Jack, of course, he went to the wake and to the funeral, and sympathized sore with Donal and Donal’s wife both. But the very next night after the funeral, Jack dug up the corpse to get the money, as it was so useful to him. Then he took the old woman’s body on his shoulder and carried it off to Donal’s, and went down into Donal’s wine cellar. He put it sitting in a chair by a puncheon there, and put a glass into its hand, and turned on the wine.
In the morning Donal’s first race was always to the cellar to have a drink, and when he came down this morning he fell over and fainted with the fright when he saw his old mother-in-law sitting by the puncheon drinking. When he came to himself he had her taken up and laid out in the wake-room again.
Jack, he came walking over to see Donal like to bid him the time of day in the morning. “Good morning to you, Donal,” says he, “and how do you find yourself this morning?”
“Och! Och! Och! Jack! Jack!” says Donal, says he, “I’m in a terrible fix entirely.”
“Why, what’s the matter? ”says Jack.
“Why,” says he, “my old mother-in-law got up out of the grave in the night time and came back; and when I went down to the cellar in the morning to get a drink of wine, there was the old lady sitting by the puncheon, and she having the puncheon drunk empty. What am I to do at all, at all?” says he.
“ Well,” says Jack, says he, “I know why she got up out of her grave again.”
“For what did she?” says Donal.
“Because you didn’t bury her half decently,” says Jack, “you only put ten pound under her head, and it’s fifty pound you should have put.”