Jack and the Devil's Purse Read Online Free PDF Page B

pocket. The old man opened the other pocket and the old woman dropped in the Bible.
    Well, when she dropped the Bible into that coat pocket the coat jumped about ten feet in the air! And the arms started to flap, and it was up and down and running about same as it was demented. Till the old woman said to old John:
    ‘Run and catch it! Stand on it!’
    The old man got a terrible fright and old Maggie got a terrible fright. The old man was shaking like the leaf o’ a tree and so was the old woman. The old man began to realise now there was something far wrong with this coat.
    So the old man stood on it with his feet. And the old woman leaned down. She put her hand in the pocket and took the Bible out.
    ‘Now, John,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell ye; I’m goin to the church. You walk along with me to the bridge. Take that coat wi ye.’
    Old Maggie said, ‘I’m no bidin here myself. I’ll walk wi yese.’ So, the three o’ them walked along to the bridge.
    And the old woman said: ‘Where did ye find the coat?’
    He says, ‘I found it just there – that bad bend, the dark corner at the bridge. It was lyin across the road.’
    So the old woman says, ‘Roll it up in a knot!’
    And the old man rolled it up like that.
    ‘Now,’ she says, ‘throw it over the bridge!’ And the old woman opened the Bible and she said:
    ‘
God bless us all
!’ while the old man flung the coat over the bridge. When it hit the water it went in
a blaze o’ fire
and disappeared.
    The old man looked: ‘God bless me,’ he said to the old woman, ‘it definitely was
the Devil’s coat
.’
    So the old henwife said, ‘Aye John, that was
the Devil’s coat
. That was lost when he came here on Hallowe’en night. But it never was lost. It was left ‘specially for you: if you’d hae spent that sixpence, you’d hae been with the Devil!’
    ‘Well,’ he said to the old woman, ‘thank God you saved me.’
    And the old man put his arm round his old wife and the two o’ them walked home. The old man said to her, ‘Look, as long as I live, Maggie, never again will I cross that brig at night-time.’
    And from that day on the old man never crossed that bridge again till whatever day he died. He was the nicest old man to his old wife in the world. And life went on as if nothing ever had happened.
    And that’s the last o’ my wee story.

Boy and the Knight
    In the West Coast of Scotland is Loch Awe. And in that loch is a castle, ruins now – just ruins – the walls are there but nothing else. The castle is called ‘Woe be tae ye’, what I was told, and no one as far as I know has ever known where it really began. But during the rainy season in Argyll the castle is surrounded by water, but when it comes a dry summer the loch dries up and ye can walk to the castle across the beach – which is only a fresh-water loch – it sits on about half an acre of land. And there’s such beautiful grass round the island.
    So, a long time ago there lived an old widow and her son, they had a little croft on the mainland on Loch Aweside. She’d only one son, her husband had died many years ago and left her the one son. But she had some goats and some sheep and some cattle, and they had a wonderful life together. But her son was just about ten years old, and he had so many goats they had no food for them.
    So one day she said, ‘Son, take the goats out to find some food for them.’
    ‘Mummy,’ he says, ‘why don’t I take them down to the island?’
    She said, ‘Son, you can’t get tae the island today; the water is not low enough tae get across to the island.’
    He says, ‘Mummy, I think after a dry spell, I think we could get across.’
    So the young boy takes about five or six goats and they all follow him because they knew him as a baby. And the water then was only about two inches deep because it had been a dry summer. He walks across onto the little island in the middle of Loch Awe. The castle is surrounded by all these beautiful grasses