“I’m from beyant,” said Tom Toole, nodding back to the Knockmealdown Mountains where the good monks had lodged him for a night.
“Ah, God deliver ye and indeed I don’t want to know your business at all but ... but ... where are ye going?”
Between his words he kept spitting, in six or seven little words there would be at least one spit. There was yellow dust in the flaps of his ears and neat bushes of hair in the holes. Cranks and wrinkles covered his nose, and the skull of him was bare but there was a good tuft on his chin. Tom Toole looked at him straight and queer for he did not admire the fierce expression of him, and there were smells of brimstone on him like a farmer had been dipping his ewes, and he almost expected to see a couple of horns growing out of his brow.
“It’s not meself does be knowing at all, good little man,” said Tom Toole to him, “and I might go to the fair of Cappoquin, or I might walk on to Dungarvan, in the harbour now, to see will I buy a couple of lobsters for me nice supper.”
And he turned away to go off upon his road but the little old man followed and kept by his side, telling him of a misfortune he had endured; a chaise of his, a little pony chaise, had been almost destroyed, but the ruin was not so great for a kind lady of his acquaintance, a lady of his own denomination, had given him four pounds, one shilling and ninepence. “Ah, not that I’m needing your money, ma’am, says I, but damage is damage, I says, and it’s not right, I says, that I should be at the harm of your coachman.” And there he was spitting and going on like a clock spilling over its machinery when he unexpectedly grasped Tom Toole by the hand, wished him Good day, and Good luck, and that he might meet him again.
Tom Toole walked on for an hour and came to a cross roads, and there was the same old man sitting in a neat little pony chaise smoking his pipe.
“Where are ye going?” says he.
“Dungarvan,” said Tom Toole.
“Jump in then,” said the little old man, and they jogged along the road conversing together; he was sharp as an old goat.
“What is your aspiration?” he said, and Tom Toole told him.