s it would hit against the dog's
chaps, he'd snap at and bite, and then there was the philliloo.
Another time, the farmer with whom Mick worked, a very decent,
respectable man, happened to call in, and Judy wiped a stool with her
apron, and invited him to sit down and rest himself after his walk. He
was sitting with his back to the cradle, and behind him was a pan of
blood, for Judy was making pig's puddings. The lad lay quite still in
his nest, and watched his opportunity till he got ready a hook at the
end of a piece of twine, which he contrived to fling so handily that
it caught in the bob of the man's nice new wig, and soused it in the
pan of blood. Another time his mother was coming in from milking the
cow, with the pail on her head: the minute he saw her he lilted up his
infernal tune, and the poor woman, letting go the pail, clapped her
hands aside, and began to dance a jig, and tumbled the milk all a-top
of her husband, who was bringing in some turf to boil the supper. In
short, there would be no end to telling all his pranks, and all the
mischievous tricks he played.

Soon after, some mischances began to happen to the farmer's cattle. A
horse took the staggers, a fine veal calf died of the black-leg, and
some of his sheep of the red-water; the cows began to grow vicious,
and to kick down the milk-pails, and the roof of one end of the barn
fell in; and the farmer took it into his head that Mick Flannigan's
unlucky child was the cause of all the mischief. So one day he called
Mick aside, and said to him, 'Mick, you see things are not going on
with me as they ought, and to be plain with you, Mick, I think that
child of yours is the cause of it. I am really falling away to nothing
with fretting, and I can hardly sleep on my bed at night for thinking
of what may happen before the morning. So I'd be glad if you'd look
out for work somewhere else; you're as good a man as any in the
country, and there's no fear but you'll have your choice of work.' To
this Mick replied, 'that he was sorry for his losses, and still
sorrier that he or his should be thought to be the cause of them; that
for his own part he was not quite easy in his mind about that child,
but he had him and so must keep him'; and he promised to look out for
another place immediately.

Accordingly, next Sunday at chapel Mick gave out that he was about
leaving the work at John Riordan's, and immediately a farmer who lived
a couple of miles off, and who wan