There was a gasun hurdin’ in the bog one day and didn’t three gentlemen from the Big House come with two big brindle hounds lookin’ for a hare an’ a chase.
‘Is there no hares at all here?’ says they to the gasun.
‘Indeed in troth there’s bags o’ thim’, sez the codger.
‘Could ye rise one?’ sez one of the gentlemen.
‘In the time it’d take a cricket to rift!’ sez the lad, quick as ye plaze.
‘Well, rise it till we see ye,’ sez the man.
‘Aw, not for nothing’, sez the lad with a wink. Mind ye, he had his head screwed on the right way, wee an’ all as he wus.
‘There’s a big buck half-crown for ye if you rise one’, sez the gentleman.
The gasun took the half-crown, spat on it for luck an’ put it in he’s pocket. Then doesn’t he walk to a bunch o’ rushes an’ give it a kick. Up goes a big darlin’ hare an’ away goes the chase. But the hounds didn’t catch it.
Nixt day doesn’t the gentlemen come agin an’ the wee codger gets another half-crown t’ rise the hare, an’ he rises it, but the devil the catch does the hounds do on it. An’ for four or five days they came, an’ gave him a half-crown, an’ didn’t catch the hare.
But they come this day an’ one o’ the men stayed jookin’ behin’ a whin bush. Hadn’t he a black hound an’ the gasun didn’t see it. So they gave him the half crown an’ up goes the hare again, an’ away goes the dogs like a breeze o’ wind – an’ the black hound with them.
The wee gasun roared the place down.
‘RUN!’ sez he, prancin’ on the ground. ‘Run, Granny, for your life!
It’s a black hound they have the day!’
Ye see, a black hound could catch a bewitched hare. Anyway, she got away.
But wasn’t that a targer of an oul’ lassie, turnin’ herself into a hare?’