"Shemus-a-sneidh, however, didn't think so, but ran home to his mother.
"'Where is the cow, Shemus?' axed the ould woman.
"'Och, musha, bad luck to her,' said Shemus, 'I donna where she is!'
"'Is that an answer, you big blaggard, for the likes o' you to give your poor ould mother?' said she.
"'Och, musha,' said Shemus, I don't kick up saich a _bollhous_ about nothing. The ould cow is safe enough, I'll be bail, some place or other, though I could find her if I put my eyes upon _kippeens_,[47] and, speaking of eyes, faith, I had very good luck o' my side, or I had naver a one to look after her.'
"'Why, what happened your eyes, agrah?' axed the ould woman.
"'Oh! didn't the ganconers--the Lord save us from all hurt and harm!--drive their hurlen ball into them both! and sure I was stone blind for an hour.'
"'And may be,' said the mother, 'the good people took our cow?'
"'No, nor the devil a one of them,' said Shemus, 'for, by the powers, that same cow is as knowen as a lawyer, and wouldn't be such a fool as to go with the ganconers while she could get such grass as I found for her to-day.'"
In this way, continued my informant, they talked about the cow all that night, and next mornen both o' them set off to look for her. After searching every place, high and low, what should Shemus see sticking out of a bog-hole but something very like the horns of his little beast!
"Oh, mother, mother," said he, "I've found her!"
"In the bog-hole, mother," answered Shemus.
At this the poor ould creathure set up such a _pullallue_ that she brought the seven parishes about her; and the neighbours soon pulled the cow out of the bog-hole. You'd swear it was the same, and yet it wasn't, as you shall hear by-and-by.
Shemus and his mother brought the dead beast home with them; and, after skinnen her, hung the meat up in the chimney. The loss of the drop o' milk was a sorrowful thing, and though they had a good deal of meat, that couldn't last always; besides, the whole parish _faughed_ upon them for eating the flesh of a beast that died without bleeden. But the pretty thing was, they couldn't eat the meat after all, for when it was boiled it was as tough as carrion, and as black as a turf. You might as well think of sinking your teeth in an oak plank as into a piece of it, and then you'd want to sit a great piece from the wall for fear of knocking your head against it when pulling it through your teeth. At last and at long run they were forced to throw it to the dogs, but the dogs wouldn't smell to it, and so it was thrown into the ditch, where it rotted. This misfortune cost poor Shemus many a salt tear, for he was now obliged to work twice as hard as before, and be out cutten heath on the mountain late and early. One day he was passing by this cairn with a load of brooms on his back, when what should he see but the little dun cow and two red-headed fellows herding her.