And you know what would happen then. When they drove me
off, of course we had to send back Rickard, and there they found him
the next morning, asleep in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his
life.
"And that was not all. The lesson that he'd had was enough for him,
and he left drinking and fighting and swearing, and he helped his old
father and his brothers on the farm, and he was another man
altogether. And so it's as I told you. You can never get the better of
men, if they know anything, and all you do to hurt them only helps
them. And so it will be if you send me to the Sullivans."
"If you're done talking about it now," said the King, "you'll go to
the Sullivans and stay in the place of the child that we're to carry
off. It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any fiddle about
for you to play on, and you can stay there quite comfortable.
"Off with him now!" the King cried to a dozen of his men, "and mind
you don't come back without the child. And the same to you," he said
again to others of his men; "take the woman and leave her in the place
of the child at the O'Briens'.
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