"Did you ever set eyes on a tappin-snarkle?"
"Yes; one of them once bit half of my big toe off, when I was wadin' in a mill-pond."
"Well, bedad, when I cotched the glimpse of him, he looked like a tappin-snarkle, as big as a house."
The curiosity of Hezekiah Smith was roused to its highest pitch. Such a dreadful monster as had been seen by the Irishman, if coming down the river, must soon pass before his view also; and he accordingly lifted his head slowly, until he had raised it and his shoulders perhaps a couple of feet, when he suddenly dropped it again, as if a thousand pound weight had fallen upon his head.
"Did ye see it?" inquired Pat, not daring to lift his own head.
"No; but I was afraid it might see me," replied Hezekiah, slowly raising his head again.
Taking courage from his immunity, Pat Mulroony gradually straightened his arm until he had brought his head nearly on a level with his companion's, when they both looked long and searchingly through the trees, but without discovering the Satanic personage that had been announced.
While gazing thus, a sudden rushing sound was heard, and the heads of our two friends dropped so suddenly that Hezekiah bit his tongue sorely, and the chin of the Irishman dented far into the earth.
"Jerusalem! he hadn't wings, had he?" asked Hezekiah, turning his face around so as to speak to the Irishman.
"He was paddlin' when I saw him, and was too big to flit among the trees here—howly mother! there he comes agin!"