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The servant-girl, who, though careless, was honest, confessed she recollected having accidentally left this bucket in that dangerous place the preceding evening; that she was going with it across the yard to the ash-hole, but she heard her lover whistle to her from the lane, and she set down the bucket in a hurry, ran to meet him, and forgot the ashes.
Long ago, a poor widow woman lived down near the iron forge, by Enniscorth, and she was so poor she had no clothes to put on her son; so she used to fix him in the ash-hole, near the fire, and pile the warm ashes about him; and according as he grew up, she sunk the pit deeper.
"Wife," said I, "I and my chimney like to have a quiet smoke together, it is true, but we don't like to be called names." "Now, dear old man," said she, softening down, and a little shifting the subject, "when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you KNOW there must be a secret closet in this chimney." "Secret ash-hole, wife, why don't you have it?
That night he did not sleep at all, but sat until day-break, with a loaded gun across his knees, and another one lying on the ground beside him. When Miss Markham emerged from the rude tent the next morning, and came out into the bright light of day, the first thing she saw was her brother Ralph, who looked as if he had been sweeping a chimney or cleaning out an ash-hole.
Yes, I dare say there is a secret ash-hole in the chimney; for where do all the ashes go to that drop down the queer hole yonder?" "I know where they go to; I've been there almost as many times as the cat." "What devil, wife, prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole? Don't you know that St. Dunstan's devil emerged from the ash-hole?
By this time mother comes creeping down-stairs, like an old tabby-cat out of the ash-hole; and she kind o' doubts and reckons whether or no she had better try to git any breakfast, bein' as she 's not much appetite this mornin'; but she goes to the leg of bacon and cuts off a little slice, reckons sh'll broil it; then goes and looks at the coffee-pot and reckons sh'll have a little coffee; don't exactly know whether it's good for her, but she don't drink much.
Yap yow eaow yeaow yap snif xquiz; and, after a good deal of panting and distress, he at last yawned so wide as nearly to dislocate his jaws, sneezed once or twice, and then trotted off on three legs, with his half a tail tucked up underneath, and lay down disconsolate in an ash-hole. 'Oh, how distressing it is, said he, 'to be bewitched by a bad woman! It metamorphoses one entirely.
When everything had been examined and placed on its appropriate end of the table, Miss Panney called for an empty coalscuttle, into which she tumbled, without regard to spilling or breakage, the whole mass of medicaments which had been prepared or prescribed by herself, and she then requested the servant to deposit the contents of the scuttle in the ash-hole.
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