“Better than you can,” answered Towtas, “for she can never want.”
Then he told him all about the manna; how he went out every morning when it was lying on the ground with the dew, and gathered it, as his father and forefathers had done before him, and lived on it all their lives, so that he had never known want nor any of his people.
Then the girl showed she would like to stay with the young man, and the pedlar consented, and they were married, Towtas and the fair young maiden; and the pedlar left them and went his way. So years went on, and they were very happy and never wanted; and they had one son, a bright, handsome youth, and as clever as he was comely.
But in due time old Towtas died, and after her husband was buried, the woman went out to gather the manna as she had seen him do, when the dew lay on the ground; but she soon grew tired and said to herself, “Why should I do this thing every day? I’ll just gather now enough to do the week and then I can have rest.”
So she gathered up great heaps of it greedily, and went her way into the house. But the sin of greediness lay on her evermore; and not a bit of manna fell with the dew that evening, nor ever again. And she was poor, and faint with hunger, and had to go out and work in the fields to earn the morsel that kept her and her son alive; and she begged pence from the people as they went into chapel, and this paid for her son’s schooling; so he went on with his learning, and no one in the county was like him for beauty and knowledge.
One day he heard the people talking of a great lord that lived up in Dublin, who had a daughter so handsome that her like was never seen; and all the fine young gentlemen were dying about her, but she would take none of them. And he came home to his mother and said, “I shall go see this great lord’s daughter. Maybe the luck will be mine above all the fine young gentlemen that love her.”
“Go along, poor fool,” said the mother, “how can the poor stand before the rich?”
But he persisted. “If I die on the road,” he said, “I’ll try it.”
“Wait, then,” she answered, “till Sunday, and whatever I get I’ll give you half of it.” So she gave him half of the pence she gathered at the chapel door, and bid him go in the name of God.
He hadn’t gone far when he met a poor man who asked him for a trifle for God’s sake. So he gave him something out of his mother’s money and went on. Again, another met him, and begged for a trifle to buy food, for the sake of God, and he gave him something also, and then went on.