Deuce run to Lusk wid 'em! and if any one can save us from 'em, it is this gentleman with the goat-skin. There is a flail hangin' on the collar-beam in hell, and neither Dane nor devil can stand before it."
"So," says Tom to the king, "will you let me have the other half of the princess if I bring you the flail?"
"No, no," says the princess; "I'd rather never be your wife than see you in that danger."
But Redhead whispered and nudged Tom about how shabby it would look to reneague the adventure. So he asked which way he was to go, and Redhead directed him.
Well, he travelled and travelled, till he came in sight of the walls of hell; and, bedad, before he knocked at the gates, he rubbed himself over with the greenish ointment. When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted.
"I want to speak to the big divel of all," says Tom: "open the gate."
It wasn't long till the gate was thrune open, and the Ould Boy received Tom with bows and scrapes, and axed his business.
"My business isn't much," says Tom. "I only came for the loan of that flail that I see hanging on the collar-beam, for the King of Dublin to give a thrashing to the Danes."
"Well," says the other, "the Danes is much better
