I must tell you my story myself, that is the story of my watch, and bad luck to it, for it was small comfort to me; and what have I now left of it, but to tell the trouble it brought upon me?
One day of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-three, Tim Looney, the parish schoolmaster, a mighty learned man, from whom I got my learning, went up to Dublin, to get his lease renewed with ’Squire Beamish, who is now dead and gone, rest his soul. Well, as I was saying, Tim Looney went up to Dublin, and had just come back, when of course all the neighbours came to hear the news from the big city, and Molly Mahone, as you can imagine, thrust herself before them all, saying—
“Come, you auld pictur card, when are you goin’ to tell us the news? What is the good of you, you auld worm, if you canna even speak?”
You know Moll is rather hasty.
“Och, and it’s more wonders I have to tell than one of you will believe. I saw the great Boneparte riding on a flea, and the Dook of Wellington by his side, quite friendly like.” “And was Boneparte a very big man?” said I.
“I don’t know,” said Tim; “I’ve heard say he was a little man, but they call him the great Boneparte for all that.”
“He was a great man,” said Moll to me, “just as you are a great fool, so hauld yer tongue, will ye, and let Tim go on.”
Tim did go on, and told us many other great wonders; but it’s of myself I want to speak. Well, then, after Tim had told us all he had seen, he gave me such a fine large silver watch, and a thirty shilling note, which my sister, Biddy, had sent from Merica, for me to buy a new fiddle with, for she had heard that I was great in music. I put the watch in my pocket to keep it safe, and then I examined the note all over, thinking all the while how beautiful I would play on my new fiddle; but Tim soon stopped me by asking me what o’clock it was.
After looking at the sun, which he himself had taught me, I told him it must be about two; when he said, “And why can’t you look at the watch, and tell me the exact minute it is?”