“From the mountains.”
“And what fortune is in it, did ye find the farm?”
“Divil a clod.”
“Nor the Kerry cow?”
“Divil a horn.”
“Nor the good milk?”
“Divil a quart, and I that dry I could be drunk with the smell of it. Tom Toole, I have traipsed the high and the deep of this realm and believe you me it is not in it; the long and the wide of this realm ... not in it.” He kept muttering sadly “not in it.”
“Me good little man,” cried Tom Toole, “don’t be havering like an old goat. Here it is! the fortune of the world!”
He took the wee bottle from his breast and shook it before his eyes. “The drops that ’ull give ye your youth as easy as shifting a shirt. Come, now. I’ve waited the long days to share wid ye, for I couldn’t bring myself to desart a comrade was ranging the back of the wild regions for the likes of me. Many’s the time I’ve lifted that cork, and thinks I: He’s gone, and soon I’ll be going, so here goes. Divil a go was in it. I could not do it, not for silver and not for gold and not for all the mad raging mackerel that sleep in the sea.”
The little old stranger took the wee bottle in his two hands. He was but a quavering stick of a man now; half dead he was, and his name it is Martin O’Moore.