“Very well and good. When Saturday evening came, Manis joined Donal, and off they both trudged to Donal’s father-in-law’s.”
The old man was not too well pleased at seeing Donal bringing a fresh hand, but Manis, he didn’t pretend to see this, but made himself as welcome as the flowers in May. And when supper was laid down on Saturday night, Manis gave Donal the nudge, and both of them began to tie their shoes as if they had got loose, and they tied and tied away at their shoes, till the old man had eaten a couple of minutes, and then said grace and finished and got up from the table, thinking they wouldn’t have the ill-manners to sit down after the meal was over.
But down to the table my brave Manis and Donal sat, and ate their hearty skinful. And when the old fellow saw this, he was gruff and grumpy enough, and it was little they could get out of him between that and bedtime.
But Manis kept a lively chat going, and told good stories, that passed away the night; and when bedtime came and they offered Manis a bed in the room, Manis said no, that there was no place he could sleep only one, and that was along the fireside.
The old man and the old woman both objected to this, and said they couldn’t think of allowing a stranger to sleep there; but all they could say or do wasn’t any use, and Manis said he couldn’t and wouldn’t sleep in any other place, and insisted on lying down there, and lie down there he did in spite of them all, and they all went off to their beds.
But though Manis lay down, he was very careful not to let himself go to sleep; and when he was near about two hours lying he hears the room door open easy, and the old woman puts her head out and listens, and Manis he snored as if he hadn’t slept for ten days and ten nights before.
When the old woman heard this, she came on up the floor and looked at him, and saw him like as if he was dead asleep. Then she hastened to put a pot of water on the fire, and began to make a pot of stir-about for herself and the old man, for this was the way, as Manis had well suspected, that they used to cheat Donal.
But just in the middle of the cooking of the pot of stir-about, doesn’t Manis roll over and pretend to waken up? Up he sits, and rubs his eyes, and looks about him, and looks at the woman and at the pot on the fire.
“Ah,” says he, “is it here ye are, or is it mornin’ with ye?”
“Well, no,” says she, “it isn’t mornin’, but we have a cow that’s not well, and I had to put a mash on the fire here for her. I’m sorry I wakened ye.”