Well, what they drank out of the other bottle only gave them a relish for more, and by the time the last man got to the bottom, the first man was dead asleep in the saddle, for the second bottle had a sleepy posset mixed with the whisky. The beggar woman lifted each man down, and laid him in the manger, or under the manger, snug and sausty, drew a stocking over every horse's hoof, and led them away without any noise to one of Jack's father's outhouses. The first thing the squire saw next morning was Jack riding up the avenue, and five horses stepping after the one he rode. "Confound you, Jack!" says he, "and confound the numskulls that let you outwit them!" He went out to the stable, and didn't the poor fellows look very lewd o' themselves, when they could be woke up in earnest! "After all," says the squire, when they were sitting at breakfast, "it was no great thing to outwit such ninny-hammers. I'll be riding out on the common from one to three to-day, and if you can outwit me of the beast I'll be riding, I'll say you deserve to be my son-in-law." "I'd do more than that," says Jack, "for the honour, if there was no love at all in the matter," and the young lady held up her saucer before her face. Well, the squire kept riding about and riding about till he was tired, and no sign of Jack. He was thinking of going home at last, when what should he see but one of his servants running from the house as if he was mad. "Oh masther, masther," says he, as far as he could be heard, "fly home if you wish to see the poor mistress alive! I'm running for the surgeon. She fell down two flights of stairs, and her neck, or her hips, or both her arms are broke, and she's speechless, and it's a mercy if you find the breath in her. Fly as fast as the baste will carry you." "But hadn't you better take the horse? It's a mile and a half to the surgeon's." "Oh, anything you like, master. Oh, _Vuya, Vuya!_ misthress _alanna_, that I should ever see the day! and your purty body disfigured as it is!" "Here, stop your noise, and be off like wildfire! Oh, my darling, my darling, isn't this a trial?" He tore home like a fury, and wondered to see no stir outside, and when he flew into the hall, and from that to the parlour, his wife and daughter that were sewing at the table screeched out at the rush he made, and the wild look that was on his face. "Oh, my darling!" said he, when he could speak, "how's this? Are you hurt? Didn't you fall down the stairs? What happened at all? Tell me!" "Why, nothing at all happened, thank God, since you rode out; where did you leave the horse?"