"Jimmy couldn't help laughin' if all the peelers in Ireland was in the wood behind him, when he saw the way the ram had the life frightened out o' the Sojer.
"'So you're goin' to have mutton at the weddin', Mister M'Keon,' says he, 'an' you'll maybe send a bit to the sheep-stealer an' he in jail? That's very kind o' you entirely, an' I must tell Julia when I see her, in case you'd forget it. I'm afraid a ram 'd be middlin' tough eatin' though—even for a sojer. Will you stay there till I go home for my camera, an' I'll take your photograph an' show it to Julia? Ah! can't you let the poor old ram go; sure he can't give evidence against the notorious sheep-stealer, Jimmy Malone. Let him go, an' come over here, an' I'll give you the hares. You won't? Well, I'll have to be sayin' good mornin', Mister M'Keon, an' I hope you'll enjoy the game-keepin' if you get it. If I see your friends, the peelers, I'll send them to your assistance. Good mornin', Mister M'Keon.'
"An' off went Jimmy as fast as he could leg it, an' 'twas well for him he did, because the peelers wasn't as far away as he thought they were. The Major sent for them to come over early that mornin' to see where some one tore up a lot o' young trees that he was after gettin' planted above on the side o' the Mullagh, an' when himself an' them came into the Sheep Field didn't they see the Sojer M'Keon an' he beatin' the Major's prize ram with a big stick an' tryin' to drag him over to the ditch. The Sojer was in such a temper with the ram that he never saw them until they were up beside him, an' sure he nearly fell with the start he got when the Major roared at him to let go the ram. Only for the peelers the Major 'd kill him. The Sojer went to tell the story o' catchin' Jimmy Malone, but sure they thought it was all a make-up, an' they arrested him on the spot for abusin' the ram, an' along with that he had a couple o' score o' snares tied round his waist an' a fine big hare under his coat. It was found out, too, that it was him rooted up the young trees an' sold them to a man in Castletown, an' 'gorra if he didn't get six months in jail, an' only he was a sojer they'd give him five years. He never came back here again, an' the dickens a one was sorry for him, because he was a bad weed.
"An' that's how Jimmy settled the Sojer."
[THE CONFISCATED BACON]
The coaxing of a story from Ned M'Grane, the blacksmith, was sometimes the easiest matter in the world, and sometimes a task in the accomplishing of which all the tact and diplomacy of a Government Ambassador would be absolutely essential. It all depended on the humour he was in at the time. If things had gone well with him during the day; if he hadn't been disappointed in getting coal from the town or if nobody had come to ask him in an aggrieved tone, "Why the blazes aren't you doin' them wheels for me?" or if nobody had told him that another penny in the pound had been added to the taxation of Ireland or that some Englishman had said the Irish were only a pack of savages until the English, out of pure charity, came over and civilised them. If none of these things occurred to rile Ned M'Grane, we had no difficulty whatever in getting a story from him whenever we went to the forge; and that was almost every evening throughout the winter months, and sometimes in the summer, too, when the ground was too wet for the hurling.
'Twas easy to know when he was in bad humour. He hardly seemed to hear our conversation at all, but worked away in silence, broken now and then by short and vigorous comments on the matter that had vexed him during the day, such as "Who the dickens cares about him or his wheels? I'd be rich if I was dependin' on his custom—heh!" or "What'll they do next, I wonder? Make us pay rates for every time we say our prayers?—the pack o' robbers. I wish I had some o' their heads under this!" And then there would be a crashing blow on the anvil that shook the forge and awakened memories of the Blacksmith of Limerick who crushed the heads of the Williamites with his sledge, long ago. On such occasions we never attempted to engage Ned in conversation until his work for the day was finished, and the pipe and tobacco were called into requisition. Even then, if we saw by his manner or his countenance that a dark memory of the matters that had disturbed him during the day remained in his mind, we wisely refrained from beating about the bush for a story.
Ned's dark moods, however, were rare, and his grand, hearty laughter and sparkling wit and delightful stories, when in his usual form, more than compensated for them, and never allowed us to adversely criticise them, no matter how dark or fierce they might be; and then we, young fellows, loved Ned M'Grane as devotedly and as warmly as he loved us.