About two o’clock in the morning provisions came from Greenanore. The house was now crowded, and several games such as “The Priest of the Parish,” “Catch the Ten,” and “Put your fingers in the Crow’s Nest” were in progress. An old man who sat in the corner was telling a story of the famine, and a few mischievous boys were amusing themselves by throwing pieces of peat at his hat.
While tea was being made, the rosary was again started. Micky’s Jim, a trifle the worse for liquor, went down on his knees on a chair and gave out the prayers. The mischievous boys turned their attentions from the old man to Jim, who was presently bombarded by a fire of turf. One went past his ears; one hit him on the back, another on the head, a third on the brow. Jim got angry.
“Pray away yourselves and be damned to you!” he roared at the kneeling house and, jumping off the chair, he sat down in a corner from which he had a view of the whole party. Prayers came to an abrupt conclusion; the chair was taken by the beansho, who placed her child between its legs, and the little boy, who had shown a wonderful propensity for running to the bedside and pulling the corpse by the beard, was held a fast prisoner. Four or five women moved about hurriedly preparing tea; whisky was served without skimp or stint, but pipes were found to be scarce; one had to do for three persons, each pulling at it in turn.
The old man in the corner took up the famine story at a point where the prayers had interrupted the recital. It told of a corpse that rose from the bed of death, sat down at the table, lifted a bowl of tea, drank it and went back to bed again. “And the man was dead all the time,” said the story-teller.
Willie the Duck, speaking in a quavering voice, began to ask riddles: “What bears but never blossoms?” he enquired.
“The hangman’s rope,” was the answer.
“What tree never comes to fruit?” he asked.
“The gallows-tree,” was the answer.
“This is the best guess of the night,” said Willie, taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing violently. “No one will be able to answer it.... In the morning four legs; at noon two legs; in the evening three legs and at night four legs; and what would that be?”
“It’s a man,” said Eamon Doherty, looking round with a triumphant glance. “In his young days a man walks on his hands and knees, when he grows up he walks on two legs; when he gets older he walks on three legs, two and a stick; and if he lives long enough he’ll walk on crutches, God be good to us! and that’s four legs!”