ANECDOTE. 115 



himself rather amiss in the morning, and determined to try 

 what salutary effect the cool sea-breeze might have upon 

 the fever warmth his nocturnal revelry had raised. He 

 left the cabin accordingly, and the early hour, with the 

 islanders' celebrity for a simplicity of costume, induced him 

 to postpone the business of the toilet to a more conve- 

 nient season, and to sally forth in perfect dishabille. For 

 a time he straggled along the shore, until reaching the 

 point of land which forms the entrance of Achil Sound, he 

 selected a smooth stone, and deposited his person among the 

 rocks, to meditate the hour away, before whose expiry he 

 could not expect that breakfast would be paraded in the 

 cabin. 



It was dead low- water. Half-a-dozen row-boats, bound for 

 the fair of Newport, and filled with men and women, were 

 rowing merrily to the Bull's Mouth, intending to enter it upon 

 the first of flood. Having approached close to the spot where 

 the little gentleman was ensconsed among the seaweed, up 

 popped an outrt countenance, surmounted by a scarlet night- 

 cap ! The effect was sudden, for till now a rock had con- 

 cealed him from the boats. Instantly the women screamed, 

 and the men betrayed unequivocal symptoms of dismay. But 

 when the dwarf, remarking their alarm, skipped upon the 

 stone, and uttered a wild unearthly yell which reverberated 

 from rock to rock, the boats put about directly, and abandoned 

 the fair of Newport, men and women, with one consent, made 

 off for their respective homes as fast as four oars could carry 

 them. The awful intelligence was promulgated with incredible 

 rapidity through Erris and Bally croy. The same Leprehawn 

 who was seen the year before the French* had reappeared, to 

 harbinger, no doubt, some local or national calamity. To 

 this day, the credulity of the islanders has never been dis- 

 abused, and Tom's uncouth face and scarlet nightcap is often 

 fearfully expected to rise over the rocks by the belated fisher- 

 man, as he runs through its dangerous opening to shelter for 

 the night in Achil Sound. 



The Bull's Mouth is rarely entered but with flood-water, or 



* The landing of the French is a common epoch among the inhabitant! 

 of Ballycroy. Ask a peasant his age, and he will probably tell you, " he 

 was born two or three years before or after the French." 



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