“Hot, hot under my chair!”
The servants were in odious dread, full sure they’d be found out and hunted from the place. For the butter cake was steaming mad from the fire, and the child never quit shouting:
“Hot, hot under my chair!”
He didn’t let another word out of him but only the one thing, saying it maybe a hundred times after other:
“Hot, hot under my chair.”
Well, if he was to say it a hundred times, or a thousand itself, Nallagh and the wife could not know what in under the shining Heaven he was striving for to tell. They were all of a tremblement with the wonder of the speech coming to him, and they never thought to consider was there sense in the words at all. It was a great miracle, surely, to hear the creature that never made a sound before, and he roaring out:
“Hot, hot under my chair!”
The old people were that put about they never thought to look round the place to see was anything astray; and I promise you the two heroes didn’t ask to clash on themselves.
The whole house was left through other until the fall of night, and every person in it was weary to the world with the dread and surprise was on them. After dark the mother puts the son to bed, fixing him up right comfortable. But it was not a sweet rest was laid out for the people of that house.
In the darkness of the black midnight, a powerful great storm shook the place. It was like as if the four winds of Heaven were striving together, and they horrid vexed with one another. There were strange noises in it too, music and shouting, the way it was easy knowing the Good People were out playing themselves, or maybe disputing in a war.