"Know you! how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey; "yet true it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother remembered the man, often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of Innisfallen, who made a profane and godless ballad in praise of fried eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew more than they did of the word of God, and who, being drunk, it was said, tumbled into the lake one night and was drowned; but that must have been a hundred, aye, more than a hundred years since."
"'Twas I who composed that song, in praise of Margery's fried eggs, which is no profane and godless ballad. No other Father Cuddy than myself ever belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy man. "A hundred years! What was your great grandmother's name?"
"She was a Mahony of Dunlow, Margaret ni Mahony; and my grandmother—."
"What, merry Margery of Dunlow your great grandmother!" shouted Cuddy; "St. Brandon help me! the wicked wench, with that tempting bottle—why 'twas only last night—a hundred years—your great grandmother said you? Mercy on us, there has been a strange torpor over me. I must have slept all this time!"
That Father Cuddy had done so, I think is sufficiently proved by the changes which occurred during his nap. A reformation, and a serious one it was for him, had taken place. Eggs fried by the pretty Margery were no longer to be had in Innisfallen, and, with heart as heavy as his footsteps, the worthy man directed his course towards Dingle, where he embarked in a vessel on the point of sailing for Malaga. The rich wine of that place had of old impressed him with a high respect for its monastic establishments, in one of which he quietly wore out the remnant of his days.
The stone impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees may be seen to this day. Should any incredulous persons doubt my story, I request them to go to Killarney, where Clough na Cuddy—so is the stone called—remains in Lord Kenmare's park, an indisputable evidence of the fact; and Spillane, the bugle man, will be able to point it out to them, as he did to me— Literary Souvenir.