All came about as it was put on his eyes in the vision. Not a many days went by before the likeness of the great black goat threw its strength against him in the field. Three sore batterings he be to endure, the way he was left lying on the grass with every bone of him tormented in pain and a cold fear at his soul.
When the wounds were healed on his body and the passing of time restored his mind to a better peace, didn’t he behold a third dream of the night:—
He stood in the lane between his house and the field, and the appearance of a great turkey cock flew down upon him from the sky.
At that he let a hearty laugh, and he roused up in his bed.
“Sure the devil has little wit to be thinking I’ll take my death from the like,” says he. “And how would it be possible a fine, stout-hearted lad could be scared by the fowls of the sky!”
He laughed that night, and he laughed at the noon of day when the bird flew against him in the lane. But the appearance of the turkey cock opened the joining of his skull with one blow of the beak like a sharpened knife was upon it. The second stroke and the third dashed the brains from his head and scattered them grey on the brown and dusty path.
And that is the how he came to a bad death as his companion promised him, and the dark oath was accomplished no spite of the power of the grave.
We that are yet in this world know well where we are, but ignorance is on us of where we be to repair. Sure the passing of the spirit is the strangest and awfullest thing was ever devised or heard tell of. It was said in the ancient times and is well known to this present that the soul quits the body by the joining of the skull. The eyes have seen evil, the ears have heard it, and the mouth has made laughter and speech of the same: how then would they be a right and a fitting doorway for the feet of the spirit to pass! Moreover, I have heard tell that the skull of man and the skull of woman are different one from another—and it is the soul of herself has the sorest departure from the flesh.