“Destruction on you,” said Donal, then; “it’s you’re the ungrateful man; I let you out of the coffin; I gave you a heat at the fire, and a share of my bed; and now you won’t keep quiet; but I’ll put you out of the bed.” Then the dead man spoke, and said: “You are a valiant man, and it stood you upon[31] to be so, or you would be dead.” “Who would kill me?” said Donal. “I,” says the dead man; “there never came any one here this twenty years back, that I did not kill. Do you know the man who paid you for remaining here?” “He was a gentleman,” said Donal. “He is my son,” said the dead man, “and he thinks that you will be dead in the morning; but come with me now.”
The dead man took him down into the cellar, and showed him a great flag. “Lift that flag. There are three pots under it, and they filled with gold. It is on account of the gold they killed me; but they did not get the gold. Let yourself have a pot, and a pot for my son, and the other one—divide it on the poor people.” Then he opened a door in the wall, and drew out a paper, and said to Donal: “Give this to my son, and tell him that it was the butler who killed me, for my share of gold. I can get no rest until he’ll be hanged; and if there is a witness wanting I will come behind you in the court without a head on me, so that everybody can see me. When he will be hanged, you will marry my son’s daughter, and come to live in this castle. Let you have no fear about me, for I shall have gone to eternal rest. Farewell now.”
Donal went to sleep, and he did not awake till the gentleman came in the morning, and he asked him did he sleep well, or where did the old man whom he left with him go? “I will tell you that another time; I have a long story to tell you first.” “Come to my house with me,” says the gentleman.
When they were going to the house, whom should they see coming out of the bushes, but the poor man without a thread on him, more than the night he was born, and he shaking with the cold. The gentleman got him his clothes, gave him his wages, and off for ever with him.
Donal went to the gentleman’s house, and when he ate and drank his enough, he said: “I have a story to tell you.” Then he told him everything that happened to him the night before, until he came as far as the part about the gold. “Come with me till I see the gold,” said the gentleman. He went to the castle, he lifted the flag, and when he saw the gold, he said: “I know now that the story is true.”
When he got the entire information from Donal, he got a warrant against the butler; but concealed the crime it was for. When the butler was brought before the judge, Donal was there, and gave witness. Then the judge read out of his papers, and said: “I cannot find this man guilty without more evidence.”
“I am here,” said Trunk-without-head, coming behind Donal. When the butler saw him, he said to the judge: “Go no farther, I am guilty; I killed the man, and his head is under the hearth-stone in his own room.” Then the judge gave order to hang the butler, and Trunk-without-head went away.
The day on the morrow, Donal was married to the gentleman’s daughter, and got a great fortune with her, and went to live in the castle.
A short time after this, he got ready his coach and went on a visit to his mother.
When Dermod saw the coach coming, he did not know who the great man was who was in it. The mother came out and ran to him, saying: “Are you not my own Donal, the love of my heart you are? I was praying for you since you went.” Then Dermod asked pardon of him, and got it. Then Donal gave him a purse of gold, saying at the same time: “There’s the price of the two loads of oats, of the horses, and of the cart.” Then he said to his mother: “You ought to come home with me. I have a fine castle without anybody in it but my wife and the servants.” “I will go with you,” said the mother; “and I will remain with you till I die.”