III
Poor Norah was only a slip of a lass,
And as pretty as ever you'd wish to behowld, the fine Sunday in Lent
That herself and meself and Grace Farrell was watchin' folk coming from Mass,
On the road there alongside the well, where it runs by our goat's bit of grass,
And sure, sorra the atom of harm in the world e'er a one of us meant,
But just lookin' and laughin' light-hearted; when who should mis-happen to pass
Save old Molly MacDonnell, limped by wid her stick, and her beads in a bag,
And she mutterin' away as she went. So says Norah Gillespie to me,
Bein' strange in this place: “Och to goodness,” says Norah, “and who, now, is she?
But whoever it is, sure and sartin herself is the ugly owld hag.”
Well, ma'am, louder she spoke than she thought, or the wind gave a lift to the word,
For it's round Molly turned on a suddint as if she was called by her name,
And you couldn't misdoubt by the look of her face that she'd heard what she'd heard;
And then hobblin' back straight to the place where we stood, still and frighted, she came,
Wid her eyes howldin' Norah, till only the len'th of her short shadow lay
'Twixt them both. And says she: “Owld and ugly, in troth 'tis meself is that same;
But as ugly and owld as I am, and as young and as bowld as you be,
Truth I tell you,” says Molly, “the next time the people are passin' this way,
'Tis the face of me, ugly and owld, they'll be liker and liefer to see
Than your face.”
And that week was scarce out ere the girsheach was cowld in her clay.
