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The Hairy Man
by
His language was hardly understandable, partly because of the excitement he was still labouring under, and partly because of his peculiar shade of brogue. Where Mahoney said “shtone” Foley would say “stawn”—a brogue with a drawl which sounded ridiculous in an angry man. He drawled most over his oaths.
It seems that he was splitting fencing timber down “beyant the new cimitry,” when the storm came on. He thought it would be the usual warm thunderstorm, and it was too far to run home. He didn’t want to get wet, so he took his clothes off, and put them in a hollow log till the storm should be past. Then the lightning played round his tools—the cross-cut saw, axe, wedges, etc. —and he had to get away from there. He didn’t bargain for “thim blanky hail-sta-w-ns. ” “It’s a wonder I wasn’t scalped and drilled full of hawls. ” He thought of the hut, and made for it, but they wouldn’t let him in. Then he suddenly saw some women in a tilt cart comin’ round a bend in the road, and saw no chance of getting out of sight—there was a clearing round the hut, and so he banged at the door again. “I thawt the wimmin would stop. ”
“Whoy did ye think that?” asked Mahoney. “What would they shtop for?”
“How th’ hell was I to know?—curiosity, I suppose. They welted into their old hawse, an’, as I turned to look after thim, the murderin’ villains inside shot a gun at me. I got back to me clawthes, an’ dressed somehow. Some one will have to pay for it. I’ll be laid up on me back for six weeks. ”
The young doctor excused himself, and went out for a few minutes. Mahoney winked at Regan and party—a wink you could hear—and it comforted them mightily. When they went out they saw the doctor hanging to a sapling, some distance from the hut. He swung with his back to the sapling, and slid to the ground, his legs stretched out in front of him, He said he would be all right presently. The thing was fixed up, but the young doctor wanted badly to have the case brought into court. He said it would cheer up the district for years, and add ten years to the life of the oldest inhabitant.