Then O'Donnell bade his people to bring him up to sit near himself. "I
have no mind to do that," he said; "I would sooner be as I am, an ugly
clown, making sport for high-up people." Then O'Donnell sent him down
clothes, a hat and a striped shirt and a coat, but he would not have
them. "I have no mind," he said, "to let high-up people be making a
boast of giving them to me."
They were afraid then he might go from them, and they put twenty armed
horsemen and twenty men on foot to hold him back from leaving the house,
and as many more outside at the gate, for they knew him not to be a man
of this world. "What are these men for?" said he. "They are to keep you
here," said O'Donnell. "By my word, it is not with you I will be eating
my supper to-morrow," he said, "but at Cnoc Aine, where Seaghan, Son of
the Earl is, in Desmumain." "If I find you giving one stir out of
yourself, between this and morning, I will knock you into a round lump
there on the ground," said O'Donnell.
But at that the stranger took up the harp again, and he made the same
sweet music as before. And when they were all listening to him, he
called out to the men outside: "Here I am coming, and watch me well now
or you will lose me." When the men that were watching the gate heard
that, they lifted up their axes to strike at him, but in their haste it
was at one another they struck, till they were all lying stretched in
blood. Then the clown said to the gate-keeper: "Let you ask twenty cows
and a hundred of free land of O'Donnell as a fee for bringing his people
back to life.
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