Irish Folk Tales (34 page)

So when he went home, the old wife was sitting in the corner, and she joined to grumble: “What the devil kept you so long, and, troth, you may go to the Bottom for the cows”—a hundred and fifty orders in the one—an old grumbling creature.

“Ah, cows be hanged,” he says. “Where’s the pup?”

“PUP! Well, bad manners to the pup. And, troth, if I’d’ve been able to walk to the lough, the pup would’ve been in the lough.”

“He’ll not be in the lough,” he says.

Well, damn it, he got the pup on his knee, and got the powder out anyway, stroked it three times down the head:

And the third time, the pup opened his eyes, and looked up into his face, and wagged his tail.

So he christened the pup Pendoodle.

Aye, and Pendoodle grew up to be a big strong red dog.

Pendoodle he called the pup.

He
used to tell that yarn
.

He made it all up. He made it all up, surely. He was a terrible clever man.

Ah, I mind Hughie well.

A
MEDICAL EXPERT FROM LISNASKEA

I mind the time I was over in the cancer hospital in Manchester getting the spot cut off my lip. In them times they were not that well up in science and indeed it’s many’s the consultation they held with myself when their experts were clean beat.

This day, anyway, weren’t they operating on a man and they had his stomach out on the table scraping it when the bell rang for dinnertime. Away my bully surgeons went and forgot to close and lock the operating theater door.

There was this big buck-cat that kept us awake half the night chasing and catterwailing with she-cats. He was very fond of titbits and didn’t he steal into the theater and eat the poor man’s stomach. When the doctors came back at two o’clock and they found the stomach gone, they were in a bit of a quandary. They sent for me. “What would you suggest, Paddy?”—they always called me Paddy.

“Well now, boys,” I told them, “I’m no surgeon but the sensible thing to do would be to go round to the slaughterhouse and get the stomach of a young heifer or bullock and stick it into him. If you do so, it’s my candid opinion the old worn-out one you spent all morning scraping at will never be missed.” Away goes the head surgeon and picks a nice tender young stomach, comes back and grafts it into the patient.

All went well until he was able to take food again. They put him on milk foods first and eventually he got beef and broth and whatever was going. No matter how much food he ate the pangs of hunger never left him.

It’s a holy sight surely, with all their learning and the number of men and women they had knifed, that they had to come again to Ned for a solution. “Well now,” I told them, “but I could be wrong, I don’t think you are giving him the right diet.” There was a boyo out in the grounds with a lawn-mower, cutting away for all he was worth.

“Now,” says I, “wouldn’t it be a good thing if some of you men went out and brought him in an armful of grass to see if he’d be satisfied.” Arrah man! the armful of grass was not at his head until he was munching away with great relish and he didn’t leave a cuinneog of the grass!

When I left the hospital he was lying there in the bed chewing his cud contentedly. Can you beat that?

G
EORGE ARMSTRONG’S RETURN

George Armstrong used to tell about: when he was a young man, he took a notion of traveling.

And he went to Australia.

And he was doing rightly in it. But the cholera broke out in it.

And the most of the whole continent was ailing from it, and a good deal of the people died. But he took it anyway, and he failed terribly.

Finally he mended. But he knew be the way he felt that he might go back to Ireland, for he would never be able for to do anything to earn a living in Australia, wouldn’t be able to work. He was too far gone.

So
anyway
, he started for home.

And he landed at Enniskillen. There was a railroad station in them days at Enniskillen. It’s way above where the present mart is. So he got out of the train and he went over and he sat down.

And he rested himself.

And he took a notion that he’d try and make his way home.

So anyway, he started.

He had no money to get any refreshment in the town. He started out walking, hoping that he’d reach Bellanaleck some time or another.

So there was a railroad crossing on this Derrylin Road in them days that was below Lisgoole. And when he came that length, the gates was closed, the train was coming.

So he took a notion he’d count his money.

And he had thruppence.

That’s all he had back out of Australia.

And he had weighed on the journey somewhere.

And he was three pound weight.

So anyway, he trudged on, trudged on.

When the train passed, the gates was open, and he trudged on, trudged on.

Finally he landed at Bellanaleck Cross.

Turned up for Arney, and made his way along till he came to the turn that would take you to where the mother lived.

So, he made his way up to the house.

But there was
no noise off his step
.

He was that light.

So anyway, the mother was doing chores through the house, and she didn’t find him coming atall, till he spoke at the
door
.

So she knew his voice and she run towards him.

And
aye
, he was hardly able for to lift his hand to shake hands with
her
.

So
anyway
. She got hold of him and she lifted him and she brought him and she left him standing on the hearthstone.

And there was a wee basket that she had from the childer was small.

And it was hanging up on the wall.

And she took down the basket, and she put him into the basket.

And she put a white cover over him and left him at the fireside.

So
anyway
. The rumor was out that George Armstrong was home out of Australia. So the people used to come for to see him, have a talk with him, and when they’d come in, there’d be no sign of anyone in the house, only the mother, and after some time they’d say:

“Well, I heard George was at home, and I just come over to see him.”

“Oh, here he is, he’s here,” she’d say, and run up to the basket and she’d lift the white cloth.

“There, he’s in there.”

Aye.

It was pants like that that used to keep the community telling, and every day you’d nearly hear a fresh one. And you’d like to come across them, do ye know, when you’d go down in that locality.

Oh now, it was surely one of the trials of this life, mind you, when things turned out that way.

But he made a joke out of it.

T
HE LAWYER AND THE DEVIL