Ayre and the Calf. He was that way, his whining howl filling the house, for four years, lying in the cradle without a motion on him to put his feet under him. Not a day's res' nor a night's sleep was there at the woman these four years with him. She was fair scourged with him, until there came a fine day in the spring that Hom beg Bridson, the tailor, was in the house sewing. Hom is dead now, but there's many alive as remember him. He was wise tremenjus, for he was going from house to house sewing, and gathering wisdom as he was going.
Well, before that day the tailor was seeing lots of wickedness at the child. When the woman would be out feeding the pigs and sarvin' the craythurs, he would be hoisting his head up out of the cradle and making faces at the tailor, winking, and slicking, and shaking his head, and saying "What a lad I am!"
That day the woman wanted to go to the shop in Glen Meay to sell some eggs that she had, and says she to the tailor:—"Hom man, keep your eye on the chile that the bogh [poor dear] won't fall out of the cradle and hurt himself while I slip down to the shop." When she was gone the tailor began to whistle aisy to himself, as he stitched, the tune on a lil hymn.
"Drop that, Hom beg," said a lil harsh voice.
The tailor, scandalised, looked round to see if it was the child that had spoken, and it was.
"Whush, whush, now, lie quate," says the tailor, rocking the cradle with his foot, and as he rocked he whistled the hymn tune louder.
"Drop that, Hom beg, I tell ye, an' give us something light an' handy," says the lil fella back to him, middling sharp.
"Aw, anything at all to plaze thee," says the tailor, whistling a jig.
"Hom," says my lad, "can thou dance anything to that?"
"I can," says the tailor, "can thou?"
"I can that," says my lad, "would thou like to see me dance?"
"I would," says the tailor.
"Take that oul' fiddle down then, Hom man," he said, "and put 'Tune y wheeyl vooar' [Tune of the big wheel] on it."
"Aw, I'll do that for thee, an' welcome," says the tailor.
The fiddle quits its hook on the wall, and the tailor tunes up.
