Irish Folk Tales (74 page)

From this out he kept Bill’s nose to the grinding-stone, and whenever his complaint returned, he never failed to give him a hearty dose for his improvement.

In the course of time, however, Bill was his own man and his own master, but it would puzzle a saint to know whether the master or the man was the more precious youth in the eyes of the world.

He immediately married a wife, and devil a doubt of it, but if he kept her in whiskey and sugar, she kept him in hot water. Bill drank and she drank. Bill fought and she fought. Bill was idle and she was idle. Bill whacked her and she whacked Bill. If Bill gave her one black eye, she gave him another, just to keep herself in countenance. Never was there a blessed pair so well met, and a beautiful sight it was to see them both at breakfast time blinking at each other across the potato basket, Bill with his right eye black, and she with her left.

In short, they were the talk of the whole town; and to see Bill of a morning staggering home drunk, his shirt-sleeves rolled upon his smutted arms, his breast open, and an old tattered leather apron, with one corner tucked up under his belt, singing one minute, and fighting with his wife the next—she reeling beside him, with a discolored eye, as aforesaid, a dirty ragged cap on one side of her head, a pair of Bill’s old slippers on her feet, a squalling brat on her arm—now cuffiing and dragging Bill, and again kissing and hugging him! Yes, it was a pleasant picture to see this loving pair in such a state.

This might do for a while, but it could not last. They were idle, drunken, and ill-conducted. And it was not to be supposed that they would get a farthing candle on their words. They were of course driven to great straits; and faith, they soon found that their fighting, and drinking, and idleness made them the laughing-sport of the neighbors, but neither brought food to their children, put a coat upon their backs, nor satisfied their landlord when he came to look for his own. Still the never a one of Bill but was a funny fellow with strangers, though, as we said, the greatest rogue unhanged.

One day he was standing against his own anvil, completely in a brown study, being brought to his wit’s end how to make out a breakfast for the family. The wife was scolding and cursing in the house, and the naked creatures of children squalling about her knees for food. Bill was fairly at an amplush, and knew not where or how to turn himself, when a poor withered old beggar came into the forge, tottering on his staff. A long white beard fell from his chin, and he looked so thin and hungry that you might blow him, one would think, over the house. Bill at this moment had been brought to his senses by distress, and his heart had a touch of pity towards the old man; for, on looking at him a second time, he clearly saw starvation and sorrow in his face.

“God save you, honest man!” said Bill.

The old man gave a sigh, and raising himself, with great pain, on his staff, he looked at Bill in a very beseeching way.

“Musha, God save you kindly,” says he, “maybe you could give a poor, hungry, helpless old man a mouthful of something to eat? You see yourself I’m not able to work; if I was, I’d scorn to be beholding to any one.”

“Faith, honest man,” said Bill, “if you knew who you’re speaking to, you’d as soon ask a monkey for a churn-staff as me for either meat or money. There’s not a blackguard in the three kingdoms so fairly on the shaughran as I am for both the one and the other. The wife within is sending the curses thick and heavy on me, and the childer’s playing the cat’s melody to keep her in comfort. Take my word of it, poor man, if I had either meat or money, I’d help you, for I know particularly well what it is to want them at the present speaking. An empty sack won’t stand, neighbor.”

So far Bill told him truth. The good thought was in his heart, because he found himself on a footing with the beggar, and nothing brings down pride, or softens the heart, like feeling what it is to want.

“Why, you are in a worse state than I am,” said the old man. “You have a family to provide for, and I have only myself to support.”

“You may kiss the book on that, my old worthy,” replied Bill. “But come, what I can do for you I will. Plant yourself up here beside the fire, and I’ll give it a blast or two of my bellows that will warm the old blood in your body. It’s a cold, miserable, snowy day, and a good heat will be of service.”

“Thank you kindly,” said the old man. “I
am
cold, and a warming at your fire will do me good, sure enough. Oh, it
is
a bitter, bitter day, God bless it!”

He then sat down, and Bill blew a rousing blast that soon made the stranger edge back from the heat. In a short time he felt quite comfortable, and when the numbness was taken out of his joints, he buttoned himself up and prepared to depart.

“Now,” says he to Bill, “you hadn’t the food to give me, but what you could you did. Ask any three wishes you choose, and be they what they may, take my word for it, they shall be granted.”

Now, the truth is, that Bill, though he believed himself a great man in point of cuteness, wanted, after all, a full quarter of being square; for there is always a great difference between a wise man and a knave. Bill was so much of a rogue that he could not, for the blood of him, ask an honest wish, but stood scratching his head in a puzzle.

“Three wishes,” said he. “Why, let me see—did you say
three
?”

“Aye,” replied the stranger, “three wishes—that was what I said.”

“Well,” said Bill, “here goes—aha!—let me alone, my old worthy! Faith I’ll overreach the parish, if what you say is true. I’ll cheat them in dozens, rich and poor, old and young; let me alone, man—I have it here,” and he tapped his forehead with great glee. “Faith, you’re the sort to meet of a frosty morning, when a man wants his breakfast. And I’m sorry that I have neither money nor credit to get a bottle of whiskey, that we might take our morning together.”

“Well, but let us hear the wishes,” said the old man. “My time is short, and I cannot stay much longer.”

“Do you see this sledge hammer?” said Bill. “I wish, in the first place, that whoever takes it up in their hands may never be able to lay it down till I give them leave. And that whoever begins to sledge with it may never stop sledging till it’s my pleasure to release him.

“Secondly—I have an armchair, and I wish that whoever sits down in it may never rise out of it till they have my consent.

“And thirdly—that whatever money I put into my purse, nobody may have power to take it out of it but myself.”

“You devil’s rip!” says the old man in a passion, shaking his staff across Bill’s nose. “Why did you not ask something that would serve you both here and hereafter? Sure it’s as common as the market cross, that there’s not a vagabone in his Majesty’s dominions stands more in need of both.”

“Oh! by the elevens,” said Bill. “I forgot that altogether! Maybe you’d be civil enough to let me change one of them? The sorra a prettier wish ever was made than I’ll make, if you’ll give me another chance.”

“Get out, you reprobate,” said the old fellow, still in a passion. “Your day of grace is past. Little you know who was speaking to you all this time. I’m Saint Moroky, you blackguard, and I gave you an opportunity of doing something for yourself and your family. But you neglected it, and now your fate is cast, you dirty, bog-trotting profligate. Sure it’s well known what you are. Aren’t you a byword in everybody’s mouth, you and your scold of a wife? By this and by that, if ever you happen to come across me again, I’ll send you to where you won’t freeze, you villain!”

He then gave Bill a rap of his cudgel over the head, and laid him at his length beside the bellows, kicked a broken coal scuttle out of his way, and left the forge in a fury.

When Billy recovered himself from the effects of the blow, and began to think on what had happened, he could have quartered himself with vexation for not asking great wealth as one of the wishes at least. But now the die was cast on him, and he could only make the most of the three he pitched upon.

He now bethought him how he might turn them to the best account, and here his cunning came to his aid. He began by sending for his wealthiest neighbors on pretense of business, and when he got them under his roof, he offered them the armchair to sit down in. He now had them safe, nor could all the art of man relieve them except worthy Bill was willing. Bill’s plan was to make the best bargain he could before he released his prisoners, and let him alone for knowing how to make their purses bleed. There wasn’t a wealthy man in the country he did not fleece. The parson of the parish bled heavily, so did the lawyer. And a rich attorney, who had retired from practice,
swore that the court of chancery itself was paradise compared to Bill’s chair.

This was all very good for a time. The fame of his chair, however, soon spread; so did that of his sledge. In a short time neither man, woman, nor child would darken his door. All avoided him and his fixtures as they would a spring-gun or man-trap. Bill, so long as he fleeced his neighbors, never wrought a hand’s turn, so that when his money was out, he found himself as badly off as ever. In addition to this, his character was fifty times worse than before, for it was the general belief that he had dealings with the Devil. Nothing now could exceed his misery, distress, and ill-temper. The wife and he and their children all fought among one another like devils. Everybody hated them, cursed them, and avoided them. The people thought they were acquainted with more than Christian people ought to know, for the family, they said, was very like one that the Devil drove. All this, of course, came to Bill’s ears, and it vexed him very much.

One day he was walking about the fields, thinking of how he could raise the wind once more. The day was dark, and he found himself, before he stopped, in the bottom of a lonely glen covered by great bushes that grew on each side.

“Well,” thought he, when every other means of raising money failed him, “it’s reported that I’m in league with the Devil, and as it’s a folly to have the name of the connection without the profit. I’m ready to make a bargain with him any day. So,” said he, raising his voice, “Nick, you sinner, if you be convenient and willing, why, stand out here, show your best leg. Here’s your man.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when a dark sober-looking old gentleman, not unlike a lawyer, walked up to him. Bill looked at the foot and saw the hoof.

“Morrow, Nick,” says Bill.

“Morrow, Bill,” says Nick. “Well, Bill, what’s the news?”

“Devil a much myself hears of late,” says Bill. “Is there any thing fresh below?”

“I can’t exactly say, Bill. I spend little of my time down now. The Whigs are in office, and my hands are consequently too full of business here to pay much attention to anything else.”

“A fine place this, sir,” says Bill, “to take a constitutional walk in. When
I
want an appetite I often come this way myself—hem! High feeding is very bad without exercise.”

“High feeding! Come, come, Bill, you know you didn’t taste a morsel these four-and-twenty hours.”

“You know that’s a bounce, Nick. I eat a breakfast this morning that would put a stone of flesh on you, if you only smelt at it.”

“No matter. This is not to the purpose. What’s that you were muttering to yourself a while ago? If you want to come to the brunt, here I’m for you.”

“Nick,” said Bill, “you’re complete. You want nothing barring a pair of Brian O’Lynn’s breeches.”

Bill, in fact, was bent on making his companion open the bargain, because he had often heard that in that case, with proper care on his own part, he might defeat him in the long run. The other, however, was his match.

“What was the nature of Brian’s garment?” inquired Nick.

“Why, you know the song,” said Bill:

A
cool
pair would serve you, Nick.”

“You’re mighty waggish today, Mr. Duffy.”

“And good right I have,” said Bill. “I’m a man snug and well-to-do in the world; have lots of money, plenty of good eating and drinking, and what more need a man wish for?”

“True,” said the other. “In the meantime it’s rather odd that so respectable a man should not have six inches of unbroken cloth in his apparel. You are as naked a tatterdemallion as I ever laid my eyes on. In full dress for a party of scarecrows, William?”

“That’s my own fancy, Nick. I don’t work at my trade like a gentleman. This is my forge dress, you know.”

“Well, but what did you summon me here for?” said the other. “You may as well speak out, I tell you, for, my good friend, unless
you
do
I
shan’t. Smell that.”

“I smell more than that,” said Bill, “and by the way, I’ll thank you to give me the windy side of you—curse all sulphur, I say. There, that’s what I call an improvement in my condition. But as you are so stiff,” says Bill, “why, the short and the long of it is—that—hem—you see I’m—tut—sure you know I have a thriving trade of my own, and that if I like I needn’t be at a loss, but in the meantime I’m rather in a kind of a so—so—don’t you
take
?”

And Bill winked knowingly, hoping to trick him into the first proposal.

“You must speak aboveboard, my friend,” says the other. “I’m a man of few words, blunt and honest. If you have any thing to say, be plain. Don’t think I can be losing my time with such a pitiful rascal as you are.”

“Well,” says Bill, “I want money, then, and am ready to come into terms. What have you to say to that, Nick?”

“Let me see—let me look at you,” says his companion, turning him
about. “Now, Bill, in the first place, are you not as finished a scarecrow as ever stood upon two legs?”

“I play second fiddle to you there again,” says Bill.

“There you stand with the blackguard’s coat of arms quartered under your eye, and—”

“Don’t make little of blackguards,” says Bill, “nor speak disparagingly of your own crest.”