Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/515

 . 1, 1862.] music ye could think of, and that quite near him, so he edged closter to the side of the three, and he cocked his eye round, and, bedad, sir, he seen the quarest sight at all at all. There was crowds of the weeshiest, dooniest men and women, dhressed out in green, and little red caps on their heads, some wud feathers too—if ye plase!—and the natest little red shoes on their feet. Some was dancin’ as merry as midges, keeping time to the music, and playin’ all soorts of pranks; more was makin’ love and meanderin’ about under the ferns and docks that was taller nor themselves; more was ridin’ races on flies and beetles and snails, and all manner of bastes, as if their lives depinded on it; some, too, was hangin’ out of rushes and slitherin’ down flaggers—it bet Bannagher, to see the capers of ’em. Corny looked round to thry where the music was comin’ from, and there he seen a little chap tattherin’ away on the pipes, humourin’ the tchune wud his head, all as one as Callaghan himself, on’y that he bet Callaghan out and out in the playin’. Corny’s two eyes was the size o’ pratie cakes, an’ his mouth so wide open that ’twas a wondher some of the fairies didn’t jump down his neck, while the hairs of his head stuck up as straigth as knittin’ needles, for he didn’t think it was over lucky to be so conveynient to the good people, and he was makin’ to go as quite as he could when what the puck did he see, as plain as the nose on yer face, but a small little spitherogue of a wrinkled red-faced ould man, an’ he workin’ away mendin’ a brogue! A cap was stuck on one side of his head, an’ he had a grey coat wud skirts sthreelin’ down ever so far, an’ great silver buckles in his shoes, an’ to see the ould-fashioned set of the crayture wud his legs curled up on a musharoon smokin’ a pipe as continted as anything, would make ye laugh av ye had only one laugh in ye!

“Corny had often hard tell of the Leprachaun, but he never seen one before, and, like the rest of us, he’d hard that if ye keep yer eye on him, he must show you where he has the goold berrid, but he’s up to all manner of thricks to make ye look another way, and if ye do for the mite of a minnit only, away he skelthers, so he does, and the divil a hap’orth more ye sees of him. Well, all these things come into Corny’s head, and he determined not to let the boy out of his sight; and just as the Leprachaun was houldin’ a wax-end betune him and the moon while he’d fix a new bristle to it, Corny gettin’ bouldher and bouldher as he thought of the goold, spakes up, and says he—

‘God bless the work, yer worship!’ says he.

“Bedad the words was barely out of his mouth when every one of the fairies, barrin’ the Leprachaun himself, flew away like redshanks, and one of ’em ups wud his fist and gave Corny an eye as black as the ace of spades, and at the same time sthreaks of fire spread out in the sky like the Roara Boro Alis that’s seen be the Laplandhers in Agypt. Wud that the ould cobbler says,—

‘Whist, whist, Corny; see what’s going on in the three.’

‘Oh, oh!’ says Corny to himself, ‘catch a weazel asleep. I wouldn’t mistrust ye, me bochoul, but to be thryin’ to get me eye off of ye.’ So he says to him, says he,—

‘Looka, see here now; none of yer thricks upon thravellers, but show me, this minnit, where ye have the threasures berrid.’

‘Tare an ounthers,’ says the ould man, ‘what de ye mane?’

‘Oh, ye know right well,’ says Corny, at the same time saysin’ him be the scruff of the neck.

‘Och, weirasthru, Corny, allanah,’ says the Leprachaun, “where would the likes of me get threasures?—threasures, in throth!’ says he.

‘Come, come, me ould play-boy,’ says Corny, ‘you might as well be whistlin’ jigs to a milestone as talkin’ to me. De ye think it’s a Gomm I am? Lade me to the place fair and asy, or maybe it’s the worse it ’ll be for ye.’

‘Arrah, sure, I tould ye before, ye spalpeen, sorrow taste of the likes I have,’ says the fairy.

‘Whether, now,’ says Corny, gettin’ incensed, ‘ye conthrary ould vagabone, isn’t it a wondher ye wouldn’t be ashamed of yerself to be riddlin’ lies out of ye as fast as a dog ’id trot? Make no more words about it now,’ says he, ‘but out wud the saycret, or, be this and be that, I’ll brake ivery bone in yer ugly ould carcase!’ says he, givin’ him a shake that fairly loosened the teeth in his head.

“Well, to make a long story short, the Leprachaun seen there was no use argen wud Corny, so he led him a fine dance over ditch and hedge, briar and bramble, until they came to a field wud a young ash saplin’ growin’ in it.

‘Undher that is the goold,’ says the fairy, ‘and much good may it do you!’ and wud that he disappeared, without sayin’ another word, good or bad.

“Corny gripped the saplin’, and what wud pullin’ and haulin’, and prisein’ it wud his stick, he managed to get it clane up, tho’ a tough job it was too, and afther rootin’ a bit in the sile—sorrow a word o’ lie in it—but, sure enough, he come upon a big crock brim full of goold. Begor he didn’t know whether he was standin’ on his head or his heels wud delight.

‘Corny, yer sowl, ye,’ says he to himself, ‘ye’r a made man from this day out. Isn’t it yourself is in the hoigth of good luck, and more power to the Leprachaun, he’s a dacent ould chap afther all.’

“So sayin’, he filled his pockets, and his hat, and his brogues—ay, and his stockins too! for he seen there was no use in thryin’ to get up the crock without a spade, and, stickin’ the three back again, he cut off home. He didn’t let on a word about it to man or mortal, but set out the next night wud a spade and a wheelbarrow. He found the field asy enough, but dang the bit of the saplin’ could he get! No; nor sign nor sight of the place he had turned up the night before! So he had to be contint wud what he got, and a fine lob it was too.

“Well, yer honnor, Corny bought a few fields, and he built a snug cabin, and married Mary Carty, and a great haulin’ home they had of it—plenty of people there, and the best of fine aitin’ and dhrinkin’, for there was nothin’ of the nayger