“What will we do now, Tom Toole?” says the old man.
“We’ll not stint it,” says he, and they searched by night and by day looking for a person would give them their youth again. They sold the chaise for some guineas and the pony for a few more, and they were walking among the hills for a thousand days but never a dust of fortune did they discover. Whenever they asked a person to guide them they would be swearing at them or they would jeer.
“Well, may a good saint stretch your silly old skins for ye!” said one.
“Thinking of your graves and travelling to the priest ye should be!” said another.
“The nails of your boots will be rusty and rotted searching for the like of that,” said a third.
“It’s two quarts of black milk from a Kerry cow ye want,” said one, “take a sup of that and you’ll be young again!”
“Of black milk!” said Tom Toole’s friend; “where would we get that?”
The person said he would get a pull of it in the Comeragh Mountains, fifty miles away.
“Tom Toole,” said the little old-man, “it’s what I’ll do. I’ll walk on to the Comeragh Mountains to see what I will see, and do you go on searching here, for to find that young girl would be better than forty guineas’ worth of blather. And when I find the cow I’ll take my fill of a cup and bring you to it.”
So they agreed upon it and the old man went away saying, “I’ll be a score of days, no more. Good day, Tom Toole, good day!” much as an old crow might shout it to a sweep.