There was a woman one time, and she had the fretfullest child in all Ireland. He lay in the cradle and lamented from morning to night and from dark to the dawn of day. There was no prosperity nor comfort in that house from he came to it. All things went astray within in the kitchen and without upon the farm: the cattle fell sick, the potatoes took a blight, there was not a taste of butter on the churn, and evenly the cat began for to dwine and dwine away. But of all the misfortunes that come the woefullest was the continual strife between the man and woman of the house, and they a couple that were horrid fond aforetime.

It happened when the child was about [100]eighteen months of age that a strange man was hired to work on the farm. Surely he’d never have ventured into the place if he had heard tell of the ill luck was in it, but he was from distant parts and didn’t know a heth.

One day he chanced to be in from the work a while before the master of the house, and herself was gone to the spring for water. The hired man sat down by the kitchen fire, taking no heed of the child was watching him from the cradle. The little fellow quit his lamenting; he sat up straight, with a countenance on him like a wise old man.

“I will be playing you a tune on the fiddle, for I’m thinking ’tis fond of the music you are,” says he.

The man near fell into the fire with wonderment to hear the old-fashioned talk. He didn’t say one word in answer, but he waited to see what would be coming next.

The small weak infant pulled a fiddle out from under the pillow of the cradle, and he began for to play the loveliest music was ever heard in this world. He had reels and jigs, songs and sets; merry tunes would rise the heart of man and mournful tunes would fill the mind with grief. [101]

The man sat listening, and he was all put through other, thinking the child was no right thing.

After a time the little lad quit playing, he put back the fiddle where he took it from and began at his old whimpering again. Herself came in at the door with a bucket of water in her hand. Well the man walked out and he called her after him.

“That is a strange child you have, mistress,” says he.

“A strange child, surely, and a sorrowful,” she makes answer. “It is tormented with his roaring you are, no person could be enduring it continually.”

“Did ever he play on the fiddle in your hearing?” asks ............