"Sure," thinks I, "he must have gone home to rowl up his head, for by the powers I didn't throw me stick for nothin'."
Well, by this time the moon was up, an' I could see a little, an' I detarmined to make one more effort to reach Dennis's.
I wint on cautiously for a while, an' thin I heard a bell. "Sure," sez I, "I'm comin' to a sittlemint now, for I hear the church bell." I kept on toward the sound till I came to an ould cow wid a bell on. She started to run, but I was too quick for her, an' got her by the tail an' hung on, thinkin' that maybe she would take me out of the woods. On we wint, like an ould country steeplechase, till, sure enough, we came out to a clearin', an' a house in sight wid a light in it. So, leavin' the ould cow puffin' an' blowin' in a shed, I wint to the house, an', as luck would have it, whose should it be but Dennis's?
He gave me a raal Irish welcome, an' introduced me to his two daughters—as purty a pair of girls as iver ye clapped an eye on. But, whin I tould him me adventure in the woods, an' about the fellow who made fun of me, they all laughed an' roared, an' Dennis said it was an owl.
"An ould what? " sez I.
'Why, an owl, a bird," sez he.
"Do ye tell me now? " sez I. "Sure it's a quare country and a quare bird."
An' thin they all laughed again, till at last I laughed myself that hearty like, an' dropped right into a chair between the two purty girls, an' the ould chap winked at me and roared again.
Dennis is me father-in-law now, an' he often yet delights to tell our children about their daddy's adventure wid the owl.
