everybody knows to be one of the greatest holidays in the year--Tom
Fitzpatrick was taking a ramble through the ground, and went along
the sunny side of a hedge; when all of a sudden he heard a clacking
sort of noise a little before him in the hedge. "Dear me," said Tom,
"but isn't it surprising to hear the stonechatters singing so late
in the season?" So Tom stole on, going on the tops of his toes to
try if he could get a sight of what was making the noise, to see if
he was right in his guess. The noise stopped; but as Tom looked
sharply through the bushes, what should he see in a nook of the
hedge but a brown pitcher, that might hold about a gallon and a half
of liquor; and by-and-by a little wee teeny tiny bit of an old man,
with a little _motty_ of a cocked hat stuck upon the top of his
head, a deeshy daushy leather apron hanging before him, pulled out a
little wooden stool, and stood up upon it, and dipped a little
piggin into the pitcher, and took out the full of it, and put it
beside the stool, and then sat down under the pitcher, and began to
work at putting a heel-piece on a bit of a brogue just fit for
himself. "Well, by the powers," said Tom to himself, "I often heard
tell of the Lepracauns, and, to tell God's truth, I never rightly
believed in them--but here's one of them in real earnest. If I go
knowingly to work, I'm a made man. They say a body must never take
their eyes off them, or they'll escape."

Tom now stole on a little further, with his eye fixed on the little
man just as a cat does with a mouse. So when he got up quite close
to him, "God bless your work, neighbour," said Tom.

The little man raised up his head, and "Thank you kindly," said he.

"I wonder you'd be working on the holiday!" said Tom.