A short time ago, a water-diviner was called in he on a neighbouring farm. The existing supply was apt to fail when it was most needed -in warm, dry spells.
Even here, in the West, we get such spells occasionally, when small wells dry up, and those who have rain-water storage-tanks find only a trickle coming from their taps, because there is th: no water running from the eave-chutes. Our neighbour's farm supplies quite a considerable quantity of milk to the local creamery, and, of course, shortage of water is a very serious problem on a dairy farm.
Our diviner is a pleasant-mannered young man, quiet-spoken, with nothing unusual about him. Why we should have expected him to be "odd" in any way we could not explain, but , when there is no cut-and-dry explanation, of some scientific reason, for the work he does, some of us are rather inclined to think there is some mumbo-jumbo about this water-divining business. John (that is our young diviner's name) answered our questions quite frankly, with no hint of mystique whatever.
As we drove along the quiet road which leads to the dairy-farm John told us how, a couple of years ago, he had been on a visit to his aunt's farm in Co. Cavan, where a diviner had been asked to find water, too. John had watched the man at work with his hazel twig, as he searched field after field, till eventually he came to a certain spot. There the diviner had directed the farm- hands to dig, and a splendid spring had been found, about five feet down, which is still going strong.
Afterwards, John had done some experimenting on his own account while the diviner had gone off for some refreshment indoors. .."and it wasn't springwater he got, either" ...he re- marked rather drily. The hazel reacted in his own hands in the same way, and he had tramped all over the place, trying out his new-found powers. When John had returned to his home-place, and people had heard of his prowess with the hazel, he was in great demand "from Dan to Beersheba."
We were passing a small hazel-copse, and John asked us to pull up, till he collected "the tools of his trade", as he called the few small pieces of hazel twig which he cut with his pocket-knife. One of these he trimmed neatly, and we noticed that it was simply a forked twig such as any boy might cut to make a catapult, but rather thinner, about the thickness of a man's little finger. When we reached our friend's farm, without fuss or preamble, John began his search for the spring.
He held the forked hazel twig lightly in both hands, one of the "prongs" in each hand, with the central piece pointing inwards towards his body. As he walked out from the farmyard gate across the fields, we kept alongside, our eyes glued to that bit of wood; no one speaking. John kept moving about the fields nearest the yard; the nearer to the farm-buildings the water would be found, the better. We had entered a small field, which sloped down towards the main road, when we noticed the hazel begin to quiver. The pointer, which he held towards his chest, twisted of its own volition, downwards, till it pointed to the ground at his feet.
John continued his walk, however, resetting the rod in his former position, but again and again it twisted in his fingers and pointed earthwards. He even stepped off course, as if to test whether he was really on a spring or not. When he did the rod lay inert in his hands, but if he stepped round and circled the former spot it quivered and pointed as before.
He directed the men with the picks and shovels where to set to work, and soon their labour was rewarded. At first water just oozed scantily from the sides of the hole as they dug, but when a heavy crowbar was plunged down through the dark clay, to remove a big stone which obstructed the workers, up bubbled a beautiful, strong spring of clear water. The newly- dug hole soon filled and here our neighbour could surely sing for his electric pump, his dry-weather worries now at an end.
Of course, all the would-be diviners got to work with John's bit of hazel, but the gift was not in our hands. As one of the older men put it, we might as well have been carrying around the handle of his grandmother's old broom, for all the response we got.
We thought of Moses of old, striking the rock to give water to thirsty men and their families and flocks in the desert, and we felt that here again, was another prophet, doing the same thing in the twentieth century.