No wonder, then, that we chimed in with Ned's more than usually vigorous "Ha, ha, ha-ah!" when Andy Murtagh was telling the smith about the "tallyvangin'," as he called it, that old Maire Lanigan, of the Red Bog, had given to Larry Boylan of our own townland, at the inquiry in Castletown, under the Old Age Pensions Act. The smith, as Andy proceeded with the story, had laid down the hammer on the anvil, had taken off his cap and wiped his perspiring brow with the back of his hand, and had laughed until we caught the contagion, and were obliged to join him, though as to the real cause of his merriment we were at the time ignorant.
"What else did she say?" he inquired, the tears which the laughter had called forth streaming down his dust-covered cheeks. "I'm sure Old Crusty was sweatin', an' divil mend him! What's the likes of him wantin' with a pension anyhow?"
"She said 'twas a ticket for the next world he ought to be lookin' for an' not an old age pension," said Andy, "an' when she had everyone laughin' at him she said somethin' like the way an old dog'd bark, an' went off with herself, an' whatever it was it made Larry twice as mad as all the tallyvangin' o' the tongue she gave him. He was ragin'."
"Ha, ha, ha-ah!" shouted Ned M'Grane again, and of course we had to join in, though we couldn't see that there was very much to laugh at in Andy's story after all.
When Ned had laughed in boisterous fashion for a minute or two he resumed his work, but every now and then he would give a short chuckle of delight to himself, as he made the sparks fly in showers from the burning iron upon which he was working.
"It's not the first time she set Old Crusty mad," he said at length, more to himself than to us, as he gave the finishing short, sharp taps to the article he was shaping, and cast it from him into the trough beside the anvil to cool. We were beginning to guess from this remark and from his behaviour while Andy was telling him of the encounter between the old pair at the inquiry, that there was a story in Ned's head which we had not yet heard, and as he proceeded to fill his pipe, after donning his coat, I ventured to say:
"Why, what did she do to him before to-day, Ned?"
"What didn't she do to him?" Ned asked, in return. "She made him the maddest man I ever saw in my life, an' as small as—as that bit o' tobacco. I don't wonder what she said an' she goin' off to-day left him vexed enough; it put him in mind o' when she made him a laughin'-stock for the whole county—that's what it did."
"When was that, Ned?" we all asked, in a breath. "Was it long ago?"
"'Twas long ago, sure enough, but not long enough to make Larry forget it," said Ned, as he teased the tobacco in the hollow of his hand, and then packed his pipe.