Cape Breton's Magazine

in and it would be open in the morning. Had to leave there. Well, that was all right. Jack was getting old, you know, running here and there and having a good time drinking and having great fun. My God Almighty, look here. He came. "Well, you're not getting home today. You're going with me." "I'll go with you," he said. They were going walking down the road there in the town--and there was a barroom. "Well," he said, "I'd like to have a drink of rum," he said. "I'm pretty thirsty." "All right," he says. "I've got no money," he says. "They say the devil goes in every kind of shape there is in the world. Will you go in a fifty-cent piece?" he told the devil. he said, "I'll go in a fifty-cent "Yes,' piece. When he won his fifty-cent piece, he put it in his pocketbook and he turned back the road. He was home for maybe 50 years. He was getting to be an old man. His purse was getting heavier and getting big and getting heavier. At last he couldn't carry it. The devil was swelling up in his pock? etbook. He went and he got 12 or 13 of the strong? est men he could find (and) a big hammer apiece. He got them and he took them in the forge and he laid the pocketbook on top of the anvil and started hammering on? to it. They were hammering there for about half a day. At last they cut a hole in the pocketbook and he got out. The devil got out of the pocketbook. He jijmped clear and he took the forge and everything in a big pond of water and no more, end of the devil. He was always worrying. His children strayed away. His wife died and he was all alone. "Well, there's no use (for me) to try to get to Hell and less to Heaven," he said. He started travelling. He was going, going there for a good many days, and at last he got two branches of a road. One road was going east, the other was going west. He took the road was going west and it didn't go very far anyway. He got at the gate of Heaven anyway. Oh (there) was an angel met him at the gate. "Don't come here," he said. "You're too bad to come in here. You can't get over these gates. Go back where you came from. Won't let you in here." He drove him away. Well, he said he'd go the other road. He went the other road. There he was, going for a piece, the other branch was going east. He went about a few miles. He seen a man coming. One elbow and one knee. "Are you Hoare's (whore's) son?" he said. "Don't come in here, because," he said, "don't you remember you tricked me three times and you pretty near killed me the last time?" he said. "You hammered me all to pieces, you broke me leg, you broke me arm," he says, "but the...I'11 give to you," he says. "I'll use a spa'rk of fire. You're between Hell and Heaven and all o- ver the world," he said. "Every spark of fire seen in the night, that's you," he said. "We'll call you 'Jack the Lanter? en, '" he says. And I never knew more about it. That one you can call a story. Question: Now where did you learn that? Rory: Never mind. This story, also collected by Dr. Creigh? ton in 1961, is a good one with, unfortun? ately, an ending that turns it suddenly into a joke. Otherwise, it's an excellent, imaginative tale, and certainly one worth sharingT" Well, I was one time in Pleasant Bay, up about a good many years ago. I went to Che- ticamp and we were storm-stayed up there. And I told my brother we would walk home. It was kind of late in the evening. While I was walking down, you know, the place they call Cape Rouge Island down away, down at the lower place of Cheticamp-- there was a man walked up from the beach and was all full of kelp, seaweed and eve? rything. "Hello, Rory," he said. CONTINUED M SYC&'EY 200 '' ' _ 1785-1985 Sydney 200 Years y'U'?? make the difference f'0liS* t # faites toute la difference North Sydney 100 Years