Fairies and Folk of Ireland | Page 8

left
there for them after supper."
Peter went to the door and looked. "There's nothing in the dishes there,"
he said; "but how do we know it wasn't the pig that ate it, or some poor
dog, maybe?"
"You don't know," said Mrs. O'Brien, "only as I tell you, and you'ld
better be attending to them that know more than yourself. If you did
chance to give a meal to some poor dog, instead of to the Good People,
there'ld be no great harm done, but it's the Good People that get what

we put there. We always leave it for them and they always come and
take it, and it's that makes them friendly, and so they would be to you,
if you did the same. But you do nothing for them, because you say you
don't believe in them, and you do worse than nothing. Didn't I see Ellen
the other evening throwing out some dirty water and never saying 'Take
care of the water?'"
"And what if I did?" said Ellen. "Can't I throw out wather when I plase,
widout talkin' about it?"
"You can if you like," said the old woman, "but when you throw out
water without warning, it's as likely as not some of the Good People
may be passing, and they don't like dirty water to be thrown on them;
and so after that your cow gives no milk, your pig is thin, and your
dishes are thrown around the room. Do as you like with your water, or
with anything else, but if you anger the Good People, be sure they'll do
you harm."
"It's superstitious you are. Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter; "I dunno what it is
that's throubling us, but there's no fairies at all."
"Superstitious, is it?" said the old woman. "And so you're not
superstitious at all, and you don't believe in the Good People! Now tell
me, Peter Sullivan, when you came to that door just now and said 'God
save all here,' like a decent man, why did you add 'except the cat?'
What did you mean by those words 'except the cat?' Tell me that now."
"Why, sure, Mrs. O'Brien," Peter answered, just a bit confused, "sure,
we're told that cats is avil spirits, so we mustn't put blessings on them,
and when we say 'God save all here,' we add onto it 'except the cat,' so
as not to be calling down a blessing on an avil spirit."
"Ah!" said Mrs. O'Brien, "it's not the likes of you that's superstitious.
You can't put a blessing on the poor cat, when you're blessing
everybody and everything else in the house, for fear you'ld be putting it
on an evil spirit; but you're not superstitions, and so you throw dirty
water on the Good People as they're passing, and you call them by
names that they don't like, and then you wonder what it is that's

troubling you."
"No, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter, again, "I dunno what it is at all. It may
be the avil spirits themselves, for what I know, and whatever it is. I'ld
go away and leave it and leave the country, if I had the money to get to
the States. I heard once of a man that was druv out of the counthry by a
monsther that I suppose was maybe something like the fairies--like
them in making trouble for the man, anyway. It was a great conger that
lived in a hole in the Sligo River, and I suppose he was ten yards long,
and the man was a diver. He was gettin' stones out of the bottom of the
river, and the conger says to him, 'What are you afther there?' says he.
'Stones, sor,' says the diver. 'Hadn't you betther be goin?' says the
conger. 'I think so, sor,' says the diver, and afther that he never stopped
goin' till he got to the States."
"That's you, Peter," said the old woman; "you don't believe in the Good
People or strange monsters or anything of the sort, but you want to run
away from them."
If Peter had been quite honest about it, he could scarcely have said,
even to himself, whether he believed that there were any fairies or not;
but he was really afraid of them, though he put on such a bold front and
said that he did not believe in them, to make people think that he was
uncommonly knowing. "Mrs. O'Brien," he said, "do you think it's true,
what they say, that in the States you can pick up goold everywhere in
the streets?"
"What good would it do you if it was true?" she asked.
"What good would it do me? Are ye askin' what good would goold do
me? Sure, then, wouldn't I