enough for three." Donal went in the middle, the poor man next the wall, and the dead man on the outside. It was not long until the dead man began bruising Donal, and Donal bruising in on the poor man, until he was all as one as dead, and he had to give a leap out through the window, and to leave Donal and the dead man there. The dead man was crushing Donal then until he nearly put him out through the wall.
"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[1] 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
- ↑ That means "It was well for yourself it was so." This old Elizabethan idiom is of frequent occurrence in Connacht English, having with many other Elizabethanisms, either filtered its way across the island from the Pale, or else been picked up by the people from the English peasantry with whom they have to associate when they go over to England to reap the harvest.
