There was once a grown-up lad in the County Leitrim, and he was strong
and lively, and the son of a rich farmer. His father had plenty of
money, and he did not spare it on the son. Accordingly, when the boy
grew up he liked sport better than work, and, as his father had no
other children, he loved this one so much that he allowed him to do in
everything just as it pleased himself. He was very extravagant, and he
used to scatter the gold money as another person would scatter the
white. He was seldom to be found at home, but if there was a fair, or
a race, or a gathering within ten miles of him, you were dead certain
to find him there. And he seldom spent a night in his father's house,
but he used to be always out rambling, and, like Shawn Bwee long ago,
there was
"grádh gach cailin i mbrollach a léine,"
"the love of every girl in the breast of his shirt," and it's many's
the kiss he got and he gave, for he was very handsome, and there
wasn't a girl in the country but would fall in love with him, only for
him to fasten his two eyes on her, and it was for that someone made
this _rann_ on him--
"Feuch an rógaire 'g iarraidh póige,
Ni h-iongantas mór é a bheith mar atá
Ag leanamhaint a gcómhnuidhe d'árnán na gráineóige
Anuas 's anios 's nna chodladh 'sa' lá."
_i.e._--"Look at the rogue, its for kisses he's rambling,
It isn't much wonder, for that was his way;
He's like an old hedgehog, at night he'll be scrambling
From this place to that, but he'll sleep in the day."
At last he became very wild and unruly. He wasn't to be seen day nor
night in his father's house, but always rambling or going on his
_kailee_ (night-visit) from place to place and from house to house, so
that the old people used to shake their heads and say to one another,
"it's easy seen what will happen to the land when the old man dies;
his son will run through it in a year, and it won't stand him that
long itself."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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