The devil and the hearth-money collector for Bantry set out one summer
morning to decide a bet they made the night before over a jug of
punch. They wanted to see which would have the best load at sunset,
and neither was to pick up anything that wasn't offered with the
good-will of the giver. They passed by a house, and they heard the
poor ban-a-t'yee[58] cry out to her lazy daughter, "Oh, musha, ----
take you for a lazy sthronsuch[59] of a girl! do you intend to get up
to-day?" "Oh, oh," says the taxman, "there's a job for you, Nick."
"Ovock," says the other, "it wasn't from her heart she said it; we
must pass on." The next cabin they were passing, the woman was on the
bawn-ditch[60] crying out to her husband that was mending one of his
brogues inside: "Oh, tattheration to you, Nick! you never rung them
pigs, and there they are in the potato drills rootin' away; the ----
run to Lusk with them." "Another windfall for you," says the man of
the ink-horn, but the old thief only shook his horns and wagged his
tail. So they went on, and ever so many prizes were offered to the
black fellow without him taking one. Here it was a gorsoon playing
_marvels_ when he should be using his clappers in the corn-field; and
then it was a lazy drone of a servant asleep with his face to the sod
when he ought to be weeding. No one thought of offering the
hearth-money man even a drink of buttermilk, and at last the sun was
within half a foot of the edge of Cooliagh. They were just then
passing Monamolin, and a poor woman that was straining her supper in a
skeeoge outside her cabin-door, seeing the two standing at the bawn
gate, bawled out, "Oh, here's the hearth-money man--run away wid him."
"Got a bite at last," says Nick. "Oh, no, no! it wasn't from her
heart," says the collector. "Indeed, an' it was from the very
foundation-stones it came. No help for misfortunes; in with you," says
he, opening the mouth of his big black bag; and whether the devil was
ever after seen taking the same walk or not, nobody ever laid eyes on
his fellow-traveller again.
[Footnote 57: _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts._]
[Footnote 58: Woman of the house.]
[Footnote 59: Ir. _str[)o]inse_--_i.e._, a lazy thing.]
[Footnote 60: Ir. _bádhun_--_i.e._, enclosure, or wall round a house.
From _ba_, cows, and _dún_, a fortress. Properly, cattle-fortress.]