My Watch.

I must tell you my story myself, that is the story of my watch, and bad luck to it, for it was small comfort to me; and what have I now left of it, but to tell the trouble it brought upon me?

One day of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-three, Tim Looney, the parish schoolmaster, a mighty learned man, from whom I got my learning, went up to Dublin, to get his lease renewed with ’Squire Beamish, who is now dead and gone, rest his soul. Well, as I was saying, Tim Looney went up to Dublin, and had just come back, when of course all the neighbours came to hear the news from the big city, and Molly Mahone, as you can imagine, thrust herself before them all, saying—

“Come, you auld pictur card, when are you goin’ to tell us the news? What is the good of you, you auld worm, if you canna even speak?”

You know Moll is rather hasty.

“Och, and it’s more wonders I have to tell than one of you will believe. I saw the great Boneparte riding on a flea, and the Dook of Wellington by his side, quite friendly like.” “And was Boneparte a very big man?” said I.

“I don’t know,” said Tim; “I’ve heard say he was a little man, but they call him the great Boneparte for all that.”

“He was a great man,” said Moll to me, “just as you are a great fool, so hauld yer tongue, will ye, and let Tim go on.”

Tim did go on, and told us many other great wonders; but it’s of myself I want to speak. Well, then, after Tim had told us all he had seen, he gave me such a fine large silver watch, and a thirty shilling note, which my sister, Biddy, had sent from Merica, for me to buy a new fiddle with, for she had heard that I was great in music. I put the watch in my pocket to keep it safe, and then I examined the note all over, thinking all the while how beautiful I would play on my new fiddle; but Tim soon stopped me by asking me what o’clock it was.

After looking at the sun, which he himself had taught me, I told him it must be about two; when he said, “And why can’t you look at the watch, and tell me the exact minute it is?”

I didn’t look at my watch, for I thought it was making game of me he was, but I said, “And how should she tell me the time of day? Can she speak?”

“You are a big fool, Paul,” he said; “look at her face, and see where her hands point to.” That she should be able to tell me the time, and have a face and hands, with which she points, was too much, so I burst out laughing, but I took her out of my pocket.

“There,” Tim said, “don’t you see something sticking out on her face? Those are her hands, and you see they point to numbers; but may be it’s your numbers you don’t know, after all my teaching.”

This provoked me, so I looked at what he called her face, and saw the numbers, sure enough, and the things he called the hands too. “Well,” Tim went on, “and what number does the short hand point to?” “None,” said I, “for it points just half way between the two and the three.” “Then the long hand points to six, and it’s half-past two it is,” Tim said. “And how does all this happen?” I asked, for I was sorely puzzled, Tim knowing too where the long hand pointed, without my telling him.

“Put her up to your ear,” he said, “and she will tell you how she works.”

I did as I was told, and heard her go “tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick.” As I listened to her a mighty fear came over me, and I flung her from me, crying out, “The crittur does talk some unnatural language, and perhaps she’ll bite too.”

Tim caught her, and exclaimed, “What a fool you are, Paul!” for he was now quite angry; “if I had not caught her she would have been done for entirely.” After he had held her some time in his hands, seeing there was no harm in her, I took her again and went home. I was half afraid of her, so did not look at her again till night, when the big varmint, Pat Molloy, came in, shouting fit to frighten the life out of one.

“Is it a watch I hear you’ve got, Paul?”

“Those ugly long ears of yours heard right,” I answered, for I did not much like Pat. “And may be then you’ll be after telling one the time it is.” With that I pulled out the watch, and looked at her; but I had clean forgotten what Tim had told me, though I recollected something about her hands pointing to a number, so seeing something pointing to seven, I said at once, “It’s near seven o’clock,” for I did not like to be looking too long, to be laughed at by that fellow.

“And it’s near seven, it is,” Pat said. “You’re a fine fellow to have a watch. It’s a turnip you might as well have in your pocket, for it’s long past eight, it is.” The pride of the O’Moors and of the O’Doughertys was taken out of me entirely quite by that rascal, for I felt it rush from the soles of my feet into my head, but I wouldn’t get into a passion, for him to see that I was in the wrong, so I said, “And if you know the time so well, why do you ask me?”

Pat only burst into a hoarse laugh, and ran out of the cabin to tell every one, he could show his ugly face to. I went to bed to drown my troubles, but it was one long night-mare I had; first the watch and then the fiddle dancing on my chest, grinning at me all the while, with Pat Molloy looking on.

My first thought on waking in the morning was my watch, and looking up to her, for I had hung her on a nail, as I had been told, I said, “Good morning to you, how are you this morning, my dear?” for I thought it best to be civil to her, but no answer did she make me. I spoke to her again, and as she was still silent I took her down from the nail and held her to my ear.

“Och, it’s dead she is,” I cried, as she still gave no signs of life, and I rushed across to Tim’s. I knocked at his window, shouting, “Are you awake?” “No,” he said; “why should I be awake at this time o’morning?”

“Then,” said I, “you must listen to me in your sleep, for it’s dead she is, and what will I do at all?” “I hope she had the benefit of the Clergy,” Tim cried, starting up and coming to the window. “It’s not that I mean, it’s not my mother at all, it’s the watch that’s dead,” I explained.

“Leave me in peace then,” he said, going back to his bed; but as I would not leave him in peace, but kept crying out, “What will I do?” he growled, “Wind her up, you fool; she’s not dead at all; but give her here, and the key, or it’s ruin her you will.”

So I gave him the watch and the barn-door key, which I happened to have in my pocket. It was well for me that I turned my head on one side, as I thought I heard some one coming, for just then the key came whizzing past my ear.

“I wish it had broken your lubberly head,” Tim cried, in the biggest rage I ever saw him. “It’s the little key I want; the one with the bit of red tape I gave you yesterday.”

I fortunately found the funny little thing in my pocket, but it was not a bit like a key. As soon as I gave it him he twisted and twirled it about in her, till I heard her cry, and then he said—

“There, take her away, for she is all right again, and mind you don’t let me see you for a whole week, or surely it’s murder you I will.”

Now, mind this and you’ll see how strangely things come about. If it had not been for this what Tim said, I should not have had to tell you the story of[137]
[138] my watch, or it would not have ended as it now must. If Tim had told me about winding her up the night before I should not have disturbed him in the morning, and he would not have been so angry, and would not have told me not to see him again for a week. He has since said that he did not mean a word of that; and, had I but known it, that tarnation Pat could not have cheated me; however I will tell you how it happened.

Directly after I left Tim, whom should I meet but Pat, who spoke quite civil, saying, “Well, Paul, and how’s the watch? I’ve been thinking since I heard her ‘glucking’ last night that it’s to lay she wants, and that if she had a nest you’d have some young watches in a day or two.”

“Do you think so?” said I.

“I’m sure of it,” said he; so we went along to the barn together and made her a nice comfortable nest of hay.

“Now,” he said, as he laid her in it, and covered her up quite warm and snug, “you must not go near or disturb her for five days, or it’s desert her nest she will, and you’ll have no younguns.”

Well, to finish with my story, after five days I went to the nest, and what do you think I found? No younguns, nor the old watch neither, but a big turnip. I ran to Pat’s, but he had gone off to America. I never saw my watch again; but up to this day the boys call out, when they are out of my reach—

“Paul, tell us what o’clock it is.”