There was a certain desolate crossroads on the way between two villages, and there they say the devil used to sit in the form of a crow up on top of the signpost, bedraggled and wet as anything, and they do say that he would wait for unwary travelers. Not a soul ever saw him, but they saw many more things at that crossroads; though whether the devil had a hand in those I can’t tell you.
Now one dark night Molly O’Reilly was coming down the road. The fog was creeping in so that she could not find her way very well, but the crossroad signpost stood far above the fog, and there she paused for a moment. Cold all over she was, and wet from the rain, her hands shaking.
“A bit of a drink would be just the thing,” she said to herself, and no sooner had she said it than a little man all in black and silver popped out of the signpost with a tin mug in his hand. “Never ask twice,” he said.
“Why, thank you,” Molly told him, “and your health anyway,” knowing something of what he was, and so she drank the mug dry.
“Not so fast, then,” the man said. “What’ll you pay me?”
Molly looked at him and laughed, for if he’d been a few inches shorter she could have fitted him in her pocket, and have room left over. “I’ve no money, as it is,” she said to him. “Will you make a bargain?”
The man looked at Molly out of his little pale eyes most unpleasantly. Then he opened his mouth, and began to chant, in a whining droning voice.
“No bargain have I made with you, and none will I make
But I’ll have the cold heart of you, and your life I will take.”
And he took a pair of scissors, and cut out the heart of Molly O’Reilly. Then he took a needle and some black thread, with which he sewed up the hole, quick and neat as anything – then he threw Molly to the side of the road, and went away whistling.
Now nobody passed that way all the next day, and so Molly’s body lay there undisturbed until midnight, when a drunken Will King blundered against it on his way home.
“A crying shame, poor thing, and all the O’Reillys still out looking.” Tears began to roll down his face, and he wished he’d had another drink before he’d left. Then the little man came out of the signpost with the same mug in his hand, and Will King took it and drained it to the bottom.
“Poor thing,” he said.
“Poor thing,” the man said.
“What do you know of it?”
“More than I could tell you.”
Will, thinking it a shame that the woman should lie there in the mud, lifted up her body. But when he did her coat fell aside, showing the long neat line of black stitches on her breast, and with a cry he dropped her. He would have taken to his heels, but the little man reappeared behind him in the road.
“Now then, Will King you ingrate,” he said. “I gave you drink and you said nothing to it; what will you give me?”
Will felt about in his pockets, but he knew already he had no money left. “Out the way, fairy, I’ve nothing and I’ll not bargain with you,” he cried, but the little man said nothing, only smiled.
“I’ll not bargain with you!”
“No bargain have I made with you, and none will I make
But I’ll have the cold heart of you, and your life I will take,”
the little man said, and he took his scissors and snipped out Will King’s heart. He put it in a small glass jar and stowed it safely away (for his coat was all over pockets and patches), then sewed up the hole with a dozen black stitches. Then he put a tin whistle to his lips and went away playing a reel.
In this manner were also taken Timothy Leary and his wife Judith, and John McGill. Their bodies lay undecaying by the side of the road, watched over by crows, who dared not come nearer.
Then on Friday night came Tom Kennedy, back from visiting his sweetheart, and in the fog he stopped at the crossroads, fearing he’d lost his way. All around the crossroads the fog gathered, thick as anything, but the bodies lay untouched by the side of the road, ringed about with clover.
“I’m dreaming,” Tom said to himself, “or else I need a drink.” And out came the little man with his mug, grinning to show his pointed teeth.
“And what are you then?” Tom asked.
“Your servant, Tom Kennedy,” the little man said, and bowed, his trouser legs riding up to show his scarlet stockings underneath. “Drink?”
This gave Tom pause, for he was a clever man, and had listened very carefully to all the old tales. “And what’s your price?”
“Did I say it?” The little man’s smile grew, larger than it should have given the size of his mouth. “Will you not drink?”
“No, I think I won’t, thank you kindly all the same; my luck’s not what it was five years ago.” Tom knelt beside the body of Timothy Leary. By the light of his lantern the black stitches in it seemed to shimmer and writhe.
“Oh, so that’s it,” Tom said. “What have you done with their hearts, fairy?”
The night grew darker around the little man, and he swelled up with anger like a bladder, shadows crawling down his face.
“No bargain have I made with you, and none will I make
But I’ll have the cold heart of you, and your life I will take,”
he said, and took out his pair of scissors, sharp as the north wind and wicked silver.
“I’ve had nothing of you, liar,” Tom said. “Drink it yourself and be damned to you, for I’ll not take it.”
Then the little man set up a wailing that was horrible to hear, and he begged and pleaded, but Tom would hear none of it. In the end the little man drank from his cup till even the dregs were gone, and the liquid burned out his eyes, and shriveled him all away until nothing was left but his coat and his scarlet stockings.
The next day men came to dig up the crossroads, and they found five jars buried beneath it. The fifth was empty, but the other four contained the still-beating hearts of Will King, Timothy and Judith Leary, and John McGill. These Tom Kennedy took to a wise woman, and persuaded her to put them back into the bodies: whereupon the four of them opened their eyes and wept to see the sunlight again. They lived many long years after that, and died of old age.
But the heart of Molly O’Reilly nobody could find, and they buried her in the churchyard on Monday afternoon.
Wow, this was a fantastic read, and the style is pleasant and folksy and spooky, as it should be. :)