THE STORY.
There was a smith in Skibbereen long ago, long before the foreigners nested there, and people used to be coming to him who did not please him too well. When he would do some little turn of work for them in the forge they used only have a "God spare you your health" for him. It's a very nice prayer, "God spare you your health," but when the smith used to go out to buy bread he used not to get it without money. Prayers, no matter how good, would not do the business for him. He used often to be half mad with them, but he used not to say anything. He was so vexed with that work one day that he took a hound he had from his house into his forge, and he tied it there with a wisp of hay under it. "Yes," said he, "we will soon see whether the prayers of these poor people will feed my hound."
The first person who came and had nothing but a "God spare you the health" in place of payment. "Right," said the smith, "let my hound have that."
Other people came to the forge, and they without any payment for the poor smith but that same fine prayer, and according as the smith used to get the prayers he used to bestow them on the hound. He used to give it no other food or drink. The prayers were the hound's food, but they made poor meat for him, for the smith found him dead in the morning after his being dependent on the feeding of the prayers.
A man came to the forge that day and he had a couple of hinges and a couple of reaping hooks, that were not too strong, to be fixed. The smith did the work, and the man was thinking of going, "God spare you the health," said he. Instead of the answer "Amen! Lord! and you likewise"; what the smith did was to take the man by the shoulder. "Look over in the corner," said he; "my hound is dead, and if prayers could feed it, it ought to be fat and strong. I have given every prayer I got this while back to that hound there, but they have not done the business for it. And it's harder to feed a man than a hound. Do you understand, my good man?"
He did apparently, for he put his hand in his pocket. "What's the cost?" said he.
It was short until all the neighbours heard talk of the death of that hound of the smith's, and much oftener from that out used their tune to be, "What's the cost, Dermot?" than "God spare you your health."