"I knowed you'd come," he cried triumphantly; "an' you wouldn't be in bed, nor out, nor nuffin' like they said. I knowed you'd come."
Mrs. Wentworth gave Lallie her chair, and then Punch to cuddle, and forthwith Lallie burst into a rollicking tune and the legend:
"As Saint Kevin was a wanderin' by the shores of Glendalough,
He met one King O'Toole and he axed him for a schough;
Says the King, 'You are a sthranger and your face I've never seen,
But if you've got a bit of weed I'll lend you my dhudeen!"
To Punch the whole thing was vivid as an experience. He saw as in a vision the wind-swept shores of Glendalough. The only "lough" he had ever really seen was an ornamental lake in the town gardens, but Lallie had told him that King O'Toole's lough was a hundred times as big as that, so Punch pictured something very vast indeed. She had not explained what "schough" was and he had not asked, for he concluded it was some kind of bonfire from the context.
"As the Saint was lighting up the fire the monarch heaved a sigh.
'Is there anyt'ing the matter,' says the Saint, 'that makes you cry?'
Says the King, 'I had a ghander as was left me by my mother,
An' this mornin' he turned up his toes with some disase or other.'"
So Punch pictured a bonfire that crackled like those the gardner made with rubbish in the kitchen garden. The saint agrees to cure the ghander on condition that should the bird recover, he shall receive
"the bit o' land the ghander will fly round."
"'Faix I will and very welcome,' says the King, 'give what you ask,' and departs forthwith to the palace to fetch the "burd."
"So the Saint then tuk the ghander from the arrums of the King,
And first began to twig his beak and then to stretch his wing.
He cushed the bird into the air! he flew thirty miles around,
Says the Saint, 'I'll thank yer Majesty for that little thaste of ground!'"
But the king was in no mind to part with such a large slice of his property, and he called his "six big sons" to heave St. Kevin in a ditch.