The Snakes and Norah by Jane Barlow

The Kennys' little farmstead was a somewhat amphibious one, occupying the southern end of the isthmus which keeps the Atlantic foam from riding into Lough Fintragh, a small, dark-watered nook niched in the shadow of steep mountain slopes. Another murkier shadow brooded over it in the opinion of the Kennys, who, like most of their neighbours, at least half-believed that its recesses harboured a monstrous in-dweller.

Their thin white house stood fronting the seashore, with a narrow grazing strip behind, while their yard and sheds lay along the dwindling isthmus, which becomes a mere reef-like bar of boulders and shingle before it again touches the mainland. In calm weather Joe Kenny might see his unimposing ricks reflected from ridge to butt, with gleams of ochre and amber and gold in both salt and fresh water; but in stormy times, which came oftener, it might befall him to witness a less pleasing spectacle of hay-wisps and straw-stooks strewn bodily, floating and soaking on the wasteful waves. So he was not surprised to find that this had happened when he walked out one December morning after a wild night whose blustering had mingled menace with his dreams. Despite its close-meshed roping and thick fringe of dangling stone weights, the more exposed haystack had been seriously wrecked and pillaged. "Och, bad cess to the ould win' and its whillaballoos! " said Joe, as he surveyed the distorted outlines, and made a rueful estimate of the damage. "If I got the chance to slit its bastely bellows for it, 'twould be apt to keep its huffin' and puffin' quiet for one while-it would so. " This was not, however, the limit of his losses. Presently he stood looking vexedly over the door of a half-roofed shed, which contained a good deal of sea-water and weed; also a very small red calf, and a large jelly-fish. The calf was drowned dead, but the jelly-fish seemingly lived as much as usual. "Eyah, get out wid you, you unnathural-lookin' blob of a baste! " said Joe, giving this unprofitable addition to his stock a contumelious flick with his blackthorn. "There's another good fifteen shillin's gone on me. I'd never ha' thought 'twould ha' tuk and slopped over the wall that way. Sorra the bit of a Christmas box I'll be able to conthrive her this year, and that's a fac'; and to-morra fair day and all-weary on it!"