Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1879-10-30
SMOKING A WITCH.
A Donegal Legend.

"Pm feared to go VII you the NIGHT,
Jack"
Cleared! Is it feared you are? It's
the fine, brave man you are, for certain"
These last words, spoken in tone of
whitening scorn, were addressed to Tom
Doolan by his comrade and neighbOr,
Jack Devenny.
The two men were about to launch
their boat and row across the Tough, to
cut osiers on the island, and Tom, whose
face was pale, and whose step tottered,
hung back when the time came to take
his place and begin to handle his oar.
1t was sunny August day. The
mountains, covered with heather, glow.
ed warm crimson in the sunshine; when
the corn fields were like sheets of gold,
and Tamney Tough was mirror to re-
feet unbrokenly the blue sky and sailing
clouds.
Far away beyond Mulroy, an inlet of
the Atlantic, stretched other mountains,
tier upon tier, the nearest hills purple,
the more distant ones like smoke.colored
phantoms against the sky. Even the
acres on acres 81 bog that lay between
the corn fields had beauty of their
own. Every thing was silent. There
was no whir and bleat of snipe, no cry
of gull or plover. Smoke rose from the
chimneys of the little mud cabins scat.
tered here and there over the country,
but there were no voices to be heard;
only in the village of Tamney there was
some slight traffic and STIR
Cleared is it you are, TamW re-
peated Devenny, rs he showed off from
the land.
"Ay-the witch! the witch!' faltered
the other, paler than before.
On sloping field just below the Tough
was a cabin no better than those in the
village, and rom raised his timid eyes
toward it while he whispered, the
witch! the witchW
Betty Moriarty had lived there as
long rs the oldest inhabitant Paddy
Stevens, who had been born in the year
l70S, declared that she had seemed an
old woman when he was boy; and now,
in 1900, she looked younger than he.
There was another circumstance that
made Betty's neighbours regard her with
awe.
She had no ostensible means of sup.
port, yet she had plenty of erything
in her cottage; a pile of the driest turf,
which no one had seen cut, and butter
that she had not bought at the shop;
clothes that, like the garments of the
children of Israel, "waxed not DID,
All this seemed to be not merely
comfort, but wealth and splendor, in the
eyes of the simple people. Many 8
woman who happened to have small
churning firmly believed Betty to have
drawn away the butter from her churn
but was afraid to quarrel with her, and
therefore spoke of her loss in guarded
whispers.
The only person who had courage
to reprosch the witch was Ton
Doolan whom she had now reduced t
an abiect state of fear,
Some months before the beginning o.
our story Betty had kissed Toms young
est boy without saying "God bless you
for bonny wean," and the child hac
pinned away ever since. Father Dan
indeed, had confirmed the suspicious o
the parents by certifying that the littl,
fellow was suffering from the baneful in
huence of an evil eye.
When Tom Doolan had openly charged
her with having bewitched the child
and had driven her down the villsg,
street, not, indeed, lifting his own hsnc
to her, but permitting his boys to pei
her with mud and pebbles, she had turn
ed to shake her stick At him and threste,
vengeance, muttering curses "not lout
but deep"
"She said she'd waste me to skin an
bone; she said her eyed be on me sleep
ing an waking" faltered the trenholm,
man.
Whisht, wi your foolitchuess," re
proved his companion.
Little Eileen Devenny, too young a
six years old to be afraid of the witch