The tailor gave a leap off the table down to the floor, and it wasn’t long till he had the fine fire.
‘Thou’ll have the house put on fire for me, Hom,’ said Herself.
‘No fear, but I’ll fire some of them,’ said the tailor. The child, with his two eyes going out of his head watching to see what the tailor was going to do, was slowly turning his whining howl into a kind of call—to his own sort to come and fetch him, it’s like.
‘I’ll send thee home,’ said the tailor, drawing near the cradle, and he stretches out his two hands to take the child and put him on the big, red turf fire.
Before he was able to lay a hand on him, the little fella leaped out of the cradle and took for the door.
‘The back of me han’ an’ the sole of me fut to you!’ said he, ‘if I would only a-had another night I could have showed thee a trick or two more than that yet.’
Then the door flew open with a bang, as though some one had thrown it open, and he took off with himself like a shot. A hullabaloo of laughing and making fun was heard outside, and the noise of many running little feet. Out of the door of the house goes Herself, and Hom after her; they see no one, but they caught sight of a flock of low-lying clouds shaped like gulls chasing each other away up Glen Rushen, and then came to their ears, as if afar off from the clouds, sharp whistles and wicked little laughs as if making mock of them. Then as they were turning round to come back, she suddenly sees right before her, her own sweet, rosy, smiling child, with thumb in mouth, lying on a mossy bank. And she took all the joy in the world of the child that he was back again safe and sound.
THE LITTLE FOOTPRINTS
Close to the Niarbyl, the great tail of rock that stretches into the sea at Dalby, is a little house on the strand. It is sheltered behind by the high rock which rises above its thatched roof. Before it lies Bay Mooar, the great bay, held by a chain of mountains purple with ling. Standing before its door and looking to the west, you may see the sun set behind the distant Mourne Mountains. At dawn you may see him rise over Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa, the Hill of the Rising Day. Here lived Juan, the fisherman.