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St. Senan’s Well
Phiz
September 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
16.7 cm by 12.3 cm (6 ⅝ by 4 ⅞ inches), vignetted
Seventeenth steel-engraving and twenty-seventh serial illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 261.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Sinking with terror, pale as death, and trembling all over, Louisa bent one knee upon the little rock beside the well, while the old hag took her fair hand within her own skinny fingers and plunged it rudely in the well.
'There, drink,' said the old woman, offering me the fair palm, through which the clear water was running rapidly, while she chanted rather than spoke the rude rhyme that follows —
'By the setting sun, The flowing sea, The waters that run, I swear to thee That my faith shall be true, at this moment now, In weal or in woe, wherever or how: So help me, Saint Senan, to keep my vow!'
The last words had scarcely been uttered when Louisa, who apparently had been too much overcome by terror to hear one word the hag had muttered, sprang up from the stone, her face and neck covered with a deep blush, her lip trembling with agitation, while her eyes were fixedly directed towards the old woman with an expression of haughty anger.
'Ay, ye may look as proud as ye like. It's little I mind ye, in love or in hate. Ye are well humbled enough now. And as for you,' said she, turning towards me a look of scornful pity — 'you, I wish ye joy of your fair sweetheart; let her only keep her troth like her own mother, and ye'll have a happy heart to sit at your fireside with.'
The blood fled from Louisa's cheek as these words were uttered; a deadly paleness spread over her features; her lips were bloodless and parted; and her hands firmly clenched together and pressed against her side, bespoke the agony of the moment. It lasted not longer; for she fell back fainting and insensible into my arms. I bathed her face and temples from the well; I called upon her, rubbed her hands within my own, and endeavoured by every means to arouse her; but in vain. I turned to beg for aid from the woman, but she was gone. [Chapter XXXVIII, "St. Senan’s Well," 261]
"How does Lever transition from Father Tom Loftus's comfortable cottage overlooking the Atlantic, and, three miles away, the drawing-room at Kilmorran Castle, home of Sir Simon Bellew and his beautiful daughter, Louisa, to this wild scene on the Atlantic coast of Ireland? And what is the relationship between the concerned youth, the comatose maiden, and the hag named Molly Ban whom they have met at the sacred well beside the crashing waves on the seashore?" The positioning of the plate at the head of the serial instalment likely provoked such questions in the minds of the part-publication readers in August 1842. Certainly the story seems well suited to the castellated Gothic mansion of the seventeenth century that Father Tom and Hinton have visited from the beginning of August in the previous chapter. This illustration highlights the near-death incident that befalls the protagonist rather than another interpolated tale.
The well itself actually exists in Tarmon East, County Kerry, although Lever's version does not include the statues of the Blessed Virgin, the Sacred Heart, and Mary of the Gael Saint Brigid, or the painted depiction of St. Senan herself. On this fateful autumnal evening Hinton, at Louisa's insistence, visits it. On the beach near the well they encounter an elderly, sharp-tongued beggar, Molly Ban: "Her figure was singularly short, scarce four feet in height; but her head was enormously large, and her features, which were almost terrific in ugliness, were swarthy as a gypsy" (260). Her kerchief, her short cloak, and her naked feet from Lever's description accord perfectly with the witch-like figure who is haranguing the young couple in the Phiz illustration. In fact, the artist emphasizes the confusion of Hinton, left of centre, as he supports Louisa (centre), who has almost fainted. The beldame's parting words suggest that there is some family secret associated with Louisa's mother. But solving the mystery must wait: Jack must get Louisa back onto the pathway above and off the beach, rapidly being engulfed by the tide as night is closing in. They barely survive.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.
St. Senan's Well. Ireland's Holy Wells County-by-County. Photograph by Amanda Clarke. Web. Accessed 1 June 2023.
Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 1 June 2023