The gentleman came well early in the morning. ‘What rest didst thou find, John?’
‘Good rest,’ said John. ‘Thy father was not the man that would frighten me.’ [[279]]
‘Right, good John, thou shalt have two hundred pund, and lie to-night in the castle.’
‘I am the man that will do that,’ said John.
And that night it was the very like. There came three tawny women, and a dead man’s kist with them amongst them. They threw it up to the side of the fireplace, and they took their soles out of that. John arose, and with the heel of his boot he broke the head of the kist, and he dragged out of it the old hoary man. And, as he did the night before, he set him sitting in the big chair, and gave him pipe and baccy; and he let them fall.
‘Oh! poor man,’ said John, ‘cold is on thee.’
Then he gave him a cogie of drink, and he let that fall also.
‘Oh! poor man, thou art cold.’
The bodach went as he did the night before. ‘But,’ said John to himself, ‘if I stay here this night, and that thou shouldst come, thou shalt pay my pipe and baccy, and my cogie of drink.’
The gentleman came early enough in the morning, and he asked, ‘What rest didst thou find last night, John?’