“Oh, then, if I only had half the money that’s buried in you, ’tisn’t driving this poor cow I’d be now! Why, then, isn’t it too bad that it should be there covered over with earth, and many a one besides me wanting? Well, if it’s God’s will, I’ll have some money myself coming back.”
So saying he moved on after his beast. ’Twas a fine day, and the sun shone brightly on the walls of the old abbey as he passed under them. He then crossed an extensive mountain tract and after six long miles he came to the top of that hill—Bottle Hill ’tis called now, but that was not the name of it then, and just there a man overtook him. “Good morrow,” says he. “Good morrow, kindly,” says Mick, looking at the stranger, who was a little man, you’d almost call him a dwarf, only he wasn’t quite so little neither: he had a bit of an old wrinkled, yellow face, for all the world like a dried cauliflower only he had a sharp little nose, and red eyes, and white hair, and his lips were not red, but all his face was one colour, and his eyes were never quite still but looking at everything and although they were red they made Mick feel quite cold when he looked at them. In truth he did not much like the little man’s company; and he couldn’t see one bit of his legs nor his body, for though the day was warm, he was all wrapped up in a big great-coat. Mick drove his cow something faster, but the little man kept up with him. Mick didn’t know how he walked for he was almost afraid to look at him, and to cross himself, for fear the old man would be angry. Yet he thought his fellow-traveller did not seem to walk like other men, nor to put one foot before the other, but to glide over the rough road—and rough enough it was—like a shadow, without noise and without effort. Mick’s heart trembled within him, and he said a prayer to himself, wishing he hadn’t come out that day, or that he was on Fair-hill, or that he hadn’t the cow to mind that he might run away from the bad thing—when, in the midst of his fears, he was again addressed by his companion.
“Where are you going with the cow, honest man?”
“To the fair of Cork then,” says Mick, trembling at the shrill and piercing tones of the voice.
“Are you going to sell her?” said the stranger.
“Why, then, what else am I going for but to sell her?”
“Will you sell her to me?”
Mick started—he was afraid to have anything to do with the little man, and he was more afraid to say no.
“What’ll you give for her?” at last says he.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you this bottle,” said the little one, pulling a bottle from under his coat.