Free The Collar by Frank O'Connor

funeral. They had some story of a man from our place that saw one on the mountain one night, and the fairies let down the coffin and ran away. He opened the coffin, and inside it there was a fine-looking girl, and when he bent over her she woke up. They said she was from the Tuam direction; a changeling or something. I never checked the truth of it.’
    â€˜From Galway, I believe, my lord,’ said Father Whelan respectfully.
    â€˜Was it Galway?’ said the Bishop.
    â€˜I dare say, if a man had enough poteen in, he could even believe that,’ said the Canon indignantly.
    â€˜Still, Canon,’ said Father Fogarty, ‘strange things do happen.’
    â€˜Why then, indeed, they do,’ said Father Whelan.
    â€˜Was this something that happened yourself, father?’ the Bishop asked kindly, seeing the young man straining at the leash.
    â€˜It was, my lord,’ said Fogarty. ‘When I was a kid going to school. I got fever very bad, and the doctor gave me up. The mother, God rest her, was in a terrible state. Then my aunt came to stay with us. She was a real old countrywoman. I remember them to this day arguing downstairs in the kitchen, the mother saying we must be resigned to the will of God, and my aunt telling her not to be a fool; that everyone knew there were ways.’
    â€˜Well! Well! Well!’ Father Whelan said, shaking his head.
    â€˜Then my aunt came up with the scissors,’ Father Fogarty continued with suppressed excitement. ‘First she cut off a bit of the tail of my shirt; then she cut a bit of hair from behind my ear, and the third time a bit of a fingernail, and threw them all into the fire, muttering something to herself, like an old witch.’
    â€˜My! My! My!’ exclaimed Father Whelan.
    â€˜And you got better?’ said the Bishop, with a quelling glance at the Canon.
    â€˜I did, my lord,’ said Father Fogarty. ‘But that wasn’t the strangest part of it.’ He leaned across the table, scowling, and dropped his eager, boyish voice to a whisper. ‘I got better, but her two sons, my first cousins, two of the finest-looking lads you ever laid eyes on, died inside a year.’ Then he sat back, took out a cigar, and scowled again. ‘Now,’ he asked, ‘wasn’t that extraordinary? I say, wasn’t it extraordinary?’
    â€˜Ah, whatever was waiting to get you,’ Father Whelan said philosophically, emptying his pipe on his plate, ‘I suppose it had to get something. More or less the same thing happened to an old aunt of mine. The cock used to sleep in the house, on a perch over the door – you know, the old-fashioned way. One night the old woman had occasion to go out, and when she went to the door, the cock crowed three times and then dropped dead at her feet. Whatever was waiting for her, of course,’ he added with a sigh.
    â€˜Well! Well! Well!’ said the Canon. ‘I’m astonished at you, Father Whelan. Absolutely astonished! I can’t imagine how you can repeat these old wives’ tales.’
    â€˜I don’t see what there is to be astonished about, Canon,’ said the Bishop. ‘It wasn’t anything worse than what happened to Father Muldoon.’
    â€˜That was a bad business,’ muttered Father Whelan, shaking his head.
    â€˜What was it, exactly?’ asked Father Devine.
    â€˜I told you he was always denouncing old Johnnie,’ said the Bishop. ‘One day, he went up the Glen to see him; they had words, and he struck the old man. Within a month he got a breaking-out on his knee.’
    â€˜He lost the leg after,’ Father Whelan said, stuffing his pipe again.
    â€˜I suppose next you’ll say it was the fairies’ revenge,’ said the Canon, throwing his discretion to the winds. It was too much for him; a man who knew Church history, had lived in France, and knew the best vintages backwards.
    â€˜That was what Father Muldoon