“But what is that bottle under your waistcoat?” said Molly, spying its neck sticking out.
“Why, then, be easy now, can’t you,” says Mick, “till I tell it to you.” Then, putting the bottle on the table, “That’s all I got for the cow.”
His poor wife was thunderstruck. “All you got! and what good is that, Mick? Oh! I never thought you were such a fool; and what’ll we do for the rent, and what——”
“Now, Molly,” says Mick, “can’t you hearken to reason? Didn’t I tell you how the old man, or whatsoever he was, met me—no, he did not meet me, neither, but he was there with me—on the big hill and how he made me sell him the cow, and told me the bottle was the only thing for me?”
“Yes, indeed, the only thing for you, you fool!” said Molly seizing the bottle to hurl it at her poor husband’s head; but Mick caught it, and quickly (for he minded the old man’s advice) loosened his wife’s grasp, and placed the bottle again in his bosom. Poor Molly sat down crying, while Mick told her his story, with many a crossing and blessing between him and harm. His wife could not help believing him, particularly as she had as much faith in fairies as she had in the priest, who indeed never discouraged her belief in the fairies; maybe he didn’t know she believed in them, and maybe he believed in them himself. She got up, however, without saying one word, and began to sweep the earthen floor with a bunch of heath; then she tidied up everything, and put out the long table, and spread the clean cloth, for she had only one, upon it, and Mick, placing the bottle on the ground, looked at it and said, “Bottle, do your duty.”
“Look there! look there, mammy!” said his chubby eldest son, a boy about five years old—“look there! look there!” and he sprung to his mother’s side, as two tiny little fellows rose like light from the bottle, and in an instant covered the table with dishes and plates of gold and silver, full of the finest victuals that ever were seen, and when all was done went into the bottle again. Mick and his wife looked at everything with astonishment; they had never seen such plates and dishes before, and didn’t think they could ever admire them enough, the very sight almost took away their appetites; but at length Molly said, “Come and sit down, Mick, and try and eat a bit: sure you ought to be hungry after such a good day’s work.”
“Why, then, the man told no lie about the bottle.”
Mick sat down, after putting the children to the table and they made a hearty meal, though they couldn’t taste half the dishes.
“Now,” says Molly, “I wonder will those two good little gentlemen carry away these fine things again?” They waited, but no one came; so Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully saying, “Why, then, Mick, that was no lie sure enough: but you’ll be a rich man yet, Mick Purcell.”
Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to settle about selling the fine things they did not want and taking more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all they could to keep the bottle a secret; but for all that, their landlord found it out, for he came to Mick one day and asked him where he got all his money—sure it was not by the farm; and he bothered him so much, that at last Mick told him of the bottle. His landlord offered him a deal of money for it, but Mick would not give it, till at last he offered to give him all his farm for ever: so Mick, who was very rich, thought he’d never want any more money, and gave him the bottle: but Mick was mistaken—he and his family spent money as if there was no end of it; and to make the story short, they became poorer and poorer, till at last they had nothing left but one cow; and Mick once more drove his cow before him to sell her at Cork fair, hoping to meet the old man and get another bottle. It was hardly daybreak when he left home, and he walked on at a good pace till he reached the big hill: the mists were sleeping in the valleys and curling like smoke wreaths upon the brown heath around him. The sun rose on his left, and just at his feet a lark sprang from its grassy couch and poured forth its joyous matin song, ascending into the clear blue sky.