“‘Plase your honour,’ said Jack, ‘she only spaiks the truth, an’ upon my voracity, we both feels much oblaiged to you for your quietness. Faith, it’s quite clear that if you weren’t a gentlemanly pudden, all out, you’d act otherwise. Ould Harry, the rogue, is your mark; he’s jist gone down the road there, and if you go fast you’ll overtake him. Be my song, your dancin’-masther did his duty, anyway. Thank your honour! God speed you, and may you niver meet wid a parson or alderman in your thravels.’
“Jist as Jack spoke, the pudden appeared to take the hint, for it quietly hopped out, and as the house was directly on the roadside, turned down towards the bridge, the very way that ould Harry went. It was very natural, of coorse, that Jack and Katty should go out to see how it intended to thravel, and as the day was Sunday, it was but natural, too, that a greater number of people than usual were passin’ the road. This was a fact; and when Jack and his wife were seen followin’ the pudden, the whole neighbourhood was soon up and afther it.
“‘Jack Rafferty, what is it? Katty, ahagur, will you tell us what it manes?’
“‘Why,’ replied Katty, ‘it’s my big pudden that’s bewitched, an’ it’s out hot foot pursuin’’—here she stopped, not wishin’ to mention her brother’s name—‘someone or other that surely put pishrogues[3] an it.’
“This was enough; Jack, now seein’ that he had assistance, found his courage comin’ back to him; so says he to Katty, ‘Go home,’ says he, ‘an’ lose no time in makin’ another pudden as good, an’ here’s Paddy Scanlan’s wife, Bridget, says she’ll let you boil it on her fire, as you’ll want our own to dress the rest of the dinner; and Paddy himself will lend me a pitchfork for purshuin’ to the morsel of that same pudden will escape, till I let the wind out of it, now that I’ve the neighbours to back an’ support me,’ says Jack.
“This was agreed to, an’ Katty went back to prepare a fresh pudden, while Jack an’ half the townland pursued the other wid spades, graips, pitchforks, scythes, flails, and all possible description of instruments. On the pudden went, however, at the rate of about six Irish miles an hour, an’ sich a chase was never seen. Catholics, Prodestants, and Prosbytarians were all afther it, armed, as I said, an’ bad end to the thing, but its own activity could save it. Here it made a hop, there a prod was made at it; but off it went, and someone, as eager to get a slice at it on the other side, got the prod instead of the pudden. Big Frank Farrell, the miller, of Ballyboulteen, got a prod backwards that brought a hullabulloo out of him that you might hear at the other end of the parish. One got a slice of a scythe, another a whack of a flail, a third a rap of a spade, that made him look nine ways at wanst.
“‘Where is it goin’?’ asked one. ‘My life for you, it’s on its way to Meeting. Three cheers for it, if it turns to Carntaul!’ ‘Prod the sowl out of it if it’s a Prodestan’’ shouted the others; ‘if it turns to the left, slice it into pancakes. We’ll have no Prodestan’ puddens here.’
“Begad, by this time the people were on the point of beginnin’ to have a regular fight about it, when, very fortunately, it took a short turn down a little by-lane that led towards the Methodist praychin’-house, an’ in an instant all parties were in an uproar against it as a Methodist pudden. ‘It’s a Wesleyan,’ shouted several voices; ‘an’ by this an’ by that, into a Methodist chapel it won’t put a foot to-day, or we’ll lose a fall. Let the wind out of it. Come, boys, where’s your pitchforks?’