text
stringlengths 0
131
|
---|
THE LAD WITH THE GOAT-SKIN |
Long ago, a poor widow woman lived down near the iron forge, by |
Enniscorth, and she was so poor she had no clothes to put on her son; |
so she used to fix him in the ash-hole, near the fire, and pile the |
warm ashes about him; and according as he grew up, she sunk the pit |
deeper. At last, by hook or by crook, she got a goat-skin, and fastened |
it round his waist, and he felt quite grand, and took a walk down the |
street. So says she to him next morning, "Tom, you thief, you never |
done any good yet, and you six foot high, and past nineteen;--take that |
rope and bring me a faggot from the wood." |
"Never say't twice, mother," says Tom--"here goes." |
When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big giant, |
nine foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become Tom, he |
jumped a-one side, and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack he |
gave the big fellow, he made him kiss the clod. |
"If you have e'er a prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it, |
before I make fragments of you." |
"I have no prayers," says the giant; "but if you spare my life I'll |
give you that club; and as long as you keep from sin, you'll win every |
battle you ever fight with it." |
Tom made no bones about letting him off; and as soon as he got the club |
in his hands, he sat down on the bresna, and gave it a tap with the |
kippeen, and says, "Faggot, I had great trouble gathering you, and run |
the risk of my life for you, the least you can do is to carry me home." |
And sure enough, the wind o' the word was all it wanted. It went off |
through the wood, groaning and crackling, till it came to the widow's |
door. |
Well, when the sticks were all burned, Tom was sent off again to pick |
more; and this time he had to fight with a giant that had two heads on |
him. Tom had a little more trouble with him--that's all; and the |
prayers he said, was to give Tom a fife; that nobody could help dancing |
when he was playing it. Begonies, he made the big faggot dance home, |
with himself sitting on it. The next giant was a beautiful boy with |
three heads on him. He had neither prayers nor catechism no more nor |
the others; and so he gave Tom a bottle of green ointment, that |
wouldn't let you be burned, nor scalded, nor wounded. "And now," says |
he, "there's no more of us. You may come and gather sticks here till |
little Lunacy Day in Harvest, without giant or fairy-man to disturb |
you." |
Well, now, Tom was prouder nor ten paycocks, and used to take a walk |
down street in the heel of the evening; but some o' the little boys had |
no more manners than if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their |
tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all, |
and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should |
come through the town but a kind of a bellman, only it's a big bugle he |
had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of a painted shirt. |
So this--he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call |
him--bugleman, maybe, proclaimed that the King of Dublin's daughter was |
so melancholy that she didn't give a laugh for seven years, and that |
her father would grant her in marriage to whoever could make her laugh |
three times. |
"That's the very thing for me to try," says Tom; and so, without |
burning any more daylight, he kissed his mother, curled his club at the |
little boys, and off he set along the yalla highroad to the town of |
Dublin. |
At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and |
cursed at him instead of letting him in. Tom stood it all for a little |
time, but at last one of them--out of fun, as he said--drove his |
bayonet half an inch or so into his side. Tom done nothing but take the |
fellow by the scruff o' the neck and the waistband of his corduroys, |
and fling him into the canal. Some run to pull the fellow out, and |
others to let manners into the vulgarian with their swords and daggers; |
but a tap from his club sent them headlong into the moat or down on the |
stones, and they were soon begging him to stay his hands. |
So at last one of them was glad enough to show Tom the way to the |
palace-yard; and there was the king, and the queen, and the princess, |
in a gallery, looking at all sorts of wrestling, and sword-playing, and |
long-dances, and mumming, all to please the princess; but not a smile |
came over her handsome face. |
Well, they all stopped when they seen the young giant, with his boy's |
face, and long black hair, and his short curly beard--for his poor |
mother couldn't afford to buy razors--and his great strong arms, and |
bare legs, and no covering but the goat-skin that reached from his |
waist to his knees. But an envious wizened bit of a fellow, with a red |
head, that wished to be married to the princess, and didn't like how |
she opened her eyes at Tom, came forward, and asked his business very |
snappishly. |
"My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess, |
God bless her, laugh three times." |
"Do you see all them merry fellows and skilful swordsmen," says the |
other, "that could eat you up with a grain of salt, and not a mother's |
soul of 'em ever got a laugh from her these seven years?" |