Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Legends of the " Good Feopie." 85
to put off the christening of the child till he'd be on the
spot. She and her husband were not natives of the
country, and they were not as much afraid of leaving the
child unchristened as our people would be.
Well, the child grew and throve, and the neighbours
all bothered the woman to take him to Father M.'s to be
baptized, and all they said was no use. " Her husband
would be soon home, and then they'd have a joyful
christening."
There happened to be no one sick up in that neighbourhood
for some time, so the priest did not come to
the place, nor hear of the birth, and none of the people
about her could make up their minds to tell upon her, it
is such an ugly thing to be informing; and then the
child was so healthy, and the father might be on the spot
any moment.
So the time crept on, and the lad was a year and
a half old, and his mother up to that time never lost
five nights' rest by him ; when one evening that she
came in from binding after the reapers, she heard
wonderful whingeing and lamenting from the little bed
where he used to sleep. She ran over to him and asked
him what ailed him. " Oh, mammy, I'm sick, and I'm
hungry, and I'm cold ; don't pull down the blanket."
Well, the poor woman ran and got some boiled bread
and milk as soon as she could, and she asked her other
son, that was about seven years old, when he took sick.
" Oh, mother," says he, " he was as happy as a king,
playing near the fire about two hours ago, and I was
below in the room, when I heard a great rush like as if
a whole number of fowls were flying down the chimley.
I heard my brother giving a great cry, and then another
sound like as if the fowls were flying out again ; and
when I got into the kitchen there he was, so miserablelooking
that I hardly knew him, and he pulling his hair,
and his clothes, and his poor face so dirty. Take a look
at him, and tiy do you know him at all."
So when she went to feed him she got such a fright,