The farmer done as she bid, but he was that set in his own conceit he just answers:
“What harm is in a reel foot? It’s no ornament surely, but that’s all there is to it.”
“Many’s the reel foot I’ve laid eyes on,” she says. “But yon is the hoof of a horse.”
“It’s truth you are speaking,” says the gentleman. “I am the devil and no person less.”
“Quit off from here,” says the servant. “A decent girl, like us two, need never be fearing your like. I’d hit you a skelp with the pot stick as soon as I’d stand on a worm.”
“You can’t put me out,” says the devil. “For the man of the house has me promised his daughter.”
“There is no person living,” says Bride, “might have power on the soul of another. If my sins don’t deliver me into your hand the word of my da is no use.”
“Then I’ll be taking himself,” says the devil, making ready to go.
“You may wait till he’s dead,” cries the woman of the house. “He made you no offer of his bones and his flesh.”
“The tongues of three women would argue the devil to death,” says he, and away with him in a grey puff of smoke. The man and woman of the house began for to pray. But says Bride to the servant: