Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/245

Rh "I will give you for life 2 pound a week and the lodge to live in, and will pay all expenses of your marriage."

So he got married and spent a happy lovin' life and his children after him were with the gentleman's heir, until things got bad all over the country. There's some of his friends and relations in Cusheen still.—Told by, aged 82, Cusheen, Co. Clare.

'Tis up to fourscore years now since id happened. There was two great men at every game: hurling, runnin', jumpin', and boxin', trowin waits, [throwing weights] and they could not bate one another. One was Patcheen Vasey and th' other was Thomas Magner. Well, they were at all the sport in the country, but they were still no better than one another.

Well, 'twas the will of God that Vasey got sick, and Magner cum to see him. "How are you, Pat?" says Magner. "I think my sportin' days are over, Tom," says Pat. Well, they spoke of all the jumping and wrastling they ever had, and says Pat, "Tom, we will meet agin." "I hope so," says Tom, "in a better world, with God's help."

They wished good-bye to one another, and, God rest his sowl! that night poor Vasey died. But accordin' to what I'm goin to tell you, his poor sowl wasn't aisey, for he was seen at the corner by a good many, a few nights after. Well, Magner was comin' from Carrigaholt fair one night, about three weeks after Vasey dine [died], when, comin' near the cross, his hair stood of an ind, for who was standin' there but Vasey. "The Lord preserve us!" says Magner. "Is that you, Pat?" "'Tis, Tom," says Pat, "and you must fight me." "Fight a ghost!" says Tom. " Yes," says the ghost, squarin' before him. Tom, nothin' daunted, squared up too, an' meela murther! the fight began. Well, to make a long story short, Tom was found in the mornin', black and blue, beside the road, and he would be dead, only the ghost had to lave when the cock crew, as Tom tould before he died, for he never overed the bating, but lingered for about three monts, when he died; and that corner is to this