right forninst him, and
his eyes like coals o' fire, lookin' him through, and he said, with a
voice that almost split his owld heart, 'Come!' says he.

'Another day!' cried out the poor colonel.

'Not another hour,' says Sat'n.

'Half an hour!'

'Not a quarther,' says the divil, grinnin' with a bitther laugh;
'give over your reading I bid you,' says he, 'and come away wid me.'

'Only gi' me a few minits,' says he.

'Lave aff your palaverin' you snakin' owld sinner,' says Sat'n; 'you
know you're bought and sould to me, and a purty bargain I have o' you,
you owld baste,' says he; 'so come along at wanst,' and he put out his
claw to ketch him; but the colonel tuk a fast hould o' the Bible, and
begged hard that he'd let him alone, and wouldn't harm him antil the
bit o' candle that was just blinkin' in the socket before him was
burned out.

'Well, have it so, you dirty coward,' says Owld Nick, and with that he
spit an him.

But the poor owld colonel didn't lose a minit (for he was cunnin' to
the ind), but snatched the little taste o' candle that was forninst
him out o' the candlestick, and puttin' it an the Holy Book before
him, he shut down the cover of it and quinched the light. With that
the divil gave a roar like a bull, and vanished in a flash o' fire,
and the poor colonel fainted away in his chair; but the sarvants heerd
the noise (for the divil tore aff the roof o' the house when he left
it), and run into the room, and brought their master to himself agin.
And from that day he was an althered man, and used to have the Bible
read to him every day, for he couldn't read himself any more, by
raison of losin' his eyesight when the divil hit him with the rope of
sand in the face, and afther spit an him--for the sand wint into one
eye, and he lost the other that-a-way, savin' your presence.

FERGUS O'MARA AND THE AIR-DEMONS

BY DR. P. W. JOYCE

Of all the different kinds of goblins that haunted the lonely places
of Ireland in days of old, air-demons were most dreaded by the people.
They lived among clouds, and mists, and rocks, and they hated the
human race with the utmost malignity. In those times lived in the
north of Desmond (the present county of Cork) a man man named Fergus
O'Mara. His farm lay on the southern slope of the Ballyhoura
Mountains, along which ran the open road that led to his house. This
road was not shut in by walls or fences; but on both sides there were
scattered trees and bushes