Page:Hallowe'en festivities (1903).djvu/121

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HALLOWE'EN FESTIVITIES.
117

say? Not a bit of it, though I'm obleeged to ye for youi kind advice, an' thank yiz for the ride."

An' wid that he drove off an' left me alone. I shouldered me bundle bravely, an', whistlin' a bit of time for company like, I pushed into the bush. Well, I went a long way over bogs, an' turnin' round among the bush an' trees till I began to think I must be well nigh to Dennis's. But, bad cess to it! all of a sudden I came out of the woods at the very identical spot where I started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed to be standin' on its head an' kickin' up its heels to make divarsion of me. By this time it was growin' dark, an', as there was no time to lose, I started in a second time, determined to keep straight south this time, an' no mistake. I got on bravely for a while, but och hone! och hone! it got so dark I couldn't see the trees, an' I bumped me nose an' barked me shins, while the miskaties bit me hands an' face to a blister; an', after tumblin' an' stumblm' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all of a trimble, to think that I was lost intirely, an' that maybe a lion or some other wild craythur would devour me before morning.

Just then I heard somebody a long way off say, "Whip poor Will! " "Bedad," sez I, "I'm glad it isn't Jamie that's got to take it, though it seems it's more in sorrow than in anger they are doin' it, or why should they say, ' poor Will'? an' sure they can't be Injin, haythin, or naygur, for it's plain English they're afther spakin'. Maybe they might help me out o' this," so I shouted at the top of my voice ," A lost man! " Thin I listened. Prisently an answer came.

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!"

"Jamie Butler, the waiver!" sez I, as loud as I could roar, an', snatchin' up me bundle an' stick, I started in the direction of the voice. Whin I thought I had got near the place I stopped an' shouted again, "A lost man! "

"Who! Whoo! Whooo! " said a voice right over my head.

"Sure," thinks I, "it's a mighty quare place for a man to be at this time of night; maybe it's some settler scrapin'