The Legend of Clootie's Cave.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1872, 5 July 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Legend of Clootie's Cave.

Yondeb, by the shore there, yell be seeing a dark, black kind Of a rock. It's what we call hereabouts Clootie's Cave ; and the ould boy himself used to resoide there, until he got so ashamed of himself that he couldn't bear his place being pointed out by the childer, and left for other parts. Americay, I'm tould, and I think it's loikely ; but for awhile there he lived, as. everyone knew ; and if you'd only promise your soul to him, he'd give you a year of the best and foinest living, with all kinds of mates, and no end of whiskey, and all heart could wish of iverything. For a year, moind; after that you couldn't tell what you'd get. No one knew except the ould boy himself. * Naw that was the year when the praties were all bad, and the cows went dry, and the barley withered away, and hardly a little pig of them all lived to be pork, and toimes were hard, the papers said; and there was no money to pay tint with, and a good many Irish folks starved to death in their cabins or died with a low faver; and the English papers were very sevare upon them for it, and called it disturbances in Ireland, just because whin the agint came down to collect what wasn't to be had he now and- then .got a good batin' for it, if there was anyone around able to hould a shillaly. -Well, this bad' year^-God kape the same away from usl-— Nora O'Lynn lived with her ould mother and lathes, in a poor little cabin' oat yonder. It had mver been a foine^place, but now that the black poverty had come to. it, it was enough to break your heart, ' • z

Diiy ufter day a little black bit?ad was all there was to ate, and a sup of buttermilk was a rare luxury ; and Nora, trying hard to do the best she could, had no power to hind* the misery ; and so the thought kept coming into her moind, as ehe grew desperate, to go to the cave in the rocks and make a bargain with theould boy, inanity, of course, to chate him if Bhe could, aa all Christians have a light to do ; and prayirg the saints to help her, seein 1 that she had such a good motive — her duty to her paieuts, and ihem stharvin. But it was no aisy thing to do, aven whan 3 ou'd resolved to be at it. I?oi Clootie's #aye is hard to get at, wid the say washing into it, and the sand at its mouth knee deep. And who could tell if you'd get away wid body and sowl once ye intcred it ? Moreanover, ye must go at midnight, al»ne by yourself, unknowns* to army wan. Sa Nora kept putting it off, hoping for better work, or for a change of some sort, un.til one night, when she hard the ould folks moanin' iv their beda wid the pains of hunger, ahe went clane out of her mind, and risin' up, she slipped out of the door, not aven stopping to shut ifc afther her, for there was n* danger of robbers where there was nothing to stale; and crossing herself and saying a bit of a prayer, she wrapped her ragged old plaid cloak about her, and tripped away toward Clootie's Cavo, kaping up her heart and her rasons. There was a bitther wind blowin' that night, and the big jewels of staia seemed to shoot and flash up in the black blue "skyi The great recks rose like ould castles on either hand, and the white sand sparkled like snow. There wasn't a lrnnian sound to be heard, but the moan of the say was loud, and its bating agin the roc':s wa3 heavy, and there was now and thin a startling shriek that might have been a night-bird, or a young divil gettin' the floggin' it desaived from its own father — bad luck to them ; but Nora hadn't expected to enjoy herself, and 1 she went on without stopping. How she got into the cave I couldn't tell ye, but there she was at last ; and there she saw the ould boy sittin' by a fire as red as that in a rolliu' mill, and little black figures dancin' about, and a smell of brimstone. And she, making her riverince, and saying : " If you plaze, I've come to get a good year of ye, sor. The old folks is starvin' and I've got to do it whether I will or no." Wid that she burst out waping, and the o*ld boy rose, grinning wid ]oy, and says to one ov the little divils : " Come here wid ye," says ho ; git paper and pin and ink and write me out a receipt : ' For one good year from date I promise to give my soul to the old boy to do what he likes with.' Sign ifc, young woman, siga it." He snatched the paper fiom the littla divil. 41 Sure," says he, " a fine fist ye write. WoM, it pays," says he, sarcastical loike, " to give you an eddication." And then Nora makes her courtesy, and puts down her cross, for she wasn't book terned, and then she waited for what she was to get. " Whiniver you put your hand in your pocket you'll hud a guinea theic," says the old boy. " Whiniver you open the cupboard it will be full for a year from to-day, then I'll call on you." The poor girl shivered, but she put her hand in her pocket and felt ihe silver and gould there, and something lifted her out of the cave and set her at her cabin door, and from that day poverty took wing*. She gave out that a legacy had been lift her, and sine lived nate and dacent wid her father and mother, ating and drinking of the best. She helped the poor neighbors, too, and she gave money to the ould priest, for the poor he could come at beat ; but she niver smiled or sang any more, for there was the terrible end to it all coming faster and faster, and she had thought of no way to ohate the ould boy out of her soul, though she wa3 laming to lead and write to make herself moie able for it. It was all no good. Not an idea would come into her head, and the day came and she sat at the door with her spinning, when looking up she saw the ould boy beside her. "Well, are you ready, young woman?" said he. She looked at him, ready to die wid the froight, and, just to save time, she says: 11 Wilfcyou let me see the agreement, af ye plaze, sir ? " "0, yis," he said, grinning ; for he didn't suppose she could rcide ; aad he gave her the bit of paper, and she looked at it, and the idea that had niver come to her in the whole twelve months came to her now. " I'll give you what I've prosiissd in this paper, and no more," says ehe. " No more do I ask of ye," says he. Then she just ieache3 out "and whips a knife from a bench near by. " I see I'm to give you my s o-l-e," she said. "*TII whip it off me shoe in a iwinitling." " It's your soul, young woman ;' an 1 you know it," cries the divil. " But that's not the way to spall it," says Nora." Wid that she puts the bit of leather inta his hand, and he grinned at her and shook his fist. "You've outwitted me," he says, in a fury, " but I'll take it out in ivery schod masther I have below, for not larmn' me childer betther," and away he flew, wid a bellow that shook the earth and put false reports of an earthquake into circulation ; but the story got about, and, as I said, I suppose the mortification in it made him lave the place and take himself quite out of Ireland. — New York Ledger.

A Twenty-six lucli Foot. Two miners who Lave jusfc returned from Grand Canon report a most marvellous discovery, says the Peach Spring? (d.T.) Champion. In tne basis of the canoe, which was once a sand bed, and probably thousands of years ago a broad level plain (bat the narrow passageway is now hemmed in by walla 118 feet high, they came upon an imprint in the sand rock, denoting a bare foot, with toes, inßtep, and heel as plain and unmistakable as the orb of day. It measured twenty-six inches in length and twelve in width. The average depth of the imprint is four inches, while at the ball of the foot it is six inches. These imprints appear along the edge of the narrow passageway for come distance, and they are distinctly and evenly eighteen feet apart, showing the great distance the monster with the human f#ot could make at a single step. The men had only three pack mules and prospecting tools with them, or they would have taken out the rock containing the foot imprint, but it is their intention to return in a few days, prepared to perfoim.the work and bring these evidences 'of a monster human race to the public gaze.— Detroit Free Press.

__ Monsieur dtj Sommebabd, the founder of the Cluny Museum, in^Paris, was one day in a common public house in St. Denis, where, on the wall, he noticed a brass frying-pan of a somewhat uncommon shape. He took it down to examine it more particularly, and discovered some engraved - letters" under s thick crust of coal and Boot. Without saying anything about his discovery, he bought the pan from the astonished owner, and., after a process of cleaning, it appeared that it was the plate from the coffin of Louis XIV. The three legs were taken out, and the original fihape restored, but the holes in which ■the legs had been fastened remain. It is now in the Cluny Maseum.