Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/67

Rh people are for bringing me to the mill or the kiln, so that they won't see me, for they have me perished doing work for them?"

"I'll do that, indeed," said the tailor, "and welcome."

He brought the spade and shovel, and he made a hole, and he said to the old white horse to go down into it till he would see if it would fit him. The white horse went down into the hole, but when he tried to come up again he was not able.

"Make a place for me now," said the white horse, "by which I'll come up out of the hole here, whenever I'll be hungry."

"I will not," said the tailor; "remain where you are until I come back, and I'll lift you up."

The tailor went forward next day, and the fox met him.

"God save you," said the fox.

"God and Mary save you."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to Dublin, to try will I be able to make a court for the king."

"Would you make a place for me where I'd go hiding?" said the fox. "The rest of the foxes do be beating me, and they don't allow me to eat anything along with them."

"I'll do that for you," said the tailor.

He took with him his axe and his saw, and he cut rods, until he made, as you would say, a thing like a cleeve (creel), and he desired the fox to get into it till he would see whether it would fit him. The fox went into it, and when the tailor got him down, he clapped his thigh on the hole that the fox got in by. When the fox was satisfied at last that he had a nice place of it within, he asked the tailor to let him out, and the tailor answered that he would not.