r
you.' 'You must excuse me, good mistress,' says I, 'but I have no more
meal in the house. Those thirteen measures which you see there empty
were full this morning, for what was in them I have given away to
unfortunates. So the Virgin and Child help you.' 'Do you choose to give
me an alms?' she shrieked, so that you might have heard her to
Londonderry. 'If ye have no meal give me something else.' 'You must
excuse me, good lady,' says I: 'it is my custom to give alms in meal, and
in nothing else. I have none in the house now; but if ye come on the
morrow ye shall have a triple measure. In the meanwhile may the Virgin,
Child, and the Holy Trinity assist ye!' Thereupon she looked at me
fixedly for a moment, and then said, not in a loud voice, but in a low,
half-whispered way, which was ten times more deadly:--

"'Biaidh an taifrionn gan sholas duit a bhean shilach!'

Then turning from the door she went away with long strides. Now, honey,
can ye tell me the meaning of those words?"

"They mean," said I, "unless I am much mistaken: 'May the Mass never
comfort ye, you dirty queen!'"

"Ochone! that's the maning of them, sure enough. They are cramped words,
but I guessed that was the meaning, or something of the kind. Well,
after hearing the evil prayer, I sat for a minute or two quite stunned;
at length recovering myself a bit I said to the colleen: 'Get up, and run
after the woman and tell her to come back and cross the prayer.' I meant
by crossing that she should call it back or do something that would take
the venom out of it. Well, the colleen was rather loth to go, for she
was a bit scared herself, but on my beseeching her, she got up and ran
after the woman, and being rather swift of foot, at last, though with
much difficulty, overtook her, and begged her to come back and cross the
prayer, but the divil of a woman would do no such thing, and when the
colleen persisted she told her that if she didn't go back, she would say
an evil prayer over her too. So the colleen left her, and came back,
crying and frighted. All the rest of the day I remained sitting on the
stool speechless, thinking of the prayer which the woman had said, and
wishing I had given her everything I had in the world, rather than she
should have said it. At night came home the boys, and found their mother
sitting on the stool, like one stupefied. 'What's the matter with you,
mother?' they said. 'Get up and help us to unpack. We