‘Good rest,’ said John. ‘It was not the hoary bodach, thy father, that would put fear on me.’
‘Och!’ said the gentleman, ‘if thou stayest to-night thou shalt have three hundred pund.’
‘It’s a bargain,’ said John.
When it was a while of the night there came four tawny women, and a dead man’s kist with them amongst them. And they set that down at the side of John. John arose, and he drew his foot, and he drove the head out of the kist. And he dragged out the old hoary man, and he set him in the big chair. He reached him the pipe and the baccy, the cup and the drink; but the old man let them fall, and they were broken.
‘Och!’ said John, ‘before thou goest this night, thou shalt pay me all thou hast broken.’
But word came there not from the head of the bodach. Then John took the belt of his abersgaic,[4] and he tied the bodach to his side, and he took him with him to bed. When the heath-cock crowed, the bodach asked him to let him go. [[280]]
‘Pay what thou hast broken first,’ said John.
‘I will tell thee, then,’ said the old man, ‘there is a cellar of drink under, below me, in which there is plenty of drink, tobacco, and pipes. There is another little chamber beside the cellar, in which there is a caldron full of gold. And under the threshold of the big door there is a crocky full of silver. Thou sawest the women that came with me to-night?’
‘I saw,’ said John.
‘Well, there thou hast four women from whom I took the cows, and they in extremity. They are going with me every night thus, punishing me. But go thou and tell my son how I am being wearied out. Let him go and pay the cows, and let him not be heavy on the poor. Thou thyself and he may divide the gold and silver between you; and marry thyself my old girl. But mind, give plenty of gold of what is left to the poor, on whom I was too hard. And I will find rest in the world of worlds.’