the business, an' divil a sperit id
say a crass word to him, no more nor a priest. An' moreover he was very
great wid ould Terence Mooney--this man's father that' was.

'So without more about it he was sint for, an' sure enough the divil a
long he was about it, for he kem back that very evenin' along wid the
boy that was sint for him, an' as soon as he was there, an' tuck his
supper, an' was done talkin' for a while, he begined of coorse to look
into the gandher.

'Well, he turned it this away an' that away, to the right an' to the
left, an' straight-ways an' upside-down, an' when he was tired handlin'
it, says he to Terence Mooney:

'"Terence," says he, "you must remove the bird into the next room," says
he, "an' put a petticoat," says he, "or anny other convaynience round
his head," says he.

'"An' why so?" says Terence.

'"Becase," says Jer, says he.

'"Becase what?" says Terence.

'"Becase," says Jer, "if it isn't done you'll never be asy again," says
he, "or pusilanimous in your mind," says he; "so ax no more questions,
but do my biddin'," says he.

'"Well," says Terence, "have your own way," says he.

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