The Sleeping beauty of the wood (3)/Paddy and the bear

by Charles Perrault

PADDY AND THE BEAR.

About the time I was a boy, Arehy Thompson lived in Cushendall, lower part of eounty Antrim. He was a great man; kept a groeer's shop, and was in fact a eomplete Jaek Factotum, and sold every thing portable, from a needle to anehor; he was a ponderous fellow, wore a wig like a bee-hive, and was ealled the king of Cushendall. One night, when he was returning home from a friend's wake, he found a male ehild at the shop door some months old; he embraeed it—swore he would keep it, and was as fond of him as ever Squire Allworthy was of Tom Jones. A woman was sent for to nurse him; they ealled her Snouter Shaughnessy, because she wanted the nose.—Snouter had no suek, and poor Paddy (for so he was ehristened) was spoon-fed, and soon grew a stout, well-built fellow, and to show his gratitude, (for Paddy had a heart) would do all the work about the house himself. He was like Scrub in the Beaux Stratagem, servant of all work; he milked the eow; he eleaned the byre; and thatehed it; he went to market; he soled the shoes; he eleaned the knives; he shaved; and powdered his master's wig; and, in short, did as mueh work in one day as an ordinary servant would do in a week. Paddy's delight was in frequenting wakes and listening to all sorts of marvellous stories, whieh he would swallow down ust the more readily the more marvellous they were.—His master having gone one day to Belfast, he went to old Brien Sollaghan's wake, where a lad just eome home from a foreign voyage was telling stories out of the eourse of nature, improbable. Paddy believed all he was relating but something about blaekamoors; for he swore "'twas impossible for one man to be blaek, and another man white, for he could not be naturally blaek without he was painted; but," says he, 'Ill ask the master in the morning, when he eomes home, and then I'll know all about it.' So he says in the morning, 'Master, is there any such a thing as a blackamoor?' 'To be sure there is, as many as would make regiments of them, but they're all abroad.' 'And what makes them black?' 'Why, it's the elimate, they say.' 'And what's the elimate?' 'Why I don't know: I believe it's something they rub upon them when they're very young.' 'They must have a deal of it, and very cheap, if there's as many of them as you say.—The next time you're in Belfast, I wish you'd get a pieee of it, and we'll rub little Barney over with it and then we ean have a blaekamoor of our own. But as I'm going in the Irish Volunteer, from Larne to Ameriea, in the spring, I'll see them there. Paddy went over as a redemptioner and had to serve a time for his passage. One day he was sent by his master six miles from Baltimore, to the heights of Derby, on an errand. Paddy, thinking and ruminating on the road that he had not yet seen a blaekamoor, forgot the direeting-post on the road, and got en-tangled in a forest; it happened to be deep snow, and there was a large blaek bear lying at the root of a tree, whieh he did not observe till within a few yards of him. 'Hurra, my darling!' says he, 'here's one of them now at last—queen of glory! sueh a nose as he has: they talk about Loughey Fadaghan's nose; why, the noses of all the Fadaghans put together would not make this fellow's nose. I never saw one of your sort before,' says Paddy; 'why, man, you'll get your death of eowld lying there; I have an odd tester yet left, that I brought from Cushendall, and if there’s a shebeen near this, I'll give you a snifter, for I'd like to have a talk with you.' 'Boo,' says the bear. 'Lord, what a voice he has—he could sing a roaring song.' 'Boo, boo!' again cries the bear. 'Who are you booing at, may I ax? for if it’s fun you're making of me, ram my fist up to the elbow in you.' Up get the bear, and eatehes Paddy by the shoulder. 'Is it for wrestling you are? —Cushendall for that—soul, but you grip too tight, my jewel; you had better take your fist out of my shoulder, or I'll take an unfair advantage of you.' Paddy went to eateh him by the middle; 'O sweet bad luek to you, you thief, and the tailor that made your breeches, you're made for wrestling but I'll niek you.' Paddy pulled out his tobacco knife, and gave him a prod in the right place, and down he fell to rise no more. 'O murther; what will become of me now?' says he— 'I've killed this big, ugly black blackguard, and I'll be hanged for him. O murder, murder! O what will become of me!' A proprietor of the plaee eomes up at the moment, 'What is all this about?—what's the matter, my good fellow?' 'Oh, your honour's glory, I'm a stranger—I'm from Cushendall, your honour, I never seen a blaekamoor before, and I just asked one of them to take a drop with me; but he would do dothing but make fun of me, so I gave him a prod, for I eould not get hold of him—Stop, stop there's a bear lying there, take eare.'—'the blackamoor,' 'By the holy father', says Paddy, 'is that a bear! faith then I'll engage I'll drop them to you for a tester a-dozen.' The gentleman admired his courage so much, that he went to Baltimore, bought off his time, and made him an overseer of his estate, which he filled with integrity; and after seventeen years, came home to his native country, left what he had saved to old Snouter's grand-children, and had his bones laid in the same grave with his old and loving master.

FINIS