“And how do you know but there will be much cattle at the fair, and you will get a bad price, or maybe you might be robbed when you are coming home? but what need I talk more to you, when you are determined to throw away your luck, Mick Purcell.”
“Oh! no, I would not throw away my luck, sir,” said Mick, “and if I was sure the bottle was as good as you say, though I never liked an empty bottle, although I had drank the contents of it, I’d give you the cow in the name——”
“Never mind names,” said the stranger, “but give me the cow; I would not tell you a lie. Here, take the bottle, and when you go home do what I direct exactly.”
Mick hesitated.
“Well, then, good-bye, I can stay no longer: once more take it, and be rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in poverty, and your wife dying for want—that will happen to you, Mick Purcell!” said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him look ten times more ugly than ever.
“Maybe, ’tis true,” said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what to do—he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a fit of desperation, he seized the bottle. “Take the cow,” said he, “and if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you.”
“I care neither for your curses nor your blessings; but I have spoken truth, Mick Purcell, and that you will find to-night, if you do what I tell you.”
“And what’s that?” says Mick.
