“Bad luck to the lord or lady I’ll ever take it to,” said Terry, making a spring, and bounding down the stairs, leaving the money, apron and all, on the floor at the priest’s bedside.
“Come back, come back!” shouted the Father in a towering passion.
“Good morning to your ravirince,” said Terry, as he flew with the swiftness of a mountain deer over the common before the priest’s door. “Ay, go back, indeed; catch ould birds with chaff. You have the money now, and you may make a bog or a dog of it, whichever you plaise.”
In an hour after, the priest’s servant man was on the road to Maryborough, mounted on the priest’s own black gelding, with a sealed parcel containing the Boccough’s money strapped in a portmanteau behind him, and a letter to the treasurer of the Queen’s County grand jury, detailing the curious circumstances by which it came into his possession, and recommending him to convert it to whatever purpose the gentlemen of the county should deem most expedient.
The summer assizes came on in a few days, and the matter was brought before the grand jury, who agreed to expend the money in constructing a stone bridge over the ford where it was collected.
Before that day twelvemonth, the ford had disappeared, and a noble bridge of seven arches spanned the sparkling waters of the Nore, which is here pretty broad and of considerable depth. From that day to this it is called the “Poor-man’s Bridge,” and I never cross it without thinking of the strange circumstances which led to its erection.
The spirit of the Boccough Ruadh never troubled Terry O’Shea after, but often, as people say, amid the gloom of a winter’s night, or the grey haze of a summer’s evening, may the figure of a wan and decrepid old man with his head enveloped in a red nightcap, be seen wandering about Poor-man’s Bridge, or walking quite “natural” over the glassy waters of the transparent Nore.
[3] That imaginary region under ground, supposed by the peasantry to be the residence of spirits and fairies.
[4] The red beggarman.
[5] Anglice, the Stone of the Cripple, or the stone of the beggarman. This stone lay for many years in the position it occupied in the days of the “Boccough,” but is now incorporated in the stonework of the parapet of the bridge. It was believed to be enchanted, and the peasantry of the neighbourhood used to affirm that it descended to the river to drink, every night at the hour of twelve o’clock. This belief is now almost exploded, but however it is affirmed to be the identical stone on which the Boccough collected his wealth.