Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/153

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The Servant of Poverty.
121

will go to loss. Prepare a store of your own, and empty the cargo into it. Perhaps the owner will come to look for it.”

The king got men, and they unloaded the cargo into the store. The captain was rejoiced when he got the vessel unloaded. When two years were up with Kayleh-na-Bochtjinacht he was coming home. He was walking round by the foot of the sea. A collegian met him, going the same road. He asked Kayleh-na-Bochtjinacht where he was going. Kayleh answered he did not know well where he was going; that he made a herring-net, and the first night he put it out he had not seen it since; that he was walking round by the foot of the sea to look if he could find it rolled on to a stone.

“Where are you going yourself?”

“I am going to Dublin, to be married to the daughter of the king.”

“Well, I will be with you a bit of the way.”

A rainy day came on them, and they were greatly wet. This young man, he was all but perished with cold.

“If you had your own house from the town with you, you would not be wet.”

They went on till they came to a river. There was no bridge at all on the river. Kayleh-na-Bochtjinacht went out into the river. He went across. The young champion went out after him