a prod was made at it; but off it went, and someone, as eager to get a
slice at it on the other side, got the prod instead of the pudden. Big
Frank Farrell, the miller, of Ballyboulteen, got a prod backwards that
brought a hullabulloo out of him that you might hear at the other end of
the parish. One got a slice of a scythe, another a whack of a flail, a
third a rap of a spade, that made him look nine ways at wanst.

"'Where is it goin'?' asked one. 'My life for you, it's on its way to
Meeting. Three cheers for it, if it turns to Carntaul!' 'Prod the sowl
out of it if it's a Prodestan'' shouted the others; 'if it turns to the
left, slice it into pancakes. We'll have no Prodestan' puddens here.'

"Begad, by this time the people were on the point of beginnin' to have a
regular fight about it, when, very fortunately, it took a short turn
down a little by-lane that led towards the Methodist praychin'-house,
an' in an instant all parties were in an uproar against it as a
Methodist pudden. 'It's a Wesleyan,' shouted several voices; 'an' by
this an' by that, into a Methodist chapel it won't put a foot to-day, or
we'll lose a fall. Let the wind out of it. Come, boys, where's your
pitchforks?'

"The divle purshuin' to the one of them, however, ever could touch the
pudden, and jist when they thought they had it up against the gavel of
the Methodist chapel, begad, it gave them the slip, and hops over to the
left, clane into the river, and sails away before their eyes as light as
an egg-shell.

"Now, it so happened that a little below this place the desmesne wall of
Colonel Bragshaw was built up to the very edge of the river on each side
of its banks; and so, findin' there was a stop put to their pursuit of
it, they went home again, every man, woman, and child of them, puzzled
to think what the pudden was at all, what it meant, or where it was
goin'! Had Jack Rafferty an' his wife been willin' to let out the
opinion they held about Henry Connolly bewitchin' it, there is no doubt
of it but poor Harry might be badly trated by the crowd, when their
blood was up. They had sense enough, howaniver, to keep that to
themselves, for Harry bein' an ould bachelor, was a kind friend to the
Raffertys. So, of coorse, there was all kinds of talk about it--some
guessin' this, an' some guessin' that--one party sayin' the pudden was
of their side, and another denyin' it, an' insisting it belonged to
them, an' so on.

"In the meantime, Katty Raf