Blair Collection > Beside the fire

THE ALP-LUACHRA. 65
now can your honour help me ? " he said, when he had
finished it.
" I hope I can," said the prince ; " anyhow, I'll do
my best for you, as you came so far to see me. I'd
have a bad right not to do my best. Come up into the
parlour with me. The thing that old man told you is
true. You swallowed an alt-pluachra, or something else.
Come up to the parlour with me."
He brought him up to the parlour with him, and it
happened that the meal he had that day was a big piece
of salted beef. He cut a large slice off it, and put it on
a plate, and gave it to the poor man to eat.
" Oro ! what is your honour doing there ? " says the
poor man ; " I didn't swallow as much as the size of an
egg of meat this quarter,* and I can't eat anything."
"Be silent, man," says the prince; "eat that, when I
tell you."
The poor man eat as much as he was able, but when
he left the knife and fork out of his hand, the Prince
made him take them up again, and begin out of the new
(over again). He kept him there eating until he was
ready to burst, and at last he was not able to swallow
another bit, if he were to get a hundred pounds.
When the Prince saw that he would not be able to
swallow any more, he brought him out of the house, and
he said to the daughter and the old beggarman to follow
them, and he brought the man out with him to a fine
green meadow that was forenent t the house, and a
little stream of water running through it.
He brought him to the brink of the stream, and told
him to lie down on his stomach over the stream, and to
hold his face over the water, to open his mouth as wide
* i.e., this quarter of a year.
t forenent, or forenenst = over aeainst.