As I was looking round I saw a light in some trees two perches off,
and thinking any sort of a house would be better than where I was, I
got over a wall and went up to the house to look in at the window.
I saw a dead man laid on a table, and candles lighted, and a woman
watching him. I was frightened when I saw him, but it was raining
hard, and I said to myself, if he was dead he couldn't hurt me. Then
I knocked on the door and the woman came and opened it.
'Good evening, ma'am,' says I.
'Good evening kindly, stranger,' says she, 'Come in out of the
rain.' Then she took me in and told me her husband was after dying
on her, and she was watching him that night.
'But it's thirsty you'll be, stranger,' says she, 'Come into the
parlour.' Then she took me into the parlour - and it was a fine clean
house - and she put a cup, with a saucer under it, on the table
before me with fine sugar and bread.
When I'd had a cup of tea I went back into the kitchen where the
dead man was lying, and she gave me a fine new pipe off the table
with a drop of spirits.
'Stranger,' says she, 'would you be afeard to be alone with himself?'
'Not a bit in the world, ma'am,' says I; 'he that's dead can do no
hurt,' Then she said she wanted to go over and tell the neighbours
the way her husband was after dying on her, and she went out and
locked the door behind her.
I smoked one pipe, and I leaned out and took another off the table.
I was smoking it with my hand on the back of my chair - the way you
are yourself this minute, God bless you - and I looking on the dead
man, when he opened his eyes as wide as myself and looked at me.
'Don't be afraid, stranger,' said the dead man; 'I'm not dead at all
in the world. Come here and help me up and I'll tell you all about
it.'
Well, I went up and took the sheet off of him, and I saw that he had
a fine clean shirt on his body, and fine flannel drawers.
He sat up then, and says he -
'I've got a bad wife, stranger, and I let on to be dead the way I'd
catch her goings on.'
Then he got two fine sticks he had to keep down his wife, and he put
them at each side of his body, and he laid himself out again as if
he was dead.
