There lived not long since, on the borders of the county Tipperary, a decent honest couple, whose names were Mick Flannigan and Judy Muldoon. These poor people were blessed, as the saying is, with four children, all boys: three of them were as fine, stout¹, healthy, good-looking children as ever the sun shone upon; and it was enough to make any Irishman proud of the breed of his countrymen to see them about one o'clock on a fine summer's day standing² at their father's cabin[33] door, with their beautiful flaxen hair hanging in curls about their head, and their cheeks like two rosy³ apples, and a big laughing potato smoking in their hand. A proud man was Mick of these fine children, and a proud woman, too, was Judy; and reason enough they had to be so. But it was far otherwise with the remaining one, which was the third eldest⁴: he was the most miserable⁵, ugly, ill-conditioned brat⁶ that ever God put life into; he was so ill-thriven that he never was able to stand alone, or to leave his cradle; he had long, shaggy, matted, curled hair, as black as the soot⁷; his face was of a greenish-yellow colour; his eyes were like two burning coals, and were for ever moving in his head, as if they had the perpetual motion. Before he was a twelvemonth old he had a mouth full of great teeth; his hands were like kites' claws, and his legs were no thicker than the handle of a whip, and about as straight as a reaping-[34]hook: to make the matter worse, he had the appetite of a cormorant⁸, and the whinge, and the yelp⁹, and the screech¹⁰, and the yowl, was never out of his mouth.