Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

i6o Fictions of the Irish Celts.
the answer I want," says he. " Who did you give shelter
to? " " Och, it was only to a little slip of a girl that's as
fast as the knocker of Newgate since eleven o'clock, on
the hurdle." " Molly," says he, " I'll hang for you some
day, so I will. But first and foremost I'll put the stranger
out o' pain." When I hear him talk I slip down, and
was out o' the door in a jiffy ; but he was as stiff as I was
stout, and he fling the hatchet after me, and cut off a
piece of my heel. " Them is the tricks of a clown,"
says I to myself, and I making away at the ling of my
life ; but as luck would have it, I- got shelter in another
cabin, where a nice old man was sitting over the fire,
reading a book. " What's the matter, poor girl ? " says
he, and I up and told him what happened me. " Never
fear," says he ; "the man o' the mutton won't follow you
here. I suppose you'd like your supper." Well, sure
enough, the fright, and the run, and the cut heel, and
that, made me hungry, and I didn't refuse a good plate
o' stirabout.
" Colleen," says the man, " I can't go to sleep early in
the night ; maybe you'd tell a body a story." " Musha, an
the dickens a story meself has," says I. " That's bad,"
says he ;
" the fire is getting low : take that hooran * out
to the clamp, and bring in the full of it of turf" " I
will, sir," says I. But when I took a turf out of the end
of the clamp 500 sods tumbled down on me, head and
pluck ; and I thought the breath was squeezed out of
me. " If that's the way," says I, " let the old gentleman
himself come out, and bring in his firing."
So I went in, and had like to faint when I came to the
fire. " What ails you, little girl ? " says he. " The clamp
that fell on me," says I. " Oh, but it's meself that's
sorry," says he. " Did you think of e'er another story
while you were at the clamp \ " " Indeed an I didn't."
" Well, it can't be helped. I suppose you're tired. Take
that rushlight into the barn, but don't set it on fire.
You'll find plenty of dry straw for a bed, and come into
* A domestic article, sliaped like an over-grown tambourine.