Jack and the Devil's Purse (21 page)

You see, it came a certain time in Ireland known as the Iron Winter. For four long solid months it was frost and snow non-stop. Now everything was frozen solid, the sea was frozen, the Earth was frozen, the birds had died in the trees, people were poor, they had no food in their homes. The only thing they had in their homes was plenty of peats for the fire, the turf they cut during the summer. They had a big stack of peats, but there was not any food in the houses, no one had any food, because it was the Iron Winter and it was after the potato famine. Now, you’re not going to believe this story, but it’s true!

My story takes you to a little cottage not far from a small village, and there in this small, rundown cottage lived an old man called Patrick and his old wife Bridget. Now Patrick and Bridget had been married for fifty long years, and of course Patrick had tried his best to survive through the years. And they had survived the best way they could. But Patrick had one thing no one else had – Patrick had a big long nose, longer than anyone else’s nose.

But because it was such an iron winter there was no food in the house. Patrick, he would sit by the peat fire with his pipe with his bare feet and his big, tackety, hobnail boots by his side, and he would sit smoking his pipe by the fire with his long nose up the chimney. And of course Bridget would sit there in the little kitchen and she’d wash the pots, she’d wash the spoons and ladles and knives over and over and over again. Till one morning, things were about to change.

Here was Patrick sitting by the fire smoking his pipe and Bridget had washed the dishes for the fifth time. No food. And turning she looked at Patrick and she said, ‘Patrick, for the love of God, man, would you take that ugly face out of this house and don’t bring it back!’

Patrick says, ‘What’s gone wrong with you, Bridget?’

She says, ‘What’s gone wrong with me, Patrick? There’s never been food in this house for the last three weeks and you sit there with your ugly face smoking that pipe. Now take your ugly face out of this house and don’t bring it back till you get me something for the pot – let it be fish or fowl!’

‘But Bridget, there’s nothing out there, the whole world is dead. There’s not a fish or a fowl to be found! Where am I going to get you something for the pot?’

She said, ‘You take your ugly old face out of this house and you won’t bring it back till you get me something for the pot!’

And she caught his tackety boots and she threw them out in the snow and pushed old Patrick out in the snow with his bare feet and locked the door. There stood Patrick trembling with the cold.

But he pulled on his big hobnail boots and he laced them up and he stood there and he knew in his own mind Bridget would never let him back in the house until he found her something for the pot. Where was he going to
get it? Everything was dead, the birds were gone, there were no rabbits, no pheasants, no nothing! No fish, the seas were frozen. And then he remembered a few days before he’d heard that a new priest had come to the little village near where he lived. And in those bygone days all priests were allowed to have a gun to shoot something for theirself for the pot. And Patrick thought if he made his way through the snow to the village, went to the old priest and borrowed the priest’s gun, maybe he could shoot something with the gun, something he could give to Bridget to get his ugly old face back out of the cold and back to the fire. Anyway, this is what he did. He walked through the snow up to his knees till he came to the village and he walked up to the priest’s house and he knocked on the priest’s door.

Now, even though he was a new priest, he was a very old priest. And he came to the door and he said, ‘Well, young man, what can I do for you?’

Patrick said, ‘Father, it’s my wife.’

‘Oh dear,’ said the old priest, ‘what’s wrong with the dear lady?’

Patrick said, ‘Nothing wrong with her tongue, Father. She put me out of the house and told me not to bring me ugly old face back till I get her something for the pot.’

‘Oh,’ said the old priest, ‘that’s a terrible thing for a woman to do to her husband in weather like this in the cold snow. You’d better come in!’

So he brought Patrick into his house. He said, ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Patrick, Father.’

‘And well, Patrick,’ he said, ‘what would you want me to do for you?’

‘Father,’ he said, ‘they tell me you have a gun.’

‘Oh yes, Patrick,’ he says, ‘I have a gun. But it’s a very, very old gun, it’s an old muzzle-loader. Have you ever fired an old gun in your life, Patrick?’

‘No, Father,’ he said, ‘to tell you the truth I’ve never fired any kind of gun in my life.’

‘Well, Patrick, I have a gun but it’s very, very old and you have got to be very, very careful how you load her. But I’ll lend her to you and I’ll show you how to use her.’

And you’re not going to believe this story, but it’s true. So off he went and he came back with an old brass gun, an old brass muzzle-loading gun and two little bags and a rolled up paper and under his arm he had an old stick mounted with brass.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘Patrick, this is the gun. And the first thing you do, you’ll hit it against your leg and you’ll knock off the dust from the old barrel. And under my arm here I have a ramrod and here are two little bags, one of powder and one of shot. Now the first thing you do after you’ve hit it against your leg and knocked off the dust, you’ll pour the powder down the barrel, and then you’ll take a piece of rolled paper and from under your arm you’ll take this ramrod and you’ll stuff it down the barrel. And then you’ll pour in the bullets – this is going to get your ugly face in out of the cold – and you’ll stuff another bit paper in it, put the ramrod back under your arm. But for the love of God, Patrick, and all that’s holy, don’t pull the trigger of the gun with the ramrod still in the barrel or I won’t beholden what will happen to you! Now you remember!’

‘Yes,’ says Patrick, ‘I’ll remember! You hit it against your leg, pour in the powder . . . thank you, Father,’ and off he went.

But Patrick walked through the snow along the hedge-rows and sideways and byroads but he could not see one
single soul, not a bird of any kind or a rabbit. And he’s still thinking, ‘Hit it against your leg, pour in the powder . . .’ Patrick got a little mixed up in his head. But he searched far and wide, he could see nothing to shoot. And then he remembered, not far from where he lived was a large mill-pond, and from that millpond ran a river. The millpond was surrounded with reeds and Patrick had seen a few ducks there during the spring and the summer. Thinking to himself, ‘If I made my way to the pond, maybe there’ll be a duck on the ice and I could get just one single duck to give old Bridget to get me ugly face back out of the cold.’

So he made his way to the millpond through the frozen solid reeds in the pond with the gun under his arm, the two bags in his hands, and the ramrod under his arm. And through the ice he went and then he stopped for he heard a strange sound. The sound he heard was ‘quack-quack-quack-quack’. Patrick looked through the ice and sure enough sitting on the ice were two big fat, plump ducks.

‘Well upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘if I could get one of you for my old Bridget it would get my ugly face back out of the cold.’

And quickly he began to load the gun. He poured in the powder, he put the ramrod, he stuck it in, and the bit paper he’s stuffing away . . . but he must have made some kind of noise for the ducks heard him and they got up offthe ice and they started to fly. But instead of flying away, they flew towards Patrick while he was still loading the gun, and they flew overhead and Patrick was so excited he pulled the trigger – forgetting to take out the ramrod from the barrel of the gun.

There was an explosion that was heard all over Ireland! The gun flew from his hands and Patrick was catapulted backwards, and fell in a big bush of snow. And there he lay.

‘Well, upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘what happened? Now
I’ll never get me ugly face back in out of the cold, I’ll never get something to Bridget, I’ll die with the cold tonight, she’ll never let me in.’

And there he lay in the snow. And then he felt something warm under him in the snow. He put his hand down through the snow to the bush where he had fallen. And lo and behold, what do you think had happened? Patrick had fallen on the top of a big brown hare that was asleep under the snow and broke its neck, and killed it instantly!

‘Well upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘and all that’s holy, is this not me lucky day? A big brown hare! This’ll put a smile on old Bridget’s face for the rest of her life. There’ll be jugged hare, potted hare, hare soup for a full week. Am I not the lucky one?’

And then he put his two hands together to thank his God when he looked up in the sky – what did he see? For the ramrod had flown from the gun, went through one duck and through the other duck and was coming twirling down like a propeller and crashed into the ice.

‘Well, upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘and all that’s holy, is this not me lucky day? First a big brown hare, now two fat ducks! Will this put a smile on old Bridget’s face for the rest of her life!’

Now I told you Patrick had big tackety boots on, didn’t I?

So Patrick picked up the hare, put it in his bag and he walked out on the ice to retrieve the ducks. To the middle of the ice, there he picked up one duck. Oh, it was fat and plump! Into the bag. Pulled off the other duck off the ramrod, into the bag and then he tried . . . what do you think had happened to the ramrod? The ramrod had gone down through the ice and pierced the head of a ten-pound salmon lying under the ice, and killed it instantly!

‘Well upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘is this not me lucky
day? A big brown hare, two fat ducks and a salmon! This’ll put a smile on old Bridget’s face like a baby for the rest of her life.’

Now I told you he had big tackety boots on. So, he began with his tackety boots to crack the ice, the thick ice. Pieces of ice were flying all over. And a piece of ice flew up and cut off Patrick’s head and his head fell on the ice. But Patrick was a quick-thinking man; he grabbed his head and put it back on! And because it was so cold it stuck! Froze solid. Patrick tried it once or twice and it worked.

‘Well, upon me soul,’ says Patrick, ‘is this not me lucky day?’

So he managed to retrieve the ramrod and the salmon and he put them in his bag. Picked up the gun and walked home. When he got back to the little cottage there was old Bridget standing at the door with her face like a prune.

‘Where have you been, Patrick, all day long? You’ve been gone a long time. Did you get me something for the pot, fish or fowl?’

Patrick said, ‘Bridget, me love, me doll of all Ireland, me love, I have something for you, you won’t believe me!’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘what have you got?’

He showed her the bag.

‘Patrick’ she said, ‘me love, that’s a hare!’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘me love, me doll of all Ireland, it’s a hare and it’s all for you!’

‘Oh Patrick,’ she said, ‘are you not the hunter! I knew you could do it. You’d better come in out of the cold!’

Patrick said, ‘Just a moment!’ He showed her the bag.

‘Patrick, that’s a duck!’

‘Yes, me love of Ireland, it’s a duck! And it’s all for you.’

‘Well upon me soul,’ says Bridget, ‘are you not the great hunter? You’d better come in out of the cold. Now build up the fire, you can smoke your pipe to your heart’s content!’

‘Just a moment,’ says Patrick . . .

‘Another duck!’

‘Yes, me love, another duck and it’s all for you.’

‘Oh Patrick, we will eat like kings, we will dine as kings and queens! We will have roast duck, we’ll have jugged hare, potted hare, hare soup, roast duck and hare soup for a full week. You’d better come in out of the cold.’

‘Just a moment!’ said Patrick. ‘There’s something better . . .’

‘Patrick,’ she said, ‘a salmon!’

‘Yes, me love of all Ireland, it’s a salmon and it’s all for you.’

‘Oh Patrick, are you the hunter, are you the fisherman! Salmon is for the gentle people. We’ve never had salmon in this house in all the years we’ve been married. You’d better come in out of the cold and I’ll build up the fire and you can smoke your pipe for a week! And I will never say another word.’ So she brought Patrick in out of the cold.

Now you know what happens when ice gets too close to a fire. You’re not going to believe this story but it’s really true.

So anyhow, she took in the ducks and the hare and the salmon. She put them on the little table and said, ‘I’ll help you off with your boots, Patrick!’

She helped Patrick off with his boots, placed them by the fire, put peats on the fire.

‘Now, Patrick,’ she said, ‘you can smoke your pipe to your heart’s content.’

And Patrick’s sitting there smoking his pipe and Bridget’s cutting up the salmon steaks. Oh, the fire’s very hot, they were very warm, those little cottages. Patrick’s sitting there, and he began to sweat. Bridget’s cutting the salmon and then she looked at Patrick, for a long drip had begun to gather at the point of – didn’t I tell you that Patrick had a
long nose? A long drip began to gather on the point of Patrick’s nose.

Then she’s cutting the salmon, and she looked round and says, ‘Patrick, for the love of God, man, would you take that big long drip from the front of your nose? You’re making me sick!’

Now in bygone days the poor people in Ireland and Scotland, in days before handkerchiefs, they could not wipe their nose with no handkerchiefs in their pockets. They just ‘wheeked’ off drips with their thumb and first finger.

So, Patrick put his thumb and finger to his nose. He ‘wheeked’ off his nose – and threw his head in the fire! The fire was so hot it had melted the ice around his neck. And Bridget dined on salmon steaks herself that night, for Patrick – he had no head for it!

And that’s the end of my story from old Ireland!

A long time ago Jack lived with his mother and his father in a little cottage out in the country. They werena very rich, they were kind of poor. But Jack’s father had one thing he loved more than anything else. He had the fastest pony in the whole district! And he enjoyed nothing more than driving into the village and showing off. Because in these bygone days a fast pony was special. People had warned Jack’s father, and his wife had warned him that some day an accident was going to happen.