Then King Brian trew back his head and, shutting his eyes, sung another ballad of forty-seven varses, which was Catherine McCabe’s answer to Hugh Reynolds, and which begins this away:
And if you’ll pay attention and listen unto me,
I’ll tell of a desayver that you may beware of the same,
He comes from the town of Drumscullen in the County Cavan,
an’ Hugh Reynolds is his name.”
One song brought out another finer than the first, until the whole family, childher and all, jined in singing “Willie Reilly and His Dear Colleen Bawn.”
’Twould make your heart young agin to hear them. At the ind of aich varse all the Mulligans’d stop quick to let the King wobble his woice alone. Dark-eyed Susan was standing scratching herself inside the closed door, plazed but wondherin’; so, with sweet songs and ould tales, the hours flew like minutes till at last the ballad-maker pushed back the table and tuned his fiddle, while the whole family—at laste all of them ould enough to stand—smiling, faced one another for a dance.
The King chose Mrs. Ann Mulligan for a partner.
